Any shared insights / lessons learned on designing best-for-kids custody situations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You may not get a lot of answers, there are some pretty nasty posters who tend to see children as objects/posessions instead of people. Anything less than 50/50 and the custodial parent is evil, blah blah.
I strongly encourage you to put your kids need for stability and consistency first. Give them a voice in the matter. This will change as time goes on, and be flexible and respectful.

I have observed this here on DCUM. Is it just an absolute belief that there is high value in ensuring exactly identical time between parents?

If you have a situation where pre-divorce, Parent 1 is gone most of the workweek and has meaningful interactions with children largely on weekends, and Parent 2 runs the household during the week and then shares these meaningful interactions with Parent 1 on the weekends, what exactly is the value in altering that dynamic? I see responses here say that 20-30% is so low that the children will never have a meaningful relationship with the lower percentage parent. Why? I spent multiples the amount of time with my mom than I did with my dad under the age of 18, and I had and still have an amazing relationship with both of them.

Divorce is already tough enough on everyone. Now we are being told that someone also has to quit their job so they can take care of the kids 50/50, or that a family should sell their family home and move out of a community their kids have grown up in so that the parents can live somewhere close together and lower the standard of living for both households so it's equal?

[Anonymous]

Kid with me when school is in session because dad is useless, doesn’t check hw or uses threats and not help, things like that. He can have the kid as much as he wants on the weekends and holidays though (surprise! He doesn’t care much to have him for the holidays)
In short my ex is pretty useless so anything with higher stakes is on me. At least he provides for the kid though

[Anonymous]

Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You may not get a lot of answers, there are some pretty nasty posters who tend to see children as objects/posessions instead of people. Anything less than 50/50 and the custodial parent is evil, blah blah.
I strongly encourage you to put your kids need for stability and consistency first. Give them a voice in the matter. This will change as time goes on, and be flexible and respectful.

In the other thread, the dad who has his kids every weekend all weekend so the kids can be in one home during the school week is being called a dead beat and a fun dad who has no parental responsibility so neither can really win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You may not get a lot of answers, there are some pretty nasty posters who tend to see children as objects/posessions instead of people. Anything less than 50/50 and the custodial parent is evil, blah blah.
I strongly encourage you to put your kids need for stability and consistency first. Give them a voice in the matter. This will change as time goes on, and be flexible and respectful.

I have observed this here on DCUM. Is it just an absolute belief that there is high value in ensuring exactly identical time between parents?

If you have a situation where pre-divorce, Parent 1 is gone most of the workweek and has meaningful interactions with children largely on weekends, and Parent 2 runs the household during the week and then shares these meaningful interactions with Parent 1 on the weekends, what exactly is the value in altering that dynamic? I see responses here say that 20-30% is so low that the children will never have a meaningful relationship with the lower percentage parent. Why? I spent multiples the amount of time with my mom than I did with my dad under the age of 18, and I had and still have an amazing relationship with both of them.

Divorce is already tough enough on everyone. Now we are being told that someone also has to quit their job so they can take care of the kids 50/50, or that a family should sell their family home and move out of a community their kids have grown up in so that the parents can live somewhere close together and lower the standard of living for both households so it's equal?

The value is because it's exhausting for Parent 2 if that parent also needs to work full-time. If child support is such that part-time work or no work is enough, then it's fine.

[Anonymous]

I think the ideal is for the parents to live in close proximity. Kids have two homes but there is flexibility as to where they stay and parents can support the schedule of the other.

I think also fighting over child support based on number of nights (vs active involvement) is also an issue. If both parents are actively involved and providing for the child, the specific number of nights doesn't matter. But if the idea is to reduce dads nights to get more money, that is going to create resentment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

Why is that the expectation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

Why is that the expectation?

I think I explained it. Kids will not want to go to a home what is far away from friends and activities or where they don't have their own space. That then erodes the relationship with that parent. It is also much harder to co parent when you live far apart. Keeping both homes similar and close to each other contributes to less issues for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

Why is that the expectation?

Picture it. Your spouse lives in nice house near the school. The kids each have their own rooms and can easily get to and from school, hang out with friends, and get to community activities and to extracurriculars. You live a distance away in an apartment. when the kids are with you they don't have their own space and the living area is small with less comforts, they need to endure a long commute to and from school, can't easily get together with friends, and there needs to be a lot of planning and time put into getting to extracurriculars. Over time they want to stop coming to your place. There are too many inconviences and not enough comforts compared to their other home. Their friends become more important and they want more independence to hang out with friends and move around the community and get to and from school. Would you really be fine with that?

If you don't think it should be an expectation then you should be the parent in the smaller space far away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

It was where he wanted to be. It's an easier commute to his work and a more cosmopolitan/nightlife area.

The one school night a week plus weekend time seems to be the most common solution to this issue. It does mean moving the kids back and forth a lot during the week. But there's no perfect solution. I am hoping as the kids get older the shuffling around will get easier. And in a few years we may consider moving to have closer/more parity in housing when they are done with elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

Why is that the expectation?

I think I explained it. Kids will not want to go to a home what is far away from friends and activities or where they don't have their own space. That then erodes the relationship with that parent. It is also much harder to co parent when you live far apart. Keeping both homes similar and close to each other contributes to less issues for the kids.

New poster. Yes, my kids are very resentful that their father bought a house 40 minutes away. Finances were not the driver, so it was purely his preference of place to live. It is not a 50-50 set up, so less impactful day to day, but kids still want to be where their friends are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

Why is that the expectation?

Picture it. Your spouse lives in nice house near the school. The kids each have their own rooms and can easily get to and from school, hang out with friends, and get to community activities and to extracurriculars. You live a distance away in an apartment. when the kids are with you they don't have their own space and the living area is small with less comforts, they need to endure a long commute to and from school, can't easily get together with friends, and there needs to be a lot of planning and time put into getting to extracurriculars. Over time they want to stop coming to your place. There are too many inconviences and not enough comforts compared to their other home. Their friends become more important and they want more independence to hang out with friends and move around the community and get to and from school. Would you really be fine with that?

If you don't think it should be an expectation then you should be the parent in the smaller space far away.

But it's often the parent in the smaller space far away, who chose that smaller space far away. Full respect to those small-space parents who battled it out for primary custody or the house and lost, that certainly feels awful and I agree a court should enforce an expectation along these lines over what might feel like banishment. But what do you do when it's the parent themselves who prefer that? Are you also going to order the remaining spouse to sell the house and move the kids away from their school/community to live in a smaller space to be closer to apartment parent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

Why is that the expectation?

Picture it. Your spouse lives in nice house near the school. The kids each have their own rooms and can easily get to and from school, hang out with friends, and get to community activities and to extracurriculars. You live a distance away in an apartment. when the kids are with you they don't have their own space and the living area is small with less comforts, they need to endure a long commute to and from school, can't easily get together with friends, and there needs to be a lot of planning and time put into getting to extracurriculars. Over time they want to stop coming to your place. There are too many inconviences and not enough comforts compared to their other home. Their friends become more important and they want more independence to hang out with friends and move around the community and get to and from school. Would you really be fine with that?

If you don't think it should be an expectation then you should be the parent in the smaller space far away.

But it's often the parent in the smaller space far away, who chose that smaller space far away. Full respect to those small-space parents who battled it out for primary custody or the house and lost, that certainly feels awful and I agree a court should enforce an expectation along these lines over what might feel like banishment. But what do you do when it's the parent themselves who prefer that? Are you also going to order the remaining spouse to sell the house and move the kids away from their school/community to live in a smaller space to be closer to apartment parent?

No, if the parent chose purely for their own personal selfish reasons to move far away from their kids and to get a small place , then that is on them. Clearly if they financially could have had a bigger place and intentionally got something small that didn't have a room for each child, they don't really want the kids to spend much time there.

The whole premise for child support is to reduce inequities between homes. It isn't an expectation I came up with!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

Why is that the expectation?

Picture it. Your spouse lives in nice house near the school. The kids each have their own rooms and can easily get to and from school, hang out with friends, and get to community activities and to extracurriculars. You live a distance away in an apartment. when the kids are with you they don't have their own space and the living area is small with less comforts, they need to endure a long commute to and from school, can't easily get together with friends, and there needs to be a lot of planning and time put into getting to extracurriculars. Over time they want to stop coming to your place. There are too many inconviences and not enough comforts compared to their other home. Their friends become more important and they want more independence to hang out with friends and move around the community and get to and from school. Would you really be fine with that?

If you don't think it should be an expectation then you should be the parent in the smaller space far away.

But it's often the parent in the smaller space far away, who chose that smaller space far away. Full respect to those small-space parents who battled it out for primary custody or the house and lost, that certainly feels awful and I agree a court should enforce an expectation along these lines over what might feel like banishment. But what do you do when it's the parent themselves who prefer that? Are you also going to order the remaining spouse to sell the house and move the kids away from their school/community to live in a smaller space to be closer to apartment parent?

No, if the parent chose purely for their own personal selfish reasons to move far away from their kids and to get a small place , then that is on them. Clearly if they financially could have had a bigger place and intentionally got something small that didn't have a room for each child, they don't really want the kids to spend much time there.

The whole premise for child support is to reduce inequities between homes. It isn't an expectation I came up with!

One of (several I think PPs) - thank you, now I understand your point about expectation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is he in a smaller place and farther away? The expectation should be same standard of living in both homes. Kids will start not wanting to go to his place if it is far from friends and activities and they have to share a room there. Finances should be arranged so he lives close by and has rooms for each.

Could dad take the kids after work for an evening or two each week and then do a Friday afterschool until Sunday am type routine? That way he would still have one day of the week for himself but see the kids 3-4 days a week and have a long stretch with them where he would gets substantial time.

It was where he wanted to be. It's an easier commute to his work and a more cosmopolitan/nightlife area.

The one school night a week plus weekend time seems to be the most common solution to this issue. It does mean moving the kids back and forth a lot during the week. But there's no perfect solution. I am hoping as the kids get older the shuffling around will get easier. And in a few years we may consider moving to have closer/more parity in housing when they are done with elementary school.

But you see, PP, you have to save him from himself or else you are the evil shrew. Even when divorced, you must act as his social secretary, handle relations with his parents, and provide parent coaching so that he doesn't become estranged from his kids.