An opening speaker at the International Conference on Shared Parenting 2017 wondered “How can courts determined the best interests of a child when two parents in an intact family may spend weeks or months arguing about this regarding a particular issue?” [This dovetails with Linda Nielsen’s comment in Real World Divorce that it isn’t possible for a psychologist to figure out which is the better or more important parent within an intact family, so how is a family court judge in one of the winner-take-all states supposed to do this?]
“Conflict” between parents is a common reason for U.S. courts and legislators to deny children a 50/50 schedule with their two parts. The doctrine is that conflict will be less important and/or will be reduced if the children see the loser parent just every other weekend (often trending down from there, especially after a relocation).
But what if conflict is the natural condition of two involved parents? Then courts would be discarding the most involved co-parents.
The ever-rich-in-data Swedes came to the conference with what might be an answer. Malin Bergstrom presented statistics on conflict between parents whose children live in different situations. Guess who fights the most? Parents in nuclear/intact families! Separating and putting the kids on a 50/50 schedule reduces the amount of parent-to-parent conflict. Separating and putting the kids on an every-other-weekend schedule reduces the amount of parent-to-parent conflict yet more.
[Note that these data might be different in the U.S. due to the fact that divorce is typically an administrative proceeding in Sweden and child support payments are limited to about $2,000 per year per child. So children who are on an every-other-weekend schedule does not suggest that there was a big winner-take-all lawsuit with bitter winner (did not get as much cash as hoped) and a bitter loser (greatly reduced standard of living and seldom sees children).]
The news is not all bad for those of us who live with a co-parent: the amount of cooperation tracks the amount of conflict.
Still, the Swedish data suggest a life strategy for those who want to enjoy a conflict-free existence as a parent: have a baby without a partner.
A lot of male programmers study ways to reproduce without a partner. Despite human cloning being just around the corner 30 years ago, they never figured out how to grow a baby outside a woman. Our best option is being 1 of the few with perfect genes, who can donate to a sperm bank. Unfortunately, men owe full child support payments & have no custody of kids born through in vitro fertilization.
Safe places from the other spouse! No wonder college kids are stressed.
donor eggs and a surrogate womb – may be cheaper than child support
Conflict is least with 50-50 custody. Louis C.K. had a comedy routine about it. He talked about how he went on a weekend camping trip with his kid during his week of custody, and it was much easier than anything he did during married life.