Due to the spike of filings that typically occurs in the new year, January has become known as “Divorce Month.” It’s nothing to celebrate. Family cohesion has long been understood to be a bedrock of a safe, productive society.
Beginning in the late 1960s, the institution of no-fault divorce dramatically increased divorce rates. No-fault divorce was what spurred state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, to file a bill that would make divorces harder and more costly to obtain.
Krause’s bill isn’t likely to pass, but whatever its fate, we in Texas and across the country can do a better job of dealing with families when they split up. Specifically, we should make shared parenting the default outcome of every divorce in which children are involved and neither parent is unfit to care for them.