The voices of experience: some hows, whys and whens of 50:50 shared care

Rod's final comment that "reasonable relations make so much possible" hits the family dynamics nail on the head - being able to disentangle their prior intimate relationship from their parenting is one of the key challenges for all parents who separate. The child-focused flavour of Rod's business-like relationship was indeed a common thread that ran through many of the comments of mothers and fathers in the 50:50 group.

Kathy reflects: "Yeah it's amicable. We just take our egos out of the equation and do what's best for the kids basically, all the time."

Little is known about children's views on shared-care arrangements. Moreover, little is known about the long-term outcomes for children and parents with such arrangements. The collection of such data represents a crucial plank of knowledge required to fully answer the question: How well does 50:50 care work?

For 50:50 parenting though, Andrew says:

I notice that the one thing about the group as a whole is that all of us are here because we're putting the kids' welfare first, and most of us are getting on well with the exs because the kids are more important than the ex or whatever … There are so many things where you just have to throw away the remote control and worry about the things that you can do.