u/FinalEast9024

I’ve recently found myself in conflict with my ex over what I thought was a fairly ordinary safeguarding concern, and I’m interested in feminist perspectives on it.

My ex’s girlfriend’s father an adult man neither I nor my ex knows particularly well has come to stay for several months in the house where our six-year-old daughter sleeps. I haven’t met him, and my ex had already briefly left our daughter alone with him.

Because I was sexually abused as a child, the situation made me anxious. I asked some questions about the sleeping arrangements and whether this man could potentially access our daughter during the night without her father knowing. My ex is an exceptionally deep sleeper, which added to my concern.

I didn’t accuse this man of being a predator. Our daughter likes him, and I have no evidence that he has done anything wrong. I was asking for a temporary, unobtrusive precaution while an unfamiliar adult was living in the house.

This was also after my ex had previously insisted on meeting my own partner before he was allowed to stay overnight while our daughter was home, a safeguard I accepted without taking it as an accusation against my partner.

My ex’s response included:

“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be in the position of assuming all men are predators.”

His girlfriend then messaged me very angrily, accusing me of directly calling her father a paedophile. I had done no such thing. My concern about the general risk posed by an unfamiliar adult man had suddenly been transformed into a personal allegation I had never made.
The result is that there are now no additional precautions in place, so the original anxiety remains but I’ve also been made to feel as though even raising the subject was abusive or outrageous.

This framing really bothers me. Surely taking proportionate precautions around a risk does not mean believing every member of the relevant group will cause harm? We use seatbelts without assuming every journey will end in a crash. We supervise children around water without assuming they will definitely drown.

The overwhelming majority of men will never sexually harm a child. But sexual abuse does happen, it is frequently committed by someone known to the child, and adults who cause harm generally do not identify themselves in advance. “He seems nice” cannot therefore be our entire safeguarding system.

Women are often told that we should have been more careful when something happens. Yet if we attempt to take precautions beforehand, we’re accused of paranoia, misandry or personally branding an innocent man a paedophile.

It feels like an impossible standard: anticipate danger, but never do anything that acknowledges the danger exists in case it hurts a man’s feelings.
I’m not arguing that children should be taught to fear all men, or that fathers cannot make ordinary parenting decisions.

I’m asking whether “not all men” is being used here to shut down a reasonable discussion about safeguarding.

Where is the line, in your view, between proportionate safeguarding and unfair suspicion? Why does acknowledging a gendered pattern of risk so often get reframed as “assuming all men are predators”?

As a slight aside, I’ve also noticed what seems to be both a generational and political divide in how safeguarding is understood. Younger and more left-leaning people often seem more comfortable viewing precautions as neutral, preventative measures that are not necessarily accusations against any particular person. Older or more right-leaning people seem more likely to interpret the same precautions personally as an insult to a man’s character, an accusation, or simply evidence that the concerned parent is being “weird.”

That is only my personal observation, and I’m sure there are plenty of exceptions, but I’m curious whether anyone else has noticed something similar. Has the growth of ideas such as affirmative consent, trauma-informed practice and institutional safeguarding created a genuine generational difference and cultural divide in how people understand precaution and risk?

My ex and I share a six-year-old daughter. His girlfriend recently moved in. I haven’t met her yet and, until this happened, had never spoken to her. I was then informed that her father, whom I have never met and my ex does not know particularly well, had come to stay at their house for the next few months.
I became anxious about an unfamiliar adult man having potential access to our daughter during the night, particularly because my ex is a very deep sleeper. He had also already briefly left our daughter alone with this man. I was sexually abused as a child, so this kind of situation is especially triggering for me.
My ex and I had previously discussed how we would handle new partners. We agreed that we would wait six months before introducing them to our daughter and that we would meet prospective partners before they stayed overnight while she was there.
I followed this agreement, waiting seven months before making introductions. My ex then insisted on meeting my partner before he stayed overnight while our daughter was home. I accepted this without any issue because I saw it as a fairly normal parental safeguard.
However, when it came to his own relationship, my ex decided that the rules we had agreed upon were arbitrary and unnecessary. I let that go, but I became concerned when a man neither of us knows well began living in the same house as our daughter and was occasionally being left alone with her.
I asked my ex whether he could temporarily turn on the baby monitor camera he used to have in our daughter’s bedroom while she slept, just for the period that his girlfriend’s father was staying there. He already owned the camera, and I only wanted it used at night during the visit.
I asked politely, explained that the request was partly due to my own anxiety and repeatedly stated that I was not accusing his girlfriend’s father of anything personally. I simply wanted a temporary preventative safeguard so that I could feel reassured.
I believed that a precedent had already been set when my partner and I accepted my ex’s request without taking offence, because we understood it as a reasonable safeguarding precaution.
My ex initially seemed willing to use the camera. However, after speaking to his girlfriend, he said that the request was insulting to her father and accused me of interfering. He eventually installed it, so the immediate practical issue was resolved.
His girlfriend then sent me this message:
Hi, I just wanted to address something directly.

My family and I treat YOUR daughter with nothing but kindness, care and respect, and we always communicate with her appropriately. Because of that, the accusations you made about MY father being a paedophile were extremely upsetting and, in my view, completely inappropriate!

I respect that you may have concerns as a mother, but I would ask you not to make accusations about my family or cross my personal boundaries in this way. As I am living with the father of your child, I would appreciate it if any concerns that directly involve me or my family were raised with ME directly.

Thank you for understanding 👍

This was extremely upsetting because I had never accused her father of being a paedophile. I had repeatedly and explicitly told my ex that I was not making any allegation against him personally.
I also thought it was appropriate to raise a concern about our daughter privately with her father, rather than approaching a woman I had never met or spoken to directly about her family.
I replied:

Hi [girlfriend’s name]. I’m sorry this situation has caused you and your family upset, but there has been a serious misunderstanding. At no point did I accuse your father of being a paedophile or make any allegation about him personally. I repeatedly and explicitly told [ex’s name] that I was not accusing him of anything.

I raised a general preventative safeguarding concern with [child’s name]’s father about an adult whom neither parent knows particularly well having potential access to our six-year-old during the night. I asked for a temporary safeguard, which has now been put in place.

[Child’s father] previously asked that my partner not stay overnight around [child] until he had met him. We respected that request and did not interpret it as an accusation. I was asking for the same principle to be applied consistently.

I understand that hearing your father mentioned in a safeguarding discussion may have felt upsetting. However, requesting a neutral precaution is not the same as accusing somebody of paedophilia. It is important to me that such a serious allegation is not attributed to me when I never made it.

I’m genuinely glad that [child] experiences kindness and care from you and your family. I’m very grateful for this. I have no desire to offend anyone or create conflict. I hope we can put this misunderstanding behind us and move forward on good terms.

I understand why she was distressed if she had genuinely been told that I had accused her father of being a paedophile. I don’t blame her for reacting emotionally to that. However, it is a serious misrepresentation of what I actually said.

I’m now concerned that this has created a terrible starting point between us. I want a civil and positive relationship with her because she lives with my daughter’s father and will be an important adult in my daughter’s life.

I’m not trying to control their household or dictate my ex’s relationship. I just want reasonable communication and consistent safeguards concerning our young child.

How do I repair things from here? Should I leave it alone and give everyone time to settle, or reach out later and try to clear the air? I’m willing to acknowledge that the situation was upsetting, but I don’t feel able to apologise for making an accusation that I never made.

How do people deal with this?
My ex now has his partners father living with them which makes me feel anxious bcs I’ve never met ether of them.

I lean towards anxious but my ex is careless and basically has zero anxiety about anything so he dose not understand my discomfort with it and thinks I’m being crazy.

What precautions do people take in these situations generally?
I spoke to a friend who said her brothers co-parent gets him to do Sarah’s law checks on unknown people staying with her child in his home and he thinks that’s an acceptable safeguarding arrangement.

I just asked about sleeping arrangements said I feel a bit uneasy about this man who is a stranger to me being in the house at night with her. And asked if anyone could theoretically access her room at night and he looked at me like I was crazy and was very offended I think.

What do other people feel about this sort of thing?

For transparency I had bad experiences myself in this area which probably heightens my anxiety so it’s hard for me to know when I’m being irrationally anxious about things. He’s aware of this.

Just want to gather the general consensus on it really

My ex and I officially have roughly 50/50 care throughout the year, although in practice I generally have our daughter a bit more — often an extra day or so each week.
The school summer holidays are completely different though. I basically have her full-time. He has her every other weekend, his mum has her one day a week, and he’s taken her overnight a couple of additional times, but essentially I’m responsible for her every day throughout the summer.
I’m a student and don’t receive my student funding over the summer break, so financially this is really difficult. I’m obviously feeding her every day, but I’m also trying to actually give her a nice summer — taking her out, arranging playdates, doing activities etc. Even when you’re trying to do cheap/free things, food, petrol, entrance fees and everything else really add up when it’s every day for weeks.
My ex earns around £50k, roughly five times my income.
There’s also some difficult financial history between us which has made my current situation considerably worse. After we separated, he went on a spending spree and accumulated around £30k of debt before declaring bankruptcy. I’ve subsequently had to spend significant amounts of money dealing with the consequences and protecting assets that were originally purchased entirely with my money. There are complications around ownership because he had put his name on assets during our relationship, despite them having been funded by me. I’m not trying to turn this into a post about the bankruptcy, but it’s relevant because I’m already financially stretched partly as a consequence of decisions he made.
I’ve recently asked whether he could contribute something towards our daughter’s costs over the summer.
I’ve also asked about sharing extracurricular costs. Before we separated, we always said it was really important to us that our daughter had opportunities to do activities she was interested in and that we didn’t want our separation/divorce to change that for her.
Since separating, though, I’ve ended up paying for basically all of her extracurricular activities myself, apart from him paying half of her swimming.
She currently does Stagecoach, which is £180 a term. I’m actually behind on the fees because I can’t afford them at the moment, and I’ve asked him to contribute towards the next term. She’s also interested in starting ballet and archery, and I’d like us to split things like this rather than everything automatically falling to me because the activities happen during my parenting time.
He’s basically saying he doesn’t know what money he can contribute because he’s struggling financially himself.
Around six months ago he moved into a considerably more expensive/upgraded house with his girlfriend after they’d been together for around six months. He’s now told me he’s probably going to have to pay the entire rent himself without her contributing. I don’t know why that’s happening and I’m trying not to make assumptions about her circumstances, but he’s presenting having to cover the rent himself as one of the reasons he doesn’t have money available to contribute.
I understand that earning £50k doesn’t automatically mean someone has unlimited disposable income, and obviously he has his own living expenses. But I’m struggling with the idea that his financial commitments mean he can’t contribute towards his daughter’s everyday costs or activities when I’m on around a fifth of his income and doing the overwhelming majority of the childcare throughout the summer.
I’m not expecting him to fund my life or even necessarily split every little summer expense 50/50. I just don’t think it’s reasonable that I absorb essentially all of the additional costs of having our daughter throughout the holidays simply because she’s physically with me.
Am I being unreasonable expecting him to contribute financially during the summer and towards extracurricular activities? And if you’re separated parents with an arrangement that’s officially around 50/50 but substantially unequal during school holidays, how do you normally handle these costs?
I’m in the UK if that makes a difference legally.

I’m looking for some outside perspectives because I’m not sure if I’m overreacting or if this is a genuine safety concern.
My daughter’s father is taking her abroad today. I only found out the travel plan at the last minute, and it’s made me really uncomfortable.
The plan is to stay awake all day today, not sleep tonight, leave at around 1:30 am, catch a ferry, and then drive for about seven hours with our six-year-old in the back. So he’ll essentially be driving through the night after intentionally not sleeping.
The reason this worries me so much is that when we were together, he was extremely prone to falling asleep unexpectedly. On long journeys I would deliberately stay awake to keep an eye on him because I was worried he’d nod off. He has even fallen asleep in the middle of conversations and arguments before. Sleepiness has always been a significant issue for him.
I know people will probably suggest stopping for a long sleep or delaying the journey if he gets tired. As far as I’m aware, that isn’t the plan. My understanding is that he’ll stop for fuel, food and toilet breaks, but not for a proper sleep before continuing the drive.
The difficult part is that if I raise my concerns now, based on past experience I don’t expect him to change his plans. I think he’ll either tell me it’ll be fine or simply ignore my concerns and carry on as intended.
The problem is that this is so last minute. If I object now, I’d effectively be stopping the holiday, and I don’t want to do that unless my concerns are genuinely reasonable. Equally, if I ignore my instincts and something happened, I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself.
Would this travel plan concern you given that history? Am I being overprotective, or does this sound like a legitimate safety issue?