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.

I don't think there should be any "default" custody arrangement, each case should be dealt with as a unique one.

I hate to say it but I think DH would be more torn up handing his children over each week than I would. I am a SAHM and he works long hours but he and DS have a bond that really is amazing (for me) to see. It isn't me DS calls for in the night, or when he hurts himself. DH just has wells of patience for him that I don't, they are two peas in a pod.

Don't get me wrong, I like it like this as I do prefer to be alone a lot of the time, but that would need to be taken into consideration if residence ever needed to be sorted.

I agree that there shouldn't be any form of presumption of where and how children's residence is split between their two parents' homes after separation/divorce, and I also think that there shouldn't be any presumption that biological full siblings should always reside together all the time. I know more and more families where siblings have different arrangements, that suit individuals better.

However, I very strongly believe that arrangements for residency should be firmly fixed (say once a year, for the year) as it is bad for everyone concerned otherwise.

I think that the ideal should be 50/50 and it is actually less disruptive than being an occasional visitor. Unless the mother is prepared to be the one that has less than 50% then they shouldn't wish it on the father, who is just as important to the DCs.

I completely agree with you. Men can and do (depressingly often) walk away from their responsibilities. Women rarely do. In fact, it's rare enough that when it happens, we are shocked.

Given that statistically, the woman is the parent to be banked on, then giving more rights to the woman and fewer to the man (NOT none, just tip the balance back in favour of the mother) is in the best interest of the child.

It makes me laugh, the amount of men who walk away from their children, contribute nothing, never see them, and yet, men will argue that they deserve equal rights.

Rights yes, but not equal rights. no way.

I see all of the assumptions are that mummy should have a home big enough for her and the DC, and daddy should have a home big enough for him and the DC, and the DC shuttle between them. How about, the DC have a home, and mummy and daddy live there alternate weeks, with each parent having a small flat/bedsit (or whatever they can afford) for the time they're not in the DC's home? Would/could this work for some?

I think that in an ideal world each separated parent would have a home large enough to accommodate the DC, who would spend part of each week (not necessarily alternate weeks, which can be very disruptive) in each home.

Obviously this is financially not viable for many families.

My ds lived with me, and saw his father at weekends until six months ago. Now he lives with his father during the week and I have him at weekends.

We came to those arrangements as they were best for our ds.

I miss ds madly during the week, but I know he is loved and cared for and very happy to be with daddy.

And now I get all the weekend fun and quality time I used to miss out on.

"It makes me laugh, the amount of men who walk away from their children, contribute nothing, never see them, and yet, men will argue that they deserve equal rights."

It's the children that have the rights - not least that, wherever possible, the child should be able to maintain a good relationship with both parents. The parents have responsibilities.

That being said, the way that the average family court orders residency/contact is one that is nearly always heavily weighted in favour of the mother anyway. The typical outcome is the mother having sole residency and the father having contact every other weekend plus one mid-week evening. As I noted earlier, court-ordered 50:50 is rare in the UK. Shared residency orders are not necessarily the same thing as 50:50.

Any residency/contact orders that are different from this typically only happen when there's a documented history of something different, or there's mutual consent, or where one parent has repeatedly shown him/herself to not be acting in the best interests of the child.

OldLadyKnowsNothing, I've read that the children staying in one home and the parents shuttling in and out idea can work very well but it's extremely rare.

It requires a huge amount of amity, trust and cooperation between the parents. It can also get very complicated when one or other of the parents starts a new relationship. It's not a bad idea, but practicalities can very quickly make it unworkable.

Ah well, snorbs, it was just a passing thought.

My 7 year old DS spends one week with me and one with his father. We live less than a mile apart so it works out well in terms of going to school.
We had a bad relationship, but DS loves his father very much and his father is crazy about him. We decided on 50/50 from the start without any court involvement.
Since we split up three years ago, I met someone and had DD with him. His father also has a girlfriend, bt they don't live together.
Was it all traumatic for DS? Yes. Should he see his father only every other weekend because I gave birth to him? Nonsense.
It would be different in case of a baby, but a few year old can deal well with 50/50 if the parents can deal with each other.
And, no, my heart isn't breaking every other Friday when he goes to his dad- I know he will be happy there.

well but Dittany, that's kind of unfair in that one parent may have sacrificed their time to be with the child in order to maintain the household finances - it might not be how they wanted it to be in an ideal world.

In a way it's similar to the SAHM who sacrificed their career to bring up kids and enable their husband to have a career - they should be compensated for that on the split and not left financially disadvantaged by the fact that they made that sacrifice for the family.

Equally if a father (or mother) sacrificed their child-caring time to keep the family as a whole solvent, I don't think should be held against them in a split and used as an excuse to deprive them of seeing their children down the line.

However I agree with those that say there shouldn't be a prescriptive box-ticking attitude to custody. If a family can come to an agreement that works well for them, that's far better than taking a narrow view. That doesn't preclude recognising that seeing both parents as much as possible is generally optimal though.

And yes I do feel that 50-50 childcare is the optimum in ALL families. Unfortunately though until we have equal pay for both genders, and until employers stop disadvantaging part-time workers and refusing flexible working requests, that's not likely to be possible.

Did you know that men are more than 60% more likely than women to have a flexible working request refused?

Combine that with the fact that women earn on average 22% less than men, it's not surprising that things work out the way they do.

I have to agree with Dittany here.
My ex and I split roughly 50/50 before split ( oh, well, maybe 60/40).

Sorry x-posted with you Dittany.

In answer to your reply - I realise that the whole approach is child-centred, but I don't think that continuing the status quo is necessarily always the best answer. Just because a particular arrangement was the best solution for an intact family doesn't always follow that the same arrangement will be ideal after a split.

And I should point out that I'm posting as the child in a situation such as you describe and I am incredibly glad that my family managed to achieve near enough a 50-50 split.

If I ever split with DH I know it would tear my heart out not to see the children as much, but having been the child in that situation, I can see it from both sides.

I think a lot of people posting "but think of the child" are actually really thinking about it from their own POV as a mother and projecting that pain onto their children.

Of course I realise that 50-50 isn't always going to be possible or optimal and isn't appropriate for very young children - but it's still a laudable aim.

As the 12 year old me would have liked the chance to say:

My mum WAS a SAHM, my dad worked, but I saw BOTH of my parents EVERY DAY. Going from that to a few hours once a week was a hell of a shock. And yes my mum was SAHM, but she sure as hell had her hobbies, choir, aerobics etc., in the evening, define who, in my eyes was more SAH? My father, because, yes he was at work, whilst I was at school, when I was home from school he came in shortly after, we sat and did my homework while mum was enjoying her 'me time'. But in the courts, she was never seperated from us, because she didn't work.

My 12yo self, wanted no more than to see both her parents for a reasonable amount of time. To me, ALL time with my parents was family time.

very good post Anita.

It's unfair to assume that a working parent has any less of a bond with their child and is any less needed.

I think we are agreeing really Dittany. And I wouldn't say that 50-50 is always ideal by any means - I originally posted in response to the OP's assertion that it was automatically awful for kids and mothers - in my case it certainly wasn't.

And I agree that the fathers for justice lot are bonkers and scary and have thoroughly twisted ideas of what parenting means.

My DSD loved being with her mum "for a long time" and her dad "for a long time" ie one week with each parent.
Her mother however did not want that and during a court hearing where his solictor fucked up did not not represent his wishes. DSD lost the equal time she had with both her parents.
The wailing of DSD when DP was court ordered to bring her back to her mum, when she wanted to stay with her dad, as she had done, will always stay with me. As I drove her back when she begged her dad to stay, I just cried dsd silently beneath my sunglasses.
DSD still wants to stay with her dad like she used too, but she's more compliant now, accepting what her mum wants.