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.

A 10 year old is hardly exhausting. They can do a lot for themselves by that age.

She doesn’t love her DC more Than anything in the world if she can do this to her child.

She’s vile and so is the dad. Both are as bad as each other.

Poor kid knowing that neither of his parents want him.

Agree. One NT 10 year old child isn't a huge amount of work at all

@5128gap Yes yes yes.
The mum shouldn't be getting any vitriol here (unless she actively involves child in arguments) she has done everything. It's time for the lazy arse dad to step up. 50/50 is how it should be.. why should dad get all the him time and mum none!

Exactly, something isn’t adding up. SS don’t get involved for a throw away comment.

The mum is just to blame here. She’s actively turning her own child away. Social services are involved, It’s disgusting.

Because it's not tit for tat. There is a literal CHILD involved who will suffer. The vitriol to both parents is justified. And if the child goes NC with both parents as an adult they'd fully deserve it.

Little sympathy for the mum. If her ex is having their son "for 2 nights EOWend and half the school holidays" then she has a lot more free time than very many other parents do.

I would have hated to have to share my kids any of the time.

Poor little boy!

who decided the access Arrangement in the first place?

I have seen this twice in the last year, mum fought tooth and nail to have primary custody but when child turns 10/11 wants the father to have more time.

I get that it’s hard - usually mums have no choice and dads can just leave - but this is really the wrong way to go about it. I’m sure the child must be aware on some level .

The sad fact is that no one can be forced to spend more time with their child . No one is going to make a court order to say dad has to have him . When you have a child , they become the most important person in your life , more important than yourself .

My heart breaks for this poor boy at the centre of an argument where he’s not being pulled between the two , but pushed .

I have 50/50 with my youngest with his dad ( well more like 60/40 I have him 4 nights , he has him 3. No custody battle or anything but we split when he was very young and his dad wanted an active role in his life and did not want to be a weekend dad . I wanted to say no for selfish reasons - I hate not having him all the time - but I realised he wasn’t just my son . But if his dad ever stopped wanting to have him so much I would never argue it , for my benefit . I might for my child’s , as he would suffer , but I would secretly be happy to have even more time with him .

I don’t understand how Dad having him so she could work and not put him in childcare would benefit Mum in terms of having more time with him ? It would just mean that he’s with his dad instead of in childcare ? Is it maybe an element of guilt from Mum about him being in childcare ? There should be no guilt , she’s working to provide , but I feel better if my son is with his dad when I work in stead of childcare because it feels like he’s just with his dad , so still with family , rather than with “strangers”

Hated to share your kids with their DAD? I've heard it all now.

Dad could have prevented this by agreeing to look after his own child equally.

Oh and the mum gets EOW free, not great obviously but at least it's something. I got NO free time as my son's dad wanted no contact at all and since I didn't want to be a shit parent like him I got on with it and did what I should, for my child who didn't choose to be born!

I'm assuming the mother doesn't do nothing bar care for a ten year old, and that her life contains other activities that add up to being exhausted. But yes, they can, so the father is actually only being asked to step up when the hard graft has been done for him, so no excuse there.

And that all happened today? First day back at school?

I am hoping mum doesn't really not want DC...but is standing her ground to get the dad to have to step up.
If they were a couple still together MNers would be cheering her on telling her he needs to pull his weight.....and she knows that so.she is try to.force the issue.

It's a game of chicken

I'm a lone parent and have been for 16 years. It's really not that exhausting when they are 10.

Social services do not get involved due to arguments over email.
Poor child. If I was in that family I would offer to have the child for sure no matter the distance.
i have little sympathy for the mother who feels like her own child is such a burden.

Insane that putting the child in foster care is even a consideration because the mum wants it to be fair. Anyway I definitely suspect there's more to this story.
Almost half of women I know have their children more than their fathers and it's just one of those things. Admittedly, we give more credit to the dads who have their children 3.5 days a week exactly.
Not one of them would consider giving their child up because of it.
Did your relative handle the break up badly, I can only see that she is being selfish here and really trying to spite the father by blackmailing him that he will go into care unless he agrees more? It seems a a lot of jealously about what he is up to from what I'm reading.
The foster service is not to be used as a babysitting service !

Neither of the selfish pair of bastards deserve a child, the poor kid. My god.

A lot of people jumping to Mums defence when we don’t know the real reason. It could be that she’s burnt out and if she is , even though it’s not the way to approach this , I sympathise . But it also could be that she wants to go out , have fun . We don’t know . It seems very extreme to refuse to take your child back , to try force more contact .

Personally , if I had a child who’s Dad did not want to spend time with them and felt the only option was to force him then I wouldn’t want my child there . A child will pick up on this and I couldn’t put them through it .

Also , it’s not like it’s a toddler where they are all consuming and you get no break . 10 is a lot different to that .

RP has clearly had enough of the current arrangement and wants things to be more fair.
Things clearly aren’t even at the moment.
I agree with the ‘poor child comments’ but what about the poor RP ?

(yes I know this arrangement is repeated all over the world but that doesn’t make it fair).

The child's needs trumps the adults, every time.

Completely agree. SS would not get involved just because the child wants to see Dad more . If it’s through school then school would have had to make a safeguarding referral .

The child is 10

It just sounds like this is her desperate way of trying to make him realise how unfair he is being towards her. But sadly she can't make someone parent who doesn't want to parent. All that's going to happen is she'll end up taking the child back and doing it all again, while the boy continues to want to see his dad more, but dad saying no or making a token Disney dad effort. It's shit.

This makes me feel so so sad to my heart. That poor kid. Please OP tell us the child is getting supported by someone! No matter how stressed out and under pressure I was there is no way I could do this to any of my children. They have all been challenging growing up. I had no help from my eldests bio dad from birth despite us being married. We split up when she was weeks old. I hate to think of this child confused and hurt wondering what on earth they've done wrong.