Fairness in Allocations of Parental Responsibilities, and the Limits of Law

Abstract

We love our children. We really do. Yet we also find ourselves happy when they finally fall asleep, or when they go back to school at the end of their summer vacation. We wish we could spend more time with our children, we really do. Yet we also wish to pursue our own projects, both professionally and personally. This ambivalence hints at a basic characteristic of caring for one’s own child, which is known to every person who ever had a child: it involves both a burden and a benefit.1