Neither parent wants to live with their child fulltime what happens?

[WhatWillHappenToTheDC]

It’s a relatives child.

The DC is 10. Has lived with the RP, their mother alone since they were 2. Seeing NRP Father for 2 nights EOWend and half the school holidays.

NRP agreed to have DC over Easter Holidays fulltime so RP could have some work done on the house.

RP has now said they do not want DC home and want to trial a switch of residency for awhile or wants to do 50/50 arrangement. NRP also does not want DC fulltime and wants to go back to previous arrangement.

Social Services are involved now due to the arguments and DCs school reporting it, but what will happen if neither parent wants to live with their child full time? Is there some sort of foster care where parents can still see DC?

I can't put myself forward to have the child as I live too far from them. Parents live around 7 miles from each other.

I know. I'm not sure where anyone is getting the idea that anyone thinks it's OK to be a deadbeat dad. I don't think a single person has suggested this.

Exactly. As a lone parent myself, I can't force my ex to be a good father, as disappointing and annoying as it is. What IS in my control is to make sure that DS has at least one good parent and not 2 shit ones. And at least I can look at my ex and know that I have done my best and HE is the one that should be ashamed of himself.

<Sigh> Yes, of course it should be the same for fathers. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to repeat that before some people choose to acknowledge it.

There is really no point in trying to have your big "gotcha" moment. I said "mothers" because I was responding to the previous poster who said that the emphasis in society on the needs of the child taking precedence over fairness between the parents would deter intelligent women from becoming mothers.

Had the pp argued that expecting parents to put the needs of their kids before their own needs would deter intelligent people from becoming parents, I'd have said that that's good too, because the world doesn't need any more crap parents.

People on here are debating it because this is a forum for debate and we are all strangers to this child. So, we get to do that. The child's actual parents don't get to do that, because they are responsible for him.

If one of the parents is not being responsible enough, it doesn't mean the other one should do the same just to even things out. If the child asks in 10 years time' "Mum, why was I abandoned?" it won't really make him feel better if the mum says: "Honey, your dad was already doing it, so I did it too- for feminism and fairness! Why should he get all the spare time? Why do only men get to walk away with no scrutiny?"

Unfortunately it's also the case that someone being a hands-on parent and then suddenly stopping is more traumatising than someone who is always a more distant parent and remains consistent. So the mother is likely causing more trauma now than the dad.

I know this won't be a well received perspective but as a woman raising a child with a feckless father who has never financially provided or done above 5% of the care - women need to be far more discerning about who they procreate with. So many of us overlook clear signs that a man won't be a good father because of 'love' or biological clock or sunk costs. Another demographic of women get pregnant unplanned and take some passively fatalistic view that they should therefore have the baby and make the best if it. Very few women in the OP's/my situation started out with men who genuinely had no red flags about their father potential. I accept that I have to take 100% of the legal, moral and emotional responsibility of raising my child because I made a poor decision of father for him. I simply can't expect him to 'step up' and take over because he can't and won't, and it would harm my child if I tried.

That’s really not how it works. You can only decide your own behaviour. Not make others change theirs. I think both parents are thinking solely of themselves. Poor child is not a burden. They chose to have him. If the RP wants NRP to increase his hours she can ask but not demand. It’s his choice to up them or not. The RP can only choose whether she provides a home for her child or not. Why would it get so bad SS needed to be involved. I can only imagine if both continue to refuse to care for their own child that options will need to be sought and kinship care would be the first choice. Both parents are awful. That poor child. Selfish parents.

Yawn

Women responsible for men behaviour yadda yadda

Stock response they don't act like that before children why would you think they would they act like it AFTER

Ex used to cook and clean till we had children he still did some until the second one came along then he sat on his arse "bonding"with the baby throwing out instructions like a drill Sargent I did the work and took the baby off him he flipped out punched walls and left this was not the man I married not even close im still not responsible for his behaviour

Read it again. I'm responsible for my own choices and actions. Not for the shit ness of my ex. I overlooked the red flags, that's on me. Your ex might have been one of the men who turned out to be crap only after kids but most crap dads can be spotted before pregnancy occurs if women have our eyes open.

one issue I think is that by the time we have the life experience and maturity to recognise a wrong un we are too old for babies 🤷🏼‍♀️

God this post has just made me so angry. I'm disgusted at so many posters thinking that the mother is as bad as the father in this situation. He has done fuck all for a decade whilst she has done EVERYTHING yet now that she wants equal caring responsibilities she's as bad as him?!? How, HOW??

No wonder so many people struggle in silence until they literally break, because if this is what happens when you ask for help, fuck me.

one issue I think is that by the time we have the life experience and maturity to recognise a wrong un we are too old for babies 🤷🏼‍♀️

Ain't that the truth!!
Looking back there was no way for me to understand how I was being exploited at the time, I was too overwhelmed and people just didn't think like that back then. The things that I now understand and see so clearly- there was no pathway for me to reach that understanding at the time.
'Life has to be lived forwards but can only be understood backwards'

And it's not that the predatory men are necessarily that clever, it's just that they have a predatory nature, they are drawn to situations that they since they can exploit, they are drawn to people who are soft / weak /naive/ vulnerable.
It's not a strategy they have formulated because they are clever, it's just instinct, they have predatory instincts.

Tbf eow and half the holidays isn't doing "fuck all"

Again for the people in the back... nobody is absolving dad of his responsibility. It isn't a competition of who is the shittier. The fact is that whoever is right or wrong there's a kid in the middle of this who's probably going to grow up so fucking angry and disillusioned with the world that they can't function. As a parent you sometimes just have to grow up, stop point scoring and get the hell on with it otherwise a screwed up child is the consequence

I think that on an individual level this is awful and feel very sorry for the child involved but the reality is that a major factor in upholding the very very shoddy treatment of RPs (usually mums) is that shit dads are basically playing a game of chicken with their children's well-being and 99% of the time women 'blink first' and put the kids needs first. If more women refused to blink perhaps as a society we would move towards legally enforcing things like splitting the costs of childcare or making maintenance reflect the actual amount it costs to raise a child.

Unfortunately while this happens children will suffer, ideally society and legislation would move towards this now to avoid that suffering but change rarely happens that way. Only when women as a collective stop absorbing the damage caused be feckless men will society demand that they must be less feckless. Again though the children will suffer and the women rather than the men will be blamed.

Your ex might have been one of the men who turned out to be crap only after kids but most crap dads can be spotted before pregnancy occurs if women have our eyes open

Regardless of how many red flags there may, or may not, have been, you're still blaming women for men's behaviour.

I'm not. Life is tough, we have to take personal responsibility. If we (including myself in this) make bad decisions we have to take responsibility for this.

Many of us are lone parents ourselves. Yes, I judge anyone who doesn't want to care for their own child, male or female. Doesn't matter if you've done it all yourself or not.

most crap dads can be spotted before pregnancy occurs if women have our eyes open

I'm interested in how this poster has come to this conclusion.

Most people do not change so radically after having children that their lack of engagement or interest should be a shock.

Not all, but most.

Given a reasonable about of time in a relationship before having children most people’s true characters are discernible.

Anyone without a severe mental health condition who forces their own child to feel unwanted is a disgraceful and bad parent.

The father has been and continues to be a disgraceful and bad parent.
The mother was a decent parent, but has recently become a disgraceful and bad parent.

They are both adults. There is simply no need to let either off the hook.

I would tend to agree with this to be honest, certainly on a personal level from just observing friends etc. I know 3 or 4 couples where the man was a useless man child before kids and marriage but the behaviour was overlooked/tolerated for a number or reasons. Kids then come along and actually it's not that the man changes, its that he doesn't change. However, now the behaviour is highlighted due to the addition of kids/work and all the extra stress that brings.
Certainly not suggesting that this is always the case but it is something I have seen first hand!

Why can’t they have the child 50/50?

@Rickrolypoly

absolutely.

If I think of all of the couples I know, every single one whose partner is a rubbish dad was a rubbish partner long before children arrived.

Every one of those women ignored all of the very obvious red flags.

This. It’s a bloody disgrace.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the mother wanting to share caring responsibilities with the father. Nobody is saying that, so please stop twisting the narrative to suggest that this is what people are suggesting.

The issue is that neither parent wants to take responsibility for the child, and in the mother's attempt to make the father step up and take and do his fair share, she is making the child feel unwanted, to the extent that the school has had to make a referral to Social Services.

The fact that mum has spent the last decade caring for the child doesn't mean that it's going to make the rejection any less painful for the poor kid now that she can no longer be arsed. The child is not going to just shrug it off and say, oh well, mum has built up lots of credit in the parenting account over the last ten years, it's fair enough if she has had enough now and no longer wants to contribute.

This is not about what's fair between the parents. It is about the wellbeing of the child.