Shared Parenting or Shared Care? Learning from Children's Experiences of a Post-Divorce Shared Care Arrangement

This article examines three issues raised by three primary-aged siblings experiencing a post-divorce shared parenting arrangement. It argues that the conceptualisation of shared parenting in academic and policy discourse concentrates on parent-child relationships, overlooks children's relationships with siblings and fails to fully recognise the social and material resources necessary for shared parenting arrangements to work. It suggests that current policy discourse takes for granted that shared parenting promotes gender equality for fathers and mothers, despite the existing and ingrained gendered parenting practices produced and maintained in this UK context. (C) 2013 The Author(s). Journal compilation (C) 2013 National Children's Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited.