This is about fathers' rights law, and protecting the best interests of your children. It provides information, news and comments on laws, cases and strategies for life as a single father and winning your custody, access or child support case.
In the child custody fight between football start Deion Sanders and his wife Pilar, a Texas jury has awarded full custody of their two sons, ages 11 and 13, to Deion and shared custody of their daughter, age 9.
Sometimes celebrities can teach us what not to do. TMZ reports that an Atlanta family court judge has awarded Tawanna Iverson custody of her five children with NBA basketball star Allen Iverson.
The judge found that Allen “does not know how to manage the children; has little interest in learning to manage the children and has actually, at times, been a hindrance to their spiritual and emotional growth and development. For example, he has refused to attend to an obvious and serious alcohol problem, which has caused him to do inappropriate things in the presence of the children while impaired. He has left the children alone without supervision. He has left his young daughters in a hotel room with men who are unknown to the mother.”
The judge gave Allen visitation on the conditions that he:
Thomas Matlack writes in the New York Times today about how his painful divorce taught him to be a better dad to his children.
“My time with Kerry and Seamus was limited to trips to McDonald’s and a walk across the highway to Federal Hill for pizza a couple of times a week. But even that was progress. I had been an absent dad up until that point, working nonstop. And when I wasn’t working, I was drinking and getting into trouble. I was 31 going on about 14.” said Matlack.
Later he became an active parent for his children, which he says may never have happened without the divorce.
“For six years I was on my own with two little children for long stretches of time: wrestling, crying, laughing, cooking, cleaning, traveling to visit family, throwing up (a lot), and cuddling them into bed only to come back later and look in wonder at the angels who had transformed me.” Matlack says.
More than a million children have parents who divorce or separate each year. Many of these children are pre-schoolers. Yet resources for pre-schoolers with divorced or separated parents are hard to find.
“Big Feelings” is a 13 minute video produced by Sesame Street that will be available on the Internet. When Abby, a fairy-in-training, draws pictures of homes with her friends, Elmo and Rosita are surprised to see that Abby has drawn two homes. “This one is where I live with my mommy,” says Abby, “and this one is where I live with my daddy.”
This is part of a multimedia kit called Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce. The kit includes a storybook called Two Day Hug, a guide for parents and an app.
Steven Small and Shelly D. Mahon are conducting a survey of divorced fathers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. They are looking for fathers of children, ages 8 and 16, who have been divorced or separated within the last two years. You can register at their website, “Apart, Not Broken”.
This is a free, 12 week, multi-media program over the Internet which includes:
by Montgomery Gentry
You don’t have to holler,
And we don’t have to fight.
We can settle all this, right here
Right now, tonight
No need to call no lawyer
You don’t have to pack no bags
It’s obvious, all you want is
Half more than your half
I see here on this paper
You wrote what you want down
Want me to sign over
What was ours is all yours now
Take the house that my sweat built ya’
Here’s the keys to both the cars
I’ll give you up the title to my ole Harley in the barn
Take all our family pictures
And our records off the wall
And any other sign of livin’ proof
That I lived here at all
Can’t help but not see a couple little things
Not there on your list
So if you don’t care
I’ll keep the kids
Look at dads old Gibson,
I see you wrote that down
Girl, that’s below the belt
But it’s all yours now
There’s Grandmas diamond ring
She wore it fifty some odd years
She’ll probably roll over in her grave,
But, I’ll leave it here
I’m outta here
Take the bass boat and that tractor,
All my guns and Earnhardt hat.
Every nickel we had tucked away
And twenty years I can’t get back
Take the shirt right off my shoulders
Hope it fits ole what’s his name
Take everything you think your world revolves around everyday
Can’t help but not see a couple little things
Not there on your list
So if you don’t care
I’ll keep the kids
Can’t help but not see a couple little things
Not there on your list
So if you don’t care
I’ll keep the kids
Couple little things you won’t miss…
University of Missouri Professor Marilyn Coleman and Dr. Mindy Markham interviewed 20 women who shared physical custody of children with ex-partners. Half of the women reported amicable relationships with their ex’s. The other half reported combative relationships in the beginning that improved over time.
“To me, it’s almost as if the parents in the bad-to-better relationships matured,” Coleman said. “Mostly, it’s because the parents began focusing on their children. The parents saw how upset their arguments made their kids, so they decided to put their differences aside and focus on what was best for the children.”
“The goal for divorced parents should be to maintain the best co-parenting relationships possible by moving past prior relationship issues and focusing on children’s well-being,” Coleman said.
Although the sample was small, the result reflects my own experience as a divorce lawyer. Once the stress and fighting between spouses is resolved by agreement or trial, the parties can then calm down and focus on their children.
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were able to settle their divorce quickly. Part of this was due to the fact that they had a prenuptial agreement. A prenuptial agreement determines alimony and property distribution in the event of divorce.
But you cannot provide for custody, visitation or child support in a prenuptial agreement. The reason for this is that the court has jurisdiction to determine what is in the best interest of the children based on circumstances at the time of divorce.
Likewise, child support will depend on custody and income at the time of divorce. The parties can agree on custody, visitation and child support in a separation agreement or marital settlement agreement and the court will normally approve such an agreement. These issues related to the child are the ones that Cruise and Holmes had to negotiate and resolve.
The financial crises in Europe is hitting divorced and separated fathers hard. Many are unemployed and struggling to make alimony and child support payments. Elisabetta Povoledo of the New York Times tells of fathers in Italy and Spain who are living in their cars or on the streets.
Carlos J. Phillips says don’t make these top three mistakes men make after divorce.
#1 – Rush back to the altar too soon
#2 – Become the town playboy now that you are single
#3 – Introduce your children to the new woman in your life way too soon.
