Word: joints
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
More divorced parents are agreeing to joint custody...
...growing number of divorced parents are pushing for a more balanced solution to the question of who gets the kids: joint custody by both parents. Six Texas fathers and a group called Fathers for Equal Rights have brought a class-action suit against all the district court judges in the state, arguing that the denial of joint custody violates the principle of due process. A decision in the case, first of its kind to go to trial, could come at any time. Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin and North Carolina have laws authorizing joint custody, and a dozen other states, including...
Until the 1920s, courts generally presumed that custody should go to the father as head of the family. Then, as ideas about the crucial role of the mother in child rearing took hold, courts switched to a presumption that the child belongs with the mother. Believers in joint custody now say that the prejudice in favor of mothers is built on outdated sex roles: women should stay at home, fathers are poor at nurturing and generally wish to be free of children after divorce. Today, however, about 60% of divorced women work outside the home, and the women...
Newer research, however, challenges that assumption. The National Institute of Mental Health is preparing a favorable report about the effects of joint custody on children. A Virginia study of 96 couples and their children associated father absence with disruptions in the children's social and school life. Christine Rosenthal, a Brandeis University sociologist who studied 127 joint-and sole-custody fathers, was impressed by how well the arrangements worked among those who remarried. And a New York study of 40 divorced men found that joint-custody fathers were happier, closer to their children and had fewer problems with...
...observers agree that joint custody works only if parents can detach child rearing from post-divorce resentments. That is no easy trick. Jerry and Jan LeClaire waited two years for the rancor that accompanied their divorce to fade before moving to joint custody. Now their daughter Lisa, 8, spends summers with her father and his new wife in Chaska, Minn., and the rest of the year with her mother in Plymouth, 25 miles away. The parents admit that Lisa is still a bit confused: she has two homes, two wardrobes, two sets of rules, and two sets of friends, neither...