The growing prevalence of intercultural and/or interfaith marriages produces a diverse religious and cultural heritage for a couple's children. However, when these intercultural/interfaith marriages end in divorce, each parent will probably want to continue to celebrate their respective traditions with their children. Consequently, child custody and visitation agreements can rapidly become very complex.

Traditional visitation agreements typically spelled out more ordinary items such as who got the kids for Christmas in odd- and even-numbered years. Today's agreements, however, go far beyond just making arrangements for holidays and summer breaks. For example, couples who broke glass under a chuppah and took communion on their wedding day may not want to keep an interfaith household in the wake of their divorce.

Among the details that parents may want negotiate are what religion the children will practice and what denomination they will attend. Parents may also want to spell out who will pay for the bar and bat mitzvahs or first communions, and determine how many guests each parent will be allowed to invite.

Other topics that couples are building into custody and visitation agreements are private school and college goals, discipline and even healthcare provisions. Furthermore, agreements sometimes specify whether children will have pets, and what kind, and whether the pets will follow the children to the other parent's home on visits.

Lastly, if disputes do arise, many agreements require the parents to meet and confer about how to resolve them and to use alternative dispute resolution services such as mediation and arbitration before going back to court for relief.

By specifying so many details in their divorce agreements, parents hope to add certainty to their children's childhood and avoid conflict in the future.

If you are currently involved in a child custody dispute or would like more information on drafting a custody agreement, you should strongly consider speaking with an experienced legal professional.

This post is provided for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as legal advice.

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Source:

The Washington Post, "Divorce's details: Custody agreements are getting more complex" Dec. 26, 2011