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JOINT PHYSICAL CUSTODY Is joint physical custody best — or worst — for children?

SHARED PARENTING After divorce, shared parenting is best for children’s health and development.

MALE SUICIDE Are fathers’ rights a factor in male suicide?

JOINT PHYSICAL CUSTODY Is joint physical custody best — or worst — for children?

BY R O B E RT E M E RY P H . D.

I am a big advocate for joint physical custody. If at all possible, I want children to spend a lot of time - and have good relationships - with both of their parents after a separation or divorce. But there are several problems and potential pitfalls with joint physical custody. I touch on the most important in this entry, including: • • • • • • •

For children, joint physical custody is the best and the worst arrangement.

Joint physical custody is a lousy “compromise” between disputing parents.

Joint physical custody is being used, wrongly, to lower child support payments.

Joint physical custody is not necessarily 50/50.

Joint physical custody requires a lot of logistical coordination.

Joint physical custody is less stable over time than sole physical custody.

Joint physical custody apparently works only for a minority of families.

Before addressing these points, let me be clear about terms. Different people, and different laws in different states and countries, use different words: “custody,” “parenting plan,” “parental rights and responsibilities” etc. I have no investment in a particular term. Parents

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The o l d mo d e l of d ivo rce as a famil y fe u d , wh e re o nl y o ne p are nt raise s and “ow ns” t he c hildre n is, we l l , t he o l d mo d e l . Divo rce d p are nt s c a n be p are nt s eve n if t hey are no l o nge r l ove rs .

living apart need to decide how to divide children’s time between two households (physical custody), and they also need to decide how they will make big and small childrearing decisions (legal custody).

So, you can call these issues “time” and “decisions,” and drop the sometimes controversial term “custody” altogether. I sometimes do just that, but use “custody” here as convenient shorthand.

Another clarification: I think sharing big decisions — joint legal custody — is a no- brainer. Joint legal custody should be a presumption unless there are good reasons not to do it. But note the “big decisions” qualifier. Joint legal custody does not mean that parents get to second guess each other constantly. More on this in a coming blog.

Finally, a little preface about why I like joint physical custody philosophically.

Children have two parents. Most children want to have a relationship with both of their parents after a separation, and most divorced parents want relationships with their children. Family relationships can and do continue despite the many upheavals of divorce. The old model of divorce as a family feud, where only one parent raises and “owns” the children is, well, the old model. Divorced parents can be parents even if they are no longer lovers.

I am a big advocate for joint physical custody. But...

BUT joint physical custody is the best and the worst arrangement for children.

It’s the best when parents can cooperate enough to make joint physical custody work for children. It’s the worst when joint physical custody leaves children in the middle of a war zone. The best research supports this conclusion. In low or controlled conflict divorces, children fare better in joint than in sole physical custody. In high conflict divorces, children do worse in joint physical custody than in other arrangements.

Admittedly, existing research is imperfect and very hard to do. But this “best and worst” conclusion also is commonly held by seasoned practitioners, and it makes good common sense.

BUT joint physical custody is a lousy compromise for disputing parents. Why? Because joint physical custody is the best and worst arrangement for children, and it’s all but certain to be the worst when parents end up in court (because the parents, by definition, aren’t working together).

For judges, this means that joint physical custody may seem like a fair middle ground, but that’s an illusion that keeps kids trapped in the middle. For parents who want it, this means you have to try to work out joint physical custody with your children’s other parent, because wise judges already know CONTINUED ON PAGE 5

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it’s a lousy compromise for children in high conflict divorces.

BUT joint physical custody is being used wrongly to lower child support payments. In my home state, Virginia, for example, child support schedules define joint physical custody as having 90 overnights per year with your child (for the purpose of calculating reduced child support payments). It’s truly amazing how many parents insist that they need 90 overnights with their children. (The magic number differs from state to state, and so do many parents’ demands...) If you really want 90, or more, overnights with your children, let’s talk. If you really want to pay less child support, well, sorry, but raising children is expensive.

BUT joint physical custody is not necessarily 50/50. When I hear a parent insisting on exactly 50/50, I really worry.

I worry that the parent is thinking about getting his or her half of the pie, not about the children. Sure, 50/50 can work. So can lots of different schedules.

I consider about 25% of overnights as being joint physical custody in terms of having enough opportunity to have a rich relationship with your children. That might mean a schedule that is a week on and a week off, Wednesday through Saturday, every Thursday and Friday over night, or dividing the school year and the summers.

And there are a million other options, many of which I discuss in my book, The Truth about Children and Divorce. article continues after advertisement

BUT joint physical custody requires a lot of logistical coordination. Kids forget stuff. Be prepared to drive soccer cleats or the tuba or the antibiotic to your ex’s house. Oh yeah, and kids take short cuts.

Be prepared to communicate regularly with your children’s other parent. What about? Not about your own stuff. About your kids’ stuff. Homework. Weekend plans. Discipline. Stuff like that.

BUT joint physical custody is less stable over time than sole physical custody.

Several studies show this. And this isn’t necessarily a problem. Kids’ needs and desires change. So do parents’ needs and desires. People move. New partners get involved. The changes can make a lot of sense, and changes can make things work better. So file this concern under “something for parents to consider” not under “why you don’t want joint physical custody.”

BUT joint physical custody apparently works only for a minority of families. At any one point in time, maybe 10% of children from divorced families are actually living in joint physical custody. (There really isn’t great research here, but even the highest estimates I’ve seen aren’t much bigger.)

Why is the number small compared to the amount of talk about joint physical custody?

I think it’s for all the reasons I’ve discussed.

Joint physical custody is definitely

an option to consider - it’s my preferred option for cooperative parents. But it’s only one of many options that can work for divorced parents and for children.

Robert Emery, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Children, Families, and the Law at the University of Virginia. He is the author of over 150 scientific publications and several books.

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After divorce, shared parenting is best for children’s health and development

BY R I C H A R D A . WA R S H A K , P H . D. As a young psychology intern in the late 1970s, my first patients were boys from divorced homes, suffering from what was then called “father hunger.” In those days, when parents split up, dads fell by the wayside. Fathers saw their children at the mothers’ discretion. This customary fallout from divorce reflected the belief that mothers are supremely important while fathers are expendable. We’ve come a long way since then.

Observing the problems that were being attributed to divorce, my colleagues and I began conducting studies in the late 1970s to learn how to help children cope better when their parents parted ways.

The results of our research in Texas, supported by the National Institute for Mental Health, converged with studies in California, Virginia, and Arizona. The message from this work was clear: children and their fathers usually (though not always) wanted and needed more time together than they were getting. All signs pointed to the benefits for most families of having two parents involved in children’s lives who jointly maintained responsibility for their care. This is what is now called shared parenting.

Toward the end of the 20th century, divorce decrees offered children visits with their father every other weekend.

The term visits captured the transformation of dad into something like an uncle,

where the children are guests in his home.

Dad became an entertainment director: The contacts were fun, but the texture and depth paled in comparison to a realistic parent- child relationship. At that time, only a handful of studies had peered into families in which divorced parents shared custody.

We now have more than 50 studies of joint physical custody. Using different methods, and examining families in the United States and abroad, the results are encouraging: children who spend at least 35 percent time with each parent, rather than live with one and visit the other, have better relationships with their fathers and mothers and do better academically, socially, and psychologically. As will be described next week at the International Conference on Shared Parenting in Boston, they get better grades; are less likely to smoke, get drunk, and use drugs; and are less susceptible to anxiety, depression, and stress- related illnesses.

Despite the obvious benefits of shared parenting, gender barriers don’t crumble easily and legal reform doesn’t usually happen without pushback. Although critics of shared parenting concede that children whose parents share physical custody enjoy many advantages, they reason that these children do better because their parents have more money and less conflict, not because their chilCONTINUED ON PAGE 9

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dren spend nearly equal time with each parent. The critics also believe that if one parent opposes shared custody, it’s a bad plan for that family.

Linda Nielsen, a professor of educational and adolescent psychology at Wake Forest University, drilled into the research to test these ideas. She found that children whose parents share physical custody have better outcomes even when one parent initially opposed the arrangement and even when conflict between the parents was high. And the benefits of shared parenting were independent of the parents’ income. The lesson from her work?

To ensure better outcomes for children of divorced parents, focus on improving the quality of their relationships with each parent by maximizing the time spent with each of them.

Most psychologists recognize the importance of keeping both parents actively involved in their children’s lives. But some draw the line when it comes to young children. Many people still think that moms should care for infants and toddlers and that we jeopardize children’s wellbeing if we trust dads with the job.

In practice, this means that young children whose parents split up spend every night in their mother’s home. Sleeping overnight at dad’s house is prohibited, even though the same child sleeps at day care, naps at dad’s house on Saturdays, and has sleepovers at grandma’s.

This blanket restriction continues even though dads push the baby stroller a lot more today than ever before in history. In dual- earner families, fathers account for 41 percent of the total time that both parents engage with their infants. This is good news for their children.

Fathers benefit from on-the-job experience just as mothers do. They learn to read their baby’s signals and respond sensitive-

ly. Fathers may even have a greater impact than mothers in some areas such as language development and persistence in facing challenging obstacles — the “can do” attitude that is essential to success.

To assess where science stands on the issue of shared parenting and overnights for young children, I spent two years reviewing the relevant scientific literature and vetting my analyses with an international group of experts. This work, published in an American Psychological Association journal, was endorsed by 110 leading researchers and practitioners.

Here are the two main conclusions: First, shared parenting should be the norm not just for children whose parents live together, and not just for older children, but also for children of all ages whose parents live apart from each other. Children need a father, not an uncle-daddy. Second, if we want to give children the best chance for normal relationships with their fathers, limiting fathering time to daytime hours until children enter kindergarten is not the way to do that.

To be sure, shared parenting is not for all families after divorce. But there’s a general consensus that it is good for many of them.

If we value dad soothing his fretful baby at 3 a.m. or reading “Goodnight Moon” to his toddler while the parents are living together, why deprive the child of these expressions of fatherly love just because the parents no longer live together, or just because the sun has set?

RICHARD A. WARSHAK, PH.D. is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and the author of “Social Science and Parenting Plans for Young Children: A Consensus Report” and “Divorce Poison: How To Protect Your Family From Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing.”

Coming soon to Fathers' Rights Monthly...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Submitted letters are to be sent to cdoran@tfrm.us with the subject line listing "Letter to the Editor." Not all letters will be published and we ask that you do not use any names in ongoing cases.

NOVEMBER 2018 | FATHER’S RIGHTS MONTHLY | PAGE 9

ARE FATHERS’ RIGHTS A FACTOR IN MALE SUICIDE?

BY W E N DY M C E L R OY

In the early morning hours of Jan. 7, 43-year-old Derrick K. Miller walked up to a security guard at the entrance to the San Diego Courthouse, where a family court had recently ruled against him on overdue child support.

Clutching court papers in one hand, he drew out a gun with the other.

Declaring: “You did this to me,” he fatally shot himself through the skull.

Miller’s suicide is symbolic of a frightening global trend: an alarming rise in male suicides. According to a round of studies conducted in North America, Europe and Australia, one reason for the increase may be the discrimination fathers

encounter in family courts, especially the denial of access to their children.

If a similar rise in female suicides was occurring, a public crusade would demand a remedy. Yet the extraordinarily high rate of male suicide is rarely discussed.

What are the statistics? According to a 1999 surgeon general’s report, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in America, with men four times more likely to kill themselves than women.

The prevalence of male suicide is not restricted to North America. An Australian study offered similar statistics. Of 2,683 suicides in Australia in 1998, 2,150 were males, making suicide the second leading

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cause of death among 25- to 44-year-old men. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that the suicide rate for men aged 20 to 39 years has risen by 70 percent over the last two decades.

Statistics from Ireland and the United Kingdom indicate rates of male suicide as high as five times that of women. Indeed, a recent study found that suicide was the leading cause of death for Irish men between 15-34 years old.

The research also points to a probable cause. According to sociologist Augustine Kposow of the University of California at Riverside, divorce and loss of children is a factor. “As far as the [divorced] man is

concerned, he has lost his marriage and lost his children and that can lead to depression and suicide,” Kposow advises.

The Australian study’s suggested reasons for some of the suicides include “marriage breakdown.”

“There is evidence to suggest that many men sense they are being discriminated against in family court judgements,” the study says. Cut off from their children, divorced men experience heightened “frustration and isolation.”

Yet, the motivation for male suicide remains a matter for speculation because little research has focused on the subject.

Telling the stories of such forgotten men

“A s far as t he [d ivo rce d ] m a n i s co nce r ne d , he has l o st his m a rri a ge and l o st his c hil d re n and t h at ca n l e ad to d e p re ssio n and s u i ci de .”

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has been left largely to fathers’ rights Web sites.

There you read about Warren Gilbert who died of carbon monoxide poisoning, clutching a letter from the Child Protective Service. Or Martin Romanchick — the New York City police officer who hanged himself after being denied access due to charges brought by his ex-wife, which the court found to be frivolous.

Or Darrin White, a Canadian who hanged himself after being denied access because he could not pay child support that was twice his take-home pay. His 14-year-old daughter wrote a letter to the Canadian prime minister in which she pointed to “the frustration and hopelessness caused in dealing with Canada’s family justice system” as the “biggest factor” in her father’s death.

“I know my father was a good man and a good father... obviously reached a point where he could see that justice was beyond his reach and for reasons that only God will where he could see that justice was beyond his reach and for reasons that only God will know, decided that taking his life was the only way to end his suffering,” Ashlee White wrote. Ashlee signed the letter “In Memory of My Loving Father.”

Are family court systems deeply biased against fathers? I believe so. But discussing the matter is almost a taboo.

How prevalent is the silence? When did you last hear a discussion of whether a “father” should have any voice in abortion? Even raising the issue draws derisive and dismissive responses. Yet if men are forced to bear legal responsibility for children, then it is not absurd to ask whether they should have some prerogatives as well.

The point here is not how the question should be answered.

The point is that the question should be asked.

Derrick Miller may be a poor choice as a cause celebre for fathers’ rights. His suicide may have been triggered by mental illness or by drug abuse. Yet Miller is symbolic not merely of the discrimination against fathers but also of the discrimination encountered by men’s mental health issues.

For example, the National Organization for Women showed no reluctance in championing the mentally disturbed Andrea Yates who killed her five children — a much more heinous act.

But Yates is a woman and will be viewed as a de facto “victim” by a significant portion of society — even in the shadow of her infants’ dead bodies. Conversely, Miller is a man and he carries one of the greatest social stigmas: deadbeat dad. Thus, even the dramatic circumstances of his suicide prompted only six paragraphs in The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The stakes are too high for the media to remain disinclined to comment. As men’s rights activist James R. Hanback Jr. remarked in an article about Miller, “No matter who you are or where you live, chances are there is a man in your life ... who has been through some of the pain and anguish associated with divorce, child custody, or child support battles.”

Male suicide must be confronted honestly before America follows the way of Ireland, before suicide becomes the leading cause of death in young men. And, perhaps, in a man you know and love.

WENDY MCELROY is the editor of ifeminists.com. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the forthcoming anthology Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.

We are not attorneys. We are not counselors. We are fathers. We are willing to talk if you are.

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PAGE 12 | FATHER’S RIGHTS MONTHLY | NOVEMBER 2018

ATTORNEY TIP

BY C AT H E R I N E S T U C K A RT, E S Q.

Journaling remains an important tool for Court and for self-protection. It allows you to give the Judge specifics — dates, times, conversations and so on. You will not remember all the details — but ink on paper will. Being able to document exactly what went on to the Judge may well spell the difference between victory and defeat.

In addition, one of the most common strategies used by women is a criminal charge of stalking. You can be accused of stalking simply by being in the same place as your ex, or your ex can just make up a story. This can occur either during the court battles or afterwards. To protect yourself, keep a journal of where you go, with times, dates and locations. This especially helps you if your ex got an Order of Protection against you- another frequent scenario in child custody cases.

Be sure to print in your journal. Judges like an easy read.

NOVEMBER 2018 | FATHER’S RIGHTS MONTHLY | PAGE 13

Fathers' Rights is a monthly newsletter published by The Fathers' Rights Movement. As a collective movement, we are passionate about empowering fathers to stand up for their rights and to educate the public and family court system about the importance of fathers in society, as well as bring greater awareness to the imbalances and injustices that affect the rights of fathers. For more information about The Fathers' Rights Movement, visit our website www.tfrm.us.

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