Mediate Michigan

Parenting is generally evolving as gender-neutral, but the “Tender Years” assumption — the consensus that infants should be treated differently than older children in custody disputes — lingers, even when all other factors are equal in a separation or divorce.

As a co-parenting therapist and parent plan mediator in Los Angeles, the city that invented no fault divorce, the toughest cases I see involve separating parents of the stroller crowd. Breaking up soon after conception and delivery is a bitter pill; new rules and stark choices can feel cruel.

Anguished feelings of profound unfairness also remain as the dream of togetherness and the future it held slips away. Despite the suffering, clients still light up about their children, whom they see as the one good thing outliving the relationship. Typically, they’re passionate about their kids deserving first-rate parenting, regardless of the living arrangements.

Co-parenting is rough. Putting your own wants and needs side-by-side with the child’s and yes, the other parent’s too, helps create a mutual willingness to do the right thing. As despair and rage subsides, adult relationships reconstitute from lovers to more business-like, problem-solving platonic parents. It’s possible this way to be devoted and reliable parents, who raise secure well-loved and cared for children.

via Tara Fass: Five Tips For Co-parenting In A New World.