If you subscribe to this blog by email, it may appear we had a posting frenzy today. We finally found time to figure out and correct the formatting on some prior posts, so many recent ones with no paragraphs were simply reposted. Problem solved!
The first holidays after a divorce or separation can be a heartbreaking nightmare as estranged parents negotiate access to their children. There are ten things parents can do to help their children enjoy the holidays and to serve their best interests in the future.
“Divorce is never an easy experience,” said Gaetano “Guy” Ferro, immediate past president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML). “Children can make it more difficult for the parties to reach reasonable agreements. Disagreements about financial issues may cause the parents to act emotionally or irrationally when it comes to the children. The primary goal of both parents and their attorneys should be to avoid conduct which would be detrimental to the children’s best interest.”
• Give your children permission to love the other parent. Help your child make a card for Dad or buy a gift for Mom. Encourage them to call the other parent.
• Set realistic expectations. To divide or share a holiday, each parent will have only half as much time with the child. While children may enjoy multiple celebrations, most do not care that the festivities are actually on “the” day. Holidays can be alternated by year and if Mom does not have Thanksgiving with the child this year, bake a turkey the preceding weekend.
• Coordinate gift giving. If a child has a wish list, split it with the other parent. Resist the temptation to over-indulge the child with gifts. Do not give the child a gift you know the other parent is planning to give. If the other parent will not cooperate, do not complain to the child.
• Do not use your children as messengers. The decision of where to go and when should be decided by the parents. Permitting the child to choose time with one parent is a burden and vests the child with inappropriate power.
• Do what you say you are going to do. Pick up and drop off the children on time. Do not request last minute changes.
Other tips for divorcing parents include never letting a child hear you disparage the other parent. Resist the temptation to permit your child to act as your caretaker. Do not uproot your children if at all possible. Reassure your children that the divorce or separation is not their fault and encourage and permit your child to see and love grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins on the other parent’s side of the family.
Over the coming holidays, please let your children be children. They shouldn’t have to worry
about adult problems. For more helpful tips you can access the “Children’s Bill of Rights” and “Stepping Back From Anger” on the AAML website, www.aaml.org.
Many parents contemplate divorce as holidays and New Year approach. Holiday filings can increase the trauma; your children will always associate their parents’ divorce with the holidays. Please resist the urge. Divorce lasts a long time. There’s rarely a reason to rush. At a time of year that resonates family and joy, please put your children’s well-being ahead of your own.
I am glad Kentucky Law Review posted about the upcoming IdeaFestival. (Thanks, Mike, for the nice words.) While 9/25-9/27/08 has long been on my calendar, I didn't realize the agenda was now available: From the Lexingon Herald-Leader:
Scott Jones, the man who invented voicemail, will be there. So will J. Richard Gott, a Princeton University astrophysicist.
Richard Kogan, a psychiatrist and world-class concert pianist, will perform and lecture on the genius of Mozart. Immaculee Llibagiza, the international peace activist, will talk about what it was like to survive genocide in Rwanda.
Diandra Leslie-Pelecky will discuss her book The Physics of NASCAR, which examines how race cars can go so fast. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a risk-management expert and derivatives trader, will discuss his book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, the top-selling non-fiction title of 2007. Will Shortz, the crossword editor of The New York Times, will talk about puzzles.
The European architect Emiliano Gandolfi will launch the Curry Stone Design Prize, a new $100,000 award for innovation in architecture, to be administered by the University of Kentucky's College of Design.
Vova Galchenko, a world-champion juggler, will demonstrate his skill and discuss the thinking behind it. Amy Chua, who analyzes global politics and economics, will discuss the rise and fall of hyperpowers.
They are among more than 30 presenters recruited for this year's festival, said founder Kris Kimel, president of the Lexington-based Kentucky Science and Technology Corp. Program details were announced Tuesday.
"They're all either doing something or thinking about something that's really cutting-edge," Kimel said.
Event pass info is here. Tickets for individual events will be available July 15. Not as many events are free this year, but if the festival is half as good as it was last year, it will be worth every penny and all the time out of the office.Just as the Kentucky Supreme Court has three relocation related cases pending, Michigan has been struggling with the issue. Here is Jeanne Hannah's post Mom's relocation of 91 miles causes change in custody in Updates In Michicgan Family Law.
Nearly a year ago I wrote about a missed opportunity to meet Jeanne at this post. Marcia Oddi dubbed it the adventure of the Edmund Fitzgerald and I promptly forwarded the haunting score to my hosts, who were not very amused. But, ha! They invited me back and we're planning to cruise up Jeanne's way again this summer. The one lesson I learned, though, is that you really can't plan when traveling by water. So, Jeanne, if I'm nearby I'll give you a call, but no advance dinner plans. :)
UPDATE: Marcia Oddi writes, Actually it is "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
See this excellent video, accompanied by the Gordon Lightfoot vocal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEwEfti7gRk. Thanks!
Comments tend to get lost on this blog. I thought the following exchange was interesting enough to post separately:
Ms. Kates...I respectfully disagree with your analysis as you neglect to consider that individuals under the U.S. Constitution are afforded the right to due process, which I've been denied in this case. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that when there is a relationship between a parent and child it is to be preserved and protected. In the case at issue, I am not a stranger to my son as I had a relationship for the first few months of his young life. Furthermore, the Supreme Court have recognized that natural parents have a fundamental liberty interest in the care, custody, and management of their children that does not evaporate, Santosky v Kramer. There are procedural safeguards when someone tries to terminate a natural parents rights without a hearing, parents and childrens' rights are fundamental in regards to termination of parental rights. Of course you are arguing that no man who is not married to a woman should have any rights. If I've understood your position correctly. Under the recent KY Supreme CT ruling if a married man gets a single woman pregnant and takes possession of the child, as long as his wife and him do not dissolve their marriage the biological mother has no parental rights. In theory I believe this would be correct, but of course we know that would never happen because it goes against common sense. Regardless, we will just have to see how the U.S. Supreme Court feels about the rights of a biological parent who happens to be a parent. I'm one of many who believe the truth does matter and should still play a role in justice.
Posted by: James Rhoades
We share DNA with all living things, yet even some of our very close relatives, such as siblings and grandparents, are not assumed to have automatic legal familial rights. We also recognize parentage that arises from other than biology, e.g. adoption, surrogacy, and gamete donation. We also have institutionalized marriage, which at its inception is the formation of nonbiological "family" which is not dependent at all upon the existence of children before the couple is recognized to be "family" to each other.
In no other area of the law do we recognize property rights in biological body parts, or following body parts that have left the body, whether cells from which vaccines have been made, or hair, or donated organs. In order to consider sperm and ova differently, we would have to make an arbitrary assumption about these half-cells that they are in some way different. Mostly, that assumption is not founded in reason, but in the premises of some (and not all) cultural and religious traditions.
I would argue that the United States constitution recognizes the liberty interests of actual families, families in fact, families that still would exist as coresidential and ocmmitted social units in the absence of law -- and not the asserted property rights of individuals in and to the products of their discarded gametes.
I think it is an unwarranted presumption that sperm donors (or egg donors) automatically, and without more, have emotional attachments to other human beings they may have never met. We may inculcate some kind of real emotional issue for individuals in how they view their own genes and so forth, but this idea to me is what is the "property rights" (posssessory) versus "relationship" perspective.
I would suggest instead that the government's intrusion into actual marriages and functioning families in order to elevate this pretense into an artificial notion of "family" founded on biology actually denigrates exactly what it is that the constitution recognizes and respects as the family.
"Family" is not DNA, a material so widely shared that the differences between members of an entire species are miniscule. Rather, it is the coresident social unit of individuals whose relationship "bonds" are evidenced in the way they live, by their actual emotional attachments born out of their habitual association with and knowledge of each other over time, and by their mutual support of and involvement with each other in a real family group -- the kind that would exist even in the absence of law... or paternity testing technology.
Posted by: Elizabeth J. Kates, Esq.
Ms. Kates you can't be serious? So you think biological fathers should have no rights and just because they share a genetic bond with their children the law should suppose they don't carry affection towards their children? I know my viewpoint is skewed because the case involves my son who I care deeply about but I think your viewpoint is ridiculous. Surely you would never promote your interpretation regarding a biological mother? You have opinion makes children a piece of property and be damned with their best interest. And let's throw Constitutional rights out the window too if a man was a child out of wedlock and petitions for his rights as a father. In all due respect, the Kentucky Supremes were totally inconsistent in the majority opinion. Cunningham had assumed biological fathers have a right to custody and visitation even without having their parentage ajudicated in his Hinshaw v Hinshaw opinion when he talked about Mrs. Hinshaw seeking to terminate the biological fathers rights so Hinshaw could have adopted the child. Seems kind of weird that Justice Cunningham would write that one biological father in one paternity case has rights while writing another opinion saying this biological father has no rights. Shouldn't Cunningham be a little more consistent?
James Rhoades Real Father in Recent KY Sup Ct decision
Posted by: James Rhoades
The Kentucky decision was correct, and I am glad to see it. With the advent fairly recently of DNA testing, we have forgot that providing reproductive gametes is not necessarily what determines legal parentage, or is in fact sufficient to presume affection, responsibility, or enduring relationship ties. It is unfortunate that in this one area of the law, largely confused by religious and political agendas, and consequent erroneous precepts underlying child support theory, that even as we embrace broader definitions of "family" in some respects, so many legal scholars have simultaneously moved in the inconsistent direction of making unwarranted assumptions that equate legal rights and responsibilities with a tracing of bodily effluence.
Elizabeth Kates
Thanks to Indiana Law Blog for spotting and posting HUSBAND POSTS ABOUT PENDING DIVORCE IN BLOG, COURT ORDERS POSTING REMOVED. Check it out.
All "to be published" family law cases rendered through January 4, 2008 are now digested and posted. While we're still working on resolutions and 2008 goals and catching up on our news and blog reading, everyone is back to work, healthy (finally!), and looking forward to a great 2008.
While flattery usually gets you everywhere, I was sorry to have to decline Vickie Pynchon's "Lawyers Appreciate" meme tag, online here, especially after her email invitation to those she tagged read : I chose Diana Skaggs (her blog -- totally outside ANY area I've EVER practiced in --) because she's one of the best, most articulate and most ADR-friendly law bloggers in the world. How funny! It was a choice of posting or packing and I had to pack. However her overly generous compliment did send me away with a nice glow. Until I returned to town and an angry opposing party mailed a hateful letter all over hell's half acre calling me every name in the book. So, while I firmly believe in mediation, negotiation and settlement, particularly in divorce matters, there are those out there in litigation land who would strongly take issue with Vickie.
What I like most about Vickie's post is her focus on gratitude. It's something I've been stewing about for some time, letting ideas percolate (ferment?) and trying to incorporate into an action plan for this year. This annual introspection and planning process is a joyous ritual and it's way past time to count blessings.
Thanks for reading this year. We'll resume posting after the holidays. It's lights out until the week of January 7. Best wishes for joyous holidays.
The nicest part of being named among the top family law blogs by Prenuptial Agreements was discovery of a number of family law blogs that have not previously been followed here. We'll try to review them and get some added to our blogroll soon. Maybe it's wanderlust, but I am particularly eager to check out the ones outside the U.S. Meanwhile, ones not currently on our site are:
Houston Texas Divorce And Family Attorney Blog by J. Shannon Cavers
New York Divorce Law Blog by David A. Gabay
New York Divorce Report by Daniel R. Clement
Arizona Divorce & Family Law Blog by several members of Nirenstein Ruotolo Group, P.L.C
Pennsylvania Family Law by Charles J. Meyer
Utah Divorce & Family Law Blog by Gregory W. Stevens
Family Lore by John Bolch in the UK (it will be fun checking out his blogroll)
New Jersey Family Law Blog by Victor A. Rotolo
Bloody Relations by an anonymous north London solicitor
Divorce Solicitor by Lynne Bastow
Mississippi Family Law Blog by Robert M. Kisselburgh
Australian Divorce Blog by Stephen Page
Sam Hasler's Indiana Divorce & Family Law Blog
Benussi Blog by UK's Diane Benussi
From The Family Law Profs Blog last week:
California Governor Schwarzenegger Vetoes Gay Marriage Bill
Call for Papers: Yale Law Journal Pocket Part
Case Law Development: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Finds Domestic Violence Police Response Case Admissible (very interesting)
Bad Marriage, Bad for Health
Same-sex Couple Seeks Divorce in Rhode Island
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