Shared parenting

What are the motives, arrangements, and reflections of separated parents who spend equal time with their children? This paper aims to provide some insights by drawing on qualitative data derived from a series of focus groups. Participants were recruited through a story in a Melbourne newspaper combined with snowball sampling. Responses are analysed of 12 separated or divorced parents, each of whom had an equal (or near-equal) shared care arrangement. Key themes that emerged from the data are summarised, and a number of conditions - relational and structural - that appear conducive to making shared care a viable option for separated parents are identified.