Does 50/50 actually mess kids up?

[Writer034]

I've two DC (13 and 15) and split up with my ex DH 9 years ago, so they don't really remember the time of us living as one family. He always insisted on 50/50 so we used to do 2/2/3 and then a couple of years ago changed to week on week off (to include weekends). My kids are, on the whole, ok and happy, bar normal teenage stuff. The relationship with my ex DH was brilliant for years, although it's been more strained in the last 6 months after he moved in his new GF and her DD into his house (but it's still ok, and we pop into each other's houses to drop kids off or drop stuff off, etc, and are chilled and friendly face to face).

But my kids don't seem to think of either place as their home.

They only ever say 'mum's house' and 'dad's house'. I know that's partly so they can diferentiate them, but I do get a sense that they don't feel they fully belong in either, because it's an even split. It's almost like 'both' for them means 'neither'.

For example, they'll ring me up and say 'is it ok if I pop round' (and do the same with their dad).

It doesn't matter how many times I've said 'this is your home, why are you asking?' They have their own keys of course. My DD (15) wanted to come here the other evening, but was worried about gate crashing on my DP and me. We were both like, what are you doing asking, it's your home?

(My DP adores her and she adores him back, so this is not anything to do with him personally. One year I had a Xmas party and, although both my DP and my ex DH were here, my DD spent most of the night glued to my DP as she really does love him a great deal).

Any psychologists on MN? What is your take and will my children be damaged by this view of, not two homes, but actually none? What do other 50/50 parents think and have you experienced this?

I think if you’re going to do 50:50, 2/2/3 has got to be the worst arrangement. The kids would constantly feel like they are on the move. Week about must be better so that they can at least settle in one place for the week.

My first response is always 'have you talked to your dad' however they don't / can't / don't want to / it's ineffective.

As an adult I would not cope living in two places... not sure how children are expected to. But I don't know what the alternative is.
Unless you and Ex share a house and both move out every other week!

Yes it messes them up. They need one home. (I was a single parent).If. You must 50/50 then they stay in their own home and the parents move in and out.

But if you were all living together it wouldn't be automatic that the children get to choose the car? Sometimes DC do just have to live with what the adults choose.

It sounds to me a mad idea that has become fashionable in recent years to try to please everybody. But if it is working for you thats ok. But on the other hand if kids have never known anything else they have just accepted it.

Depends on so many things. Where I’ve seen it work is when the parents can communicate, they live near each other (& schools etc) and are flexible with putting the children needs first. The set ups are fairly similar in both houses (no sharing of rooms etc, have a space that is theirs)

My friends 2 daughters one happy with 50/50 the other couldn’t settle so the parents adapted - one is still 50/50 the eldest was every other weekend and would go for dinner at Dads but slept in her own bed.

Another who is now 23, parents very much had open door during the teenage years and allowed him to work it out for himself, he more or less did 50/50 depending on whose friends house or school thing he needed to be around for.

Where it doesn’t work is in high conflict situation, parents not local to each other. Lack of communication , fairly pay for school shoes/uniform etc And lack of flexibility. The most important thing is to ask the children and put their needs first as every child needs a slightly different set up.

Imagine any adult having to live like this, it would be deemed completely unrealistic.

The children will pretend it’s fine because they don’t want everyone to be upset, and ultimately the only
development from this point is choosing which parent they’d like to see less of.

How does it work with all their ‘stuff’. I know when DD was doing her GCSEs there was an awful lot of stuff she was using, because we could bin so much afterwards. My DD likes having her things around her, but she also likes doing art/craft. Don’t they always feel like they don’t have the right things with them.

When we nested, we (the adults) shared a small flat and the kids were always at the house. All rented. It was very expensive and not affordable long term.

I've never had personal experience of it, but it does seem overall to benefit the parents rather than the children. I've seen it first hand in other close families where children are moving every few days - it's irrelevant if parents get on or not, who wants to move every few days. Children want to see both parents so feel guilt for not necessarily enjoying it. I don't know an adult who would want to pack up their personal bits every 2/3 days and sleep in a different bed.

It's interesting that we now are seeing people who had to do it as children, who absolutely would not do it to their own children now.

And I am sure there are cases where it works perfectly for everyone, but I think there are also cases where it doesn't. I also don't think it should be compared only to "being better than living with parents who don't get along", it should be compared to living with one parent and having a good relationship with the non resident parent.

There is no easy solution. My ex would never have agreed to me having full custody or anything less than 50/50. If I given them up and said that he could have close to 100, my kids would (I think) have felt completely abandoned by me.

Maybe we need to be thinking upstream a bit about why relationships aren’t working out. I don’t think it’s about personal failings or blame. (I tried so bloody hard for so bloody long to keep us all under the same roof.) I often think about models where everyone shares the load a bit more. I’m really interested in intentional communities where people don’t live in atomised, separate little units. My friend brought up her kids like this: separate houses, but everyone looking out for the kids, eating together sometimes, working on the gardens together, sharing jobs around like shopping or maintenance, etc. They were in a pretty mainstream setting with ‘normal’ jobs, etc so it wasn’t a hippy fantasy. In many current set-ups, there’s unbearable pressure on single-family infrastructure, and relationships can’t bear the strain.

I think that any form of switching homes on a regular basis, 50/50 or not, is very difficult especially for teenagers with school work etc. As teenagers we had a fairly flexible arrangement so far as I can remember, I don’t think it was 50/50 and I spent long periods at my dad’s as my mum’s boyfriend was an alcoholic arsehole, but any switching across houses was very hard for me to manage. I constantly forgot stuff, and my school diary was full of red pen because of it. I’m still very bad at packing and moving around now - my brain goes blank. I’ve no doubt academically and emotionally it had a real impact - though I think that was also because I never felt like I was anyone’s priority, and I was way down the pecking order against my parents’ partners.

At the end of the day though I don’t think there’s any positives in beating yourself up about it - unless you intend to do something improve things. If you want to address it, you need to talk to your ex and see how he feels. It sounds like the kids aren’t going to tell you directly what they want as they want to please you both.

It's completely different for a child and an adult though.

For a kid, you can assume:

• They have a full wardrobe and all the things they need at both houses (or one house if they only need it one night a week and that stays consistent)
• Someone else does all the grocery shopping and cooking so they don't need to worry about moving food that's close to expiry between houses or meal planning.
• Someone else manages all the bills and post
• Someone else does all the cleaning and tidying
• Someone else handles all household maintenance
• Someone else organises them getting to school and home again so they don't need to worry about different journey planning

If those circumstances were in place and the only thing I had to do to move between houses was to show up then I don't see why it would be an issue.

Sounds similar to our setup, DS is only 8 and we've been 50/50 in 2/2/3 for nearly 5 years. Very peaceful divorce, we'd been together for 12 years and still get on as friends but wanted different things out of life. We celebrate birthdays together, still chat, and only live 2km from each other. DS doesn't have a loyalty conflict and is a happy kid.

My impression is it's the conflict and tension between parents that causes the most harm to kids, regardless of the family arrangement. DS has never seen us argue or talk bad about each other. Of course, he'd prefer his parents to not be separated but as he says, this is the second best option 😉

Exactly. It just looks like they're constantly living out of a backpack. Hardly a relaxing environment to live in!

I have often thought that as an adult if I had to move back and forth so often between two homes I would hate it, so I can't imagine children loving it, especially if they have things they forget at one place. So I personally imagine it is rubbish for them.

Except most kids don't have a full set of everything at each place.

I don't think that's true. When you're guest anywhere someone else is doing all that. You're still glad to get back to your own stuff.

When I stay at DP's for a weekend, none of the household responsibility is mine. I'd still rather he comes to mine.

Why would they be living out of a backpack? We've done 2/2/3 for 5 years and my DS has never had to transport anything between our houses, except his bike. Each household has everything he needs.

And you think doing it for them is going to help this?

No, you are causing further problems because you are not teaching them to manage conflict and tough situations themselves.

I don’t think anyone would prefer to move with all their stuff to a different place each week.

If it was so easy, I think parents would do nesting and allow children to remain in the family home and the parents spend alternate weeks with them.

That rarely happens as the parents say it is too difficult and make the children do it instead.

It’s not a perfect world so everyone has to struggle through making the best they can of their choices.

If your daughter has expressed that she doesn’t like moving between the houses, perhaps the adults could sort out more suitable arrangements for her rather than pushing it back on to her,

Okay, thank you for the parenting lesson ;-)

Gosh, the kids are not choosing the car. I feel like you didn't read the comment fully. There was extremely little space, in the back of the Porche, for two tall teenagers (both taller than me) and a bulky car seat. It's entirely reasonable to suggest that their dad needs to address this, especially for longer journeys. It's got nothing to do with 'choosing the car'. Children have a right to a comfortable seat in the back of their father's car.

The kids next door usually have their backpack with them. I don't know why, I don't live their life. But to keep changing beds and houses every few days doesn't seem very beneficial. Suits their parents though.

Glad your arrangement works for your family set up.