Lay judgments about child custody after divorce

Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 1986

The history of divorce law in England and America shows that child custody decisions have tended to be made on the basis of social biases about the nature of men and women, rather than on the basis of the competence of the individual parents or of the best interests of the children. This article traces the history of divorce law with particular attention to child custody from twelfth century England to modern America. The historical flipflop from paternal custody to maternal custody is documented, and the assumptions underlying the prejudices toward paternal and maternal custody are reviewed and compared. Joint custody, when possible, provides a solution to the custody problem. However, sexual stereotypes provide no substitute for meticulous fact-finding when parents cannot agree.

American Journal of Family Therapy, 2011

A model rebuttable legal presumption of equal parental responsibility, defined as children spending equal amounts of time in each parent’s household, in contested child custody cases, is articulated. This model, a unique hybrid of the “approximation standard” and a joint custody presumption, addresses the concerns of critics of each of these presumptions, and serves as a template for legislators and policymakers seeking to establish equal or shared parenting statutes within their jurisdictions. It also removes post-divorce family therapy from the shadows of the adversarial process. Contrary to the claims of equal parenting opponents, it is argued that jurisdictions with shared parenting statutes retaining the indeterminate “best interests of the child” standard have fallen short of full implementation of equal parental responsibility, and that mounting empirical and public support for the presumption warrants a more sustained effort in this regard.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013

Allocations of child custody post-divorce are currently determined according to the Best Interest Standard, i.e. what is best for the child. Decisions about what is best for a child necessarily reflect cultural norms, at least in part. It is therefore useful as well as interesting to ask whether current understandings of the best interest standard align with moral intuitions of lay citizens asked to take the role of judge in hypothetical cases. Do factors such as whether one parent had an extramarital affair influence how respondents would award custody? In the current studies, a representative sample of citizens awaiting jury service was first given a neutral scenario portraying an "average" family. Almost 80% favored dividing custodial time equally between the two parents, replicating earlier findings. Then, in Study 1, they were given a second, Test case, vignette in which either the mother or the father was said to have carried on an extramarital affair that "essentially ruined the marriage". In Study 2, either the mother or the father was said to have sought the divorce, opposed by the other, simply because he or she "grew tired" of the marriage. For both Test cases, our respondents awarded the offending parent significantly less parenting time; about half of our respondents in each Study. The findings indicate that many citizens feel both having an affair and growing tired of the marriage is sufficient cause to award decreased parenting time, reasons for which are explored in the discussion.

Journal of Divorce & Remarriage

The current study presents the findings of an evaluation of Arizona's 2013 revisions to the child custody statutes that directed courts to "maximize" the child's parenting time with both parents. A statewide survey of the four family-law professions (i.e., conciliation court staff, judges, mental health providers, and attorneys) assessed their perceptions of the law four years after implementation. We averaged the ratings across the four professions to obtain a comprehensive perspective that gave equal weight to each profession. Results revealed that the law functions as a rebuttable presumption of equal parenting time; that it is evaluated positively overall and in terms of children's best interests; that it is has a neutral impact on legal and interparental conflict; and that it has led to small increases in allegations of domestic violence, child abuse, and substance abuse.

Child custody cases in the United States are usually settled by appeal to what is taken to be in the children’s best interests. A growing movement for fathers’ rights asserts that an explicit recognition of parental rights should replace this standard, and further that this should lead us to favor split custody arrangements. I argue for the first part of the claim, appealing to the fundamental commitments of political liberalism. But I argue against the idea that this should make a 50/50 split the default custody arrangement. I explain how this proposal would license ongoing, intrusive state intervention, and so undermine the very parental rights it aims to recognize.

Law and Human Behavior, 2001

Findings from comparisons of joint and sole custody families that do not control for predivorce differences in demographic and family process variables (factors that may predispose families to choose or be awarded joint custody) are of limited generalizability, since obtained group differences may be attributable to predisposing (self-selection) factors, custody, or both. This study compared a random sample of 254 recently separated, not-yet-divorced families on 71 predivorce variables that might plausibly differentiate between families awarded joint legal versus sole maternal custody. Twenty such factors were identified and controlled for in subsequent comparisons of 52 sole maternal and 26 joint legal custody families 2 years postdivorce. Families with joint custody had more frequent father-child visitation, lower maternal satisfaction with custody arrangements, more rapid maternal repartnering, and fewer child adjustment problems (net of predivorce selection factors). Moreover, these effects did not appear to be moderated by level of predecree parental conflict. No association between custody and fathers' compliance with child support orders was obtained.

The current study examines differences in demographic characteristics, parental conflict, and nonresidential father involvement between divorcing and unmarried fathers with young children. Participants were 161 families (36 unmarried) with children aged O to 6 years, involved in a larger longitudinal study of separating and divorcing families. Baseline data were gathered from parenting plans, court databases, and parent reports. Results indicated that unmamed fathers were younger, more economically disadvantaged, less well educated, less likely to have theirchil-dren living with them, and had less influence on decision making. Unmarried fathers reported more conflict regarding their attempts to be involved with their children in their day-today activities. Understanding these uniquc char-actenstics and dynamics will help to maximize effective services in the legal system for unmamed couples.

American Journal of Family Therapy, 2012

Sixteen arguments in support of an equal parental responsibility presumption in contested child custody are presented from a child-focused perspective, and clinical and empirical evidence in support of each argument is contrasted to the conflicting evidence. These arguments are made in support of the model equal parental responsibility presumption outlined in Volume 39, Number 5, of The American Journal of Family Therapy.

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2015

Whether a custodial mother's new husband earns more or less than the father, economic realities ensure his income will usually affect the child's financial well-being, sometimes dramatically. The stepfather's daily contact with the child may be more than the father's, possibly burdening his relationship with his child, especially if mother moves with stepfather and child to a distant location. Nonetheless, the law does not usually consider remarriage and moves in setting the father's child support obligation. With remarriage now common, the tension between these traditional rules and economic and social realities may suggest the rules' reform. This paper asks if current law is consistent with citizens' beliefs about what the law should provide. A random sample of citizens was asked to set support amounts across cases with systematically varying facts about the mother's circumstances. The citizenss' preferred rules, inferred from these case decisions and their answers to Likert questions, show considerable support for the law's taking remarriage into account, especially at higher stepfather incomes. The mother's move to a distant location does not alone affect most respondents' support judgments, but it does when combined with either remarriage or an increase in the mother's income. These effects are found in both male and female respondents, although females are less responsive than males to remarriage without relocation. Our respondents appear to consider both social and financial factors in these judgments, and to prefer more rules that are more nuanced than the traditional law's categorical exclusion of remarriage and moves in support judgments.