94 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
supportive for several more years. Not nearly enough divorce
decrees include sufficient provisions for college education. The
problem here is that particularly given its astronomical cost now-
adays, college somehow seems to many noncustodial parents to
be a logical time to cut off their parental responsibilities.
Relatively few college-age kids from divorced families receive
anywhere near the level of financial assistance for their postsec-
ondary (and especially postgraduate) education that they would
have otherwise received had their families stayed together.
Instead, noncustodial dads often seem to take this opportunity
to make their removal from the parenting picture complete.
Custody and Visitation Arrangements
In loco parentis—Latin for “children can drive their parents crazy.”
—Anonymous
It is now generally acknowledged that fathers play a far more vital
role in the lives and development of their children than was previ-
ously recognized. For decades, however, child-custody arrange-
ments were centered around the mother-child bonding configu-
ration. Fathers were often relegated to the status of noncustodial
periodic visitors. A rather clear realization is now emerging that
even noncustodial fathers play an absolutely crucial role in their
child’s development, particularly during the late childhood and
adolescent years.
Father knows best (circa 1850). Up until the middle of the nine-
teenth century, child-rearing manuals in America were generally
addressed to fathers, not mothers, since dads were largely viewed
as the family’s linchpin. But, as industrialization began to separate
home and work, fathers could not be in both places at once. Fam-
ily life of the nineteenth century was defined by what historians
call the “feminization of the domestic sphere.” This was accom-
panied by the relatively new trend of marginalizing the father
as a parent. By the mid-1800s, child-rearing manuals, increas-
ingly addressed to mothers, deplored the father’s absence from
the home. In 1900, one worried observer described the suburban
husband and father as “almost entirely a Sunday institution.”