Divorce, Family, Fatherhood

12 Years A Slave? How about 21 years!!

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I saw this on Saturday. Anyone thinking of getting married, is married, has kids or is thinking of having them, is in a “relationship” or is even remotely thinking of being in one….should see this film. Maybe you are a child of divorce and you wonder why you were not allowed to see your other parent?

Yes, this might be you.

Family Court is a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE place. It needs to be exposed. This film just gets the conversation started. Anyone they feels the family court system should stay the way it is are the ones making lots of money from millions of people’s misery and fear.

This film is the tip of the iceberg.

You think 12 years a Slave was a tear jerker based on a true story? Well, this is 21 years a slave (or the rest of your LIFE if you pay alimony) and is based on every day current events.

GO SEE IT

“Divorce Corp is a new documentary that exposes the practices within the U.S. family law industry. More money and people flow through the family courts than any other court system in America. But because of good intentions run amok, misplaced finances, cronyism, and lacking checks and balances, family courts are corrupted, serving the local legal community instead of the people. Rather than help victims of crimes, these courts often create them. And rather than help families move on, these courts drag out cases for years, ultimately resulting in a rash of social ills. Solutions appear in Scandinavian countries where marriage dissolution is handled without attorneys, courts, or the turbulence and family disintegration so common in the United States.”

Divorce

Divorce Corp Reviews…so far

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“Any divorce survivor will see rueful reminders of a destructive process. Any engaged couple should see it, period….” – Colin Covert Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Documentary tackles the divorce industry with the same zeal as the lawyers it rebukes….” – Eric Monder  Film Journal International

“Infuriating, but lacking the balance to be the take-down of a corrupt system that it claims to be….” – Roger Moore McClatchy-Tribune News Service

“After you see this entertaining documentary, you will be depressed about the U.S. divorce industry and may vow never to get married or have kids…” – Harvey S. Karten Compuserve

“The feel good movie of the year!!!” – Clayton Craddock The SoCraddock Method

 

 

Family

The Calm After The Storm – Your Relationship With Your Ex After Divorce

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When will things get better. Does this ever end?

Those were two things I asked several men while I was going through my divorce. Many of them said, “NO!”

I say yes. But, only if certain things take place before you get divorced. If I had allowed state mandated child supports payments or alimony to get in the middle of the relationship I have with my ex-wife and kids, I might be singing a different tune. I refused to have that happen and I’m glad I took a stance.

Since my ex and I have been divorced we have been able to actually go out to dinner together with the kids a few times and actually have a good time together. I do know my limits with our relationship. There is no need to pretend with our kids that we are getting back together or things are perfect. They aren’t. There are clear reasons why we still are not married, but we can get along because it is only her and I dealing with our children, not any state government. No judge tells us how to spend our money, no judge ordering us exactly when and where we can see our kids, and there is no judge that we have to see when financial times get rough for either of us.

There is a lot less anger between us and I have a feeling that things can only get better. But, we have to be on the same page to keep this up. I have a feeling that if there were court orders and continuous trips back down to family court, there would be no family dinner, no switching of days we see the kids, no exchange of money not mandated in our divorce settlement, no splitting of the kids where she has one child and I have the other all day, and there would be very little trust.

The divorce industry does much more harm than good in my opinion. It only makes the relationship between mother and father more complicated and encourages bad behavior. When you think about it, did you need the government to dictate the day-to-day activities when you were married? Did you spend 25% of your gross income on the children for “child support” when you were living together? Did you see your kids 4 days month as a father before you got divorced? If so, then hey, continue that way of living after your divorce. If not, then we should question why our state laws are written the way they are. Why gross income? Who relegated fatherhood to four days a month? Why permanent alimony for any length of marriage?

Just a few thoughts.

 

 

 

Child Support, Fatherhood

Deadbeat Parents? State-Mandated Child Support Hurts The Ones It’s Supposed To Help

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An excerpt from this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-kellner/deadbeat-parents-stateman_b_2839817.html

By  – Mindful thinker and author of ‘The Pro Child Way®: Parenting with an Ex’

Divorce attorneys are familiar with the child-support focus of their clients. “It’s the elephant in the room”, says one Palm Springs attorney who is a Certified Family Law Specialist. The custodial parent facing divorce wants to know “how much?” regarding child-support monies that can be gained from the ex. This question is matched by the non-custodial parent’s inquiry of “how often?” regarding visitation with the child. The system and the mindset are working in tandem: child-support equals visitation, visitation equals child-support. No support? No visitation.

And this is done for the children?

As I looked into my child’s future — past the divorce — my heart made a pact with her: “I will never, ever put you in a position where you’ll see a picture of your dad on the front-page news with a caption that reads “Deadbeat”. Your father’s driver’s and professional licenses will never be confiscated as a consequence of him not paying court-ordered child support. You, my sweet child, will never go to bed knowing your father sleeps in jail due to his lack of paying. Regardless of his financial support, I will encourage you to know his love — without my judgment of it.” This was my vow, even as I faced a financially uncertain future.

And with that conviction, I did not pursue court-ordered child support. To those who say about Deadbeats, “It is their choice not to pay. It is their undoing that brings on the consequences,” I say “No.” In inviting court-ordered support, you invite in the consequences — both the intended (support payments) and the unintended (deadbeat). No amount of money gained is worth the gamble of a child experiencing their parent alienated or in jail as a result of non-compliance. A child doesn’t understand court orders, procedures, and regulations. But if a child’s parent is in jail for arrears, they do know this: “If I didn’t exist, my parent wouldn’t be in jail.” Is your heart strong enough to fully take that in without your mind jumping to “yeah, but…”?

Are there toxic parents who neither love nor support their child? Sure. But forced money gained can’t disguise that ugliness. A child who experiences a truly negative parent doesn’t need money, they need healing. It’s hard to heal a child’s pain when the focus is on the toxic parent.

The twisted part? Some custodial parents revel in their ex’s deadbeat demise. As if a declared deadbeat somehow justifies the suffering. A child doesn’t want justification, a child wants smiles.

Children of divorce are holding up a sign: It’s time for a new divorce. They are wanting a divorce process and solutions that address their needs — that address their heart. They know that they can be loved, nurtured, and thrive through divorce.

When we assert that “It’s best for the child,” it’s time we do it with a heart that perceives the consequences.

It’s time we think anew.

 

Divorce

Dr. Drew on Divorce Corp

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You guys have NO idea what is going on in family court…or maybe you do… and want the gravy train to continue. I don’t.

I know through personal experience the amount of devastation that divorce industry, the federal/state child support system and antiquated lifetime alimony promises causes to families, children and communities. I am dedicating the rest of my life to put an end to this nonsense. I may not see the promised land – it takes a good 40-50 years for a culture that has been poisoned with a radical ideology to be cured, but my kids, and their kids will reap the benefits. I’m SURE of that.

I’ve known about this movie for a few months and I am happy to see that it is finally coming out on Friday January 10th nationwide.

Fatherhood, Relationships

Fatherlessness Begets Fatherlessness

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An excerpt from this article: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303433304579304493099001588?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

The Moralistic Fallacy – by JAMES TARANTO

How value judgments cloud social thought.

It may be true that fatherlessness begets fatherlessness, but widespread illegitimacy is a recent phenomenon whose ultimate causes demand inquiry. In his landmark 1965 report, “The Negro Family: A Case for National Action,” Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed that “both white and Negro illegitimacy rates have been increasing, although from dramatically different bases. The white rate was 2 percent in 1940; it was 3.07 percent in 1963. In that period, the Negro rate went from 16.8 percent to 23.6 percent.”

The 2011 figures (which exclude Hispanics) were 29.1% for whites and 72.3% for blacks–a more than eightfold increase for whites and more than threefold for blacks. A cycle of fatherlessness operating over two to three generations cannot be sufficient to explain such an enormous rise.

So what does? In our view, a dramatic change in incentives owing to two major social changes that were just getting under way when Moynihan wrote.

The first is the rise of female careerism–the expectation that most women will spend most of their adult lives (rather than just the period when they are single) in the workforce. Women have less incentive to wed, since marriage no longer means trading in a job for a provider husband. Female careerism got a big boost with the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace.

The second is the introduction of the pill, which the Food and Drug Administration approved for contraceptive use in 1960. It made nonmarital sex far more easily available, reducing the incentive for men to marry. As George Akerlof and Janet Yellen argued in a 1996 paper (yes, that Janet Yellen, and Akerlof is her husband), the pill very quickly broke down the old institution of the shotgun wedding. With reproduction under female control, it became a female responsibility. Men no longer felt obligated to marry women by whom they fathered children. The paradoxical-seeming result is that a technology to reduce “unwanted pregnancy” massively increased out-of-wedlock births.

That brings us back to the moralistic fallacy for which we faulted Hymowitz in our column last month. Completely absent from her analysis of why boys fail to grow up into “reliable husbands and fathers” is the crucial factor of female choice. If young women are less apt to marry because they are focused on education and career, and more willing to engage in sexual relationships unaccompanied by marriage or the expectation thereof, the incentives for young men are dramatically different.