Law Commons^™

Determining The Undeterminable: The Best Interest Of The Child Standard As An Imperfect But Necessary Guidepost To Determine Child Custody, Steven N. Peskind

Northern Illinois University Law Review

Since the 1960s, our nation's courts have almost universally relied on a legal standard known as the "best interest of the child" in order to resolve contested issues involving child custody. Critics of the standard conclude that, due to the complexities of defining what will serve a child's best interests, the standard is at best not helpful, and is perhaps even useless. Critics also charge that the standard is indeterminate, and depends too heavily on the subjective values and life experience of the individual fact finder--the trial judge. In this article, Steven Peskind will review the history of standards used …