Divorced jellies: how much time do you spend with your kids and would you tell us about a special/typical day with them?

My two are adults and each lives about 3,000 miles away from me. I was married to their dad until recently. Now what’s shifting is visiting each on my own and being Bubby without Granddad. I have issues about how much to tell them when I’m feeling down because I don’t want to burden them but on the whole, I think I have a great relationship with each.

I have primary physical custody of all three of my kids. I am fortunate that they are with my husband and me most of the time. They spend the first three weekends of the month with their father and every Wednesday evening. When they are in my home we are pretty much your average family. We get them to and from school, help them with homework, cook, etc.

When we divorced my ex willingly gave me primary physical custody. We agreed that it was best for them to stay with me since I had been a stay-at-home mom since they were born. Since then though, he has decided that I screwed him in the divorce and his mission in life has been to rectify what he sees as an unfair situation. So he has filed three separate requests to modify the parenting plan and had me back to mediation at least seven times. He consistently accuses me of drug abuse and child abuse and neglect. (I am not a drug user, I have never laid a hand on any of the kids, and they are very well taken care of and very loved.) The thing is that since he is so unhinged and the boys are thriving, I have steadfastly refused to give him more time with them. The whole thing really bums me out because if he could find some kind of balance and pull it together, I would be very, very happy to let him spend more time with the kids. As it is all he does is freak them out and make them feel like they are constantly having to justify his behavior – not healthy.

I’m a single dad of two girls (9 & 12), and as of yesterday, I have their full custody.
I’ve been divorced for 5 years and up till now I insisted that we share their custody equally. We did half a week each, that way we both got a bit of a break, as well as be able to spend time with them often. In our house we cook and eat at home mostly, (almost always organic & unprocessed). And I try and involve them with just about everything I’m doing, it’s a way to teach and help them socialize into society.
My little advise would be to spend as much time with them as possible, but also have them equally spend time with their mother. It’s for their benefit. Never speak negatively of their mother. She’s the only mother they’ll ever have, and you want them to think positively of her. And lastly, just love them and the rest will fall in place. Children are very perceptive and can sense when they are loved. And the best thing about it is that it costs nothing!
Best of luck to you!

I have half custody of my girls. Over two weeks, I have them for five nights (Friday until Wednesday), my ex has them for five nights (Wednesday until Monday) and then we each have them for two nights (Monday and Tuesday for me, Wednesday and Thursday for her).

I do the same stuff we did when I was married. Beach, boardwalk, camping, bike riding, skiing, skating, visiting friends and family, arts and crafts, museums, shopping, school stuff, sports, festivals and fairs, etc. We also have days where we do nothing at all.

We eat at home as much as possible. I shop endlessly on Craig’s list for second hand stuff.

I don’t anticipate the schedule changing, unless they want to increase their time with me. It works out pretty good. It is still a little depressing when I drop them off at the baby sitter’s before school after being with them for five days (I’ve been divorced for over two years).

I manage to have a pretty good time without them though.

I’m a single mom with primary physical custody of my three sons. I spend every day they are not at their father’s with them. I work and go to school part-time but have always arranged my schedule around them so I am available to take them to school, pick them up afterwards and be with them in the evenings.
I’m not a gourmet cook by all means but I do know how to cook. We eat at home and though they gripe about it at times (because they eat where ever they want at theirs dads), almost always at the table.

When they were younger I was a stay at home mom, then taught preschool where they went with me. The three boys and I went everywhere together… museums, fairs, library, shopping, parks… lots and lots of parks and picnics. I didn’t have much money so I had to be pretty creative with our activities.
There are many, many special times we had together but one of my favorites is when we’d have birthday parties for their “friends” (stuffed friends, that is). About once a week, one of the boys would tell me it was so-n-so’s birthday. I’d say “It is! OMGosh! We need to have a party!!”. They were always so excited and had so much fun. With three kids, I always had birthday stuff on hand so it was easy to just throw things together with cookies, cupcakes, drinks… whatever we had. I remember once I baked a bunny cake. That was extra fun : ) It probably wasn’t actually once a week but with three of them things were always bing, bing, bing LoL

Now that they are teenagers, we do less and less together. Our relationship is changing. They are somewhat drifting more towards their father and though it makes me a bit sad at times, I do understand.
I still arrange my schedule so I am almost always available for them. They have no set times with their father (his schedule rotates and varies from week to week) so having my schedule set works best for me. They know they can call me anytime and I will be there for them. To me, that is what matters most.

I’m father to two teenagers, they both live with me, but can see there mom fairly frequently.

I pick them up after school, and we just hangout for the afternoon and evening. They do homework or fool around on their computers. If they have an appointment after school, I drive them. If I have errands, sometimes they stay home, sometimes they come with me. We just live life.

If at all possible, we eat dinner together. We don’t eat fast food.