AIBU to ask ex to have the children on his two days off work

[NewYearsEve2025]

I’ve been split from my ex for 6 months and he has been having the children on one of his days off from work. He works full time and I am a stay at home mum to our 3 children (11, 9 & 2) with additional needs. I asked him yesterday to start having them on both of his days off from January so I can work on those two days but he says I’m being unreasonable because he should get one day a week to himself to do his hobbies or whatever and because I work for myself from home “it’s not really working” and apparently I get loads of time to myself which is laughable to be honest because our 2 year of is almost surgically attached to me and screams if left alone.

I’ve said I’m not stopping him from having days to himself but he will just need to sort childcare on those days instead of expecting me to be free childcare.

am I being unreasonable to expect him to step up and do this?

Why not? Children over 9 months can get free hours if their parent works. I’m sure that includes part time working.
https://www.gov.uk/free-childcare-if-working

The "free hours" thing is misleading. The gov don't pay childcare providers the actual cost of operating so parents still have to pay top ups and it works out at far less than 30 hours overall, so not all that helpful if you can't find a job that allows you to work short days or whatever. And it's still not the same as as an NRP knowing the RP has the kids so they aren't worried about picking up times, getting a call that child is sick, or childminder sick or whatever.

The best ‘access arrangements’ for children is 50/50 as a starting point. And calling it ‘access’ is a misnomer. It’s like saying that one parent (most often the mother) is allowing the other parent to have access to their own children.

That being said, you’d have to be earning well below minimum wage to end up worse off working.

Exactly this!

Still doesn't make it right or fair that one parent can carry on working and building a career, pension etc and the other is severely limited by childcare costs and restrictions. My ex and I do the same job, except that I have to say no to extra things constantly, can't advance etc.

You are not being unreasonable at all and he needs to appreciate that you need to work too. Some of the replies that suggest you might be are just ignorant.

You have described yourself as a SAHM but you aren’t, you spend your time caring for your children because you can’t work from home with your two year old there. Like most of us you’re the default parent, your work has to be juggled around caring responsibilities which are more than a full time job! I separated from my husband this year and the children are with me 90% of the time because of his work commitments. Also, without him in the home, my parenting responsibilities have increased by 90% because of running the household alone - it’s been such a struggle and so overwhelming at times. I’ve always done all the juggling of the kids around full time work because I work within a predominantly female workforce so it’s allowed for flexibility whereas his predominantly male workforce doesn’t allow any flexibility - shift work impacts on his availability, changes to shifts with little notice, limited annual leave. All of this played a part in the break down of our marriage because I was never able to just go to work and not have to clock watch and think about the kids, my life and our life as a family always revolved around his work. There was no compromise. I’ve put my foot down in the past few months though and rather than continuing to do what I had always been doing to make his life easier, I’ve put some of the stresses on him to have to rush from work to collect the kids, activity runs, feeding them during the week etc. I’m not sure of your ex’s work commitments but does his work pattern allow any time during the week? Perhaps if he had the children from Friday after work through to Sunday?

Communication is key, I’ve learnt that the hard way. Be open about how this is for you and what needs to happen to help share some of the load which is only fair. My ex has been receptive to this and we’ve been able to work it out without falling out over it, we are also flexible with arrangements so I’ll keep the kids if he’s got plans, he’ll have them if I do.

Things will get better for you, especially once your two year old can go to nursery. Perhaps ask him to do these arrangements until your baby is in nursery and you can then take stock on things moving forward. Hope you can work it out ❤️

Sorry @RhaenysRocks I’m not saying that EOW + weeknight is better than 50/50 necessarily. I’m in Ireland, it’s really quite different here - we don’t have CMS and while maintenance payments can be problematic (certainly were in my case, and I had a decade of no maintenance so CMS would have helped me!), they are rarely the pittance that they seem so often to be with CMS (based on what I read on MN).

50/50 is rare here, but maintenance isn’t directly linked to the amount of time necessarily, more the overall cost and who is paying. In amicable situations parents will work it out fairly, most often, based on salary. In less amicable cases, like mine, the court will adjudicate, or parties agree on the court date but it’s unsatisfactory eg the judge will order 50/50 split on medical, educational, optical etc costs but based on payment by the resident parent first (mother usually), and there’s no way to enforce payment.

So my experience and understanding is not based on the UK system, and I may have phrased it incorrectly (that said, I’m doubtful if 50/50 is best for children, necessarily, leaving them without a base)

I was counteracting OP’s idea that her ex needed to have their DC when she worked. Instead, they make appropriate access arrangements and pay for childcare as needed.

Sorry yes, as per my previous post, system v different here so I’m probably expressing it poorly. This is the terminology (‘access’) used by the Irish court system.

Separation and divorce are still quite uncommon in Ireland, especially if compared with the UK. There are great co-parenting situations that I’ve seen, usually two reasonable parents putting their DC first but in my experience, this is still rare, and it is mostly the mother raising the children the majority of the time, with lacklustre fathers. That’s why I can’t understand OP’s position of looking for work that aligns only with days her ex isn’t working. It’s simply not a sustainable approach.

What a venomous comment.

Her partner walks away from parenting responsibilities yet you’re having a go at the parent that STAYED?!?! You need to give your head a wobble!

OP is looking after her kids. She is parenting. Often referred to in situations such as this as UNPAID LABOUR.

But to her ex she is providing free childcare. Because OP is on-call for the kids 144 hours per week. He does 24 hours a week. So even if his PAID LABOUR at work is 60-hours a week that still only adds up to 84 hours per week i.e. he STILL has more time to himself. Maybe try and do some basic maths before coming at the OP.

It might not be a chore to you. But it’s hard work looking after 3 kids as a single parent and by the sound of it OP doesn’t get much support. Being a bit kinder wouldn’t hurt.

Work 16 hours on nimimum wage or more get 30 hours childcare use the extra for your business

Again avoids the central point that the ex is still merrily working ft and building up pension and savings without needing to worry because the op is doing it for him.

A point you cant force so the other choice to doing nothing is find another possible solution

Does his child support payments reflect how little he is with the kids - because it should. If he’s not having the children - then he should be paying more.

I would ask him to have them over night and do school drop offs at least once a week on top of the day he has them.

School holidays should be split - don’t forget he will have an annual leave allowance and part of that should be used during school holidays so he has them for part of it and you do too.

Then you both have more time to yourself and he can actively take part in raising his kids - which is the part he’s avoiding.

He sounds like a weasel.

Another man that is completely unreasonable. He could have them and ask his family to have them for a few hours or pay a childminder for 2-3 hours but nooooo. Surely it’s in his interest for the Mum of his children to earn money? No one will ever convince me that men are decent human beings.

Just wait until you can get the free childcare, don’t ask again. If he doesn’t want them he’ll just be bad tempered with them anyway.

Hi op can you remind your ex he also has free mornings & free evening time to himself your basically asking for 1 day more and remind him even though it’s from home as it’s paid work. Just another selfish bloke not stepping up for his kids your not offering free childcare but you are being the main parent 247 if he could pay for 1 days childcare until the free time kicks in this is also an option but he should definitely be doing more than 1 day.

Ask him to pay for childcare on one of those days.

It's not about doing childcare so he can have fun, it's doing childcare on your days.

He could get a job on that day or swap his work around, then what?

The thing is being a sahm you don't need be work at X o clock, which he does, so the usual juggling of both parents working isn't a factor here.

Could you get even a pt job do you need to start work at say 8am so he needs to take more responsibility?

Sorry, but unless you're needed to be somewhere you will always be seen by him as able and free to do all of this.

When your DC are all going to school there will be less power to negotiate with. Please try to be one more financially dependent on yourself. Xxx

I would assume so, a sahm who is looking after her kids full time. She will have the options of nursery as a single parent I believe? Xxx

@FreyjaOfTheNorth when is the dad parenting? More important he doesn’t have anymore children

And he isn't parenting them. Despite also being a parent. If you have a child with a partner you don't expect them to piss off and leave you to do everything all the time. What an odd stance.

He has every morning before work and every evening 5 days a week to do hobbies. Because you are ther at home with the children you both share every single day and night and he never has to have broken sleep or worry about finding childcare for after school etc. he's off doing whatever he wants. Then also needs a full day at the weekend to himself to recover from all the... What exactly? Working due to your free labour?

Yes! Absolutely bare minimum he could have them Sunday morning to Monday school drop off.

@NewYearsEve2025 is there a reason you've avoided answering several people asking if you're on UC?

Because you could "spend" £500 a month on childcare and actually only have to pay £75 if you're on UC. Is there a reason you don't do this? Or even less. £200 "spend" only costs you £30.

Whilst it doesn't factor Dad in, you could work whichever day you like, and your childcare bill would be about £15. Which you'd be earning much more than. Dad isn't stopping you working, you have another incredibly favourable option readily available for as many days as you want it.

Childcare isn't something done for free by parents. That's parenting. And you can't force someone to parent. You can however, pay virtually bugger all for childcare. Why don't you?