parenting responsibilities

parents who have never parented together-every child who comes into this world is the composite of genes from both parents. childrenshould have the opportunity to know and learn from both of their parents. ideally, it wouldbe beneficial for all children to be raised in an intact family where parents live togetherand share the responsibilities of parenting, but this is not always possible. sometimescouples have children and have never lived together or co-parented. co-parenting means that a couple whether married,divorced, single, or separated shares the responsibilities of parenting. parents canstill be responsible and effective whether they live in the same household or not; whetherthey have ever been married to each other

or have never been married. there are caseswhere parents have never shared the responsibilities intrinsic to co-parenting. the children may live with one parent or withextended family. often not by choice, but because of circumstances, children will notknow the other parent. there are many and varied reasons why parents don't co-habitateor co-parent. for example, some parents can't or won't livetogether and share parenting responsibilities because of extenuating circumstances thatare not always under their control, some parents make choices that exclude co-parenting, someparents would make the choice to co-parent but don't have the opportunity to do so.

as mentioned earlier, the best situation forchildren is to be co-parented because it affords

them the opportunity to know and to learnfrom both of their parents. it is so very important for never-married parents to rememberthat the child is a part of each of them and a positive reflection of their relationshipwith each other, it helps the child no matter how long the relation- the relationship lasted.