The Case Against Selfish Co-Parenting

By: Jeff Johnson | Posted: June 7, 2012 at 12:42 AM

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BlackAmericaWeb's Jeff Johnson uses Halle Barry's custody battle to start a conversation about co-parenting -- or finding ways for separated or divorced parents to cooperatively raise the children they've brought into the world.

I know that many of you heard the story yesterday about the custody battle between Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry for their four-year-old daughter. Media reports state: "a custody evaluator -- a psychologist -- wrote the report after extensive interviews with the family and others. The report raised issues not about Gabriel's ability to love but to care for Nahla, in part because of personal issues. A judge will decide the custody arrangement later this month, and whether Halle gets to move to Paris with Nahla -- something Gabriel opposes."

Now, before we begin to take sides, which countless numbers of people have via social media, we need to look at the bigger picture. It is the very process of taking sides that is a reflection of the challenge that many of us who are trying to co-parent face daily. The challenge where one question is lifted over that of the very welfare of the children we claim to want to love and develop. That question is who is more right …

And my beloved family, so many of us are further contaminating the soil even in our well doing. I don't know the details of Halle's family, but if little Nahla is like most babies, she is not asking "who is the better parent?" She wants mommy and daddy to love her, even if they can't love each other. And so many of our kids are saying the same thing. They don't really care whose fault the divorce was, or what mommy did or didn't do for daddy. They want to be kids. And we too often as women are more concerned with not allowing him to play me again, and as men we vow not to let her get over on me. And all the while, it is our children who are hurting.

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