I recently read an article in a magazine in regards to shared parenting. Since it is becoming more and more popular in the courts, and I am going through a battle of my own, I decided to touch on the subject.
In his article, “Shared Parenting is Better than Sole Custody” published in Policy and Practice in March of 2015, attorney at law and child advocate David Levy argues his position on shared parenting versus sole custody. Although Levy is a lawyer and the chief executive officer of the Children’s Rights Council, a child advocacy organization, he doesn’t give fairness to other custody arrangements. He advises parents on legal, financial, and psychological options for custody and also studied law at the University of Florida from 1958 to 1961.
Levy asserts that parents snap and kill themselves and their children over custody disputes and therefore custody of a child should be shared rather than given to one parent over the other. He doesn’t go into the fact that these parents may have deeper psychological issues and that any- thing could have made them snap. He ruins his debate by distorting the truth behind why these parents kill their children and themselves which causes his argument to have very little evidence on why shared parenting is better than sole custody. Although Levy’s background deals with family law, this sole premise does not back up the logos and ethos of his argument.
He also fails to give examples of parents that killed their children and themselves over something completely different than custody disputes or even divorce.
Given his background and the fact he continuously practices law, I would expect Levy to be knowledgeable in opposing viewpoints. With that being said, he does a poor job of providing opposing viewpoints such as: Children living with one parent over the other majority of the time and the benefits from it or cases in which children thrive better with living with one parent more than the other. Although the child isn’t with each parent half of the time, there still are benefits that he doesn’t explore.
Custody disputes do not usually cause parents to kill themselves and their children and shared custody is not always a good thing for the parents and especially the children. Levy also argues that parents should share custody because 13 other states wrote it into their legislation, but what about the 37 other states?
The majority of Levy’s work includes a few subtle premises on why shared parenting is better. The main point Levy tries to argue is that shared parenting alleviates most issues with split family situations. Although Levy’s article lacks appeal in logos and ethos, it does deserve credit in pa- thos, because he does relate the needs of both parents, and is understanding to the fact that the child may want to be with both parents half of the time. But while Levy’s theory of shared parenting may be ideal for some families and situations, it is not ideal for all. Although he argues it will alleviate the murdering of children, this is certainly not the case.
Unfortunately, children will continued to be murdered, families will continue to separate, and unfortunate circumstances will take place regardless of custody arrangements. Levy didn’t have a fair argument from the beginning of his article. It’s just not justifiable that custody should be split due to the sole fact that parents murder their children because of it.
Andrea Dodson, LLCC student