Time Shares : Joint physical custody is increasing as an option in divorce cases. When conditions are right, children may benefit by dividing their time equally between the homes of parents.

Dee Wade of Fountain Valley expected to make traditional divorce arrangements, so she was shocked by what the divorce mediator suggested.

The couple’s 3-year-old daughter, Veronica, should spend alternate weeks living with one parent, then the other, the mediator urged. It’s called joint physical custody.

“The mediator gave me information that showed it could be a positive experience, but that just fed my intellect,” Wade said. “Emotionally, I wanted my daughter with me on a full-time basis.”

After eight years, Wade has a different view. Afraid at first that the shuttling between households would damage the girl emotionally, Wade instead has seen her daughter grow into a happy, well-adjusted 11-year-old.

“Her father is a good parent, and we have basically the same ideas in terms of rules and how to handle situations,” Wade said. “Veronica was happy to stay with both of us and has developed friends in both neighborhoods. She’s been going back and forth since she remembers, and to her this is how life is.”

It’s how life is for an increasing number of children and their divorced parents as California courts, taking advantage of a pioneering 1980 law that allowed joint legal custody, are decreeing joint physical custody as well.

The Joint Custody Assn. in Los Angeles, which helped lobby for the 1980 legislation, estimates that joint legal custody is now being awarded in 80% of divorce cases involving children. In about 20% of such cases, parents are also being assigned roughly equal time with their children.

All-out child custody battles are notorious for being vitriolic, yet, even in seemingly amicable divorces, joint physical custody can be inappropriate, said Alexandra Rosenberg, a social worker in Newport Beach.

“Kids may experience conflicting loyalties if the parents play each household off the other and try to be the better family,” she said. Problems are compounded when each parent imposes different rules for manners and household chores.

But when joint physical custody works, it works very well, Rosenberg said. Children grow up with role models of both sexes, which is nearly impossible to duplicate with merely occasional visitation, and each parent gets a regular respite from the pressures of single-parent child-rearing.

“Raising two boys can be exhausting when you’re all alone with them,” said Betty Callaway, 43, an Irvine real estate agent. “When they were younger, I was so frazzled by the time they went to their dad’s that I couldn’t wait for them to leave. Then, when it was time for them to come home, I couldn’t wait to see them.”

The arrangement has allowed her to better balance her business and her child-rearing, Callaway said. “When the kids are at their dad’s, I will spend a lot of time at work. The weeks they’re with me, I focus more attention on them.”

And a joint physical custody arrangement can resolve the problem of fathers who, given only occasional visitation, become more like visitors than parents.

David Foust, 40, of Huntington Beach admitted he had been the breadwinning father who spent too much time at work and not enough time with his children. “Now, when the kids are with me, I can’t stay at work, which is nice,” he said.

But some effects of such arrangements are less obvious. Child support, for example, can change dramatically, said Nola McGuire, an Irvine attorney.

California courts set the amount of child support according to a formula that takes into account not only the income of both parents but the time children spend in each household. Joint physical custody can reduce or reverse the usual child-support situation, sometimes requiring that the mother pay support to the father.

More involved fathers are also less likely to become deadbeat dads, according to statistics. Fathers who share physical custody of their children pay their child support more than 90% of the time, according to the 1993 Census, compared to 79% for fathers who just have visitation privileges and 44.5% for fathers without visitation provisions.

And children, given regular, live-in access to their fathers, may avoid straying from the path, said Michael Pitts, executive director of the Children’s Rights Council in Washington, D.C.

“Studies show that over 80% of people in prison come from single-parent homes. Gangs are full of fatherless young people,” Pitts said.

“Over the last 50 years many children have lost their fathers because of the court’s obsession with sole-custody determination. The very idea of visitation connotes going to see a stranger and implies a tenuous relationship.”

But Jonathan Cannon, a family law judge in Orange County, says there is a basic contradiction to such joint physical custody arrangements. “In a way, it is ludicrous, because these type of situations require a great deal of cooperation between two people who have demonstrated that they can’t get along.”

Cannon said he will agree to such joint custody when couples request it, but only under the right circumstances. “If both parents are good parents, then getting as close to a 50-50 split as possible is in the best interests of the children,” he says.

But such arrangements are feasible only when parents live close to one another and the child is between 2 and 5 years old.

“Before the age of 2, I feel children are too young for a 50-50 split. And when they reach school age, it is best for their educational development to have a primary home during the school year. They should sleep in the same bed Monday through Thursday night. In such situations, I would grant a 60-40 or 65-35 split instead,” Cannon said.

There is no trouble finding examples of joint physical custody succeeding, said Leslee Newman, a family law attorney in Anaheim Hills. She originally thought such arrangements would fall apart within six months, but “I’ve been surprised to find that shared custody arrangements, such as week on, week off, are lasting longer. In some cases, such arrangements are lasting eight to 10 years. People are beginning to find that the best parents are both parents.”

Some of the children are the greatest boosters.

“I wouldn’t want to see just my mom or just my dad,” said Veronica Wade. “I’d miss the other parent too much. I like seeing them both the same amount.”

Erik Callaway, 12, who has alternated weeks living with one of his parents since he was 6, said, “I like living with both of my parents. In the beginning I got a little confused, but I’m older now, and I’m used to it. I wouldn’t be happy if I only lived with one parent.”

Carissa Terry, 14, of Huntington Beach, said she wouldn’t have it any other way, even though she dislikes packing her bags every Monday to move to her other parent’s house.

“I’ve been living with both my parents a week at a time since I was 6, and I’m close to them both,” she said. “Many of my friends just see their dads every other weekend, and most of them don’t have close relationships with their fathers. I wouldn’t like that.”

Nor would her sister Jill, 16. “If I just saw my dad every other weekend, we wouldn’t be as close. He’d be more like an uncle.”

Their father, Lee Terry, 45, said his child-custody philosophy is simple. He may have divorced his wife, he said, but he didn’t divorce his kids.

“I strongly feel that fathers should have a chance to have custody. It’s their duty to raise their children, and I think many men would like to share custody if they could.”

But Ron Wade, father of Veronica, said men should think carefully before choosing joint physical custody. Despite the movement for greater child-rearing rights for divorced fathers, “A person must be really certain that he’s willing to become a single parent for half the time.”

You need an understanding boss, because “at times it’s necessary to get time off at a moment’s notice, because your child is sick and your spouse can’t leave the office,” Wade said. You need flexibility and civility in dealing with your ex-spouse.

And you may wind up, as Wade did, buying an entire second wardrobe for your children to reduce the need to pack clothes.

Still, joint physical custody is steadily becoming more common, said James A. Cook, president of the Joint Custody Assn.

“I think it will become much more popular. The overwhelming drive for this generation is the drive for equality. It has absorbed all of us. It’s looked upon as fairness. It doesn’t decide custody--the best interests of the child decides custody--but we’re finding that equality gets closest to that.”