Tuck them away in a drawer or safe deposit box. But those are legal orders, dude!
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Blogger Candice Curry recently wrote a piece for Huff Post Divorce called “What Happened After My Ex-Husband and I Threw Away Our Custody Agreement.”
I don’t mean to sound judgmental, because I’m really not, but oh… my… snickerdoodles…No!
Let me start with a front note to address her side-note.
Side note: I’m well aware that this can’t always be the case and that sometimes the “other parent” is not healthy for the child. I’m talking about co-parenting situations that can be healthy and productive but have things standing in their way that don’t need to be. Just throwing that out there before the comments start coming in.
Good for her that she recognizes that her case cannot apply to all. I am thrilled for her, her ex and their daughter that they have been able to have such a magnificent co-parenting relationship. There is much to learn from their approach. They appear to be positive co-parenting role models of the highest ilk, to be sure.
But please, please, PLEASE stop telling people to ditch either the concept of a well-defined parenting plan or to shred their legal documents. I beg of you.
In order to explain precisely why I find this instruction to be so potentially damaging, allow me to walk through the presented complaints about their parenting plan:
1. Rigid calendar structure: From the details shared in her opening statement, it sounds like the custody plan between them was about a 70%/30% time share. That means that one parent ended up with a tremendous amount of the parenting burden, which can be difficult for both the parent who has their child less often and the parent who has the child more often. I get it. Either position is a tough one to be in. However, children need structure in order to thrive. There are always those families who prefer to go with the flow and if it works for them, that’s great. But at least at the beginning, no set custody plan is the quickest short-cut I have seen to chaos and fights between co-parents who typically find this strategy more confusing, not less so.
2. No moving out-of-state: I cannot wrap my head around this one at all. Why would this requirement be a problem exactly? And it what way do you find it confusing? The courts consider it to be in the child’s best interest to have as much time as possible with each parent. One parent leaving the state makes this rather difficult, to say the least.
3. Child support, child support reviews, insurance provision, split co-pays: The approach to child support in this article is a bit misleading. This couple did not choose to forego child support, nor did either refuse to take care of their child’s insurance or co-pays. They simply came up with an amount that worked for them. Over time, no financial circumstance arose that caused either one to request a review. Fantastic!
Let’s say, however, that after 4 years one of them had lost their job, while the other had received a huge raise. The purpose of child support is allow the child a similar standard of living in both homes. Without a provision in their parenting plan for a simple 4-year review, the one needing to ask for help would have needed to file a request with the court for a modification. A 4-year review with the help of a mediator would probably take one or two hours at most. A hearing for the modification of support could easily blow $10,000 over 6 months of stress. Easily.
No need for the 4-year review? Skip it. No harm, no foul.
Once you receive your freshly stamped divorce judgment back from the court, it is yours to do with as you please. There are no custody police who will come knocking on the door if you and your ex decide something you had agreed upon is no longer worker for you.
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4. Details that were very general to accommodate a broad span of families: Right here I believe Curry unintentionally gets to the heart of the matter. She states that “Following these instructions laid out for us made us tired, angry and confused.”
I would posit that the reason their parenting plan made them feel tired, angry and confused is that they seem to have been drafted by their attorneys without either of their input. And that is a true shame.
A healthy parenting plan should be crafted by the parents with the guidance of their mediator. Custody schedules should take into account their particular issues and their child’s particular temperament, and they should have a chance to try it on for size before entering the specifics into a legally binding format. When custody arrangements are developed this way, there is exceptionally low incidence of parental conflict over the details later.
5. Details that were permanent and signed by a judge: OK, here I can understand the confusion, but I can also clear it up real quick.
When the court calls an order “permanent,” the court is not saying “forever and ever no matter what.” The court is saying “We are done with you. Be off!” — AKA, “Don’t bother me any more kid.”
Permanent orders are the ones that go in your final divorce papers. They can be changed later.
For the record, the court’s way of saying “Go away and you may never come back” is to include a statement that the orders were made “with prejudice.” Which doesn’t sound like what it means either. I know it is really odd and confusing. But once you get it, it really does make sense.
6. “A custody calendar that is so marked up it looks like a two-year old got a ahold of it with a box of markers”: I have no idea who drafted their custody calendar, but if I were to draft a custody calendar with the schedule she set forth at the top of her piece, here is what it would look like in her home.
If I found a 2-year-old who could map that kind of simplicity out with markers, I wouldn’t be wasting my time here explaining this to you. I’d be getting that kid a ticket to guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show!
Again, to my mind, this is the difference between a well-crafted mediated parenting plan and the attorney driven production of a divorce judgment. It is also way less complicated that most kids’ athletics schedules these day. I suggest to my clients that they each purchase white board calendars for their homes and fill in the days and times as above so that their kids can easily pop over and take a look at it whenever they are missing the other parent and want to know when they will see him or her next. Kids take to it like bears to honey, and it teaches them all of those great skills like organization, self-soothing, delayed gratification and the like.
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So that addresses the complaints.
As for the solution offered, throwing it out and never looking back, my response is — kinda, sorta, but no, not really.
Once you receive your freshly stamped divorce judgment back from the court, it is yours to do with as you please. There are no custody police who will come knocking on the door if you and your ex decide something you had agreed upon is no longer worker for you.
Please don’t sleep with your judgment at your bedside. Do not have it shrunk down to index card size, laminated and hung on a key ring for super easy reference. Don’t needle your ex with remarks like “well the papers say blah blah blah.”
BUT…
If you can’t remember who has Thanksgiving and who has Christmas this year, guess what? You don’t need to fight it out! You already discussed it and decided. Take a peek at that dusty old judgment and refresh yourselves as to what it said.
Your judgment is your fall back. Your worst case scenario. It is basically your own personal co-parenting referee.
Things change. Opinions change. New romantic partners come into the picture and your once easy-going and flexible co-parent now wants you to be “flexible” about something you feel is totally off the wall.
Your judgment is your fall back and your tie-breaker. And that can prevent a lot of unnecessary fighting down the road.
Throwing out the custody agreement did not make them better people. It sounds like they were pretty great people and stellar parents to begin with. You probably are and will be too.
But just in case, please don’t shred those papers!
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Spot on! I have both situations so I know it really depends on the person you are co-parenting with. With my daughter’s father, our divorce decree is literally only 4 pages long and most of that pertains to our joint finances at the time (long since irrelevant). I’ve looked at it maybe 5 times in 17 years. Our custody arrangement is simply this: Father shall have reasonable visitation with the child at the mother’s discretion. It works. Because he trusted me, I was able to trust him and our daughter reaps the rewards. We have a set schedule that we… Read more »
Lots of good sense in those points! Things do change, unpredictably, and having this document as a fall-back resource can make things easier down the road.
Thank you Karen!