Joint Custody
News Article
Sound Research or Wishful Thinking in Child Custody Cases? Lessons from Relocation Law
Family Law Quarterly, Volume 40 Number 2, Summer 2006, June 1, 2006
Professionals who deal with specific child custody disputes surely seek to advance the children’s best interests, as do the legislators and commentators who address child custody law. Yet there is often profound disagreement about the principles that should guide them, and decision-makers are at a particular disadvantage if—as is increasingly the case—flawed research and inaccurate reviews are offered as improvements on the sound work of others. This article examines these forces in the context of relocation disputes— cases that arise when a noncustodial parent seeks to prevent the custodial parent and their children from moving. It summarizes the relevant legal issues, provides an overview of the credible U.S. research on children’s needs, and critiques the wishful thinking and mistaken analyses that threaten sound outcomes for children. Although it addresses U.S. cases and scholarship, its analysis also applies to relocation disputes elsewhere and, more broadly, to additional aspects of child custody law that require an understanding of children’s needs when their parents do not live together. [SFV note - this article provides a good overview of joint custody literature in general, and then applies that information in the context of relocation concerns.] More
News Article
Father´s Responsibilities Before Father´s Rights
August 1, 2006
Male supremacists promote mandatory joint custody saying "children love, want and need their fathers" and therefore should have equal time with them. But their cookie-cutter solution disregards the individual decisions and needs of separating families while tying judges’ hands, endangering battered women, and placing the father’s interests above the best interest of the children. More
Magazine Article
Not Your Dad's Divorce
Newsweek, December 15, 2008
Joint custody meant that the girls would be spending several nights a week with their dad. Switching would require collaboration and communication about homework and school projects and the thousand other things that kids need from day to day. To make it work, we'd have to live near each other for the next 13 years, until the youngest girl was off to college. It was a commitment not unlike marriage, and, given that feelings were still raw post-divorce More
News Article
Solomon´s Solution
Alternet.org, April 21, 2005
Joint custody is all the rage in courts across the United States, but it doesn't always look as good in practice as it does on paper. Fathers' rights groups lobby for presumptive joint physical custody, which would make joint physical custody the starting point in all divorces, regardless of whether or not joint custody would be appropriate for the families. The Indiana chapter of the Children's Rights Council (a fathers' rights group) has urged the filing of class action suits nationwide calling for a presumption for joint physical custody. While presumptive joint custody looks fair on paper, it should not be applied to families in a cookie-cutter fashion. Custody decisions should be taken into consideration based on an individual families needs on a case-by-case basis. More
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Report
Shattered Hearts: Sexual Trafficking of American Indian Women and Girls in Minnesota
Minnesota American Indian Women's Resource Center, August 1, 2009
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Publication
Parental Alienation: A Rational Approach
NY State Office for Prevention of Domestic Violence Newsletter, June 1, 2009
The fact that divorcing parents often badmouth each other to the children can not justify the damage done to abused and endangered children by PAS and PA accusations. A more rational and fair approach to the claim of PA is presented. More