Shared parenting literature review from Michael Lamb: is the main point of social science research to bolster personal prejudice?

Michael Lamb, a professor of psychology at Cambridge University (“the real Cambridge”), gave a literature review with historical perspective at the International Conference on Shared Parenting 2017.

The highest-level perspective:

  • “hundreds of papers show a higher risk of maladjustment in children when parents have separated.” (note the genteel phraseology for what might have been a pretty interesting “separation” that was unlikely to be mutual!)
  • maintaining a relationship with both parents minimizes the risk and the bad effects of parental separation

[So we can already conclude that the U.S. will have the highest proportion of maladjusted citizens because (1) we have the highest percentage of children living without both parents, and (2) a family law system that, in most states, discourages regular contact with the loser parent.]

To stay within his 30-minute slot, Lamb concentrated on “attachment theory” and, in a winner/loser parent system, the question of whether or not young children should spend overnights with the loser parent. In a family law system that consumes 3 percent of GDP, why would toddler overnights be worth a special focus? Litigators told us that cash-motivated plaintiffs tend to sue when the youngest child is 2 years old. This is the point at which a second adult in the household is less useful because (a) the child can be parked with day care, (b) the child can be parked with an iPad or TV, or (c) the child can be parked with a babysitter in the evening. In the “preserve and extend the status quo states” the winner parent from the first round of litigation is generally guaranteed to retain winner parent status until the child ages out of the child support system, age 18-23. Preventing the child from spending overnights with the loser parent is an important first step in severing the relationship with the loser parent, which is helpful for keeping the cash flowing and also with getting court permission to relocate.

Courts have historically awarded winner status to the mother, who is also typically the plaintiff in a divorce or custody lawsuit, with young children spending 100 percent of their overnights with the mother and enjoying occasional visits with the father (though that tenuous relationship often withers away to nothing). In the old days it was enough to say “the kids go with the mother because she is the mother,” but in a nominally gender-neutral legal system it became necessary to find more elaborate theories for why the outcomes should continue to park children exclusively with mom.

Lamb explained that “attachment theory” suggests that attachment forms at 7-8 months “usually to both co-resident parents.” Courts would then deny children overnights with the loser parent (father) not because courts hated fathers but because they were concerned that a young child spending overnights with the loser parent would have a problem attaching to and/or maintaining an attachment to the winner parent (mom).

Lamb described Solomon and George, 1999. He explained that the frequent citation of this paper by family court practitioners was problematic because the population was not representative. It is about biological parents who barely knew each other, often having separated before the child was born and certainly prior to the 7/8-month attachment threshold. Of the fathers with whom children spent overnights, 86 percent of them were under restraining orders obtained by the mothers (compared to 100 percent of the fathers who were blocked by the court from caring for children overnight).

Australian judges denying young children overnight time with their fathers rely on work by Mcintosh, Smyth, and Kelaher (2010). Lamb found the study flawed due to lack of information regarding whether or not the separated parents had ever lived together and, if so, how old the child was at the time of separation. He noted that the children who were supposedly being harmed by overnights with their fathers had the same scores for “vigilance” and “irritability” as the children in intact families. Lamb pointed out that the study showed no differences on teacher- or observer-reported behavior for young children and that, by age 4, there were no differences at all, even including reports from mothers.

Tornello, Emery, et al. (2013) is another popular paper that is cited to deny children overnight access to fathers. Lamb noted that the population is also not representative of typical family court litigants. For example, 70 percent of the parents were not living together when the children were born and 85 percent were black or Hispanic. The survey was designed for use by trained observers, but the researchers asked mothers to fill it out themselves. The researchers concluded that children who spent overnights with fathers were less attached to their moms, but they included children who spent 5 out of every 7 nights with their fathers in this group of children who “visit fathers.” So basically they found that children who spend most of their time with Parent A are less attached to Parent B. One curious data point was that the children with the best behavior and adjustment lived exclusively with their dads (see also the Spanish children who were happiest when they lived with two fathers!).

In Lamb’s opinion, one of the best studies on the subject of toddler overnights was Fabricius and Suh (2017), which found a more or less linear relationship between overnights with the father and quality of relationship with the father while at the same time, at least up to a 50/50 shared schedule, there was minimal/positive impact on the relationship with the mother.

The audience, many of whom get paid to show up in court as expert witnesses from time to time, did not see decades of courts using obviously-flawed research as an indication that litigation might not be the best way to resolve questions about a child’s schedule. Instead they hoped that the judges and psychologists involved in adjudicating custody disputes would upgrade to relying on the latest and best research.

At one point in the conference, however, I asked “aren’t there enough papers that a Guardian ad litem, judge, or expert witness can find at least one study to justify any personal prejudice or to support one side in a case?” The answer was, of course, “yes” and nobody had a clear explanation for how the use of social science would result in different outcomes compared to judges simply ruling according to personal inclination or prejudice. In fact, I said “Wouldn’t children who’ve been through the family court mill actually be better off if none of this research existed? Common sense would have suggested that a child who never spends overnights with the father is unlikely to develop a close or even a real relationship with that father. Without support from social scientists, judges might have been reluctant to sever the father-child relationship.” The social scientists at the conference didn’t disagree, but pointed out that if results were communicated to the public and judges there might be a change either to legislation, e.g., mandating 50/50 shared parenting (such as has happened in Arizona and Nevada), or in the personal prejudice of judges, such as has happened in Pennsylvania (moved to a 50/50 shared parenting default without any change in the “best interests” standard).

Readers: What do you think? Is the main point of social science to justify conclusions that would otherwise seem absurd? We have a subset of social scientists ready to tell us that when costs for low-skilled labor are pushed up by minimum wage laws, businesses won’t cut back on their use of low-skilled labor (examples). We have a subset of social scientists ready to tell us that we can offer people free housing, health care, food, and smartphones conditional on them not working and yet they will remain eager to work.

Related:

  • Steven Pinker in Blank Slate (2003): “”The denial of human nature has spread beyond the academy and has led to a disconnect between intellectual life and common sense. I first had the idea of writing this book when I started a collection of astonishing claims from pundits and social critics about the malleability of the human psyche: that little boys quarrel and fight because they are encouraged to do so; that children enjoy sweets because their parents use them as a reward for eating vegetables; that teenagers get the idea to compete in looks and fashion from spelling bees and academic prizes; that men think the goal of sex is an orgasm because of the way they were socialized. The problem is not just that these claims are preposterous but that the writers did not acknowledge they were saying things that common sense might call into question. This is the mentality of a cult, in which fantastical beliefs are flaunted as proof of one’s piety. That mentality cannot coexist with an esteem for the truth, and I believe it is responsible for some of the unfortunate trends in recent intellectual life. One trend is a stated contempt among many scholars for the concepts of truth, logic, and evidence. Another is a hypocritical divide between what intellectuals say in public and what they really believe. A third is the inevitable reaction: a culture of “politically incorrect” shock jocks who revel in anti-intellectualism and bigotry, emboldened by the knowledge that the intellectual establishment has forfeited claims to credibility in the eyes of the public.”

10 thoughts on “Shared parenting literature review from Michael Lamb: is the main point of social science research to bolster personal prejudice?

  1. ” One curious data point was that the children with the best behavior and adjustment lived exclusively with their dads (see also the Spanish children who were happiest when they lived with two fathers!).”

    Determining if and why spending time with the father is beneficial goes against may PC problems of pointing out M/F differences. Do any authors put forth explanations as to why this may be?

    And don’t forget the subset of social scientists who say we don’t have enough money for important cause A but can also bring in lots more people who will need our money to support.

  2. I raised three children, sometimes with shared parenting, sometimes exclusively, and socialized with many other single parents. My experience is anecdotal.

    A major problem with shared parenting is the difficulty in disciplining the children when they become teenagers. Teenagers become adept at playing the two parents against each other. Want the child to stay home and study on weekdays? The child tells mom that you’re too strict and don’t trust her. Very easy for mom to convince herself the child is right and would be better off with her. Child moves in with mom. One year later, mom realized she was played. Child moves back in with dad. Rinse and repeat.

    Therapists say the solution is to present a united front with the children and to never lie or keep secrets from the other parent. Very few divorced couples manage to do this, much to the detriment of the children.

  3. Brian: If it is possible for a child to “move in with” a parent then I think you’re using a different definition of “shared parenting” than the researchers (week-on, week-off).

    “Very few divorced couples do X”. I’m not sure that statements of this form make sense given that “divorce” itself is a completely different process in different jurisdictions. Two New York or California residents who litigated to financial exhaustion in those winner-take-all courthouses aren’t necessarily going to behave the same as two residents of France or Sweden who went to City Hall and filled out a form.

  4. I have the impression that a lot of this social science is crap. In particular, psychologists present “attachment theory” as one of the most scientific things in the whole field. From what I can see, this scientific status is based almost entirely on the fact that the theory has some experiments that can be replicated.

    The trouble with the theory is in the supposed therapeutic and policy implications. These are nearly always completely unscientific, and don’t really follow from the replicable experiments.

  5. Most psychology studies are irreproducible.

    http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248

    The goal of most social science is to provide junk science to the bureaucrats in the courts and other government bodies. If the work strays from feminist orthodoxy, generally the scientist who produced the heterodoxical findings will be shunned, ostracized, de-funded, etc. Domestic violence research provides multiple examples of this.

    http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V74-gender-symmetry-with-gramham-Kevan-Method%208-.pdf

    http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V71-Straus_Thirty-Years-Denying-Evidence-PV_10.pdf

  6. PJay: Interesting links, I wasn’t familiar with all the work of Murray Straus. Do you think there can be much hope that things will get better in regards to viewpoint suppression about partner violence the future?

  7. Phil:

    Why bother with this. Isn’t the institution of marriage and the family court adjudication flawed beyond repair? Why fix a condemned building?

    Men need to rethink proposing and forego marriage for a prolonged period for any meaningful change to come to the institution.

  8. PJay: Well, from the point of view of psychologists who get paid to testify in family court, the U.S. family court system is not flawed! A French, Swedish, or Danish administrative divorce is flawed!

    As far as higher earners rethinking marriage, that’s already happened! Women are statistically extremely reluctant to marry lower-earning men, for example, and men are seeking to avoid marriage in sufficient quantities that lawyers and politicians are rewriting family law so that property division and alimony lawsuits can be filed after, e.g., two years of alleged cohabitation (see Scotland and British Columbia). Child support laws were already rewritten to make children of unmarried sexual encounters just as lucrative as children of a marriage.

    I don’t think it makes sense to talk about “marriage” without reference to a jurisdiction. Marriage in California, Massachusetts, or New York exposes the victim to a lifetime of litigation. Marriage in Nevada, on the other hand, might be terminated amicably because of their 50/50 custody default and capped child support profits ($13,000/year max per child). When you look at international jurisdictions the question of what a “marriage” is becomes even more variable. A plaintiff can get more after a day of marriage in England than after 40 years of marriage in Germany.

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