The Miranda/Smith/Cashen custody dispute has prompted lawmakers to
start revising custody laws.  In what ways would you change the current laws
if it were within your power to do so?

39 responses total.

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Child support isn't about the parents' rights.  It is about the child's
rights.

One of the biggest problems is trying to determine what is in the best interest
of the child.  I have many colleagues who are forensic psychologists and they
do child custody evaluations in an attempt to help judges and hearing
officers decide who would be the better primary caretaker.  I read their
reports and listen to their horror stories and would never, with all my
years of experience working with children, want to be in the position of
shifting through and making that decision. One thing, I believe is that the
decision (who will be primary caretaker) is too important to be left to the
whim of one person.  

Ack, Valerie, I disagree with you in a big way.

I would agree with #1 in theory, but it's too easy for a father to abuse
that system.  If a child is conceived through mutual consent, or through
carelessness (which, by my reasoning, leaves only TRUE accidents, like a
pinhole in the condom), the father has certain responsibilities to the 
resultant child even if he doesn't want the fetus carried to term (and 
is willing to pay for the abortion).  The True accidents is where the
issue grows truly fuzzy.

"."

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Why are you welcoming me?  I've been here forever.  Don't you remember me?
I am a FW for this conference.  You added me to the list.
Would you happen to have a split personality?
Ha Ha <joke>

She's welcoming you because of the "." which is what newusers
do by accident (indicating their newbiness).  I guess she's just
not used to your sense of humor (?) yet.

Are you a mind reader?

This response has been erased.

(Gee, Ryan, I guess I am a mind reader.  :-)

The funny part is, that there is no funny part.  Since when did a dot
get someone into a fight with another?

This response has been erased.

O.K.  So it wasn't quite a fight.  I made the the "." Just because I 
couldn't figure out what to say.

You can tell that we really feel like family -- with brothers and sisters,
this would be a fight.  But on grex, it's just drift.  Hmmm, maybe I ought
to start asking my kids not to drift . . . <g>

Or to drift each other!

This is indeed a snoe[Dsnowed-in discourse.As a newby, i have no clue where its
at re: grex or for that matter BBSs. First day online.... But as a Dad, I agree
thast childs interest rules;but what child isn't  at risk[A".""."" ."

Thanks for the input, and welcome to Grex!!.

Yes, welcome.

My brother-in-law has found the worst divorce lawyer in history. (This all
happened before he married my sister.)
Not only does he have full-time custody of two teen-agers, he pays their
mother $400. monthly for child support.
Hello?!?

That's not his lawyer's fault.  He can go to Friend of the Court, any time,
to challenge that payment.

I don't know that He could go right through Friend of the Court.  A buddy of
mine just got his child support payments lowered.  He had to go before a Judge
to have it taken care of...

No kidding.  Any modification has to be approved by the judge.  You go
to Friend of the Court, they prepare an order, and it gets submitted to the
judge.

And usually, if the judge has a brain, the custodial parent is relieved of
all support payments.

Not all the judges have brains.  My partner was allowed to take care of the
two kids half time and also pay child support to someone earning twice as much
because they went to college during the marriage.  This was a 1981 divorce,
have things changed?  I thought I read something about automatic shared legal
custody this past year, did it go through or not?  

It is impossible to tell what the arrangement was from the facts you
describe. There is de facto "joint legal custody" by default, but it is
not mandatory.

In 1981, if the two parties did not agree on joint custody, the woman nearly
always got sole custody.  In this case, the man took care of the kids every
other day and had the same expenses plus had to pay child support.  How does
the de facto business work now?

You are failing to distinguish between physical and legal custody.
You are describing physical custody.

The mother had legal custody, this may have been sort of joint physical
custody, but when the father complained that the hours (switching houses at
7 am daily) were hard on the kids, the judge cut it to one day a week, also
at 7 am.  (This resulted in the younger kid having to be returned at 7 am and
being dumped at before-school care for 2 hours before school when he could
have stayed with his father and gotten up later than 6 am, since his mother
started work early.)

Could you briefly state the point you are trying to make?

The point I am trying to make is that the physical custody of the kids was
split between two parents, legal custody given to the one making twice as much
money (the mother, who went to school at the father's expense for four years,
having agreed that he would go to school after she finished, then sued for
divorce), who arranged a schedule which forced the father to work different
hours every week (he never knew what three days she would choose for the kids
to spend with him, his company finally fired him for this), and the father
was ordered to pay child custody to the mother, in addition to spending an
equal amount of time and money actually taking care of the children.  If the
judge had any brains, since both parents were splitting the actual child care
and expenses, and since the mother was earning twice and much and getting the
tax break for dependents, she would have paid child support to the father.
Instead they followed the usual rules and had the 'noncustodial parent' pay
the other one, who did not need the money and did what she could to sabotage
the job of the parent who did need the money.  He was actually charged extra
for the preschool child care, which he wanted to do himself (so did the
child).

First, you continue to confuse physical and legal custody. Second, child
support has nothing to do with legal custody and everything to do with
physical. In Michigan, based upon the parties' income, number of children,
and days they care for the children, child support is determined by
formula. Either party can ask that support be reassessed at any time,
which would cause any increase in income to be factored in.

In this case child support had everything to do with legal custody (it was
paid to the legal parent thought the other parent was doing half the child
raising) and nothing to do with physical.  It would have made far more sense
for the parent earning twice as much to be paying child support to the other
parent, since their child-raising expenses were the same.  The actual physical
situation was completely ignored by the court, they simply followed a formula
for legal custody.  They also ignored the younger child's request to live half
time with each parent, with the father havinng legal custody, since otherwise
he waas not allowed to call his father on teh phone.  Then they informed the
father that according to statistics the men always earned more money (this
after he had worked to send the mother through nursing school.)

Are you even capable of listening>?

I think you are not communicating clearly, and there is no need to insult the
listener.  Please rephrase whatever you were attempting to say.

I have repeated myself numerous times, and you have consistently ignored
what I have said, reiterating nonsense about legal custody dictating
a child support obligation.

What is unclear?

Why don't you try to state in a couple of sentences what point you are trying
to prove, rather than telling me I am writing nonsense.  Obviously I am not
getting your point, and it is not necessarily my fault.  Please do not be
insulting, if you want to carry on a civil communication.  If you continue
to be insulting I will not bother responding again.

I have repeatedly explained the law to you. You have consistently ignored
me. What more can I say?

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