To say 50/50 shared custody is selfish and horrible for children

[5050hell]

I spent my childhood doing 2/2/3. I have begged my partner should we end up divorcing that we never do this to our children. We are actually very happy together, this is only a worry of mine due to how much I hated it as a child.

Never spending more than 5 consecutive nights anywhere. Constantly packing a bag and having to drag it to school (as that was when switches happened, leave one house and go back to another). As I got older never having the clothes I wanted, or even the book I was planning on reading next. Trying to make plans with friends, then turning up at the other parents house only to be told that my Saturday was spoken for. Parents being difficult about sleepovers at friends as would be missing 'their' night. No flexibility, parents acting hurt if I didn't want to stick to the schedule. Not to mention my dad did not pay maintenance due to this arrangement, and certain things were supposed to be done turn by turn (ie. Dinner money, bus pass school trips) often spent so long arguing I never got them!

It's mainly my father I resent, as this set up was arranged for him to avoid maintenance payments. I do resent my mother for not trying harder to fight it. We've spoken about it since, she says she thought it was the right thing.

I am extremely adverse to staying anywhere other than my own home as an adult, and feel like I always need a routine and schedule and worry about planning etc.

I haven't thought about this for many years until the stage of life now becoming a parent myself.

Perhaps I was an overly sensitive kid? Maybe it's easier now with phones etc.

I can't help but think that for a child it's far better to have a main home, and visits to the other parent. AIBU?

I just asked my two about this. I said earlier that they would say it works for them, but the vehemence on here has been making me paranoid!

I've been separated from their dad for seven years and they're now 17 and 14.

The younger and more vocal child says they'd be furious if either one of us tried to change the schedule. They wouldn't want to do week on/week off because that would be a whole week without seeing one of us and they want to see us both the same amount.

The older one rolled their eyes and said "do you honestly think we wouldn't say if we had a problem?" and promptly returned to the XBox.

In terms of selfishness, week on/off would have been really tricky in primary school because I'd have had to pay a lot more for childcare in order to get into work (only had to cover two days a week because they were at their dad's on two). Now they're older, I just go to the office on their dad days and work from home on my days. And my ex is a bit weird about activities if he has to take them to them, so they tend to do more on my days because I accept that it's my job to be inconvenienced so they can do Scouts etc. DC do notice this, but it doesn't stop them wanting to see their dad.

I would also NEVER say my DC can't go to a sleepover or party or anything else because it eats into my time. I have occasionally felt a pang at spending even less time with them, but their friendships are very important and I wouldn't get in the way of them.

I agree you can buy the old fashioned Nokia that has the snake game on it.

Maybe. Maybe one parent will have to make some sacrifices, when there is a divorce. Or decide to stay.

It's really nothing to do with what's "fair" to the parent. It's about what is best for the child.

People really shouldn’t “stay for the kids.”

Two separate happier households is far better than one miserable one.

The fact is that divorce isn’t optimal for kids. There is no optimal arrangement. It’s a shitty stick for them. Even if divorce is better than their parents staying together, it’s still shitty.

But sometimes it’s unavoidable and we have to just play the cards we’re dealt.

I can’t speak for other children but my DS would never cope with 50/50 - not that it’s ever been an option. His dad only see’s him EOW by choice. But I think the back and fourth would be very unsettling for certain children like mine, others would cope just fine.

Just because it didn’t work out for you doesn’t mean to say it is wrong for others. It seems to me your parents didn’t work hard enough to make the arrangements work.

There is no reason why a child can’t thrive with two settled homes if their parents can’t live together. It does however take effort and cooperation.

I really don’t think you can accurately comment on what you would have wanted had you had a good father, because you clearly don’t actually know what that’s like, emotionally, so have merely intellectualised it. A person’s sense of what “home” is is completely different if they have two nurturing, caring parents than if they have grown up with a caring deficit, imvho. Where you didn’t get a sense of security, love and safety from the adults around you, you transferred that to a craving for your own physical space where you could emotionally self-comfort. I entirely agree that it is far preferable to have one home, but am really not convinced it’s so paramount a concern that it must come at the expense of time spent with a highly effective parent.

My mother and father offered me different things, emotionally and practically, but it was my father who was better at listening to my worries and making me feel safe and unconditionally loved, and my mother tended to pass her anxieties onto her children. I needed and loved both my parents very much and needed equal input, because they had different things to offer.

@EmeraldSloth thank you for pointing this out though there's also an awful lot of research into Safe Base. I will leave you to find it as you know your way around Google Scholar.

@GlowingupWhy don't more parents do the moving about?

Yep, it's awful and is based on the nonsense that parents have rights to be with their children which supercedes the children's needs. They don't. The child has a right to stability, safety and decent parents. A parent who actually loves their child will want that child to feel safe, comfortable stable and provided they are being well looked after by the other parent will accept that they only have limited access - if they love their child.

King Solomon had a point.

Yes but this is all said when it the mother who thinks the children should live with her

Nah. You might say that, you don't speak for most people though.

If men want the larger share of custody of kids they must choose to do what women do, become the main caregiver at the earliest possible age, take over main parenting duties, continue doing that.

Neither parent should fight for a child to be miserably shunted from one house to the next 50/50.

Whoever has been the main caregiver gets most of the custody, and courts do tend to favour the main caregiver in custody as that is best for the child. As they should.

Except the OP was applying her experience to everyone else.

A child’s life is cut into pieces either way. Whether it is in half or one large piece and one small. There isn’t a right way that suits everyone.

Would you say the same to a woman - either stay in a bad relationship, or leave and resign yourself to being an EOW parent? Or is it only fathers who should face having to make that kind of sacrifice?

Of course every single person here would say it to either sex, if they were not the main caregiver. That's the only thing that matters, that the child is looked after well with continuity and stability by their main caregiver. Of either sex.

And courts, despite the mythology, award main custody based on the person being the main caregiver. That's how it works.

If men want to be given most of the custody they must from the earliest possible time become the main caregiver. Only a monster of a man would claim that the woman is the best/only candidate for main caregiver and then decide to destroy that stability, continuity and care for their own child.

That was my father. My parents didn't divorce, much as I wished they would, but he was very much of the view that childcare and domestic load was a woman's job ("mothering can only be done by mothers", "women are better at looking after children", "women are supposed to be mothers, what's up with all these fucking career women")... unless there was a divorce and then it was evil man hating to say the kids should stay primarily with their mother.

Obviously some mothers are shit and some fathers are brilliant, but residency arrangements in the case of divorce should be based on what's best for the kids, and if one parent has primarily or even pretty much exclusively cared for them until now, it should be a no brainer.

What when thee has been 5,0/50 caregiver from the start?

"AIBU to insist to my wife that I take over majority care of our baby? If we split up I don't want to be relegated to being an EOW dad." Sure, I can see that thread going really well.

But I'm curious - what if the parents share childcare more or less equally while they're together? That is, after all, what is generally recommended as the bare minimum on Mumsnet.

Exactly. We've done 50:50 from the start. DH has done just as many dr & dentist and shoe-buying trips as I have, has a flexitime arrangement at work and worked compressed hours to be at home 1 day a week back when DC small enough to need that, and took 3 months unpaid leave when I went back to work after mat leave as we didn't feel we wanted DC in nursery just yet, always did alternate evening bedtimes 50:50, and does just as much as me if not more of various household chores, cooking & laundry. DC now nearly adult and we don't look like we're likely to split any time soon but if we had there would be absolutely no way that either of us could be defined as the "main carer" - We've always been a team of equals and DC would be just as devastated to drop to seeing dad EOW as mum. Tbh I think if we had split we'd have had to buy two houses on the same street or 2 halves of a semi-detatched so that DC could shuttle between as much as they liked.

Yeah wanting to see your kids post divorce more than four days a month makes you a monster now. Kay then.

This again is more about how your parents coparented than the 50-50. As I explained I had a solid base with my mother but I my relationship with my father suffered due to how my mother dealt with the situation.
From how you speak of your mother (doubt she would have allowed him to take you to church on "her" days) why would that have been different if you Had been with her 80% of the time? I would suggest you would have then had a base and a distant parent that then left you with an ache /feeling of abandonment inside.

I genuinly think it aleays comes down to the coparenting. One of my friends dad was a long distance lorry driver. He would show for short periods but when he was there he was 100% there for his children. He also called on a set time each week and her mother never spoke poorly about him. She has a really positive relationship with both parents as an adult agai. I think this was the co parenting that worked not brcause she had a base. Her mother willing stepped aside when her x was around and allowed him to be the parent.

As for myself yes I had a base with my mother but it took me years of counselling to feel ok about the choices they made splitting their children my dad disengaging with me. My mother talking c about my father making me feel bad about missing him. Its poor parenting. Nothing to do with the divorce as such.

That's not what the PP said. What she wrote was "Only a monster of a man would claim that the woman is the best/only candidate for main caregiver and then decide to destroy that stability, continuity and care for their own child."

If you struggle with reading comprehension, I'll rephrase it for you. If a man spends his time when married refusing to change a single nappy, leaving all school drop offs and appointments to his wife, never staying up at night with a scared or sick child, then yes that man is a terrible father if only after divorcing does he suddenly insist on 50:50. He clearly isn't putting the needs of his children first at any point.

It seems mainly on Mumsnet that so many women decide to have kids with the most Neanderthal wankers imaginable who do fuck all to help them raise the kids and hold these misogynistic views. Yes, having that sort of man for a father is not great for a kid but the damage is done whether or not they spend 50/50 or 80/20 with their dad. In my circle of friends, dads do pull their weight even if they might work longer hours (allowing the mum to do part time) and it might not be a completely equal split during the relationship. Doesn’t mean those dads shouldn’t have equal time post-divorce.