Best Interest 08.11.25

Is 50/50 at a tipping point? Plus: male teacher importance, birth rate-divorce culture connection and more

Hello!

In this monthly roundup of equal parenting news:

• The world is organically barreling towards 50/50 parenting. Are laws relevant?

• Male teacher shortage, a vision

• Would birth rates improve if divorce were fairer to men?

• Shoutouts re: gender equality advocacy

• Research news

  

  Photo by Brooke Balentine on Unsplash

Is the 50/50 movement obsolete?

Despite millions of dollars of research on how equal parenting schedules affect children, men, women and violence, and thousands of activists working to change laws, I don’t know anyone actively asking the questions:

How many separated parents share parenting time equally?

What is the time-sharing assumption for parents separating today?

In this post, I challenge my colleagues narrowly focused on law change. Evidence shows that in large swaths of the United States, judges, lawyers and everyday people adhere to a cultural presumption of 50/50 schedules when parents split. Why is the movement’s narrative stuck in the 1980s?

How can we study the giant shift…