Customer Reviews

The Best Parent Is Both Parents: A Guide to Shared Parenting in the 21st Century

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This book surveys a lot of research on joint and sole custody and gives the reasons why children do better when they have both of their parents in their lives. There is enough material in here for any parent to know what to say to his/her lawyer or to the judge as to why he/she wants joint custody. There is also ample information in this book to enable parents to draw up shared parenting agreements. There is also an index of the custody laws in all 50 states, and an index of mediation statutes and practices in all 50 states. A terrific book!

Great advice on dealing with custody issues - especially if the father wants to be as involved as the mother.

I'm not sure why it's taken about 200 years for us to figure out that kids need both parents, that fathers father differently than mothers mother and that both ways are good. Obviously, there are some parents who are horrible, but despite what you'll hear in custody court that generally isn't true.

Courts are moving more and more toward shared parenting and equal (or more equal) parenting time shares. Here in California, the assumption is that it's 50/50 unless someone can prove otherwise. I know it's not that way ---yet---in some other states, but that's where we're headed.

Some of this book is a little antiquated and some of it relies a little too heavily on statistics, but it's certainly headed in the right direction. For example, it cites studies from the 70's when really the emphasis in any given case ought to be each parent's relationship with the child and improving the quality of that relationship. Those statistical arguments might be great for a legal brief, but they're not going to help you if you're not working toward being a great parent.