To say 50/50 isn't ideal for many children?

[cadburyegg]

50/50 seems to be thought of as the best way to share children after a split but AIBU to think that this isn't always best for the children involved?

My children are with me approx 80% of the time and they love being "at home". They don't talk about their dads being another home, even though I do. I know they would hate having to move around every week and never having one base, they find it hard enough EOW.

So AIBU? Or if you have 50/50 are the kids happy with it?

Sounds like you’re punishing your DH because he left you. Can’t you see the negative consequences of your actions?

I had 50/50 contact as a child and it was awful, I wish my mum had fought to keep us with her the majority of the time.

What if it had been your Dad who had fought to keep you with him the majority of the time?

dear lord you have a very low opinion of women and mothers.

😥. So far we have a lot of parents on this thread saying that 50-50 is a good idea and not one person who had experience of this a child saying it was anything other than awful.

My parents divorced when I was 14. I was half a week at each house, moving house every Wednesday evening and weekend.

It was pretty terrible. Always packing things up. Never sure if I couldn't find something because I'd left it at the other parent's house.

My older siblings were old enough to refuse/create their own arrangements. When I was 16 my Dad moved in to a new house with a new woman. My younger brother took the opportunity to put a stop to it and just lived at our Mum's, but I felt guilty so still did 50:50, albeit one-week at a time rather than moving twice a week.

I can't say that I can recommend the experience. A child needs to have a home, and needs their parents to be grown-up enough to arrange that, rather than to be treated as an asset to be equally shared.

Obviously the relationship with the non-resident parent will be difficult, but there are things you can do about that which don't come at the expense of the child's wellbeing.

I think that a 50:50 arrangement is a way for the parents to pretend that the split doesn't come at a cost to the child, but it makes things worse in my experience.

Why did you hate it?

I've already explained it up thread. Partly because my Dad was a shitty parent who up til that point had done f all parenting and only pushed 50/50 to spite my mother. Partly because I was a sensitive child who found it unsettling and distressing going between houses and just wanted to be with my mum.

No I really don’t, I just think it’s beyond selfish to expect a child to hardly see their dad and assume that’s the best for them!

He did! The 50/50 was the compromise.

Yet you’ve had other posters say their child loves it and asks for it….

It's very difficult as a child to say otherwise tbh. As basically means you're admitting you want to be with one parent more than the other.

The studies indicate that they have better outcomes in the long run though.

I hated going to school, revising and sitting exams, but I'm quite glad that I was made to do all of those things.

Yes this sounds very similar to my experience.

Certainly wasn't a better outcome for me or any of my siblings. Twenty five years on and I still feel tearful thinking about my baby brother sobbing for my mum in the middle of the night.

Would you have preferred not to see your dad as much? Or you mum not as much?

The issue is your Dad was shit. You can't compare it to having 50/50 with two good parents. If the outcome had been 100% of the time with your Dad, you'd probably have wished it had been 50/50.

He wasn't abusive though. You've got plenty of people on this thread saying that 50/50 should be the norm "unless the other parent is abusive". But sometimes parents can not be abusive and still be crapper parents than the other one.

50/50 was about the needs of my Dad, not his children. Had he been thinking about the needs of his children he would not have insisted on having an exclusively breastfed baby 50% of the time.

There you have it, he was a shitty parent. If he was a good father I’m sure you’d feel different.

I get that but if the dad is a good one, equal is definitely more beneficial. For every child in your situation, there will be those that don’t get to see their dad as much as they’d like.

Your dad sounds shit tbf, so I’m sorry about that.

FWIW, I don't think a breastfed baby, at least under the age of 1, should be separated from the mother, definitely not overnight. I'm surprised that that happened to be honest as it's basic common sense that a baby cannot be deprived of food overnight. It sounds like you got unlucky with the judge in charge of that C/O.

When I say I support 50/50, I'm talking about children past the age of being biologically dependent on the mother, or formula fed.

If I was to have split with my husband during the first 2 years we'd have remained in the same house until DD was mostly eating solid food, which took her a very long time. We'd have transitioned to 50/50 after that.

Says the parent.
be nice to hear some positive experiences directly from children/ former children.

My Dad is a difficult person. So I was more comfortable at my Mum's. But I found the instability more difficult than my Dad.

I think I would have been a bit happier mainly living with my Dad, rather than 50:50, even though I'd have preferred living with my Mum. Apart from anything else, it would have meant that I felt like it was more my home there once he moved to a new house with my stepmother (and her children) instead of feeling like an interloper.

The crux of it is that I didn't feel like I had two homes. I felt like I had none.

I hated going to school, revising and sitting exams, but I'm quite glad that I was made to do all of those things.

wow this is a dangerous comparison. So even though we have all the posters on this thread who actually went through this as children saying they hated it, In your opinion it was still best for them?

The fact that there is such a disconnect between children’s direct testimonies and studies looking at “outcomes” indicates as I had expected that it is a different sample of children doing 50/50 and those differences maybe what account for the better outcomes. I know studies attempt to control for these things but the methodologies are imperfect (I’m a research scientist).