that is a very interesting question and

i’ll give you a history

of

the law in california as it pertains to

custody

back in the good old days during the 60s

there was something called the tender

years doctrine

where courts would generally award

custody primarily to mom because in

those days mom stayed at home took care

of the kids dad worked and you know

there was something that we referred to

as the disneyland dad meaning the dad

that would get the kids on the weekend

wouldn’t have the parental

responsibilities that the mom had during

the week

and um that was the sort of the standard

division of responsibility

based upon your gender

so then what happened was the law

changed in 1973

and the family law act came into being

in 1973

and when i first started practicing in

the early 80s the pendulum swung in the

other direction so in the 80s for a very

short period of time there was a

preference in california

for joint

physical custody which means that the

court presumes

that

the parent should share

custody of the children

then what happened was the legislature

realized and the courts realized that’s

not fair because you could have a

situation where one parent is not as

good as a parent as the other parent or

circumstances would dictate a different

arrangement so then the legislature

changed and said we are going to base

custody

and the allocation of timeshare based

upon what’s in the best interest of a

child

so then

the court changed the law and said one

of the factors that we need to look at

in determining a child’s best interest

is that a child should have frequent and

continuing contact with both parents and

there’s exceptions to that such as

substance abuse

domestic violence those kinds of things

however i think generally in california

the courts want to see the involvement

of both parents because i think that the

psychological research has shown us that

it’s important for children to have both

parents in their lives does it have to

be substantially equal not necessarily

and the court will look at all the

numerous factors

that affect best interest when deciding

how to award custody