Visitation Orders, Family Courts, and Fragile Families

Despite proposals to make parenting time a part of all new child support orders, limited research has examined why some unmarried are more likely than others to establish legal visitation agreements. This mixed-methods study draws on qualitative data collected from unmarried mothers and fathers living in New York (N = 70) to develop hypotheses about the contexts in which parents set up visitation orders, which are then tested in a large sample of unmarried parents living apart (N = 1,392). Both qualitative and quantitative findings show that disengagement, cooperation, and conflict in the coparenting relationship postseparation influence unmarried parents' decisions about whether to establish a legal visitation agreement. The qualitative data further illustrate how parents' distrust of the court system, preference for informal agreements, and uncertainty about the custody of nonmarital children inform their decisions. The article concludes by considering approaches for helping low-conflict coparents set up visitation agreements outside of family court.