[DivorcedMom]

Is there any research out there that sheds any light on the best time share situations when a joint physical custody arrangement is in place? My children are 4 and 6, and the days have been shared approximately 3/dad and 3/mom. Seeking more consistency, I wanted to change it to 4/dad and 4/mom or even 5. I've had so many people give opinions that my mind is boggled. Some say we should do a 7-day schedule whereby the kids stay with me a week and then with him a week. I'm uncomfortable with that on a number of levels, one that I don't know if it's good for the kids to be away from one parent for that long; and two, his new wife would be with them at least two nights a week while their dad attends school.
In any case I want what's best for them, and I have had a hard time getting expert opinions on this!
Thanks for any light you can shed.
DM

[mcmama]

What is really best is what works for your family. As long as everyone is in communication, has some flexibility to accomodate unexpected things, and the sharing is amicable between the adults, numbers really don't matter.

My ex fought for 50/50 and to the horror of me and the kids, won. It was such a nightmare. 50 percent of the time does not equal 50 percent of the actual parenting. There was so much stuff we had to make up for when the kids were with me, because his time with them was all about him. And of course, if I made any mistakes at all, it was something to bully me with. When we overturned it a year later, my kids grades improved and the oldest was able to get off anxiety medications. Now the oldest is grown up, and the younger one sees him whenever he wants, and regularly on alternate weekends and Wednesday evenings.

No expert can tell you what is right for your family. We found that the 50 % back and forth every other day totally around his magesty's work schedule with no flexibility except when his magesty insisted I help him out and "co operate" (ie do his bidding) did not work, because it was not centered on what the family needed, it was just centered on numbers and the dad's ego and need to "win". You want to work something out so that your kids don't feel like they are going round in circles.

My oldest developed a back problem from carrying all his books in his backpack - he was afraid he would get mixed up and forget something. That's how bad it was, how confusing. You really want to avoid something like that.

For any percentage of parental sharing to work, both parents have to be available 100%. Otherwise, it is a mess.

[Raiina]

I think you should ask your kids who they want to share the most time with. I also think it is important that kids can spend equal time with both parents or at least get to see the other parent when they want.
I'm sorry but that is the price you pay for getting divorced. My parents never got married when they had me, but I live with my dad. I would like to see my mom more but I can only see her when HE chooses I can see her. I think this is not fair.
I think the price that comes with parents divorcing is that they at least make sure their kids see each parent as much as they want.

[mcmama]

Sometimes there are reasons why they can't see the parent as much as they want. One major factor for me in getting the 50-50 nightmare reversed was the inappropriate behavior of my ex husband's boyfriend around my oldest son. My kids were too young to fully understand why this guy was being so "nice" - but he was really trying to soften up the 12 year old so that he could seduce him.

Of course, it is difficult for any child to accept that a parent would allow this to happen, so I got lots of arguments with my son about over reacting. But when my son was in college, he was studying about pedophiles in a psychology class, and he realized what was really happening. And he thanked me.

But most people from that time STILL think I am just horrible for "involving" and "blaming" a "perfectly innocent" gay man.

Sometimes it is easier to blame the parent who takes responsibility than to accept that there is a complication in the other parents life.

I'd like to know how the OP solved the problem. I found that "expert" advice was ridiculously confusing because most of them were not experts on my family and had very little experience counseling families where one partner was heterosexual and the other a closeted homosexual. In families like mine, the path to a constructive resolution can sometimes involve some specialized knowledge for counselors - and is seldom helped by pretending that the sexual orientation does not matter - because it is part of the family dynamic.

Anything that involves counting the hours or days and reducing it to mathematics is counter productive and about money, not kids.

[purelegance]

when i was growing up, my dad had me saturday night, sunday, monday, tuesday & wed morning. then my mom had me wednesday night, thursday, friday & saturday morning. it worked fine, i still saw both of my parents & if i needed the other, they were only a phone call away & 15 minutes away. but my parents got along pretty well too. DH was always with his mom, wanted nothing to do with his dad, and that worked perfect for them. it just depends on your situation really. HTH

[meg2]

I agree that it totally depends on the family and the relationship you have with your ex. I had shared parenting but it became a horrible situation and was changed last year. Not a bad thing, though, if you are both committed to the child and one of you isn't more concerned with it being 'fair' to one parent or the other. It's about the child and what is best for them. Good luck to you!

[jmmv08]

Although it's depends on the situation, it is still important that kids should spend equal time with both parents.

[mcmama]

jmmv08, your backyard may be full of teak furniture, but have you read the posts above? Exactly that "important to spend equal time" idea led my ex and leads other abusers with money to the courts to oppress their families into 50/50 impractical post judgement schedules. And it is often about the abuser having the kids in his/her life, not about being in the kids life. So the real custodial parent and kids are left to carve out real life in pieces.

Children don't spend equal time with both parents when people are married. And in a marriage that ends in divorce, there is often one parent who tends to them and one who just goes along for the family ride or maybe "helps out". Divorces happen for a reason.

In the whole unrealistically idealistic 50/50 setup, the kids become pingpong balls. One week with mom one week with dad. Vacations split up. Or in my life it was one day here one day there - all built around the abusive narcissist's work schedule, reducing me to a mere babysitter who took them to their counseling appointments, most school activities, and allowed them to see their friends whose parents may or may not have been sympathetic to their dad on "my time". The kids were not people in the eyes of the law, they were objects of time to be divided - EQUALLY, of course.

Well, baseball teams, after school intramural schedules, piano teachers, pediatricians etc don't set their schedules by whose "time" the kids are on. And during "his time" he had to show how DEDICATED he was by enrolling them in tutoring programs that were intense, even though their teachers had said "DON'T DO THAT". Their grades were falling, (see above posts) and he had to demonstrate to the court (with report cards, receipts, etc) that he was ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT. But the kids were unable to make a fulltime committment to any interest, activity, or say yeah, I'd like to go to your birthday party or sleepover - because they always had to "check the schedule" and they weren't sure which parent was in charge of that particular day or night and they didn't want to stir up more trouble.

Our lives were so much better once I got sole physical custody and he had regularly scheduled visitation with a flexible understanding that they could see him whenever they wanted to. Incredibly, whenever there was a need for flexibility or added time for him or me, he would get all crazy about "making up the time". Still didn't get it that the kids are not objects in a ping pong game.

The kids are grown up now. He still doesn't get it.

"Equal" is a tag word for "abuse" in shared physical custody. It;s not equal in marriage, and the expectation that it is equal in divorce is unreal. Somehow, he was never interested in "equal" applying to sick days or the emergency room. The operative word for those occasions was "cooperate" - as in "I'm busy, you do this, you cooperate now, ok?" I am still recovering from the financial devastation of all that cooperation which never seemed to please him.

[purelegance]

mcmama i really do think it depends on the family. as i typed before, my parents had 50/50 custody, and both said they wouldn't have changed it. same with my friends and their families, we all had the same arrangement. (only 1 of my friends' parents were still together). your ex is/was a real sleez, but i really just do not believe that those situations happen most of the time.

[mcmama]

They happen a lot. And I think that true shared custody never quite works out to 50/50. It means that both parents share the physical responsibility, and that there is adequate ongoing communication about being involved in 100% of the kids lives 100% of the time.

Not 50% my time, 50% your time.

Any judge who sees a motion for 50/50 divided on time and schedules and work and this day and that day should smell a rat - especially when one spouse never was available to take time from work or rearrange their life and the other was totally available to the kids. Or when there is just too much history of "scorekeeping" with regard to the clock during the course of the separation.

Glad it worked for your family! I just take exception to the whole "should" thing, because that means that the abuser gets to tell his wife what she "should" do to make the kids involved in his life so that he can be involved in theirs "50/50".