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Joint custody has become the darling of courts and fathers' rights groups despite the fact that little outcome research has been done on these types of "agreements."
Some research indicates that after a brief period of actual shared custody, custody defaults to the more usual pattern of mom as the primary caregiver. This results in a financial hardship for such moms since the "joint order" typically negates any financial support from the father. This is the principal reason that rabid fathers' rights group insist upon joint custody despite the fact that they have no long term interest in doing the actual physical work of child rearing. Some of these guys break "joint custody" right down to the minute so that they don't have to pay child support at all. Apparently divvying children up like the CD collection makes sense to them. This type of bickering over father's rights is what prompted a recent Canadian Supreme Court decision that no one has "rights" to parent--a decision that for the moment has taken the wind out of the sails of some very nasty fathers' rights groups. Initial enthusiasm for joint custody amongst judges and court-appointed mediators arose from a small group of unique parents whose breakup was quite amicable--with BOTH parents entering into such agreements voluntarily. This means that in the truest sense of the word, these agreements were truly "joint" agreements. Both parents jointly agreed to a custody agreement wherein they would "jointly" raise the child, sharing both the costs and the care of the children. Such parents, though, are really quite rare. This situation typically occurs when there was no hostility over the break up and no abuse during the relationship. These rare folks got along so well one wonders why they broke up in the first place! I had some friends who took this approach way back in the early '80s. They really only broke up because their relationship wasn't quite as fulfilling as they had expected--which always seemed kind of lame to me when you have a child to think about. But, some people make these kind of decisions. It turned out they made better friends than lovers so they jointly agreed to divorce and remain friends and co-parents. What a great outcome for a kid! What a simple equation: Joint decision to divorce plus joint decision to joint custody equals two parents maturely agreeing to raise a child in peace and harmony with none of the endless court battles that seem to occur for others--sounds like a philosophy that could end all suffering. |
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