Does your group believe in shared parenting? Shared parenting is where children are raised by both parents in cases of divorce, separation or paternity. It does not give a preference to gender, but works to maximize the time the child has contact with both parents. What is your position on this? Thank You. - Paul

Dear Paul: Our group, FEMINIST.COM, doesn't take a vocal stand on issues - and, in fact, yours was the first inquiry we had on the issue of shared parenting. Personally, I think that it is very important to have a community raising a child - and not limit it to biology. However, assuming biology is the only option, I think that shared parenting is important. However, it is primarily important that the child is loved, nurtured, valued and respected and in some cases one parent is not capable of giving this to the child - or does not. In these cases, it is very important to keep the child's interest at the forefront. It's also important that we have more examples of nurturing fathers, so sons can grow up to be nurturing fathers. So, when a nurturing father is in the picture - by all means there should be "shared parenting."
—Amy