FULL REPORT

Joint Custody: Is it Good for the Children?	February 3, 1989

Report Outline
Special Focus

Introduction

Perhaps nothing says as much about the changing roles of men and women as what couples do with their children upon divorce. In the last 20 years, as part of the drive for equality of the sexes, a new post-divorce family structure came about: joint custody. Divorced fathers and mothers were to share equally in the upbringing of their children. Nearly everyone agrees that such custody arrangements sometimes work. But there is now a battle raging over whether they should be imposed on couples when one parent objects. Will the children suffer because of logistical nightmares? Can parents put aside their bickering to raise their children well?

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Overview

In the 1970s, when progressive-minded couples were striving for sexual equality in marriage, a new family form emerged as a way to preserve parental equality after divorce. Joint custody, as this new approach was known, allowed the children of divorced parents to spend equal periods of time with both parents. For some children this meant spending half the week at Mom's house and half the week at Dad's; for others it meant alternating weeks or months at each parent's home.

At first, joint-custody arrangements were concentrated among two-career professional couples, who often had a radically different view of marriage from that of their parents' generation. Joint custody, which gave parents equal responsibility for raising the children and equal time to be away from the children, perpetuated the idea that domestic and job duties should be split equally between the sexes. Parents experimenting with joint custody hoped, too, that the arrangement would spare their children some of the worst traumas of traditional divorce—the lifelong loss of a father and bitter fights over custody.

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