I'm pretty sure this will get lost on you, but I was just cleaning up stuff in my computer and came across tbe last of this and decided to unload it:
But even the courts are increasingly favoring joint custody, instead of choosing one parent over the other. Recently a divorced couple in Boston made headlines when an Appeals Court ruled that the mother and father would rotate school years, so that one parent gets the child during the school week and the other parent gets the child for the weekends for one year. Then the parents will reverse the schedule the next year. Both parents had asked for sole custody.
Joint custody is now the preferred and presumed custody arrangement in 26 states and the District of Columbia. And more than one out of five divorces has shared parenting arrangements, says a 1997 report from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Joint custody has become a preferred custody arrangement over the last 20 years or so. It is presumed to be
the preferred custody arrangement under some state statutes. It also reflects the reality that in many situations, there have been de facto joint custody arrangements through the efforts of both parents to provide the best situation for their child post-divorce, even though one parent had been awarded
sole or full custody.
While definitions of joint custody will vary, the common elements are that the parents share the legal responsibilities and the physical care and custody of their child. Joint custody arrangements can take many, many forms, and there are a multitude of factors for you to take into account when considering a joint custody arrangement including the ability to cooperate shared by you and your spouse, physical limitations, expenses, and your child's preferences and needs.
When was the last time that absent gross misconduct, abandonment or imprisonment by the other party sole custody of the minor children was awarded to your client?
With the decreasing number of cases that are tried to conclusion in the family part, sole custody of the children in one or the other parent is almost unheard of. Has sole custody truly been done away with in all but the most extreme cases?
Notwithstanding what appears to be an unrestricted ability to fashion custodial arrangements in the best interest of the child, in the preamble to this statute, the Legislature is clear as to the public policy goals that guide the court's award. It states, "The Legislature finds and declares that it is in the public policy of this State to assure minor children of frequent and continuing contact with both parents after the parents have separated or dissolved their marriage and that it is in the public interest to encourage parents to share the rights and responsibilities of child rearing in order to effect this policy."
Id. N.J.S.A. 9:2-4
Having one parent - the parent entrusted with the children during the majority of the time,
the parent who knows the children best (knows their doctors and takes responsiblitey to take them, school schedules and after school activites, teachers, homework, clothing, preparing meals and other factors)- given the final say to make the decisions when no agreement is possible, has the salutary effect of ending litigation and reducing the court's intrusion into the family life. And after all, isn't that in the best interest of the children?
Whether by choice or out of necessity, more single men are taking active roles in parenting. According to the United States Census Bureau, 1,060,000 households were run by single fathers in 1980. By 1994, the number had doubled to 2,286,900. In1996, 12.4 million fathers were reported to be heads of households in the United States.
Historical Custody
A man in the 1800s could very well outlive his wife. Many women died during childbirth and the fathers along with other family members raised the children.
Divorce during this time was not common, but it did exist.
When divorce occurred, fathers usually received custody of the children because men enjoyed a social status that women did not. Many men worked their own farms and did not need to leave their households to go to work.
Courts saw fathers as better prepared to support children after divorces, and men received custody.
In years past, custody of minor children often automatically went to the mother, but with more than half of American mothers in the work force today, judges often decide on the child's best interest. Maricopa County (Arizona) Judge Kenneth Fields says, "New domestic relations judges are trainined to to be as blind to gender as possible in deciding custody."
Some men simply feel a need to nurture children, a longing that single women have fulfilled for decades.
The 1980s and 1990s have seen a rise in men who want to be single fathers by choice. Adoption is a very difficult and expensive process for single people and particularly for single fathers.
Questions arise such as: How stable will the prospective home be? If the father must work, who will provide child care? Is a single man willing and able to raise a mixed-race child or a handicapped child? These are questions single women seeking to adopt have faced for years.
Employers, Society vs the Court System
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of discrimination in child custody is found, not in the court system, but with employers and society .Although many single mothers work full time,
employers often hesitate to hire a single father. Most men are questioned about the responsibilities of holding a family together alone.
Employers hesitate, knowing that work is not the single father's main priority. The same
employer may hire a single mother but fails to realize that single fathers encounter problems just as single mothers do.
Stereotypes that cause some men to ridicule other men for taking on "women's work" when they could continue to lead carefree bachelor lives do not help single fathers. Newsweek reporter Jean Seligmann says.
Although the number of single fathers has increased dramatically in the last two decades, questions and doubts remain.
A society that is taught that the mother is the nurturing parent and the father is the breadwinner and disciplinarian is slow to accept and adjust to a phenomenon such as single fathers.
But with one of every two marriages failing, someone must provide children with a stable home. Sometimes that best someone is the father.
Sole custody is not commonly granted except in cases where the child is found to be abused by the unfit parent.
A Growing Phenomenon
Newsweek
Lawyers.com
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