OK, so Dads are important. We got to this funky situation by arranging things so that Moms stayed home and Dad's earned the money and so when separations and divorces got more common, Dads started disappearing from kids' lives. We need to fix it.
I suggest three things. The first is something that many states' laws already require. First, we need to treat Moms and Dads the same in divorce. We cannot give Moms a preference for custody just because they are female. Most states' laws require this, but in practice, what is happening is that judges looking for what to do with the kids, will bring in psychologists to interview and evaluate the custody situation.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned in Daddies are important Part 2, the current theory of psychology is that children should have as little change as possible. They rely upon studies of foster and adopted children to say that children should not be moved, as much as possible. They forget that the loss of the father from the household constitutes a huge change, and they don't seek to minimize this part of the change in their lives (for example, via trying to organize a significant post-separation role for the father in the child's lives). Instead of working to find a way to resolve the issues that arise from that change, they advocate that the mothers should be the primary parent (especially if the Mom says she is already), and that the children should stay in the same school district (as if keeping the same friends is more important than keeping the connection with the father), and then the father can become a frequent visitor in the child's life (often, under these circumstances, a visitor whose presence annoys Mom, which the kids know about, so it's a setup for the relationship to deteriorate).
If we start with a law that says Moms & Dads need to be considered equally, and that custody should be whatever is in the best interests of the child, but we give the custody decision to a person who is not trained to evaluate the facts of various accusations that are flying this way & that, and who just tries to find some happy medium where the kids have one primary household and do not have to move too much, we will often end up with Mom being primary parent and Dad being a visitor.
In some states (Arizona is the one I'm most familiar with), the lawmakers have tried to fix this. For example, they specifically changed the law reads, to say "parenting time", instead of "visitation". From now on, any time a parent has with a child is called "parenting time", NOT "visitation". Unfortunately, a change of terminology does not solve the problem if the parenting time the kids spend with Dad is only 10% of their lives, and does not constitute the serious times when they need to learn to work, study, and organize themselves. It may feel expedient to give primary parenting to one parent and split the rest of the time, but as the kids get older, the fact is that REAL parenting takes place in the snippets of time between when they wake up and when they are at school... between the end of their football or cheer practice and the end of dinner. because otherwise, they are on the phone, visiting friends, at school and activities, texting and e-mailing and facebooking... and so our only opportunity to influence them is in these moments of time we can catch from them... and this happens on the weekdays... when we have to tell them that they don't get to turn on the computer until they're finished with their Math assignment... they can't answer their texts at dinner time, and that they need to be part of the household and help with the dinner dishes. If we don't let dads have the kids during this time, we're making a big mistake for the kids.
You can call it parenting time, but if you do not give them a significant amount of time, it will always be vacation, NOT the same kind of parenting that the kids need.
Another positive change in Arizona is that parents who intentionally manipulate the situation to make it appear that they are primary parent when they are not, who make false or exaggerated accusations against the other parent, will not be able to profit from these manipulations or accusations. This law does not go far enough. When judges rely upon counselors and counselors have a bias towards mothers being the primary parent, there will not be a change in their recommendations that reflects the reality that most families have daddies who are very much more involved than the daddies of previous generations.
The legal change we need is a rebuttable presumption of equal parenting time. 50-50. There are a few different schedules that can accomplish this, either week on-week off, or 5-2-2-5, but whatever plan is used, 50-50 is appropriate.
I can hear some of my friends groaning. They insist that they, the mommies, know better what is best for their families and there should never be any presumption. They don't understand the concept of a rebuttable presumption. And this one can and should be rebuttable.
In this option, parents who cannot come to an agreement, but who still live near enough to each other to maintain the continuity of the children's current schedules in each household, will get 50-50 time, unless one of several things happens. First, parents should not have equal parenting time if they live too far away from each other to maintain their regular school & extracurricular schedule in each parent's house. Another way to rebut the presumption can and should be if the parents choose a different schedule for themselves. Perhaps Mom is in the military and can only promise 4 weeks a year in the children's hometown. Maybe Dad is a firefighter and works 72 hours on, 48 off, which makes his schedule rotate every week. I've also had flight attendant parents who needed parenting schedules that matched their work travel needs. These parents might find their own solutions to parenting time that are not equal, but that needs to be something they can cooperate about.
And of course, if either parent is unfit to have the children overnight, then they should not have 50-50 time with the children. But in that situation, we have to hope that the parent claiming that the other is unfit, would have been acting as though the other parent was unfit well before the disintegration of the romantic relationship between the two parents, and that this is not just an accusation born of anger over the separation.
I have an acquaintance who, every time I mention this idea that 50-50 needs to be the presumption, gets very angry at me. She says "it's up to whatever the CHILD can handle". I agree. But children can NOT handle having either parent marginalized in their lives EVEN if it's ONLY the daddy who is being marginalized. So we need to START with the presumption that, if the parents can come to an agreement otherwise, it will be a 50-50. And then if there is cause for it to be something other than 50-50, let each parent have the opportunity to explain to the judge why it should not be 50-50...
Certain things need to stop being considered... if the kids LIKE either parent more than the other, that needs to not be a reason to change parenting time... kids will like or be angry at a parent for not giving them enough STUFF, for being disciplined, or because the other parent wants them to show anger. Sometimes kids will align with the parent they perceive as being victimized by the romantic breakup, other times they will align with the parent they perceive as being stronger. Another thing that should not be considered... if either parent has a nicer house or more family or more money... it's not a good thing to let the kids move to live with Mom if she has married into money, or to live with Dad just because he is a higher earner. If Dad has lots of family in the area who can help him with daycare, hooray! This is a good thing, not a bad thing, but it should not mean that Dad gets more time with the children than Mom... just that she will have to either stay amicable with his family so she can get daycare from them, or she needs to find a different solution for when the kids are with her.
And we shouldn't try to equalize income in the child's two households, just let the children learn how the different households manage. Let one parent provide expensive toys, and the other parent provide inexpensive togetherness. If they do it right, the kids will learn that both places have advantages, and both have disadvantages. It is not fair or right to make one parent pay part of their income to increase the lifestyle that the other parent can afford (this is above & beyond support, food & basics, for the child), and it is not fair or right to make one parent give up time with the child because they don't live an expensive lifestyle. We also need to give parents a dis-incentive for bribing the children with expensive toys. If we enforce parenting time equally with the poorer parent, then the richer parent who plays the "who is your favorite parent?" game, will not benefit from it. The incentive to playing this game is greatly reduced if it will not result in the ability to cut the other parent out.
I'm not saying the children's interests should not be heard, just that you should give them as much weight as you give, say, their interest in choosing not to go to school. Unless someone at the school is abusing them, you make them go. They need to learn the things that are available to learn at school, and they need to learn to deal with it. If it becomes detrimental for them to go to school, then bring in the therapists and create a plan to make it work, or find another placement, but you don't let the kid say, "I don't like school" and honor that decision. You listen to the complaint, and try to figure out how to fix it. This is how things should progress in custody determinations. If the child wants to say "I like Dad better than I like Mom", then fine, but don't let it change the 50-50 schedule unless there is a significant reason behind the preference that would require stripping Mom of her parenting duties.
So what is the custody evaluator's role in this 50-50 rebuttable presumption? First, the evaluator needs to check to see if there are credible reasons that either parent should be removed from the child's life or restricted to supervised visits only. If they do not see credible evidence that requires such removal, they need to be more pro-active in recommending specific remedies to help the family in it's new, separated status. They need to make suggestions for helping the parties learn to co-parent equally and properly. Sometimes, the parents will need to learn to come to some basic agreements about things like bedtime and diet and hairstyle for their children. Sometimes, they will need ongoing support in handling these kinds of rules (particularly for parents who have very different parenting styles). Sometimes, the evaluators need to address a process for the children to learn to stop playing favorites, or to help the parents come to some agreement on how to split the children's toys between the two houses.
Under this theory, sometimes the parent who is busily trying to tear down the co-parent, will lose parenting time until they can moderate their behavior, and the custody evaluator will need to recommend specific limits to this temporary separation so that the parent who loses custody temporarily can get appropriate intensive counseling to help return to full participation in their children's lives.
Under this proposal, we come from a "make it work" theory. We are no longer looking for ways to decide which house should be primary and who should therefore "lose", but rather we are looking for ways to make everyone a winner.
If we did this, and enforced it, then ultimately, the incentive for nastiness during a custody battle would be minimized, and the ultimate winners in that solution would be the children. And isn't this who it's all about in the first place?
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Daddies are important, Part 2
A few years ago, I wrote Part 1 of this topic, and I fully intended to get to work on Part 2 right away, but we were called on to provide Foster care to some children in our county, and things got in the way. I'm back on the topic now, and ready to think through Part 2.
Daddies are important.
Unfortunately, though the world has changed such that Dads expect to be involved in their kids' lives, we pretend that change doesn't exist the minute the parents decide to separate. Upon separation, the working mother who saw their children NO MORE OFTEN than the working father, suddenly acts as though they have been the primary (or only) "REAL" parent in the family. Generally, the division of labor in the family had been organized so that Mom took care of what was important to Mom and Dad took care of what was important to Dad, and everything else either fell through the cracks (dusting the geegaws in the living room, perhaps) OR they joined together or outsourced it (such as sharing meal-making, or maybe getting takeout a majority of the time)...
When they split, Mom thinks that she should get the kids because SHE was the REAL parent, but what she doesn't understand is that Dad ALSO thought HE was doing important things for the kids.
Our courts, and frankly, our custody evaluators and other professionals in the system, are reluctant to catch up to the current reality, which is that if the parents split up, leaving the kids with Mommy for 90% of the time and making Daddy a visitor in his own kids' lives, is a big loss for Daddy (which no one really cares about, because it's all about what's best for the kids) AND it's a big loss for the kids! The therapists are so busy saying that a child needs a single home base to call their own, that moving is bad for the kids, etc... that they ignore certain realities...
In a family where the parents WANT to move, and handle it properly with the children, there are very few problems with moving from one location to another. Military families are notorious for moving regularly and also for raising wonderful, resilient children. JUST because something is disappointing to a child does not mean we should avoid it. It is through learning how to adjust to change, learning how to weather disappointment, that a child learns. The therapists will point to the losses of orphans and foster children as proof that children should not be moved if possible, but those analogies ignore the fact that in the case of foster children and orphans, the adults that they should be able to trust have become untrustworthy, and are NOT managing the changes in their own lives well.
In other words, if the adults in a child's life are positive about a change, and help the kids work through their concerns about it (where will my favorite chair be? How will Santa find us? How can I EVER find a new friend in a strange school?) the kids will be just fine. In many cases, children of divorce or separation are not helped to weather the changes in a positive light, but instead are prepared for it as if the parents are preparing for the world to come to an end. And you can be SURE that if the parents feel their world is coming to an end, the kids will feel that way also.
If parents are not taking a move well, then the kids will also not take it well. Look at parents who are losing jobs, getting evicted, or separating/divorcing. We see them explaining the move to the child in terms of "don't worry, we'll SURVIVE... somehow, as long as you stick with ME", it is a whole lot different than, "Daddy just got a great job and we're moving to a bigger town where there will be a bigger house and a playground right across the street, and the school has computers for every kid to use in the classrooms and a great soccer team"... The trick on handling a separation/divorce, and the required moves with a kid, is to help them understand that this change will be better. "Mommy & Daddy won't argue so much, but we'll be in different houses. Daddy will have a house with rooms for you kids, and Mommy will have a house with rooms for you kids, and you'll have two times as many rooms, two times as many birthday parties, two times as many visits from Santa!!! Instead of going camping as a family for 2 weeks in the summer, you'll spend 2 weeks camping with me and ANOTHER two weeks camping with Daddy, or maybe instead of camping, you'll go skiing in the winter, or to Disney... it'll be GREAT... and when we're not always arguing, it'll be a lot happier too!" A WHOLE lot better than "Dad is leaving us, we'll get by, don't worry, the judge will force him to pay child support and if he doesn't they'll send him to jail"... (yes, some parents DO say this to their children... it's awful, and it doesn't usually come all in the same sentence, but they say it in tiny little bits, until the children put it altogether and realize that this is AWFUL... Daddy doesn't love us, walked out on us, won't pay for our needs, might go to jail, we'll never see him again & Mommy & Us might starve!!!...)
Unfortunately, many people treat Daddy like an ATM... and the ability to have children as if it's a career choice... a money-earner. And when the courts support this vision of how Daddies are, the men in these children's lives will slowly disappear. They will become marginalized... they become Disney Dads who show up on the rare occasion when mom & the judge allow them to see the kids. And the kids start to feel a bit of awkwardness... feeling like a guest in what should be their own home...
When this happens, kids only get the part of parenting that the Moms took on. Dads stop parenting the kids and spend their precious little time with the kids, just trying to maintain the connection, entertaining the kids and hoping that they enjoy the relationship enough that they'll come to Dad if they ever have a need to do so. Unfortunately, they rarely do. This parenting schedule that our society has fallen into... a schedule that was more appropriate 50 years ago when Daddies did all the work and Mommies always stayed home... the every-other-holiday, every-other-weekend and one dinner a week... it's a schedule that encourages Disney Dad syndrome. If the parents have one designated as a primary residential parent, and the other as the "visitor", who is involved only during play time (every other weekend, holiday, etc), we can be sure that the primary residential parent will be the one burdened with 100% of the homework, 100% of the carpooling to & from school, 100% of the organizing of extracurriculars and play dates, 100% of the whiny wake-up moments and quick breakfasts before school, 100% of the chore-making... all while losing 50% of the vacations, holidays, weekends and fun times with the kids.
Most parents will not call this a "burden", but whatever they choose to call it, they become the disciplinarian, the organizer, the person who has to spend 100% on the kids and who has lost the partner who used to help out.... even if that partner was only helping pay the bills, clean the house, and do the carpooling when you instructed, this partner carried an important part of the burden of the household. And there are bad side-effects for the adult who is suddenly 100% in charge of children, with no partner present to take any part of that burden. First, this adult loses the opportunity to fully participate in their career, to be at the office without the likelihood of getting a call from the school that a child is sick... The absence of a second parent to call on for those duties, makes it impossible for this primary parent to fully participate in the workplace without the possibility of a child-related interruption. The primary parent also has more difficulty creating an adult social life for themselves. While the "visiting" parent can develop adult friendships in a normal fashion, outside of the influence of the children until the parent is sure the relationship is viable, the primary parent loses this opportunity. For the primary parent, a casual flirtation cannot turn into a coffee date, an invitation to happy hour cannot be fulfilled, because child care issues will nearly always be present. And any relationship that gets past the coffee date stage will necessarily start to unfold in the presence of the children, whose needs and opinions will intrude.
As a result, the opportunity for the primary parent to process the loss of the romantic relationship and replace it in their lives is curtailed and altered. If we want a surefire way to jump from marriage/mistake #1 into marriage/mistake #2, we could not create a better formula for making it happen. After the sudden loss of #1, don't give the primary parent the opportunity to mourn the loss or learn the relationship lessons, don't give them the chance to figure out what they did wrong and how they want to do it better next time, don't give them time to explore relationships in private. Instead, make sure this person has no opportunity for adult companionship unless it's mostly in the presence of the children. Instead of recovering, this person will be rebounding, and with no free time left to process what is going on, they are being reactive rather than pro-active. It will not work. It's no surprise that second marriages have a higher failure rater than first marriages, especially if children from the first marriage are involved!
I can promise everyone here that if a parent is reading this who is the primary residential parent and the children's mother, that she will be saying to herself, "I'm the MOTHER, I am the one with the INSTINCTS, and I am willing to make the sacrifice for MY KIDS". Unfortunately, this sacrifice does not do the best for the kids.
The kids lose the good homework help in the subjects that Dad is better at than Mom is. Girls lose the strength of the relationship with the one man in their lives who will always find them beautiful, who will CREDIBLY (Mom can't be credible on this issue) tell them that a boy does not deserve this much attention... the boys lose the strength of the relationship with the one man in their lives who can CREDIBLY tell them what a REAL MAN does, who was the first and most reliable example of what they wanted to be. The kids lose an example of how to live life in the way he chooses to live, so that when they grow up, they have a more balanced vision of how to get by in this world on their own.
Once upon a time, not too long ago, we would say "it takes a village to raise a child", meaning that having more examples of adulthood around, to pick up pieces of the load and help the children see how to live and cooperate in this world, is a good thing... yet when a separation occurs, we suddenly stop believing this, deciding that it's an OK thing to totally cut out one of the two most important people in the child's life. As a rule, we are making a big mistake if we think it's OK to cut out or marginalize the influence of either parent.
I do not say there are not exceptions to the rule... We MAY need to cut out the baby daddy who is a raging alcoholic, or addict... or who is dangerously violent. But more often than not, we find that the mother who, just last week, was quite willing to leave her children alone with this guy for hours on end, entire weekends while she was out with the girls, away for work, or visiting her mother... all of a sudden, upon separation, she acts as though his faults are so extreme that he does not deserve time with the children any more... or that his time should be severely limited. Suddenly, a woman who has been married nearly 2 decades where her only complaint was that he did not earn enough money, SUDDENLY she is accusing him of violence and telling judges that the children need to be protected from him most of the time. In these cases, we need to double-check the likelihood that these accusations are true. There are too many incentives for an exaggeration or lie to take place at the time of separation. Too many reasons for a person freshly angry over a split, to suddenly forget their own part in the problems of the marriage and bring every disagreement to light in an effort to crush the other parent.
Unfortunately, while recriminations or lingering angry feelings are no problem for childless couples who can separate and never have to see each other again, this does not work for separating couples who have children together. It is not good for people who must continue to co-parent, to have opportunities to bash each other. Accusations go both ways, this is why the couple is no longer together. The courts understand that there are usually two sides to any story, but instead of encouraging the parties to put aside their anger, the court system, which is adversarial by nature, encourages both sides to have equal opportunity to vent.
Perhaps one reason that mothers are often winners in the initial custody battles is that fathers are less articulate about emotional issues such as this. Unless a daddy takes on the significant burden of very high legal expenses required for a very difficult and protracted custody battle (and unless the daddy is willing to put his children through such a battle), the woman will usually win, just by virtue of being better at holding onto their grudges against the ex and being better able to articulate their grudges.)
Some parents with very strong parental instincts manage to put the anger behind them. And generally, they figure out an amicable arrangement of parenting time. Usually, these days, the arrangement is something close to equal time... he gets a week, then she gets a week... something like that.
Such a schedule gives her time to go grocery shopping on her off weeks, without little hands reaching for every piece of candy in the checkout line... it makes it possible for her to have HALF of her work days ENTIRELY available to stay late at the office if the boss needs it... making it possible for her to do the kind of office politics/networking that will help her break through whatever glass ceiling her mommy-track might have held for her...
Generally, such a schedule also causes her a LOT of worry at first. The kids' hair won't be brushed right, or they will be fed on McDonalds fries and sodas... they'll be allowed to stay up all night and will be late to school... Dad will forget to take the Tuba to school for band practice. If she calms down and lets him do this stuff without her interference or nagging, she will probably find that he can manage these things just fine. If he's JUST as incompetent as I described, he will find out the frst time they're up all night, bouncing around because of the sugar & caffeine high of the McDonalds' colas, that this might not be such a great idea for dinner... he will figure out how to put the kids' hari in a pony tail and the KID will come home crying that her hair was a mess all day and her friends made fun of it, so he will figure out how to get it done correctly, even maybe helping her learn how to do it himself if he feels that incompetent about it. And the first time he has to re-organize his work schedule to go pick up the stupid tuba from the house and bring it to the school in time for Band... he'll remember not to let the kid forget it again.
More likely, he'll feed the kid a more balanced meal from a healthier fast food place, will have learned how to brush his own daughter's hair after watching you do it for years, and will be JUST FINE. And in some instances, Mom will have to enforce the parenting time issues, such as refusing to take over when the kid is sick on his watch... Dad needs to step up and do the whole job, just like Mom now has the opportunity to step up and do Her whole job as far as breadwinning goes.
And the kids will get the Daddy who can help them with their math, who takes them to see a really cool workplace on "bring your kids to work day", who talks to them about budget and career and what boys really think like and how a real man handles his responsibilities, who takes them on more physically challenging activities on weekends than Mommy might usually schedule.
And Daddy might have a Wii at his house, while Mommy has a Playstation... daddy has scooters while Mommy has bikes. Daddy has a dog who catches Frisbees while Mom's dog has learned to roll over and play dead.
Pushing daddy away gives the child half a life. It should be reserved for very rare, dire circumstances... which do not exist in most separations or divorces!
Daddies are REALLY important for this... they provide a balance in the kid's life.
Daddies are important.
Unfortunately, though the world has changed such that Dads expect to be involved in their kids' lives, we pretend that change doesn't exist the minute the parents decide to separate. Upon separation, the working mother who saw their children NO MORE OFTEN than the working father, suddenly acts as though they have been the primary (or only) "REAL" parent in the family. Generally, the division of labor in the family had been organized so that Mom took care of what was important to Mom and Dad took care of what was important to Dad, and everything else either fell through the cracks (dusting the geegaws in the living room, perhaps) OR they joined together or outsourced it (such as sharing meal-making, or maybe getting takeout a majority of the time)...
When they split, Mom thinks that she should get the kids because SHE was the REAL parent, but what she doesn't understand is that Dad ALSO thought HE was doing important things for the kids.
Our courts, and frankly, our custody evaluators and other professionals in the system, are reluctant to catch up to the current reality, which is that if the parents split up, leaving the kids with Mommy for 90% of the time and making Daddy a visitor in his own kids' lives, is a big loss for Daddy (which no one really cares about, because it's all about what's best for the kids) AND it's a big loss for the kids! The therapists are so busy saying that a child needs a single home base to call their own, that moving is bad for the kids, etc... that they ignore certain realities...
In a family where the parents WANT to move, and handle it properly with the children, there are very few problems with moving from one location to another. Military families are notorious for moving regularly and also for raising wonderful, resilient children. JUST because something is disappointing to a child does not mean we should avoid it. It is through learning how to adjust to change, learning how to weather disappointment, that a child learns. The therapists will point to the losses of orphans and foster children as proof that children should not be moved if possible, but those analogies ignore the fact that in the case of foster children and orphans, the adults that they should be able to trust have become untrustworthy, and are NOT managing the changes in their own lives well.
In other words, if the adults in a child's life are positive about a change, and help the kids work through their concerns about it (where will my favorite chair be? How will Santa find us? How can I EVER find a new friend in a strange school?) the kids will be just fine. In many cases, children of divorce or separation are not helped to weather the changes in a positive light, but instead are prepared for it as if the parents are preparing for the world to come to an end. And you can be SURE that if the parents feel their world is coming to an end, the kids will feel that way also.
If parents are not taking a move well, then the kids will also not take it well. Look at parents who are losing jobs, getting evicted, or separating/divorcing. We see them explaining the move to the child in terms of "don't worry, we'll SURVIVE... somehow, as long as you stick with ME", it is a whole lot different than, "Daddy just got a great job and we're moving to a bigger town where there will be a bigger house and a playground right across the street, and the school has computers for every kid to use in the classrooms and a great soccer team"... The trick on handling a separation/divorce, and the required moves with a kid, is to help them understand that this change will be better. "Mommy & Daddy won't argue so much, but we'll be in different houses. Daddy will have a house with rooms for you kids, and Mommy will have a house with rooms for you kids, and you'll have two times as many rooms, two times as many birthday parties, two times as many visits from Santa!!! Instead of going camping as a family for 2 weeks in the summer, you'll spend 2 weeks camping with me and ANOTHER two weeks camping with Daddy, or maybe instead of camping, you'll go skiing in the winter, or to Disney... it'll be GREAT... and when we're not always arguing, it'll be a lot happier too!" A WHOLE lot better than "Dad is leaving us, we'll get by, don't worry, the judge will force him to pay child support and if he doesn't they'll send him to jail"... (yes, some parents DO say this to their children... it's awful, and it doesn't usually come all in the same sentence, but they say it in tiny little bits, until the children put it altogether and realize that this is AWFUL... Daddy doesn't love us, walked out on us, won't pay for our needs, might go to jail, we'll never see him again & Mommy & Us might starve!!!...)
Unfortunately, many people treat Daddy like an ATM... and the ability to have children as if it's a career choice... a money-earner. And when the courts support this vision of how Daddies are, the men in these children's lives will slowly disappear. They will become marginalized... they become Disney Dads who show up on the rare occasion when mom & the judge allow them to see the kids. And the kids start to feel a bit of awkwardness... feeling like a guest in what should be their own home...
When this happens, kids only get the part of parenting that the Moms took on. Dads stop parenting the kids and spend their precious little time with the kids, just trying to maintain the connection, entertaining the kids and hoping that they enjoy the relationship enough that they'll come to Dad if they ever have a need to do so. Unfortunately, they rarely do. This parenting schedule that our society has fallen into... a schedule that was more appropriate 50 years ago when Daddies did all the work and Mommies always stayed home... the every-other-holiday, every-other-weekend and one dinner a week... it's a schedule that encourages Disney Dad syndrome. If the parents have one designated as a primary residential parent, and the other as the "visitor", who is involved only during play time (every other weekend, holiday, etc), we can be sure that the primary residential parent will be the one burdened with 100% of the homework, 100% of the carpooling to & from school, 100% of the organizing of extracurriculars and play dates, 100% of the whiny wake-up moments and quick breakfasts before school, 100% of the chore-making... all while losing 50% of the vacations, holidays, weekends and fun times with the kids.
Most parents will not call this a "burden", but whatever they choose to call it, they become the disciplinarian, the organizer, the person who has to spend 100% on the kids and who has lost the partner who used to help out.... even if that partner was only helping pay the bills, clean the house, and do the carpooling when you instructed, this partner carried an important part of the burden of the household. And there are bad side-effects for the adult who is suddenly 100% in charge of children, with no partner present to take any part of that burden. First, this adult loses the opportunity to fully participate in their career, to be at the office without the likelihood of getting a call from the school that a child is sick... The absence of a second parent to call on for those duties, makes it impossible for this primary parent to fully participate in the workplace without the possibility of a child-related interruption. The primary parent also has more difficulty creating an adult social life for themselves. While the "visiting" parent can develop adult friendships in a normal fashion, outside of the influence of the children until the parent is sure the relationship is viable, the primary parent loses this opportunity. For the primary parent, a casual flirtation cannot turn into a coffee date, an invitation to happy hour cannot be fulfilled, because child care issues will nearly always be present. And any relationship that gets past the coffee date stage will necessarily start to unfold in the presence of the children, whose needs and opinions will intrude.
As a result, the opportunity for the primary parent to process the loss of the romantic relationship and replace it in their lives is curtailed and altered. If we want a surefire way to jump from marriage/mistake #1 into marriage/mistake #2, we could not create a better formula for making it happen. After the sudden loss of #1, don't give the primary parent the opportunity to mourn the loss or learn the relationship lessons, don't give them the chance to figure out what they did wrong and how they want to do it better next time, don't give them time to explore relationships in private. Instead, make sure this person has no opportunity for adult companionship unless it's mostly in the presence of the children. Instead of recovering, this person will be rebounding, and with no free time left to process what is going on, they are being reactive rather than pro-active. It will not work. It's no surprise that second marriages have a higher failure rater than first marriages, especially if children from the first marriage are involved!
I can promise everyone here that if a parent is reading this who is the primary residential parent and the children's mother, that she will be saying to herself, "I'm the MOTHER, I am the one with the INSTINCTS, and I am willing to make the sacrifice for MY KIDS". Unfortunately, this sacrifice does not do the best for the kids.
The kids lose the good homework help in the subjects that Dad is better at than Mom is. Girls lose the strength of the relationship with the one man in their lives who will always find them beautiful, who will CREDIBLY (Mom can't be credible on this issue) tell them that a boy does not deserve this much attention... the boys lose the strength of the relationship with the one man in their lives who can CREDIBLY tell them what a REAL MAN does, who was the first and most reliable example of what they wanted to be. The kids lose an example of how to live life in the way he chooses to live, so that when they grow up, they have a more balanced vision of how to get by in this world on their own.
Once upon a time, not too long ago, we would say "it takes a village to raise a child", meaning that having more examples of adulthood around, to pick up pieces of the load and help the children see how to live and cooperate in this world, is a good thing... yet when a separation occurs, we suddenly stop believing this, deciding that it's an OK thing to totally cut out one of the two most important people in the child's life. As a rule, we are making a big mistake if we think it's OK to cut out or marginalize the influence of either parent.
I do not say there are not exceptions to the rule... We MAY need to cut out the baby daddy who is a raging alcoholic, or addict... or who is dangerously violent. But more often than not, we find that the mother who, just last week, was quite willing to leave her children alone with this guy for hours on end, entire weekends while she was out with the girls, away for work, or visiting her mother... all of a sudden, upon separation, she acts as though his faults are so extreme that he does not deserve time with the children any more... or that his time should be severely limited. Suddenly, a woman who has been married nearly 2 decades where her only complaint was that he did not earn enough money, SUDDENLY she is accusing him of violence and telling judges that the children need to be protected from him most of the time. In these cases, we need to double-check the likelihood that these accusations are true. There are too many incentives for an exaggeration or lie to take place at the time of separation. Too many reasons for a person freshly angry over a split, to suddenly forget their own part in the problems of the marriage and bring every disagreement to light in an effort to crush the other parent.
Unfortunately, while recriminations or lingering angry feelings are no problem for childless couples who can separate and never have to see each other again, this does not work for separating couples who have children together. It is not good for people who must continue to co-parent, to have opportunities to bash each other. Accusations go both ways, this is why the couple is no longer together. The courts understand that there are usually two sides to any story, but instead of encouraging the parties to put aside their anger, the court system, which is adversarial by nature, encourages both sides to have equal opportunity to vent.
Perhaps one reason that mothers are often winners in the initial custody battles is that fathers are less articulate about emotional issues such as this. Unless a daddy takes on the significant burden of very high legal expenses required for a very difficult and protracted custody battle (and unless the daddy is willing to put his children through such a battle), the woman will usually win, just by virtue of being better at holding onto their grudges against the ex and being better able to articulate their grudges.)
Some parents with very strong parental instincts manage to put the anger behind them. And generally, they figure out an amicable arrangement of parenting time. Usually, these days, the arrangement is something close to equal time... he gets a week, then she gets a week... something like that.
Such a schedule gives her time to go grocery shopping on her off weeks, without little hands reaching for every piece of candy in the checkout line... it makes it possible for her to have HALF of her work days ENTIRELY available to stay late at the office if the boss needs it... making it possible for her to do the kind of office politics/networking that will help her break through whatever glass ceiling her mommy-track might have held for her...
Generally, such a schedule also causes her a LOT of worry at first. The kids' hair won't be brushed right, or they will be fed on McDonalds fries and sodas... they'll be allowed to stay up all night and will be late to school... Dad will forget to take the Tuba to school for band practice. If she calms down and lets him do this stuff without her interference or nagging, she will probably find that he can manage these things just fine. If he's JUST as incompetent as I described, he will find out the frst time they're up all night, bouncing around because of the sugar & caffeine high of the McDonalds' colas, that this might not be such a great idea for dinner... he will figure out how to put the kids' hari in a pony tail and the KID will come home crying that her hair was a mess all day and her friends made fun of it, so he will figure out how to get it done correctly, even maybe helping her learn how to do it himself if he feels that incompetent about it. And the first time he has to re-organize his work schedule to go pick up the stupid tuba from the house and bring it to the school in time for Band... he'll remember not to let the kid forget it again.
More likely, he'll feed the kid a more balanced meal from a healthier fast food place, will have learned how to brush his own daughter's hair after watching you do it for years, and will be JUST FINE. And in some instances, Mom will have to enforce the parenting time issues, such as refusing to take over when the kid is sick on his watch... Dad needs to step up and do the whole job, just like Mom now has the opportunity to step up and do Her whole job as far as breadwinning goes.
And the kids will get the Daddy who can help them with their math, who takes them to see a really cool workplace on "bring your kids to work day", who talks to them about budget and career and what boys really think like and how a real man handles his responsibilities, who takes them on more physically challenging activities on weekends than Mommy might usually schedule.
And Daddy might have a Wii at his house, while Mommy has a Playstation... daddy has scooters while Mommy has bikes. Daddy has a dog who catches Frisbees while Mom's dog has learned to roll over and play dead.
Pushing daddy away gives the child half a life. It should be reserved for very rare, dire circumstances... which do not exist in most separations or divorces!
Daddies are REALLY important for this... they provide a balance in the kid's life.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Kids lie
So many people will protest loudly at the claim that kids lie. Anyone who uses children as a witness in a case HOPES that the children know better than to lie under oath, but the truth is that at a certain age, children can't even tell the difference between truth and a lie. To them, ghosts and fairys and "the borrowers" really do exist. At an older age, they have often been taught what the proper answer is to many questions, and they will supply whatever answer does not get them into trouble. If a divorced mother is angry at the kid's father, the children know very well that it will make her happy if they say things that is bad about him. He is mean, he doesn't let them do stuff. Or maybe the kids will try to be the peacemaker, saying he's really NICE, that he's not so bad, he lets them eat candy and stuff (innocently unaware that the issue of eating candy and not eating nutritiously at each other's house has been a main issue in the custody battle).
If kids are angry at someone, they will say things that will get that person into trouble, and if they are happy with that person, they will say things that will get the person OUT of trouble. If they want something, they will say things designed to get that thing for them, and if they don't want something, they will make up things that they hope will prevent them from having that something. "I'm allergic", becomes the refrain told to the lunch lady, babysitters, and camp counselors. I've heard "I'm allergic" as an excuse not to eat oatmeal, not to drink milk, not to eat fruit, or any kind of meat that the child did not like. A recent set of foster kids had me totally convinced that they were "lactose intolerant" (advanced little brains using a much more sophisticated form of "I'm allergic"), so that they could turn down milk, only to go bananas over ice cream, butter, and cheese when the opportunity arose. My explanation that those things include lactose did not faze them... "MOMMY lets me eat that!", is their way of proving that I'm wrong. Even scientific proof garnered from that perfect source of all truth (the computer), could not convince them to drink milk or let me sneak it into their cereal or any other normal option... no, their allergy was ONLY negated if the milk came in a high fat, high sugar option.
I have even known parents to TEACH their kids how to lie, thinking that it was for a better purpose... a mother, wanting to win the custody battle, was seen sitting in the lobby of the counselor's office (the counselor who would report to the judge), coaching the kids... "if she asks ..., you can say..." VERY carefully parsing the words so that the kids could tell the "truth" (Mom's version), without saying something they KNEW to be a lie under oath... and insisting that the intention to mislead while still telling the truth was OK, because if they went to Dad's house, they'd not be allowed to see their friends (he lived a few miles away from their Mom's neighborhood), drive their car (SHE bought it for them and would not allow them to keep it at Dad's house), participate in their sports (Dad was upset about their grades and had suggested curtailing the extracurriculars until their grades had come back up), OR go on vacation (a vacation she had planned in secret because it was against the court order regarding parenting time, her intention had been to keep the kids away from Dad so she planned the vacation specifically to keep them out of state at the time Dad was supposed to spend time with them). So they intentionally mislead the counselor, each separately telling her that, contrary to Mom's claim, they DID love their Dad and they did NOT fear him, but magically, each of them had only a few hours a week to see Dad... between Sunday morning at church (which Mom rarely attended), and Sunday evening's youth group, if they weren't booked for an afternoon with friends or Mom's family, they could envision letting Dad spend a few hours with them. Understand, these lies are coming from OLDER kids, who were WELL OVER the idea that fairies were real. They were young and idealistic enough that they did not WANT to do the wrong thing, but when their mother explained all the reasons they would want to lie, they did NOT naturally revert to the truth. Faced with the possibility that they could get what they wanted, and not get caught, by lying. They lied.
The Mom who taught her kids to hide things from their Dad and to lie about things so she could win the custody battle, is now reaping the rewards of her choice, and now that the children are adults, they are lying to her as well. But that is all I'll say about that situation for now, because this is not about the evils of using your children as weapons against your co-parent, but rather about how easily children lie, how they are not born with an innate knowledge of truth, nor are they born with an innate desire to tell ONLY truth.
The knowledge of what is truth, and the desire to tell it, only come with training. We teach children about how the world works by lying to them... we teach them to "be good" by telling them about Santa Claus, we get them not to cry over losing a tooth by lying to them about the tooth fairy. We tell fairy tales that have morals we want them to learn. And if they ask us the tough questions about whether our family is financially secure, whether we are cheating on each other, hiding things from each other, or splitting up... if the truth is inconvenient, we lie. On the other end, we spend a lot of time telling them that strangers are dangerous, and then we're surprised when they meet ONE stranger who proves to NOT be dangerous, and they decide we don't know what we're saying when we preach about stranger danger, so they stop being careful around OTHER strangers.
Worse then telling them an altered version of the truth to teach them a lesson, we reinforce the lies they tell. If a cookie is missing from the cookie jar and crumbs all over their mouths, we ask, "where did it go", and when they say "I don't know" or "(name the invisible friend) took it"... we play along and try to convince them to come clean by proving it to them by logic. Or, BONUS, we laugh at the absurdity of the story. In doing so, we confirm for them that the lie worked, and even that it was cute and funny. That telling the lie made us love them more at the same time as keeping them out of trouble! If we ask, "did YOU do it"? (for just about ANY infraction of rules), and they say "no", we are thrown into a posture of having to play detective and prosecutor with them, convince them that their lies are not plausible. We give them the power of having fooled us so now they have made us WORK at it, and they are sure that we can never be completely sure of our conclusions, because they are pretty sure the lie worked. There is no down side to the kid for lying like this.
Think of it. "Did you take the cookie?" has two possible answers. "Yes", guarantees punishment. "No", evades punishment for at least a short time, and forces Mom to find evidence that will convince us that she knows we're lying. And to a 3 year old, saying it louder and longer sometimes just MAKES it true. We all know adults who never learned otherwise... those people who are so sure that if they say it, it is true, despite all evidence to the contrary, or who believe that it doesn't matter what anyone else says, if they say it louder and longer, we'll believe, or at least we'll submit to their demands.
So what is the solution? There is no requirement that we STOP telling fairy tales or change the Santa story. No... but we must address each situation of the children finding out the truth, as it arises, confirming for them that there is a different between fairy tales and truth, and the fairy tales are often based upon truth or teach very valuable lessons. But when we catch them red-handed in the cookie jar, we need not engage in any little games where they get to play "innocent until proven guilty" and turn us into a detective and prosecutor. Particularly when they are not old enough to understand logical reasoning! NO. When we catch them with a hand in the cookie jar, it's perfectly OK if they think we have eyes in the back of our heads... They were SURE we were turned around or out of the room, but we KNOW that they just stole a cookie. At the time of life when they can't possibly understand logical reasoning, it's perfectly OK if we are part of that magical world in their heads where some things... fairys, Santa, and Mom & Dad, KNOW EVERYTHING. We don't ASK, because we KNOW. So we do not ask, we TELL them. Johnny, you just took a cookie. You know how you're not supposed to get into the cookie jar when Mom is not here? Well, because you took a cookie now, you go into time out. 3 minutes. And then you don't get a cookie later because you already had it now. OK? And we do NOT let them wheedle, whine, and try to convince us that we're wrong.
Of course this doesn't work if we are not sure. Being unsure and falsely accusing the kid is a sure-fire way to OTHER bad things. However... sometimes we have to decide whether it's more important to make sure the kid does not get the feeling that lying can get them off the hook for stuff, or ... well, whatever other bad thing we're facing... punishing them for a cookie that we're not sure whether they ate it or not. Teaching them to save snacks till Mom says it's snack time, or whatever other lesson... which is more important... explaining snack time to a kid who can barely pronounce the word "snack", or teaching the child that lying does not work?
If you have gotten past this age and are confronted with a child who seems entrenched in a lying behavior, you may have some very difficult choices. Consult a therapist for help with this. With one of my foster children, I have to say that the therapist and I worked out a very important intervention for lying... we needed to even praise the child for telling the truth EVEN WHEN the truth was, "yes, I hit my little brother". The bottom line is that we were never going to get that statement out of her without a lot of work, so giving her the opportunity to lie about it by asking the question was not going to happen. We needed to work on telling the truth in LITTLE issues, like whether her homework was done or whether she spilled her orange juice, having a little party even, (making a big deal out of the occasion, not a whole PARTY with cupcakes & stuff!)... to celebrate her successes in telling the truth. Something like this needs to be done very carefully.
And the sooner, the better. You REALLY do not want to wait till the kids are away at college before you address the issue... because they'll be lying to you about the BIG things... drinking, drugging, roommates, romances, health, tuition, other finances, grades, and future plans... that can become a BIG expense (bail, bailing out credit, dropping out of college, raising grandbabies, etc). At some level, if your child has learned that lying is easier than the truth, you'll be lucky if your kid gets through adulthood without missing a holiday season visit with you because of a prison term!
Kids DO lie. And if we cannot acknowledge it, we cannot address it. And if we DO try to address it, we need to do so in a way that they can learn how to tell the truth. If we do not, we will regret it.
If kids are angry at someone, they will say things that will get that person into trouble, and if they are happy with that person, they will say things that will get the person OUT of trouble. If they want something, they will say things designed to get that thing for them, and if they don't want something, they will make up things that they hope will prevent them from having that something. "I'm allergic", becomes the refrain told to the lunch lady, babysitters, and camp counselors. I've heard "I'm allergic" as an excuse not to eat oatmeal, not to drink milk, not to eat fruit, or any kind of meat that the child did not like. A recent set of foster kids had me totally convinced that they were "lactose intolerant" (advanced little brains using a much more sophisticated form of "I'm allergic"), so that they could turn down milk, only to go bananas over ice cream, butter, and cheese when the opportunity arose. My explanation that those things include lactose did not faze them... "MOMMY lets me eat that!", is their way of proving that I'm wrong. Even scientific proof garnered from that perfect source of all truth (the computer), could not convince them to drink milk or let me sneak it into their cereal or any other normal option... no, their allergy was ONLY negated if the milk came in a high fat, high sugar option.
I have even known parents to TEACH their kids how to lie, thinking that it was for a better purpose... a mother, wanting to win the custody battle, was seen sitting in the lobby of the counselor's office (the counselor who would report to the judge), coaching the kids... "if she asks ..., you can say..." VERY carefully parsing the words so that the kids could tell the "truth" (Mom's version), without saying something they KNEW to be a lie under oath... and insisting that the intention to mislead while still telling the truth was OK, because if they went to Dad's house, they'd not be allowed to see their friends (he lived a few miles away from their Mom's neighborhood), drive their car (SHE bought it for them and would not allow them to keep it at Dad's house), participate in their sports (Dad was upset about their grades and had suggested curtailing the extracurriculars until their grades had come back up), OR go on vacation (a vacation she had planned in secret because it was against the court order regarding parenting time, her intention had been to keep the kids away from Dad so she planned the vacation specifically to keep them out of state at the time Dad was supposed to spend time with them). So they intentionally mislead the counselor, each separately telling her that, contrary to Mom's claim, they DID love their Dad and they did NOT fear him, but magically, each of them had only a few hours a week to see Dad... between Sunday morning at church (which Mom rarely attended), and Sunday evening's youth group, if they weren't booked for an afternoon with friends or Mom's family, they could envision letting Dad spend a few hours with them. Understand, these lies are coming from OLDER kids, who were WELL OVER the idea that fairies were real. They were young and idealistic enough that they did not WANT to do the wrong thing, but when their mother explained all the reasons they would want to lie, they did NOT naturally revert to the truth. Faced with the possibility that they could get what they wanted, and not get caught, by lying. They lied.
The Mom who taught her kids to hide things from their Dad and to lie about things so she could win the custody battle, is now reaping the rewards of her choice, and now that the children are adults, they are lying to her as well. But that is all I'll say about that situation for now, because this is not about the evils of using your children as weapons against your co-parent, but rather about how easily children lie, how they are not born with an innate knowledge of truth, nor are they born with an innate desire to tell ONLY truth.
The knowledge of what is truth, and the desire to tell it, only come with training. We teach children about how the world works by lying to them... we teach them to "be good" by telling them about Santa Claus, we get them not to cry over losing a tooth by lying to them about the tooth fairy. We tell fairy tales that have morals we want them to learn. And if they ask us the tough questions about whether our family is financially secure, whether we are cheating on each other, hiding things from each other, or splitting up... if the truth is inconvenient, we lie. On the other end, we spend a lot of time telling them that strangers are dangerous, and then we're surprised when they meet ONE stranger who proves to NOT be dangerous, and they decide we don't know what we're saying when we preach about stranger danger, so they stop being careful around OTHER strangers.
Worse then telling them an altered version of the truth to teach them a lesson, we reinforce the lies they tell. If a cookie is missing from the cookie jar and crumbs all over their mouths, we ask, "where did it go", and when they say "I don't know" or "(name the invisible friend) took it"... we play along and try to convince them to come clean by proving it to them by logic. Or, BONUS, we laugh at the absurdity of the story. In doing so, we confirm for them that the lie worked, and even that it was cute and funny. That telling the lie made us love them more at the same time as keeping them out of trouble! If we ask, "did YOU do it"? (for just about ANY infraction of rules), and they say "no", we are thrown into a posture of having to play detective and prosecutor with them, convince them that their lies are not plausible. We give them the power of having fooled us so now they have made us WORK at it, and they are sure that we can never be completely sure of our conclusions, because they are pretty sure the lie worked. There is no down side to the kid for lying like this.
Think of it. "Did you take the cookie?" has two possible answers. "Yes", guarantees punishment. "No", evades punishment for at least a short time, and forces Mom to find evidence that will convince us that she knows we're lying. And to a 3 year old, saying it louder and longer sometimes just MAKES it true. We all know adults who never learned otherwise... those people who are so sure that if they say it, it is true, despite all evidence to the contrary, or who believe that it doesn't matter what anyone else says, if they say it louder and longer, we'll believe, or at least we'll submit to their demands.
So what is the solution? There is no requirement that we STOP telling fairy tales or change the Santa story. No... but we must address each situation of the children finding out the truth, as it arises, confirming for them that there is a different between fairy tales and truth, and the fairy tales are often based upon truth or teach very valuable lessons. But when we catch them red-handed in the cookie jar, we need not engage in any little games where they get to play "innocent until proven guilty" and turn us into a detective and prosecutor. Particularly when they are not old enough to understand logical reasoning! NO. When we catch them with a hand in the cookie jar, it's perfectly OK if they think we have eyes in the back of our heads... They were SURE we were turned around or out of the room, but we KNOW that they just stole a cookie. At the time of life when they can't possibly understand logical reasoning, it's perfectly OK if we are part of that magical world in their heads where some things... fairys, Santa, and Mom & Dad, KNOW EVERYTHING. We don't ASK, because we KNOW. So we do not ask, we TELL them. Johnny, you just took a cookie. You know how you're not supposed to get into the cookie jar when Mom is not here? Well, because you took a cookie now, you go into time out. 3 minutes. And then you don't get a cookie later because you already had it now. OK? And we do NOT let them wheedle, whine, and try to convince us that we're wrong.
Of course this doesn't work if we are not sure. Being unsure and falsely accusing the kid is a sure-fire way to OTHER bad things. However... sometimes we have to decide whether it's more important to make sure the kid does not get the feeling that lying can get them off the hook for stuff, or ... well, whatever other bad thing we're facing... punishing them for a cookie that we're not sure whether they ate it or not. Teaching them to save snacks till Mom says it's snack time, or whatever other lesson... which is more important... explaining snack time to a kid who can barely pronounce the word "snack", or teaching the child that lying does not work?
If you have gotten past this age and are confronted with a child who seems entrenched in a lying behavior, you may have some very difficult choices. Consult a therapist for help with this. With one of my foster children, I have to say that the therapist and I worked out a very important intervention for lying... we needed to even praise the child for telling the truth EVEN WHEN the truth was, "yes, I hit my little brother". The bottom line is that we were never going to get that statement out of her without a lot of work, so giving her the opportunity to lie about it by asking the question was not going to happen. We needed to work on telling the truth in LITTLE issues, like whether her homework was done or whether she spilled her orange juice, having a little party even, (making a big deal out of the occasion, not a whole PARTY with cupcakes & stuff!)... to celebrate her successes in telling the truth. Something like this needs to be done very carefully.
And the sooner, the better. You REALLY do not want to wait till the kids are away at college before you address the issue... because they'll be lying to you about the BIG things... drinking, drugging, roommates, romances, health, tuition, other finances, grades, and future plans... that can become a BIG expense (bail, bailing out credit, dropping out of college, raising grandbabies, etc). At some level, if your child has learned that lying is easier than the truth, you'll be lucky if your kid gets through adulthood without missing a holiday season visit with you because of a prison term!
Kids DO lie. And if we cannot acknowledge it, we cannot address it. And if we DO try to address it, we need to do so in a way that they can learn how to tell the truth. If we do not, we will regret it.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Adoption of foreign children
In the U.S., we recognize that we have more opportunities and we pride ourselves on sharing those opportunities with those who are less fortunate. In many instances, families seeking to adopt a child will look for that child in a foreign country. Our foster system has many children who are available, but for some families, the option to foster a child with the hope of eventually adopting, is not their first choice.
A few warnings to those who seek to adopt through a foreign source. First, the Hague Convention covers the adoption of some foreign children. It does not cover the adoption of ALL foreign children. The Convention is a treaty signed by many countries, where part of the convention addresses inter-country adoption of orphans. In other words, if a person in China wants to adopt an orphan from England, they can expect that the procedures found in the Hague Convention will be followed. Not all countries signed onto the convention, but most have. You will want to double-check to make sure the country you seek to adopt from has signed this convention, because if it is not, you may find yourself facing rules that are not as easy to identify.
The Hague convention only covers adoptions of orphans. Each country who has signed the convention has slightly different procedures, but the biggest advantage of this convention is that, for U.S. citizens, once you have properly accomplished your adoption process through the Hague Convention, the U.S. state department will honor the adoption and issue a passport, allowing the child to attain citizenship through this means.
In a non-Hague adoption (for example, an inter-family adoption or the adoption of a person who is not identified as an orphan), our government does not recognize the adoption as qualifying the child for citizenship. In other words, we are not allowing the Hague Convention to let us circumvent our immigration rules, to bring people into our country and give them citizenship, just by adopting them, if they are not orphans. When someone very close to me decided to adopt her niece, for example, and bring her to the U.S. for her schooling, the U.S. government required this friend of mine to spend 3 years in the niece's home country, acting as her adoptive parent IN THAT COUNTRY, before they allowed her to bring the child here.
In another instance, I had a potential client consult me about a non-Hague adoption. She and her husband were living in an asian country as missionarys for a few years with their church. They had met a teen from Nigeria. His parents had been caught in a scam so he was now stuck. The scammer had promised to get the teen enrolled in a soccer team where he would be making a significant amount of money, if they could scratch up enough money to pay the scammer. The scammer had arranged a flight, and the families who succombed to the scam, brought their teens to the airport and gave them a great send-off, with the scammer taking the kids and their money. The scammer left the kids in this Asian country and flew away, never to be heard of again. The kids were left in an airport with no further instructions. The mission helped them get through customs and found out about the scam. Several of the kids' parents welcomed them home, but this one older teen, his parents did not want him back. They could not afford him. They could not afford tickets for his trip home. The kid was stuck. So my potential client felt they had a solution... adopt him and bring him home with them when they returned in another month. They had consulted with their embassy, but were rebuffed, so they reached out to me, a lawyer from their home state.
I felt bad about it, but I had to explain about the Hague Convention situation that this does not apply to children whose parents are still alive. All their good intentions had nothing to do with being this young man's parents, they were simply trying to solve an immigration issue. And that is not what adoption is about. It is no there to solve immigration issues.
In the process of our conversation, this couple brought up to me the situation of some famous people who have adopted children from other countries who were not necessarily orphans. Was this about giving kids to people who were rich or famous, and keeping kids away from the poor (but possibly more deserving) missionaries? No... I had to point out, those famous adoptive parents were living in other countries at the time of their famous adoptions. Our own government is very sensitive to the potential accusation that we are coming to their countries and BUYING children from their parents, who are very much alive. We do not believe in doing this thing. If you are not familiar with similar situations in other countries, such as what happened with this young Nigerian man, you might not be aware that this does happen. Parents effectively sell their children. In the most notorious of instances, they are selling the kids into slavery or indentured servitude, to work in a factory or worse. Our country does not want any part of that. We often help the victims of human trafficking incidents, but we don't want to encourage such trafficking. So, where the child's birth parents are still alive and capable of parenting, we require the potential adoptive parent to prove their intention to parent. Go there, and be the kid's parent, if this kid is that important to you!
It sounds difficult, but think of it in two ways. First, as I already mentioned, our government does not want to turn adoption into a loophole for immigration, allowing people to adopt each other, willy-nilly, just to get a passport. Second, We do not want to be the subject of a news expose where some poor mother from another country gets on camera and points fingers at us for being so arrogant that one of our citizens convinced her to sell her beloved children to them, and now she regrets it.
If you're seeking adoption from a foreign country, recognize that you will be required to cross all the Ts and dot all the Is. If you are working with an adoption agency who has a good lawyer, who has had success in making adoptions from this particular country you're working with, then great. HOWEVER, if you are seeking to adopt your own relative, or a child you have found through a source other than an experienced adoption agency, you will want to be sure to hire an immigration attorney with experience in foreign adoptions. If you are adoption in a non-Hague fashion, be sure your lawer is familiar with the rules for non-Hague adoptions and has had success with making such adoptions happen. Finally, no matter which version of foreign adoption you are seeking, recognize that you may find the requirements to be difficult to fulfill. If the requirements feel impossible, there may be a reason. It's quite possible that our government has decided to impose extreme requirements on your particular situation because they do not approve of people seeking to adopt for your particular reasons. I have advised people seeking to adopt their adult landscaper to help him get citizenship, or seeking to adopt their spouses because the circumstances of their marriage had caused the Immigration authorities to deny citizenship under that route. In each of these situations, the difficult requirements for non-orphan adoption felt bad. These people honestly just wanted to help someone immigrate, and they were sure they had found a loophole under the adoption opportunity. Unfortunately, the "loophole" is not as open as some people would hope. Thank goodness those people consulted me before they proceeded very far with the adoption process, because the expense of following through with the adoption would not have been worth it for the results they sought.
Before you start this adventure, please, consult a lawyer. And good luck. Creating a family for a person who has none can save lives, and futures.
A few warnings to those who seek to adopt through a foreign source. First, the Hague Convention covers the adoption of some foreign children. It does not cover the adoption of ALL foreign children. The Convention is a treaty signed by many countries, where part of the convention addresses inter-country adoption of orphans. In other words, if a person in China wants to adopt an orphan from England, they can expect that the procedures found in the Hague Convention will be followed. Not all countries signed onto the convention, but most have. You will want to double-check to make sure the country you seek to adopt from has signed this convention, because if it is not, you may find yourself facing rules that are not as easy to identify.
The Hague convention only covers adoptions of orphans. Each country who has signed the convention has slightly different procedures, but the biggest advantage of this convention is that, for U.S. citizens, once you have properly accomplished your adoption process through the Hague Convention, the U.S. state department will honor the adoption and issue a passport, allowing the child to attain citizenship through this means.
In a non-Hague adoption (for example, an inter-family adoption or the adoption of a person who is not identified as an orphan), our government does not recognize the adoption as qualifying the child for citizenship. In other words, we are not allowing the Hague Convention to let us circumvent our immigration rules, to bring people into our country and give them citizenship, just by adopting them, if they are not orphans. When someone very close to me decided to adopt her niece, for example, and bring her to the U.S. for her schooling, the U.S. government required this friend of mine to spend 3 years in the niece's home country, acting as her adoptive parent IN THAT COUNTRY, before they allowed her to bring the child here.
In another instance, I had a potential client consult me about a non-Hague adoption. She and her husband were living in an asian country as missionarys for a few years with their church. They had met a teen from Nigeria. His parents had been caught in a scam so he was now stuck. The scammer had promised to get the teen enrolled in a soccer team where he would be making a significant amount of money, if they could scratch up enough money to pay the scammer. The scammer had arranged a flight, and the families who succombed to the scam, brought their teens to the airport and gave them a great send-off, with the scammer taking the kids and their money. The scammer left the kids in this Asian country and flew away, never to be heard of again. The kids were left in an airport with no further instructions. The mission helped them get through customs and found out about the scam. Several of the kids' parents welcomed them home, but this one older teen, his parents did not want him back. They could not afford him. They could not afford tickets for his trip home. The kid was stuck. So my potential client felt they had a solution... adopt him and bring him home with them when they returned in another month. They had consulted with their embassy, but were rebuffed, so they reached out to me, a lawyer from their home state.
I felt bad about it, but I had to explain about the Hague Convention situation that this does not apply to children whose parents are still alive. All their good intentions had nothing to do with being this young man's parents, they were simply trying to solve an immigration issue. And that is not what adoption is about. It is no there to solve immigration issues.
In the process of our conversation, this couple brought up to me the situation of some famous people who have adopted children from other countries who were not necessarily orphans. Was this about giving kids to people who were rich or famous, and keeping kids away from the poor (but possibly more deserving) missionaries? No... I had to point out, those famous adoptive parents were living in other countries at the time of their famous adoptions. Our own government is very sensitive to the potential accusation that we are coming to their countries and BUYING children from their parents, who are very much alive. We do not believe in doing this thing. If you are not familiar with similar situations in other countries, such as what happened with this young Nigerian man, you might not be aware that this does happen. Parents effectively sell their children. In the most notorious of instances, they are selling the kids into slavery or indentured servitude, to work in a factory or worse. Our country does not want any part of that. We often help the victims of human trafficking incidents, but we don't want to encourage such trafficking. So, where the child's birth parents are still alive and capable of parenting, we require the potential adoptive parent to prove their intention to parent. Go there, and be the kid's parent, if this kid is that important to you!
It sounds difficult, but think of it in two ways. First, as I already mentioned, our government does not want to turn adoption into a loophole for immigration, allowing people to adopt each other, willy-nilly, just to get a passport. Second, We do not want to be the subject of a news expose where some poor mother from another country gets on camera and points fingers at us for being so arrogant that one of our citizens convinced her to sell her beloved children to them, and now she regrets it.
If you're seeking adoption from a foreign country, recognize that you will be required to cross all the Ts and dot all the Is. If you are working with an adoption agency who has a good lawyer, who has had success in making adoptions from this particular country you're working with, then great. HOWEVER, if you are seeking to adopt your own relative, or a child you have found through a source other than an experienced adoption agency, you will want to be sure to hire an immigration attorney with experience in foreign adoptions. If you are adoption in a non-Hague fashion, be sure your lawer is familiar with the rules for non-Hague adoptions and has had success with making such adoptions happen. Finally, no matter which version of foreign adoption you are seeking, recognize that you may find the requirements to be difficult to fulfill. If the requirements feel impossible, there may be a reason. It's quite possible that our government has decided to impose extreme requirements on your particular situation because they do not approve of people seeking to adopt for your particular reasons. I have advised people seeking to adopt their adult landscaper to help him get citizenship, or seeking to adopt their spouses because the circumstances of their marriage had caused the Immigration authorities to deny citizenship under that route. In each of these situations, the difficult requirements for non-orphan adoption felt bad. These people honestly just wanted to help someone immigrate, and they were sure they had found a loophole under the adoption opportunity. Unfortunately, the "loophole" is not as open as some people would hope. Thank goodness those people consulted me before they proceeded very far with the adoption process, because the expense of following through with the adoption would not have been worth it for the results they sought.
Before you start this adventure, please, consult a lawyer. And good luck. Creating a family for a person who has none can save lives, and futures.
Friday, December 7, 2012
economics in the real world
These days, the majority of questions I'm asked have less to do strictly with law, and more to do with wise economic decisions. Should I sue over this $200 dispute? Is it a good idea to hire an attorney to review that contract? Is it better to rent or buy?
The answers to these questions require less legal analysis and more information on the viability of the alternatives. Is the $200 dispute worth the price of the filing fees and the trouble going to court (in some instances, the answer is "yes")? Is the price of the lawyer worth the types of things that you'll find out about the contract before you sign it? When looking at the price of the rental and the costs of the purchase, versus the possible change in value of the purchased property and the costs of eventually seeing any realized profit from that value, does the overall potential profit or loss justify the purchase or the rental... and then add in the emotional attachment to the purchase or the feeling of security of owning a property rather than using property someone else owns... it's a complicated formula, but as a lawyer, I can help someone think through the parts of the formula, I can't make the final decision for them.
I've even been talking to friends (and the kids) about the economic viability of issues that have nothing to do with the law. Is it cheaper to eat cheap fast food or to buy groceries and cook at home? Is it healthier? What kinds of things should I think about in terms of saving time, money, calories and health benefits?
I suspect it might be a good thing to start blogging about those issues, so I will start an "economics in the real world" blog, and see what happens.
Go take a look at it and let me know if you think it's a worthwhile effort? And if you have some good ideas to contribute, please... join in!
The answers to these questions require less legal analysis and more information on the viability of the alternatives. Is the $200 dispute worth the price of the filing fees and the trouble going to court (in some instances, the answer is "yes")? Is the price of the lawyer worth the types of things that you'll find out about the contract before you sign it? When looking at the price of the rental and the costs of the purchase, versus the possible change in value of the purchased property and the costs of eventually seeing any realized profit from that value, does the overall potential profit or loss justify the purchase or the rental... and then add in the emotional attachment to the purchase or the feeling of security of owning a property rather than using property someone else owns... it's a complicated formula, but as a lawyer, I can help someone think through the parts of the formula, I can't make the final decision for them.
I've even been talking to friends (and the kids) about the economic viability of issues that have nothing to do with the law. Is it cheaper to eat cheap fast food or to buy groceries and cook at home? Is it healthier? What kinds of things should I think about in terms of saving time, money, calories and health benefits?
I suspect it might be a good thing to start blogging about those issues, so I will start an "economics in the real world" blog, and see what happens.
Go take a look at it and let me know if you think it's a worthwhile effort? And if you have some good ideas to contribute, please... join in!
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Blog is changing focus
The previous focus of my law practice no longer works for me, so I've given my notice and walked away from my office. Not to worry, though, the personal advice that I have always been more than willing to give, will keep coming.
I have gone back to working for a former employer on a part time basis, and my legal advice is still available through that official format.
My new focus for this blog is to compile some personal advice, give back to my community, and take on a few law tasks as they arrive on my doorstep.
I have gone back to working for a former employer on a part time basis, and my legal advice is still available through that official format.
My new focus for this blog is to compile some personal advice, give back to my community, and take on a few law tasks as they arrive on my doorstep.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Debt Negotiation Scams
The recent financial crisis in our country has created a new industry, Debt Negotiation. Be very careful in hiring someone else to do your negotiation for you.
The problem typically starts with an unexpected expense, health or job situation that causes you to put more on your credit cards than you feel comfortable handling, and then the credit card company will unilaterally decide to increase your interest rate to the point where you cannot afford the minimum payments on your cards. You get a new credit card, shift balances around, and work the system until you can go no further. They increase their rates and their profits, forcing a situation where you cannot afford to make ends meet.
You want to do the right thing and figure out how to pay your debts. And Debt Negotiators arrive to save the day, offering to do it all for you, for the low, low price of…
It is ALWAYS too much.
Many states have no regulation of “debt negotiators”, so you could be talking to some person who has no knowledge of the pitfalls facing you if they fail. It sounds so impressive when they say they have been “in the financial services industry for XX years…”, but were they in the debt negotiation business that long? Not likely. More likely, they were part of the mortgage lending scam and are now out of work so they’ve re-tooled their websites and are now offering this Debt Negotiation service. Or they were financial advisors for a business that failed (not exactly the most ringing endorsement).
Do not pay anything more than a very small service fee to a consumer protection agency for this type of service. Enough for them to keep their phone service and postage for your case. Think of it… you owe $50,000 to various creditors and cannot pay it back, but instead, up front, you save up and pay $5,000 to this negotiator, who now has your money and if they’re smart, they have made no promises. They have said stuff that sounds like a promise, but if you look at the fine print, they do not promise success.
The typical contract is something like this: You pay me and I will try to negotiate all your outstanding debts, but if the creditors refuse to negotiate, I did my best and will not refund what you paid to me.
What usually happens is something like this. Let’s say you owe $10,000 each, to each of 5 different creditors for a total of $50,000. You qualify for bankruptcy today, but if you only owed $45,000, you would not qualify (the means test for bankruptcy court is to blame for this). Creditor number one negotiates, agrees to take 50 cents on the dollar, if you pay it up front. You sell the good china and your wedding ring, and saved up a few months to pay them $5,000 to wipe yourself clean of the $10,000 debt that you owe to them. In saving up this money, you missed minimum payments for creditors 2, 3, 4 and 5. For Creditor 2, the negotiator works hard to reduce the payments. They refuse to reduce the principal amount of the debt and take a lump sum up front to pay it off, and insist that the best they can do is reduce the interest rate and the minimum payment. You agree. The same works for creditors 3 and 4. But Creditor 5 is stubborn. They know they can get full payment of everything due to them if they push, and they file lawsuit.
You owe the debt so they win. They also get $2000 on top fo the $10,000 that you already owed, to pay for thier lawyer. Now they get to garnish your wages. What this means is that 15-25% of your pay will come out of your check before it gets anywhere near you, every payday. You now have to pay off creditors 2, 3 & 4 with what’s left AFTER Creditor 5 gets his share of your paycheck. AND you still have to pay rent, utilities, and feed yourself. Suddenly, there’s not enough left, and you fall behind on your payments to 2, 3 &4. Creditors number 2, 3 & 4 file suit. They win. You are now paying what you owed to them, PLUS their lawyer’s fees for filing the suit. A total of $8,000 worth of legal fees on top of the $50,000 you already owed. But in the meantime you've paid off the first creditor and most of the second creditor's lawsuit. In the year this has been pending, you have gotten to where you only owe $45,000. You've paid a TON of money out and only reduced your total debt by $5,000. You cannot make ends meet, but you no longer qualify for bankruptcy. Your wages will be garnished by creditor number 2, then number 3 will take over, then number 4 and finally 5. By the time your'e finished paying these debts off, you will be past retirement.
Your Debt Negotiator has the $5,000 that you paid for this service and their contract is finished. The first several times this happens to the Debt Negotiator, they act all surprised… “this never HAPPENED before!” Because of the timeline of events, these things take a few years to get clear, but it eventually happens to most debt negotiation clients. Eventually, the Debt Negotiator realizes that their job is not a public service. Their job is just to sell their service and get their cash out of you before your other creditors get it and before you end up in bankruptcy court (if you're lucky enough to still owe enough money that bankruptcy is an option). This is true whether their fee is $500 or $5,000 or more. If it’s more than the price of mail and phone service, then it is more than you can afford.
Spend your money on something that may be more painful but ultimately more successful… hire a lawyer if you need to defend yourself against a lawsuit by a creditor… hire a financial planner or credit counselor if you need help in deciding how to live within your means…. Spend the money to consult a bankruptcy attorney so that you know your options and understand the whole picture before you try to negotiate your own debts. Understand that your creditors know the whole picture a lot better than you do. They’ve been through this before. So you are better off getting information than in handing a shoebox full of bills and a stack of money to a slick salesperson with a slick website who promises to perform miracles on your shoebox. In most cases, you’d be better off spending your money on paying down some of the bills in the shoebox. In many cases, you’d be better off spending your money on snake oil.
Monday, July 25, 2011
NO BONFIRES: 10 steps to getting rid of your ex's stuff
Everyone who has had a heart-wrenching split from their mate knows of the urge to have a bonfire. Movies have touted its efficiency in purging emotional baggage. But deep down, we all also know that the tactic is wrong. Somewhere, deep down, we are motivated by anger, and destroying our partner’s belongs feels satisfying in its vengeful quality.
SO,I must warn that the little voice in the back of your head is a good voice. It is telling you not to trash your ex's stuff, and it is right. Setting fire to things that symbolize your ex lover is doing violence, while perhaps not as taboo as doing violence to the person, it is still a violent display of anger. At the outset, you envision living in a home free of their stuff, but deep down, a little devil inside is dancing with glee at the disappointment of your ex in finding out that the stuff has been trashed. A bonfire is the ultimate display of disrespect for the person you once shared a life with.
While some therapists may encourage such grand displays of anger, I believe this is misguided advice. I agree that it is good to expel the energy behind an angry feeling, but the harm that a bonfire does goes beyond a few missing photos and heirlooms. Domestic violence experts warn that destroying clothing or precious items belonging to another person is abusive. It’s a display of anger and destruction that will give the message to the victim of the anger, and the message is that the abuser is dangerous. This message, whether intended to do so or not, coerces compliance. The woman whose clothing has been slashed will fear defying her mate. The man whose family heirlooms have been destroyed will fear that the person who destroyed these things intends to alienate the children from his side of the family. The victims of this distruction fear defying the destroyer, in a way that does not do justice. It only does more destruction. So, when people plan bonfires with the intention of avoiding violence, and they would never want to believe that they are being violent, the opposite is what happens. They become the violent abuser. But ultimately, what they are doing is just as bad as the violent husband who has removed his wife’s clothing from the closet and slashed it, turning it into a message to her that he is dangerous and has control over things that are precious to her.
If you are convinced of the wisdom of this, you need an alternative, acceptable, plan of action for getting rid of your ex’s junk. So, here’s the plan:
If you follow these steps and do not play games with them or do anything unreasonable in the course of setting deadlines and making this happen, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you did the right thing and did not give into the temptation to hurt someone else, needlessly.
SO,I must warn that the little voice in the back of your head is a good voice. It is telling you not to trash your ex's stuff, and it is right. Setting fire to things that symbolize your ex lover is doing violence, while perhaps not as taboo as doing violence to the person, it is still a violent display of anger. At the outset, you envision living in a home free of their stuff, but deep down, a little devil inside is dancing with glee at the disappointment of your ex in finding out that the stuff has been trashed. A bonfire is the ultimate display of disrespect for the person you once shared a life with.
While some therapists may encourage such grand displays of anger, I believe this is misguided advice. I agree that it is good to expel the energy behind an angry feeling, but the harm that a bonfire does goes beyond a few missing photos and heirlooms. Domestic violence experts warn that destroying clothing or precious items belonging to another person is abusive. It’s a display of anger and destruction that will give the message to the victim of the anger, and the message is that the abuser is dangerous. This message, whether intended to do so or not, coerces compliance. The woman whose clothing has been slashed will fear defying her mate. The man whose family heirlooms have been destroyed will fear that the person who destroyed these things intends to alienate the children from his side of the family. The victims of this distruction fear defying the destroyer, in a way that does not do justice. It only does more destruction. So, when people plan bonfires with the intention of avoiding violence, and they would never want to believe that they are being violent, the opposite is what happens. They become the violent abuser. But ultimately, what they are doing is just as bad as the violent husband who has removed his wife’s clothing from the closet and slashed it, turning it into a message to her that he is dangerous and has control over things that are precious to her.
If you are convinced of the wisdom of this, you need an alternative, acceptable, plan of action for getting rid of your ex’s junk. So, here’s the plan:
1) When you have separated and to not intend to reconcile, give your former partner a reasonable amount of time to get settled. “Reasonable”, depends upon the circumstances. It is longer than a week, not as long as a decade.
2) Consult your lawyer to make sure you do not make deadlines that are not appropriate for your situation. Ask for help setting reasonable limits so that you will not have stuff taken from you and that you will be safe if there are issues of physical violence or distrust as part of this separation. The lawyer can help you decide whether you need to have friends standing by with you, if you need to pack the stuff and leave the home, if you can have police standing by (you may have to pay for this service from off duty police officers). There are many options, even if you do not have a lawyer, pay for an hour worth of their time to get some ideas on how to do this properly so that no one will ever accuse you of contempt of court or worse: a crime of taking or destroying someone else’s property. With guidelines from your lawyer on how you can protect yourself and your stuff while your ex is removing their stuff, move forward.
3) Let your former partner know that you want them to remove their property from your home. Give them a reasonable deadline. Offer opportunities to schedule the move-out.
4) Either give it all to them and give them enough time to pack it all, or give them enough time to sort through it all as well as time to pack it up. It is often an entire lifetime worth of stuff. Be reasonable.
5) This part of the split is harder on them than it is on you. For you, it is an imposition into your private space. For them, it is the logistical nightmare of moving their entire life without causing too much trouble to anotehr person. Do not complain that they do not have enough friends to help with the move, or that they do not have the strength or space in their truck to complete it in one trip. Those complaints are only intended to embarass them and hurt them, and make the whole task more difficult. Some people find it hard to impose on others for help in situations like this. Other people cannot afford the moving van needed to do the job properly. Do not be cruel about it. Remember how difficult it was to move when you were together and being cooperative with each other? This is worse for them, going it alone. So have a little sympathy. I know, I know, they hurt you and they deserve this pain. Still, you want to be the better person (by seeking out advice, you are trying to be the better person). So within your means and your former partner’s means, find a way to manage the logistics of removing their stuff from your house, without using it as an opportunity to hurt or embarrass them, or rack up unnecessary costs. This is the last time you have to cooperate with each other, try not to make it a nightmare that will cause everyone involved to feel justified in being upset with you. Yes, there are plenty of reasons for you to be upset with them, but do not allow your anger and upset show in this task. This is not the time or place for you to contemplate revenge.
6) For items you agree upon, offer to pack. It will save them time and save you time of being intruded upon. If you do pack for them, then do so carefully. Let it roll off your back if they decline your offer with some nasty comment that suggests you are incompetent. Wrap and pack the things as well or better than you would do for yourself. No letting it sit in moldy puddles of water in your shed after you have packed it and until they can schedule a pick-up.
7) For photos and memorabilia, sort out what you want and put the remainder in a box for the ex. Your ex gets that box outright and can take it home to sort through at leisure. Let the ex sort through the items you choose to keep. They will be sorting these items into two piles. Some they do not want and therefore automatically go to you without question. Others, they want. This is the pile of disputed items. For disputed photos and papers, get copies. If any disputed items can be copied, then do so and each of you keep a copy (digitalizes photo records make this task much easier than a decade or two ago!) Keep the remaining disputed items and come up with a way to distribute them later. Never, ever assume that it yours and use it or dispose of it until you have resolved the dispute.
8) If your former partner does not cooperate with your attempts to get them to remove their stuff, your lawyer can help in explaining what is reasonable as far as giving them notice and a deadline. Be reasonable. Make sure they receive your message that you will be getting rid of their stuff if they don’t pick it up. If you have a court order to give them stuff, and it’s still at your home, your lawyer will probably recommend going back to court to get an order that will set deadlines and procedures for managing the pick-up.
9) ONLY after you are certain that your partner has every item that they might want to get, assuring that you have not hidden things from them, that they have not forgotten some vital heirloom that they will only remember at Christmas, or their parent’s anniversary, etc., THEN you may dispose of the remainder of the items. Have a garage sale, toss them in the trash. If they are papers that contain identifying information, shredding and bonfires are acceptable. Be safe about however you handle their former property that they have chosen not to pick up or forgotten about. You do not want to be the source of a lifelong identity theft problem because you failed to take care of their copy of their birth certificate when you found it in your attic a decade after the divorce and they didn’t want to pick it up.
10) Throughout this, remember that you can only control your own behavior. You cannot control theirs. Do your best to remain in control of your emotions and be treat their property and them with respect. Do not call them names or demean them for having difficulty in organizing this task. Remember that it is a monumental task and they are in just as much pain as you are, more, maybe, for having had to make do without their stuff, since the separation. Remember that they are the ones moving and going through this part of the trouble, only half of the problem is over with for them, once they have removed the stuff from your home. They still have to figure out what to do with it, where to put it, how to unpack, etc., etc., after you are finished with the task. Be respectful. Even if they are cruel, mean, angry, remember that this is their behavior, and you do not have to respond in kind. Try not to cry or yell or have drama during the contact. There is time enough for you to fall apart when it’s over.
If you follow these steps and do not play games with them or do anything unreasonable in the course of setting deadlines and making this happen, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you did the right thing and did not give into the temptation to hurt someone else, needlessly.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Cooperative co-parenting: giving each other the information
I recently helped someone figure out how to handle a situation: her child was scheduled for an event. She and her ex husband had chosen to schedule the event together, because they were trying to be cooperative co-parents rather than competitive co-parents. But she was the "point person" on the task of applying for the event, paying, preparing and taking the child to the event. She sent several reminders, and could not figure out why he had not yet asked her for the address or contact information so he could attend and participate. She was getting frustrated, and believed he was expecting her to act as his receptionist, organizing his schedule for him and helping him figure out how to get there and who to contact so that he could do something special for their child.
It took about a minute and a half of talking to her that she realized what was going on. In her head, she was handling this in the same way she handled things during the marriage, when they lived in the same house and drove to events in the same vehicle. She was frustrated at what she perceived to be his inability to organize his life. She expected him to rely upon her, so she did not just cut and paste the contact and other event information (date, time, location) into her e-mail reminders to him. She was waiting for him to realize that he did not have it already and ASK for it. She was getting frustrated at him for not recognizing that he did not have it yet, and expecting her to organize his life for him (or at least his participation in this event).
I pointed out that it does not matter HOW he organizes himself any more. That's up to him. But in case he is the type who doesn't realize that he doesn't have the address of the place he's going, until he's about to get in the car, she can save herself the frustration of getting a last minute call from him while she's in the car and on the way, if she only cuts and pastes the event information into one of her reminder e-mails to him.
She admits to me that her thought process was mixed up with a little anger at him for a past situation where he failed to give her event information until she asked directly, but she realizes that letting this issue become "an issue", is more appropriate to competitive co-parenting than it is to cooperative co-parenting. She realizes that she solves the potential drama in this situation if she sends him the information without making him ask for it first.
We talked a little about her feeling that he was turning her into “his secretary", as she put it. I pointed out that even if this is one of the support staff-like functions of organizing a family, then the secretary of the business doing the event-planning is responsible for sending out the complete contact information for those business people who are not directly planning the event, bur merely attending and participating. When she realized that she is acting as HER OWN secretary rather than his, by giving him complete information, it fell into place in her head. Her responsibility in being point person on an event they agree about, is to keep him fully informed without waiting to be asked.
Once she gives him the information that she possesses, her responsibility to him is over. He can keep or toss the information, if he mistakenly hits the "delete" button, then it's reasonable for him to ask if she can re-send and she’s being nice (and doing right by her kid) to do that, but other than that, it's all on him.
The lesson here? In this world of instant communication, the process of letting each other know who, what, when, where, why (and how much $$), is simple. Cut, paste, and <send>. Assuming that you are in agreement on the actual event, coordinating attendance is as simple as handing each other the information. Cooperative co-parents learn to do this automatically, as automatically as if they were acting as THEIR OWN secretary in forwarding their boss' invitations with complete information. Once the recipient gets the information, it's up to them to follow through. Cooperative co-parents need not nag, push, manipulate or mislead each other on this particular issue. After they have been so good as to cooperate in choosing the event and choosing a point person for making the event happen, all they have to do is inform. Completely.
It took about a minute and a half of talking to her that she realized what was going on. In her head, she was handling this in the same way she handled things during the marriage, when they lived in the same house and drove to events in the same vehicle. She was frustrated at what she perceived to be his inability to organize his life. She expected him to rely upon her, so she did not just cut and paste the contact and other event information (date, time, location) into her e-mail reminders to him. She was waiting for him to realize that he did not have it already and ASK for it. She was getting frustrated at him for not recognizing that he did not have it yet, and expecting her to organize his life for him (or at least his participation in this event).
I pointed out that it does not matter HOW he organizes himself any more. That's up to him. But in case he is the type who doesn't realize that he doesn't have the address of the place he's going, until he's about to get in the car, she can save herself the frustration of getting a last minute call from him while she's in the car and on the way, if she only cuts and pastes the event information into one of her reminder e-mails to him.
She admits to me that her thought process was mixed up with a little anger at him for a past situation where he failed to give her event information until she asked directly, but she realizes that letting this issue become "an issue", is more appropriate to competitive co-parenting than it is to cooperative co-parenting. She realizes that she solves the potential drama in this situation if she sends him the information without making him ask for it first.
We talked a little about her feeling that he was turning her into “his secretary", as she put it. I pointed out that even if this is one of the support staff-like functions of organizing a family, then the secretary of the business doing the event-planning is responsible for sending out the complete contact information for those business people who are not directly planning the event, bur merely attending and participating. When she realized that she is acting as HER OWN secretary rather than his, by giving him complete information, it fell into place in her head. Her responsibility in being point person on an event they agree about, is to keep him fully informed without waiting to be asked.
Once she gives him the information that she possesses, her responsibility to him is over. He can keep or toss the information, if he mistakenly hits the "delete" button, then it's reasonable for him to ask if she can re-send and she’s being nice (and doing right by her kid) to do that, but other than that, it's all on him.
The lesson here? In this world of instant communication, the process of letting each other know who, what, when, where, why (and how much $$), is simple. Cut, paste, and <send>. Assuming that you are in agreement on the actual event, coordinating attendance is as simple as handing each other the information. Cooperative co-parents learn to do this automatically, as automatically as if they were acting as THEIR OWN secretary in forwarding their boss' invitations with complete information. Once the recipient gets the information, it's up to them to follow through. Cooperative co-parents need not nag, push, manipulate or mislead each other on this particular issue. After they have been so good as to cooperate in choosing the event and choosing a point person for making the event happen, all they have to do is inform. Completely.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Is she on DRUGS?
I was recently asked this question by a colleague who was mystified at his opponent’s behavior. His opponent is representing herself in court, having fired several attorneys. They’ve been through several judges. She hides information and seems to think that no one realizes that vital pieces of information are missing from the bare minimum stuff she has sent in discovery. Those closest to her, including his own clients, do not believe she is on drugs, but they admit that they are not close enough to be sure.
While no one is ever close enough to be sure that a person is not doing drugs, this strange behavior can be explained by something other than drugs. Some personality disorders allow people to lie at will, without seeming to have any concept that their lies are obvious, and without seeming to have any feeling of guilt or embarassment about having lied. The people who have these disorders do not suffer nearly as much as those around them. They lie at the drop of a hat and appear so convinced of their versions of events that you are certain they would pass a lie detector test. They'll tell any story that might get them off the hook for a minute. And they may even pass lie detector tests. People with these disorders can convince themselves of the truth of their own stories, despite that anyone who knows the whole story would easily prove that the story is a lie. Or they have no capacity to feel empathy, so their physiological systems do not register negative when they lie.
A person with an extreme version of one of these personality disorders may re-define the common meaning of words to suit their own purposes. Maybe the person thinks the people who wrote a contract WANTED a certain thing to happen, and so they'll say that's what the contract says, despite that there is nothing in the contract that says so. They'll hear a rumor and think it's their duty to pass it on. They'll take money from their parent's estate on the theory that the parent really loved them best and didn't want the siblings to have as much, despite that the wihll says otherwise. They'll say, "well it was Dad's WILL", meaning his "intent" (as they interpret it) rather than the actual document called the "will". This person is referring to what she believes her parent would have wanted. The fact that others disagree with her opinion on this is of no impact to her, she believes she is stating her opinion and that her opinion of her parent’s “will” is valid. She never once seems to feel the need to conform her personal definition of “will”, with the technical, legal definition, the document that has been filed in probate court. Or he will tell judge that the children say their mother is abusing them. He knows full well that the kid's definition of abuse is making them do their homework, and that no one else would define it the same way, but the next thing you know, everyone in the neighborhood hears the rumor that their mother is abusive. It becomes the "truth" of the family that Mommy is abusive, and she has a heck of a hard time in court, convincing people otherwise.
But when the psychologists and lawyers finally question him about hwat he claims is abuse, they can't believe their ears, and next thing you know, "is he on DRUGS?" or, "does he really believe we'll agree that THAT is abusive?"
It’s an interesting dichotomy. The person with a personality disorder recognizes what the truth is, but simply believes that if they can convince others of their version, then that their version must be truth. The court system permits her to go to court and tell her story, so she tells her "story", whether or not it makes sense, and if she manages to create enough confusion, then maybe she'll win by default.
So my answer to my colleague is “no, it’s not necessary that she’s on drugs. Not everyone whose ability to process logic and follow through on clear instructions is impaired, is on drugs. Some of the people who are doing this are simply motivated by some internal problems that the rest of us cannot understand.” There is no drug test that will solve this court battle, no lie detector that will help you prove her wrong. She will likely pass both. Don't bother trying to figure out why it is this way, just understand that this is the way she is. Then move on to seeking the discovery through the appropriate channels, understanding that she will lie and hide stuff, and that you must follow through to get alternative sources needed to prove that she is lying.
The subpoena to get the one month worth of bank records that was missing (you can be sure that is the month where something improper happened). The psychological evaluation of the kids to verify that they are not really being abused. The deposition of the independent witness who knows the truth. Welcome to high conflict litigation, where the settlement conference never resolves the whole issue, the discovery is actively obstructed, and wacky things get blurted out at the last minute to delay the whole process even further.
I know you wish you could just get an order for a drug test and take care of it with that, but unfortunately, if you're dealing with one of these personality disorders, you are likely spinning your wheels with that tactic, and should fall back on the more traditional, advesarial tactics that drive up the costs of litigation. If your client is upset about this tactic, remember, the client is the one who got tangled up with the opponent, and without these traditional discovery methods, this opponent will likely win the case. You didn't create the situation, but you can fix it. Unfortunately, factors beyond your control make it impossible to fix on a tight budget.
Just keep good records so that when you get the judge to order that this person pay your litigation costs because of their unreasonable behavior, that you'll be able to find their assets, because this is the same person who will not voluntarily follow a court order.
And good luck.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
How to prepare to request alimony
Preparing to ask for alimony requires getting creative. You must pay attention to financial matters and career issues that you may have put aside when you decided to stay home or take lower paying jobs in order to follow your spouse’s career. Many stay-at-home spouses intentionally ignore financial information and cultivate an attitude of naivete about the cost of the big picture of their lives. But you no longer have a partner to split the responsibilities of maintaining a household with. Your soon-to-be ex spouse will have to do his own grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning, and you will have to take care of your own car and figure out how to bring enough money into your household to make ends meet. And to do this, you need to know how much it takes to make ends meet, and what resources do you have. These are similar to the things you’d need to know if your spouse passed away. The basic question the judge will have is, “how do you plan to finance your life, now that the job of stay-at-home spouse is no longer available?”
Even before the initial shock of the separation and imminent divorce is over, you need to start figuring out what your expenses will be. What will your mortgage or rent and utilities be? How about medical expenses? Transportation? Food, clothing and entertainment? Your lawyer will have worksheets to help you estimate how much you need. Unless the two of you together were able to save money like crazy, you will never get enough money to support your whole lifestyle, from your ex. You will likely have to reduce your expectations, as will he. And they will never demand that more than half of his paycheck go to support you. You may need to have a roof over your head and food. But he also needs those things, plus he needs to do his own cooking and cleaning now that you’re gone, and he probably needs transportation and work clothes. The job of staying at home to take care of his house and kids, is no longer yours and you must make plans to pick up some of the slack in terms of bringing in money. One income simply will not split into two households, so things need to change.
Do you have a job yet? If now, then the judge will ask why not? When you found out about the separation, why did you not run straight out to get work? Have an answer to this question available, even if it does not sound like a pretty answer, so that the judge will understand that you tried, or why you could not try.
Figure out what your career requires in order for you to rehabilitate it. If you were licensed to perform work, but gave up your license because you were not working at that occupation, what will it take to get that license back? Do you quit college or give up other schooling in order to get married or raise children? If so, what will it take to finish your education and get up to speed in your career? Have you moved around the country to follow your spouse’s job opportunities and lost your own opportunities in the process? What would it take to fix that? If you have been unemployed for so long that you do not know what is available to you, start talking to people, make connections, find work. If you are lucky enough to have other sources of income (like a trust fund or savings accounts), this will help you get by. Tell the judge that you are counting on it, and also remind the judge that you have the right to come out of the marriage with just as much STUFF as your ex does, without having to sell all the furniture to finance the rehabilitation of your career. Do not try to convince a judge that you have been living off of zero for the past year during a separation, and that you have no resources and must live 100% off your ex. Tell the judge how you supported yourself during the separation and why this source of support should not be counted on as a continuing source.
If you are unlucky enough to be disabled and unable to work, and you hope for the judge to agree with you, then please go apply for disability now, if you have not done so already! A disability determination in social security court will certainly help persuade the judge in your divorce, that you are unable to work. If, on the other hand, your disability is that you have frequent migraines and must stay in bed 20 hours a day (I had one client whose ex tried to convince the judge of this), remember that this will mean you might be telling the judge that you cannot be a fit mother to your very active children who need supervision more than 4 hours a day (my client’s ex did not count on this).
Whatever you do, make some plan to support yourself. If the only work you can find is as a greeter at WalMart, take the job to show that you are being industrious and trying to make ends meet in your separation. Figure out how to work the child-rearing around your job, and if this means making your ex step up to the plate and share in these duties, make sure he is aware of this and has enough advance notice that he can arrange his own time off work when it’s his day to maintain the kids. Do not count on a judge agreeing with you that your children should never need daycare, sitters, or after school care.
Figure out how much you will need from your ex to make up the difference between your pay and your expenses. If your way of supporting yourself happens to be finding a new lover, understand that the courts are not likely to agree with you that your soon-to-be ex should support you and your new lover. Calculate child care expenses separately, because those will be requested as part of the child support amount. Don’t try to get daycare and babysitters paid for by your alimony. You don’t want this, anyways, because you have to pay taxes on your alimony, but you don’t get taxed on the child support that you receive, so you want your ex to pay for child-issues in a separate amount than in your spousal support check.
Gather information about what you did to support your ex’s school or career, and how his career or your support caused a detriment to your own career. Be prepared to explain what it will take to rehabilitate your career. Be realistic. If your career cannot be rehabilitated, don’t expect the judge to order him to pay for it. If you were a 110 lb world class prima ballerina who has gained 150 lbs, had 3 kids and is now 20 years older, it’s going to be different than if you were a hair stylist who stopped paying for her license just last year and has only been away from work for 5 years. If you were a teacher who married a doctor and were in divorce court 2 years later, do not expect the judge to make your doctor ex husband make up the difference between your teacher’s salary and his doctor’s salary, for live. Getting a man to say “I do” is not like winning the lottery. It’s more like getting a job, and if the marriage is over, the job is over. The judge needs to hear your realistic plan for your new life. Everyone in the courtroom knows it will not be easy. It’s called “work” for a reason. But divorce means that the opportunity to have someone else support you while you make sure the house is spotless and the kids’ homework is done, is gone. As a career choice, "stay at home housewife" only exists for as long as the marriage exists. More on that later.
The judge hears from many people daily about how easy or difficult it is to get a job today, and will have an idea of how long it should take YOU to get something new going, so if you exaggerate or procrastinate, the judge will know. And will give you less than you request. If you go ahead and make a realistic plan and start to follow through on it, the judge will know that you are being realistic and will be more likely to give you what you need.
Your best bet in convincing a judge to give you as much alimony as possible is to figure out how much you need, make a plan for how to get to where you are self supporting, show that you are being industrious, and calculate the difference between what you can earn and what you need.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)