that 50-50 res is AWFUL for kids & mothers and women should fight back?

[rageagainstthe50res]

OK, hands up, i name-changed, because this is so emotionally charged and I don't want to be alienated from my usual threads.

BUT, AIBU to think that actually 50-50 parenting is fucking awful for kids? I mean, can you imagine living your life between two houses? Just how disorientating and unsettling it would be?

And AIBU to think that women have given away too many of their own rights in the name of 'fathers' rights?' I LOVE my father, and my DS loves hers, even though we're not together but in 99% of all parenting cases I know it is the woman who does the laundry, the packed lunches, the kiss it betters, the costumes for the nativity.

We don't have gender equality in this country - salary discrepancies, violence against women, flagrant misogyny in the media etc. Yet the few rights we do hold - that we should be the primary parent because we grow our children inside us and feed them from our own bodies, we now glibly throw away to 'fathers'. I AM NOT SAYING FATHERS SHOULD BE DENIED ACCESS TO THEIR CHILDREN. But I do think 50-50 is too much. And you're telling me that women don't HATE having their kids only 50% of the time? I'm sure most of them are absolutely miserable. A weekend off, great, but 50-50 just sounds heinous.
REally, I'm not being an arse, I'm just massively curious.

Bonsoir - we carried on with daily life after my parents' divorce without 50:50 coming into it. We lived in the same house, went to the same school (first questions we asked when they sat us down, apparently) and actually saw my father more as he'd taken us rather for granted when we were in the same house.

Although in retrospect his habit of phoning me in the morning before school was rather more for his benefit than mine. Especially as it ended PDQ when he found himself another woman.

agingoth- How has the moving back into the family home gone?

Completely agree with the OP.

On the whole (there are always going to be bad mothers and good fathers) but on the whole women have shown themselves to be the ones who are more willing to sacrifice for their children.

Mothers have also shown (of course there are always exceptions)that they are the more attentive parents usually. Men, in general, have demonstrated that the most important thing in their lives is their dick.

I had to do the 50/50 residency type thing when I was a kid. I hated it. I wish I could have just lived with my mother and had my dad visit.

"Men, in general, have demonstrated that the most important thing in their lives is their dick."

And someone who is ruled by a body part is not a good parent. I do not accept it when a father says "oh yes, I love my kids but I cheated on and humiliated and abandoned their mother, not the kids so I am still a good father"

Um no you are not.

Fathers can demand rights when they 1. Financially support any children they make without whining and looking for a way out of it 2. Put their kids first (that means not treating their dc's mother like shit and utterly destroying her just because he wants to shag someone else more) kids need their mothers to be emotionally healthy and dignified 3. Stop being ruled by their dicks.

When men can pull all that off, I will fully support the fathers rights movement.

I tend to agree with Edam's first post and with whoever said that 50-50 is fantastic provided there are no twunts included in such arrangement.

My son comes upset from his dad's house, has tantrums every morning he is due for a weekend at his. He doesn't eat lunch on the days he comes back from his dad's house as his dad has not yet mastered the technique to fill a lunchbox no matter how many years ago we splitted. DS's clothes are not changed during visits (he comes exactly as he went but somewhat dirtier), and is is normally left with other people during contact days as his dad can't interrupt the very active social life he says he has the right to live.

50-50 with such twunt? over my dead body!

I didn't get the latest job I applied for in the SE (found out today) so that is probably the end of the road for me academically.

The upside is I can now care for my kids daily so I can be with them so much more when they need me. I understand Bonsoir about the lack of disruption, I just never actually wanted them to grow up in SE London and neither did H inthe past, we always had a vision of them having more space and freedom etc. I miss that (for myself as well).

I am scared of the future with no pension etc but at least I will get 10 years or so with the boys. And 50@50 residence isn't so bad if you are seeing them every day. (Yes pithyslicker I am in same house now which is great for me as see them whenever I like, H not so happy )

Mongolia dh and I are still married. WE have three kids-one autistic and I work part time.

Sometimes I leave for work at 6 AM and he has to get the kids to school.

Even when I lay their clothes etc out this is what happens:

He puts them in dirty clothes, doesn't make them brush their teeth, sends them out in mismatched socks, doesn't comb hair or wash faces, forgets their school bags, lunch money etc etc. Then he wants an award for getting them off to school and he says "it's not that hard to do this, why don't you work full time?"

Im not quite sure what this thread is trying to prove?
If actually anything, It shows that once again you cant generalise about all people !

What is normal to a child is what it is surrounded with....

My Dad worked long hours when I was a kid... my mum worked part time.

Things I remember from being 6 years old and up, was Mum made the Dinner, she paid the bills, she organised the home.

Dad brought in the money to pay the bills and for the home.
Every night without fail, after not seeing much of me would always put me to bed, after an extra long story.

I dont remember what percentage which parent did what... I remember being Loved so much by both !

To me this is the most important thing to a child... is to give them your ;

1 LOVE
2 TIME

It is only sad when Children dont have this from both parents, but If not from both, then One is as good... and it doesnt matter what sex that parent is !

Oh yes, they think that there is nothing wrong if you lower the standards, which is right... as long as you lower the standards once in a blue moon not in a regular basis...

to annoy the other parent? According to DS he has even been binning the toys that I bought for him that were at his dad's house because I got them. Obviously, I'm not upset about the expense but about hearing my son saying that he cried so much for one (one that he really wanted for a LOOOONG time) until his dad agreed to take it out of the bin bag.

And to think I considered 50/50 when were about to split! Glad he didn't accept it!

"He puts them in dirty clothes, doesn't make them brush their teeth, sends them out in mismatched socks, doesn't comb hair or wash faces, forgets their school bags, lunch money etc"
My DSD is treated like this, by her mother...

I've said it so so many times, gender is not a determinant of good parenting.

If childcare is split 50:50 before the divorce then it will probably be fine to carry on doing so afterwards. That said - and I'm no expert in the demographics of parenting - I'd be surprised if this is the case in any more than 5-10% of cases; I can only speak with any authority as to my own experience.

My STBXW works about 15 hours a week, one evening and at weekends. She had always been (effectively) a SAHM and the primary carer of our two DCs, so why would us splitting up mean changing this? As a senior manager in financial services I earn four or fives times what she did when she worked full time in a call centre and I pay her mortgage, utility bills, satellite TV, phone bill, and £300 a month for food etc plus ad-hoc amounts for the kids' shoes/clothes/Beaver uniform etc. On top of that I'm paying back all of our joint credit card/loan debt through the CCCS. I wonder if I may safely assume my parental rights are thus assured...?

I see the kids overnight once a week, at their house, effectively babysitting while the ex works; and I have them every other weekend at my mum's (my place is too small to sleep us all).

Does it work for us? As well as it can do, I guess. Is it ideal? No. Then again, it was somewhat less than optimal when she announced eight months ago that she didn't think she loved me anymore, life with me was boring, and she'd been seeing someone at work for the previous eight months behind my back. Those who appear to think that it's only men who have a problem maintaining their marital promises are, unfortunately, much mistaken.

Absolute respect to you Saultanpepper

"I wonder if I may safely assume my parental rights are thus assured...?"
I wouldn't count on it.

I wonder why any man wants to get married tbh - if I was a man I wouldnt.

I didnt take a single penny from my exp when we split and I was the one to move out as it was his home. I had kept up my pt job anyway and was able to use that and tax credits to get back on my feet again - the idea of leaving a man and then still having him pay for me is abhorrent (different if he has acted like a twunt though).

ahem that post should of course be 'I wonder why any person who earns loads more than the other would want to get married'

Think the parental rights statement was tongue in cheek. Clearly financial support doesn't equate contact.

But he makes several good points. First of all, that 50/50 is fine if that was the status quo when parents were under the same roof, and also that the children's stability comes first, however difficult that may be, and whatever the behavior of either party.

"oh yes, I love my kids but I cheated on and humiliated and abandoned their mother, not the kids so I am still a good father"

So by your standards, then, women who have affairs shouldn't regard themselves as good mothers? And you'd so readily describe them as "thinking with their fanjos", yes?

All the research I've seen suggests there is no significant difference in the number of women who have affairs compared to the number of men.

Is that directed at me?

"He puts them in dirty clothes, doesn't make them brush their teeth, sends them out in mismatched socks, doesn't comb hair or wash faces, forgets their school bags, lunch money etc"

As has my DC's mother on occasion. I'm with EleanorRigby on this - crap parents come in both genders.