Earth
Mother Enterprises |
In the overwhelming majority of cases, the interests of children during divorce and after will be best served by changing as little as possible in their lives. Whoever has been the primary caretaker should continue in that role. Children should stay in the home they have known. They should continue to participate in the same activities with the secondary caretaker as much as can creatively be arranged.
Parents should maintain similar economic standards, as they did in the marriage. Alimony and child care should be adjusted regularly to assure equity, so that children will not be tempted to pity or admire one parent over the other for financial reasons.
Either parent should have to give overwhelmingly strong evidence to justify undermining this continuity, which should otherwise be automatically allocated by the courts. The deliberation through mediators should focus on how to make the details work.
For example, if the mother has been the primary caretaker, she should reside in the family home with the children. If the father usually read to the children at night or helped them with their homework, he should continue to play this role.
If the parents are both comfortable enough to have the father come to the children's home to read to them before sleep, then that practice should be continued. If that is not comfortable, then the children can regularly go to the father's home, which should be nearby, to have an evening story read. Children could call for a short talk with dad before going to sleep .
The father, assuming he has played a provider and protector role, should be allowed to continue to play those roles in his children's lives. He should be allowed to buy clothes and groceries directly for the child, for example, so the child sees him as a provider, not just as someone who sends a check to his mother.
He should be called in to be protective, for example, if his children have difficulties with other children or school personnel. The father should do some repairs himself to their home. He may be involved with medical care, if he was previously, in his role as protector and provider.
Even remarriage should not stop a mother from involving a father in their children's lives or forbid father from being protective of the safety and welfare of his children's mother. Generally, in the busy lives of many families, both parents are rarely present simultaneously. That is not what children come to expect and need for security. They do need to experience both their parents as being on the same team, a team which has as its main goal to attend to their needs. This can persist, even when the romance ends.
Much of the rancor of divorce could be ameliorated if parents weren't required to fight to define the post-divorce life, forced to justify continuity for their children. If everyone knew that the courts would expect the least possible change for children, then families would not be traumatized and subjected to an awful period of insecurity during a lengthy and contentious divorce.