April 2014

• Author: Robert E. Emery,Andrew Schepard
• Published date: 01 April 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12076
• Date: 01 April 2014

EDITORIAL NOTES

APRIL 2014

SPECIAL ISSUE: AFCC THINK TANK ON SHARED PARENTING—CLOSINGTHE

GAP: RESEARCH, POLICY, PRACTICE, AND SHARED PARENTING

Even outside of Washington, D.C., achieving consensus on the direction of public policy presents

a formidable challenge. So prepare to be disappointed if you were hoping to find that kind of

agreement in this special issue summarizing, evaluating, and extending the discussions of AFCC’s

thirty-two-member Think Tank on Research, Policy, Practice, and Shared Parenting. The Think Tank

Report describes a series of research-based key points on which the multidisciplinary think tank

participants agreed. Nonetheless, that agreement did not extend to how the consensus should be

enacted into legislative or judicial policy to resolve contested parenting disputes.

As members of the think tank ourselves, we are neither surprised nor disappointed by the lack of

consensus on policy. Unlike what seems to happen in Washington, the think tank members at least

engaged in a frank, wide-ranging discussion of the questions and controversies about research, law,

and policy on shared parenting. On behalf of FCR readers and the wider family law community, we

thank the think tank convenors, steering committee, facilitators, reporters, and participants for the

quality of the dialogue that the think tank engaged in. The reader will find those issues and arguments

very well represented by the summaries, commentaries, and articles in this special issue.

Wewill refrain from commenting on the specifics of the think tank or the special issue, as the topics

are covered so thoroughly and so well in the articles that follow. Instead, we would like to offer a few

broad observations. For one, we simply note that, despite our preference for cooperative dispute

resolution, we embrace conflict in the development of public policy. We do not want to paper over

disagreements that are genuine and often substantial. Honest, direct, and respectful disagreement

moves us forward, not backward. That is the kind of disagreement that occurred at the think tank and

in the pages of this special issue. In this spirit, we hope the reader will find that this special issue

represents progress, and perhaps a narrowing of the scope of the disputes, even though it does not

present a consensus.

We also do not wantreaders of the papers in this special issue to give up in despair about the utility

of trying to integrate social science research into legal decision making on shared parenting. Social

science research points out general directions for policy making. Because of social science research,

for example, we havea much more positive view of shared parenting and alternative dispute resolution

than we did before the research was conducted and the results publicized. What we have learned,

however, is that social science research is not a magic bullet to resolve individual cases. It informs

rather than decides. It cannot predict the complex future for parents and children after divorce and

separation with a high enough level to ease doubts about the applicability of the research in particular

cases. Value choices and risk taking in formulating public policy that affects hundreds of complex

families remains inevitable, even as our knowledge base increases.

We also call attention to the undeniable fact that, even after fifty years of rapid change through-

out the industrialized world, we are still in the middle of broad social, cultural, legal, and psycho-

logical upheaval about family life. In the United States, divorce rates still hover close to fifty

percent. About forty percent of children are born outside of marriage, only half to cohabiting

parents. The majority of young people live together prior to marriage, and cohabitation may become

FAMILY COURT REVIEW,Vol. 52 No. 2, April 2014 143–144

© 2014 Association of Familyand Conciliation Cour ts