Why don't women with kids force the dads to have them 50% of time?

[DontCheetoTheCheetah]

Disclaimer: I dont have kids and dont want them so prepared to accept my POV might be odd but...

...Just read a thread where a woman was talking about disputing maintenance costs with her ex and mentioned he never has his kids overnight, adding that its his choice.

Why wouldn't you just force them to have their kids? Im think if I were a mum I'd quite like to have half my time to just chill and have some downtime without my children? Or is it that when you have kids you cant bear to be wthout them?

Mothers can’t force absent fathers to be present and have joint DC 50/50.

But YANBU in the sense that many mums actively fight against 50/50 so they have the DC full time. Our culture’s messaging is that DC are better off with mum and the dad gets to wander off and pretend he is a childfree bachelor with an extra small optional monthly bill to pay as CMS.

I do think we need to change that societal expectation so that more men will want to fight for 50/50 instead of just going along with it.

You would be wasting your time.

Many mums don't want their kids 100% of the time especially when a father has decided to walk away, not because they don't want their kids (some exceptions of course) but because it restricts so many things for them too. Single mums are constantly being blamed for being a burden on society (just like the disabled) because society doesn't support them, decent paying jobs often aren't compatible with having 2 kids under 5 without family taking on the childcare burden.

It would be lovely to see a law to make all parents equally responsible for their children, dead beat parents of either sex should be banned from having additional children if they don't look after the existing ones. Be less deadbeat dads if they were given vasectomies instead of shared custody. (Yes I'm aware it's a human rights violation of some sort but some of the men I know with multiple children to multiple mothers and zero responsibility could do with some repercussions.)

Well op my ex lives with his mother and sister in a 3 bed council house
she absolutely won’t allow the kids to stay overnight at all ever ( they aren’t even allowed in the lounge when she is there) not sure how I could force her ( or him) to have the kids 50% of the week.

Anyway he is too busy enjoying his single life to be bothered with his kids.

But I’d love to know your thoughts on how I could force the ex mil to have 3 children in her house 3/4 days week every week

I was (trying to) highlight the ridiculousness of the idea of being able to 'force' people to do things they don't want to do rather than suggesting the two were analogous.

Yeah, I agree this is true that many women also want 50/50, but the societal expectation that the mum will take the DC full time is strong and single mums face much heavier stigma and judgement if their DC are not with them full time. As you say they are often judged as not wanting their own DC, when that isn’t the case. Most just want to be able to pursue a career and that’s almost impossible without a co-parent doing 50%.

I would love to see society saying 50/50 is socially expected and the norm. I don’t think this can be legislated.

I actually agree with you. But you can’t force a parent to be a parent.. and sometimes it is in the child’s best interest to actually not see them.

Why would you want to force your kids to stay with a man who doesn't give a shit about them, is probably a lousy parent, and could easily be abusive? What possible good would that do them? I would have hated being made to spend time with my father and his OW and her kids, one of whom I knew from experience was a bullying shit.

My ex-wife purposely restricted access as she wanted to continue controlling me through the kids.

Force a parent to have children they don’t want? What a great position this is for the child to potentially be neglected or abused

You cannot be serious 🤣🤣🤣

I'm so sorry, how horrible for your poor daughter and how upsetting it must've been for you. Wtf is wrong with some men I swear.

When I separated from my DCs Father I assumed that we would co parent. 50:50. He refused. So I suggested an access plan - alternate weekends, one night during the week. He refused. He finally agreed to take them to some of their weekly activities that I organised- swimming/ballet etc but pretty quickly he didn’t bother showing up as arranged. So I left the country and took the DC with me. He then dragged me through the court system for access, accused me of alienation and sought sole custody of the DC. The judge ordered him to return to occasional taxi driving duties … it’s now 6 years since he last seen our DC. It’s shit but nobody can be forced to be a parent…

I was separated with 3 under 9 and naively sat saying to my lawyer.. ' and I'd like him to have a week at Easter and 2 weeks at summer and every other weekend... blah da blah da blah. Lawyer states ' if he ain't doing that now, the chances of him doing any of that because of a bit of paper are unlikely. She was so correct. No overnights no weekends no holidays. The kids were miserable with him and drifted away from him because he couldn't be assed. His loss.

Because he’s a shit father who doesn’t understand how to parent a child on the spectrum or to have difficult conversations.

because he’s more worried about how he won’t be able to portray this image of a high earner and kudos if he has to be constantly leaving work early

because when he doesn’t know how to speak to child when they’ve disagree he gives my son the silent treatment

would you like me to go on

Op I'm not going to give you an answer that is sarcastic/rude etc but I really think you need to read the room when it comes to matters like this.... it is never as simple as black and white.

I have a couple of friends, who have children with the same man, he's abandoned them, trust me when I tell you that they have done everything they can to force a consistent relationship with the children and father and the father for whatever reason isn't interested.

My eldest child didn't really know his dad, that was partly on me and partly on him, I'm not going to go into detail here of what/how and why that came to be but it was traumatic and destroyed me at the very tender age of 19 who had been a mum for less than a year at that point. Looking back would I have liked my child to have more of a relationship with the dad, yes absolutely I would of and hindsight is a bitch because our child will never get that now.

If me and my partner broke up, he will have every other weekend, I absolutely will not push or force for 50/50 for personal reasons that mostly stem around not wanting to be away from my children and what happened to me and my eldest when I was 19.

You can't force a man (or a woman) to be a dad (or mum) even the courts cannot do that. You say you would force them but how do you think you would do that? Dropping them off on the doorstep and leaving Is child abandonment even if it's with their other parent. You also can't get the other parent done for child neglect because they don't want to see the child/ren that's not legally child neglect.

I think you've asked a good question but it's a very touchy subject for many.

My mother would never have allowed my father to have us 50/50. She did everything in her power to stop us from seeing him and didn't care about our feelings at all.

It's damaged us as adults and neither myself or my sister speak to her and we don't really have a close relationship with our father because we were deprived of the chance to form one.

This might be true but I’d question why. Very few women would choose to raise kids single-handedly if they have the option of a reliable stable co parent. Managing work, kids and all domestic stuff alone is fecking hard.

You'd know if you ever had kids, trust me. I neved wanted them, but then the hormones take over.....Anyhow, on a more serious note, consider the situation of a friend of mine whose ex is a controlling narcissist. Not surprisingly she doesn't want the kids anywhere near this abuser

In my experience most men’s priority after separation and divorce is establishing a new relationship. If the kids are a barrier to that goal or the new partner isn’t up for the step mum role, then it’s simply easier to let the kids fade out of their lives. And, of course, there’s still the option of playing the hard done by family guy whose ex obstructed access. It’s basically a win win.

I thought I would like a lot of time to myself before I had kids. Now with kids I quite like them, I wouldn’t want their dad to have them 50% of the time 😂 not that he would anyway lol but I’m actually secretly pleased about that 😊

I wish my XH would disappear off the face of the earth, he has the DC 3 nights every 2 weeks, not well spent time, and honestly I'd rather have them 100% of the time.

Well said

Personally it’s no longer safe for my daughter to be with her father so my life is easier/less stressful if she’s with me all the time rather than me worrying the whole time that she’s in his care …. You don’t have children so probably don’t “get” it but my daughter being safe is my only priority.

I tried. We got divorced at the end 😂