Conversation with Children

What is in the child’s best interest should always be a parent’s top priority especially when considering divorce.

The first thing you should know is our adversarial legal system is not child focused or family friendly. The emotional and financial price you pay when you each hire separate divorce lawyers is higher than you can now imagine. Remember, when you had your child or children, your life changed from being focused on yourself to having them be your first priority.

Before I became a divorce attorney, I was a special education teacher. My Masters is in Special Education, focusing on teaching severely emotionally disturbed children, so I came to the law with a powerful bias to act only in the best interest of the children.

The second important fact to know is how comfortable so many divorce lawyers are in spending their client’s college fund instead of quickly and economically helping the couple to negotiate a fair deal. After eight years of litigation and witnessing the total financial and emotional devastation of too many families I vowed to no longer take adversarial divorces and to do only divorce mediation.

In the following three years, after working with over 150 couples with 100% success rate, I am convinced that divorce mediation should be the solution of first resort for 85% of the couples who are contemplating divorce.

So the third thing you need to know is there is an alternative to divorce court, mediation. It is easier to deal with a situation when basic information is already known. There are eight community property states (Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin) which clearly define how to divide community property.

Whatever was totally owned prior to marriage or received by gift or inheritance is separate property that goes to the spouse who owns it. If it was partially paid for using wages or income earned during the marriage, the “community” gains an interest in it that can be calculated. Division of property in community property states is one of the easiest issues to deal with because it is so clear cut.

But what about the other 42 states? These states use an equitable distribution system to divide marital property. Each state has its own rules that can be ascertained prior to starting the divorce process. So there is some uncertainty in non community property states but an experienced lawyer/mediator generally knows what the court will do in most situations and can be a valuable guide to couples who are unfamiliar with the laws.

The fourth thing to keep in mind is there is no point in fighting over property division. You can protect your co-parenting relationship and end up with more property if you divide everything the way a neutral 3rd party (mediator) suggests.

Child custody and visitation issues can be the most contentious and emotional issues In litigated divorce cases, if the parents can agree to a custody arrangement, which they eventually do in 90% of custody cases, they can avoid court altogether.

If a couple can just agree on custody and visitation issues, why would they set a case for trial and go through a nasty litigated case? Only 10% of custody cases are litigated. Instead of going to court a couple could always seek the services of a child therapist to advise them on contested issues.

The courts typically apply a “best interest of the child” standard in determining who should get primary custody. Wouldn’t the parents themselves be in the best position to decide how their children should be raised?

When a couple works together in mediation they are in control of the final outcome, not lawyers or judges. When the couple has an intention to effectively co-parent by always keeping the best interest of the child foremost in their mind, they will produce a much more satisfying outcome than if a solution is imposed upon them from above.

Child custody issues are the most inappropriate issues to be decided within an adversarial system. The win/lose game that is played in court always results in tension between the parents. Not only will this tension negatively affect the health and happiness of the parents but the children will be caught in the middle of a battle, ducking verbal and emotional bullets as they fly over their heads.

The adversarial system does not protect the co-parenting relationship of parents and should be avoided if at all possible. An emotionally vulnerable client in the hands of a “zealous advocate” who is more concerned with enriching themselves than in helping their client is a dangerous combination.

The last thing to keep in mind is that avoiding divorce attorneys and court should be the #1 priority if you want to protect your health, spirit, co-parenting relationship and pocketbook.

Ms. Rachman has been a family law attorney since 1996 and has become so disheartened by our adversarial legal system that she walked away from a successful law practice and now only works with couples doing mediation. For more information on how mediation works and what kind of couples do best in mediation listen to an audio on the differences between litigation and mediation at http://www.divorce-inaday.com

Visit the Get Over A Divorce web site to help you make it through the transitional period after your divorce.

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What ever happened to the single income family? It died that’s what happened. For the majority of American families it’s just not feasible. This is very unfortunate that it’s pretty much a necessity to have two incomes coming into the household. Unless you are making a nice six figure income.

Well I am one of the lucky families that are managing to be a single income household, and before you ask. No I do not make a nice six figure income. The only way I make a six figure income is if you start counting decimal places. I do make a pretty good living, but it doesn’t allow my family any great luxuries.

I’m married and have two children, and I‘m very grateful that we are able to keep my wife home with the kids. Let’s see the house is nothing special maybe 1200 square feet three small bedrooms and one bathroom. Did I mention I live in Connecticut? Which lets just say isn’t the cheapest state to live in.

I sometimes wonder how my wife and I are able to pull this single income household off. We are not financial wizards we don’t have our families subsidizing us. We just try to live within our means. This seems to be an alien concept to most of American now days. We had to prioritize what was most important to the household and that’s how the money would be spent. There isn’t much of a budget for frivolous spending anymore. I’d like to have that part of the budget back as much as the next guy, but it’s just not happening. Let’s see some of the ways we try and save money.

Like I said we are not financial advisors or anything of the sort just regular people trying to make ends meet. So here we go a few of our techniques we use. I’m sure these will probably be redundant as you’ve all heard of these before.

The problem is people don’t use them. I believe the reason that most people don’t use these available options is because of pride. Pride can be a very positive thing when it allows you strength to overcome obstacles you might face. On the other hand you can be blinded by pride, and not ask for help when you need it, or not take some of the options available to you because you are too proud.

Lunch: Bringing you lunch to work. This one has been huge for us. I try and bring my lunch to work everyday. Once in awhile I’ll treat myself and buy lunch. I used to buy lunch everyday and maybe a coffee in the morning. It was costing me at least $10 a day.
You might be saying that doesn’t sound like much. It doesn’t when it’s one day but it works out to roughly $200 a month that’s a lot of money. So needless to say bringing your lunch to work can be a great way to save a decent amount of money.

Wholesale Clubs: While these can be a big help you need to really check the prices as some of the items might actually be cheaper in your local grocery store. My family uses these clubs and they can be a great help. I’m just saying to investigate the price per unit as it might be cheaper else where. Sometimes you just don’t need 15lbs of ketchup.

Groceries: Use coupons! They work I know in my younger days I’d be to proud to use them. Not anymore. You don’t always have to buy the brand name product. A lot of the time the generic is just as good. Sometimes it’s not close, but you’ll just have to experiment.

Clothes/Shoes: If you insist that your kids have to wear all name brand high end clothes look outside of the department stores. Especially if your kids are young they’re going to outgrow the clothes and shoes in a week. Try Ebay you can find tons of clothes if you know what you’re looking for. I must say my wife has been doing this for years now and has pretty much clothed our kids for nothing. Other sites like ours help people to find <a href=”http://www.thefashionablekid.com”>Deals On Infant & Toddler Clothes</a> also try second hand stores. I guarantee with a little looking you’ll find some very nice clothing whether it comes from a thrift or consignment store.

Baby Food/Diapers: These are incredible expenses go to the company of your choices website and sign up for their mailing list or coupon list. We receive a few five dollar coupons a month and every little bit helps.

I wish you all the best. Even if you aren’t able to be a single income family hopefully a few of these tips will help out. Just don’t be to proud to use some of the tips.

By Ryan McCarrol

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