Shared Parental Responsibility

Abstract

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, our aim is to provide a selective overview and analysis of divorce research in the past five year period (2000-2005), during which important new data on children, families, and divorce have appeared. Much of this data challenges current socio-legal policy and “practice wisdom,” and includes: (1) the emergent perspective of adult children of divorce reflecting upon their experiences and preferences growing up as children of divorce; (2) studies comparing child and family outcomes in joint and sole custody families; and (3) new data on the distribution of child care tasks and responsibilities in families. These data support an approach to postdivorce parenting based on reducing the harms attendant to divorce for children and parents, parental equality, and family autonomy as most in keeping with children's needs and the principle of “the best interests of the child, from the perspective of the child,” which, it is argued, provides a more child-focused standard for child custody determination than current approaches. Second, building on this research foundation, we propose a new model of post-divorce parenting: a “shared parental responsibility” framework, in which parental responsibilities precede custodial rights, and children's “best interests” are addressed by means of identifying both their needs and parental and societal responsibilities corresponding to these needs.