Thinking Outside the Custody Box: Moving Beyond Custody Law to Achieve Shared Parenting and Shared Custody

Abstract

This article argues that custody law alone cannot achieve shared parenting for many couples at the time of breakup. It suggests that the law should be focused on fostering shared parenting itself rather than implementing stronger shared custody rules. To this end, the article recommends that society focus on legal reform that would encourage supportive and cooperative co-parenting from the get-go by parents with a child in common and that would discourage childbearing by couples incapable or uninterested in such a supportive relationship. This article supplements the argument in the author's book, A Parent-Partner Status for American Family Law (Cambridge University Press 2015).

Keywords: custody, family, children, divorce, nonmarital parenting, parent-partners