In the highly charged culture we live in today—with respect to race, national origin, religion and politics—divisiveness within families has increasingly put the health and welfare of children at risk. When you combine a polarized society with the bottlenecks we're experiencing in the family court system due to COVID-19, you have:

• Families with complex disagreements to resolve (property, child custody, child support, mental health issues, medical procedures, etc.) who can't get a timely court date.
• Family law attorneys pressed to argue complex issues in a fraction of the time previously allowed to present a case, when a family needs extraordinary relief quickly.
• Children who pay the price when health issues (physical and mental) are not addressed promptly or a parent tries to force extreme religious views or moral teachings on their child but the courts won't intervene.

Divorced parents often find co-parenting challenging but the deep polarization in our society has intensified parental conflict for many families. Today, parents disagree strongly about children receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, the results of the presidential election, what medical procedures are necessary or voluntary, whether a child should see a psychologist or "buck it up," which type of school is best (public or private), etc.

Unfortunately, the ambiguous manner in which many Texas custody agreements are written further deepens the parental divide. Too often, Texas custody agreements allow both parents the right to make decisions about the important parental rights and duties enumerated in the Texas Family Code, including medical decisions, where the child resides and attends school, how to direct the moral upbringing of the child and others.

While it may seem logical for both parents to have a say in how their child is raised, what happens when parents disagree? If the custody agreement doesn't include tiebreakers that define which parent has the final say regarding specific decisions (absent a written agreement otherwise), the parents end up back in court.