Co-parenting after a divorce.

While a couple is married, the husband usually goes out to work while the wife takes care of the children and the home. After a divorce, how should the roles be shared? 

In most African lands, the father takes custody of the children and fends for them, while the mother goes away alone like a single lady. While this will make it easier for her to remarry, the father can't stay home all day and so leaves the children behind with a stepmother while going to work. He won't be able to supervise her treatment of his kids and be able to confirm or refute any allegation of ill-treatment. As a result, a bad stepmother maltreats the children or a good stepmother is maligned out of jealousy. 

Children are usually better off with their mother. Even if she remarries, she will be the one to spend more time with the children than their stepfather will. He will, therefore , have no opportunity to ill-treat them in her absence. Their father can always send money into their mother's bank account and mentor the children via phone calls, online messages,etc as they grow up. The e-statements of account and the online chats will show that the father did his duty by the children in spite of the divorce. 

We rarely hear about the wicked stepfather because he is unlikely to be alone with the children in their mother's absence. He can't starve them, since their mother is the cook who will get the feeding allowance from him. 

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If the mother gets custody and the father pays maintenance as described above, children will adjust better to life after their parents' divorce. Also, no stepmother will be able to maltreat them (or be wrongly accused of maltreating them , in a bid to send her packing and reunite their biological parents). Rather than be wrongly called a wicked stepmother, some women would rather live outside (like mistresses) to bear and rear their kids until their stepchildren grow up and leave home. 

In the Bible, mothers usually got custody of their children (including sons) after a divorce (Genesis 21:9-21 ; Ezra 10:44).