To think 50/50 childcare split sounds terrible

[887PooleFan]

A friend is splitting from her husband, they have a 3 year old. Acrimonious split unfortunately. Through his solicitor (they no longer speak to each other at all) he has suggested they go for 50/50 split of care for their DD in a 2-2-3 model. A few of us were having lunch and this friend asked us what we thought (she really doesn't like it and was looking for opinions). I said I'm not sure, it sounds especially difficult for an older child (homework, sport kits, etc, don't most kids need routine?) and she should check with her solicitor if that's something the court would give. I thought it was a batshit proposal but I didn't want to add fuel to the fire and be too harsh in giving my opinion, and wanted to have a think really. From a quick Google, it seems like a common arrangement, does it actually work well in practice? I just can't imagine it being in the best interest of a child to bounce from house to house so much.

@Loveduppenguin My therapy wasn’t directly linked to my childhood, it was actually to deal with other things but my therapist kept tracing those feelings back to it and suddenly a lot of my personality traits and foibles make perfect sense.

OP asked for experiences and I’ve given mine. It sounds like your DC are having much better care taken of them that I had so I’m sure they’ll be fine.

How many adults would feel settled in that same routine? Never spending more than 3 nights in the same home sounds horrible.

I'm so, so glad my parents didn't split us 50-50. I do think in the majority of cases it's natural for a child to want to spend more time with thier mother. How many of these dads will actually be doing the childcare and not outsourcing it to the new girlfriend?

Why would kids automatically want to spend more time with their mother? I suspect it may be what they are used to. Depends on how the parenting was before a split. My dad was the one who brought me up after my parents split. Even when he remarried a few years later he did the parenting mainly - not my stepmom ( who is lovely by the way and we have a great relationship)

I never hankered to living with my mum.

My DS was a 50/50 child from the age of 4. Before that he still spent virtually equal time in both mins and his dad's houses ( we both used to be in each other's houses regularly) so the living arrangements weren't really any different to what he had all his life

Most children are emotionally closer to their mothers. Most of the time the mother is the primary/ majority caregiver. Of course this is not always or inevitable- there are lots and lots od families that work differently, but please let’s stop pretending that it’s not the norm. It doesn’t help children and it doesn’t help women to deny these lived realities.

As I said It's not " I built". It's just a case of what kids are used to. If dad has been main career from start then they'd likely want him

Well we don’t know as it’s a counterfactual. All we know really is what is.
Again some families/ relationships are different , but in the substantial majority of families it works one way and we shouldn’t be pretending otherwise.

This is actually 2-2-5-5 though, which is what I recommended. 2-2-3 means alternating which parent you’re with on Monday-Tuesday depending on who has just had the weekend. So which parent you’re with on the weekdays swaps every week.

It does work if both parents are mature with their parental responsibilities and without squabbling with eachother trying to exert power or bitterness to the other and actually actively encourage the child to enjoy time with the other parent.

It really depends. Not all dads are deadbeats whose sole aim is to avoid paying cms. Some actually parent properly. 50/50 tends to work in those circumstances.

Everyone here seems to assume that’s always the dad’s role. My DP has 50:50 with his ex and she is what you describe your partner as. My DP is the one doing all the SEND meetings for his son and paperwork and dentists appointments etc.

i know he’s not completely typical but it really frustrates me that societally (and school wise) people always assume his ex is the one doing all the hard graft parenting when actually she’s a Disney mom and palms the kids off on her own parents half the time she does have them. The kids would choose her house over ours because it’s Disney world with no rules and because she emotionally blackmails them (I.e. they said they wanted to see dad on Father’s Day until she talked them out of it). The truth is that my step-son would still be in nappies, not have had SLT or be able to read if he hadn’t had his dad to teach him all of those things whilst his mom lets him watch endless TV and never reads to him or gets him to read. Likewise my step-daughter has had loads of different clubs she’s tried, developed one as a hobby and has a maths tutor because dad has helped her do all of this when mom doesn’t.

Letting the kids choose would just mean they chose candy, unhealthy meals and no parenting boundaries whatsoever, but that absolutely isn’t what is in their best interest.

I think the three moves a week is very unsettling at this age, my DS was 3 when we split, and initially I had him all the time and dad would come over in the evenings, after around 8months we began a 3/4 split, with handover being on Saturday at 5pm ish.
by the time he was around 7, we then moved to a 5/2/2/5 arrangement, he is now almost 13, we talked about week in week off but nobody wanted such a long time between.

i agree that having set days each week with some varying means consistent activities, for example I always have Monday and Tuesday nights, dad always has Wednesday and Thursday night, the Friday-Monday is alternate.

it means I can sign him up for sport or music classes and know I can always take him, it also means my offfice days are consistent (less of an issue now he’s older)

I think it's a horrible arrangement for the child, as an adult I'd find it difficult to be living across two different homes. I know people will say it works for them and their children, but I'm afraid children of seperated parents become very good at telling both what they want to hear.

So we do 2,5 to mum
2,5 to mum
2,5 to mum
4,3 to dad
Not 50/50 but ex had little interest before he went to school and ex got partner. Glad I still have the majority although doing 90 percent in covid with a toddler and working was hard work.

He also won't take him to gymnastics or church on a Sunday so me having him 75 percent on weekends is probably better.

Our 50:50 split was week about. It worked really well and, most importantly, the kids knew how it worked!

ETA: that was only with one child, the other chose to stay with us (her dad and I) full time.