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Our experienced family law team talks about the presumption that the mom is going to get custody in a divorce. Many people assume that is the case and we break down the history and current landscape for custody in divorces.
Your no bullsh$t guide to divorce with experienced attorneys from New Direction Family Law and guests and professionals who have been there. Unfiltered discussions to help you move from victim to victorious and from bitter to better.
Elizabeth: [00:00:00]
Hi everyone. I'm Elizabeth Stephenson
Sarah: and I'm Sarah Hank. And we're here for the exit
Elizabeth: strategy.
Sarah: Today's topic while the title of it is boobs for our students. So today we'll be looking at pictures of boobs and tubes and describing them to you and you get to pick what we're talking about.
Elizabeth: Apparently, that's not true. I can assure you we're dying, but I love the title because it is exactly what we're talking.
Sarah: Yeah. And we're joined today again with Chris Harris, our dude. And we're generally going to talk about going to court and the presumption that the mom's going to get custody. Cause a lot of people think that and.
Probably less than they do these days, but definitely traditionally, that was the case,
Elizabeth: Back in the day we had [00:01:00] to, when they called the tender years doctrine that if you had a small child that. And mother stayed home for the most, more, and that's just not true anymore. I still think mothers carry the load, but that's just my personal opinion.
I think the boobs carry them. Yeah.
Sarah: That's true. And figuratively and literally for a Psalm. And that also comes into play when deciding custody of really small. Babies. Yeah. Chris, what do you see when it comes to like very small? I say small children. Babies, that's another word for
Elizabeth: Not in preschool or anything.
Yeah.
Chris: The law says there's no preference one way or another, but it's just human nature at this point, you're going to see that mother favoritism when it comes to those cases.
Sarah: You are listening. You mentioned something the, their day when you're in court, listening to two dudes argue about two dude attorneys arguing about breastfeeding.
Correct?
Chris: Exactly. The case in what we're talking about,
Elizabeth: that would have been period it's like, how do you even get to argue that?
Chris: Yeah, it was a mother's attorney who was a male arguing that the child couldn't be away from mom because she was breastfeeding and dad's attorney who was a male arguing that [00:02:00] she could pump enough to feed the baby during his.
Time with the kid and a male judge making the decision, which I thought was ironic. And
Elizabeth: I'm playing with,
Sarah: did you get to hear what the judges
Elizabeth: he
Chris: did a ramp up? It was one of those, a mom hadn't let the dad see the kid
Elizabeth: pump up.
Chris: Yeah he basically left the daddy's into some weekends and that. The Mo the mother shall produce,
Elizabeth: the mother
Chris: shall give the dad enough breast milk for the time, which I thought, I don't know how you enjoy it. We
Elizabeth: have to know a judge has said not right now, but I need to know, but that's the weirdest thing to put in a court order.
Chris: I've seen some weird stuff.
Elizabeth: Yeah. But that's like pretty weird. It's true. Weird. But
Sarah: it is if you're breastfeeding
Elizabeth: and again, it all falls to the mom to dude to do it here. Here's the baby and I produced breast milk for you.
Sarah: And that goes into then formula versus breast milk [00:03:00] argument, which you know, people can argue about.
And that's why we go to court. Cause people are arguing obviously. But
Elizabeth: My philosophy is both parents need to have a relationship with the shot and the, just tell needs a relationship with both their parents, but not, but let's think about the child not making it 50 50 or making it. That's what I think judges sometimes think about this.
Making it equal, but not the best interests.
Sarah: I think the hardest part of separation and divorce for some people that have kids is that they didn't have this kid to share it with someone else and only see it half the time. And they had to wrap their mind around that because it's not about them.
Elizabeth: And I don't have cases like that where. I've always been the stay at home mom, he's always worked. I've always been the one that did this. And tonight, all I can say is I understand that, but that's not how it is anymore.
Sarah: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Step up.
Sarah: They do. And that's what they
Elizabeth: love to see.
Sarah: And that's how I explain them too.
It's I get that. I understand that you took him to all the doctor's appointments. You took them to, the. Teacher conferences. [00:04:00] And what have you, you did that work, but the judge is going to give dad an opportunity to step up to the playground and do that work himself. And he might not, I always say, give him enough rope to hang himself.
Elizabeth: Let him do that. He's going to tell him some things to do. And what you want to happen is that he does them. But if he doesn't, then there's a fallback.
Chris: And I, I've made that argument in court just because dad hasn't done it doesn't mean he can't, or doesn't deserve a chance to try. And I tell your female clients, what you want at the end of the day is.
For him to be the best dad he can be.
Elizabeth: But that's why we're all together.
Chris: no, I honestly, I don't really want to represent you if you don't.
Elizabeth: I don't think I won't represent you if you don't want that. And you don't have some legitimate reason not to.
Sarah: Yeah. And that's why I have to be realistic with them. This is what. Likely going to happen, unless you can show me that he is so unfit, that he shouldn't have time, which in their mind might be something, but in the real world, in the court world, it's not there.
Elizabeth: You, what do you say to clients to help [00:05:00] them bring them off that cliff to say, this is not, that is not going to happen.
Chris: You just have to be blunt about it. . I tell them, I can't make that happen. It's not in the law in a lot of times I put it on the judge.
Yeah,
either, the judge on your case is more of a 50 50 judge because it is, and that's no preference in wake County, especially with our judges. No preference means we starting at 50 50 and we're going to move. And you got to
Elizabeth: have a really good reason to move off of that 50,
Sarah: 50, some kind of danger to the child that you can prove in court.
Because a lot of our judges have been there for a while, not right now, but anyways, they get used to hearing the same conversation happened in court. I know that you don't like this person and we've touched on this before. They might not have been a good husband or a good wife, but can they take care of a child?
Do they? And I always, it's always amazing to me, they say they want full custody, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like what's the relationship like between dad and the kids? And they'll be like, actually it's pretty good. Okay. [00:06:00] Okay.
Elizabeth: Part of it is. I wanted, there ha there, the reality may be that this child has not had a relationship with this person, however, that may have happened.
And so we are where we are. So putting a child in a 50 50 position at that point, I think is not in the best interest, but judge, please give it a step up. Let's see how it. Work, don't throw it into a 50, 50. It's hard. I don't know the judges here. I don't know that they hear that the
Sarah: gradual there's a step
Elizabeth: up,
Sarah: happens a lot, especially with young children where the parties weren't married and they had a kid together and, dad hasn't really been around that often and never really took to the child as a baby.
And maybe mom took the baby and withheld it a little bit, not in her mind, but just, yeah. This is my baby. I just birth this child and it needs to be close to me. But if you go to court three years later and the kid's three years old, dad doesn't have that great, a relationship that judge's gonna give them an opportunity to grow that
Elizabeth: and do the right thing.
Sarah: And a lot of times what you do in that [00:07:00] situation is you do a gradual step up. That they don't move on to the next step until, and if they have every other weekend for three hours on a week, on a Saturday, if they miss a day, they have to start all over. So you have to make them show up if they're going to get any more
Elizabeth: time.
Because that's separated on my tablet too. And I remember when he was with his dad and I would go in his room and lay in his bed and smell his pillow, that was heartbroken, but it abated, I got it got better and it got easier. And now I have this 18 year old that. Moves from house to house because he wants to, because we've been able to co-parent and it's just hard.
It's hard.
Sarah: You got to think in the future
Elizabeth: and you got to think about your kid and what's the most important thing,
Sarah: right?
Chris: Yeah. And what I tell people is you can't take a hundred percent house and make it into 200% houses. So you're going to have to let go a little bit.
Sarah: That's
Elizabeth: going to happen.
You got a base rate that you can either do it now, or when that court order comes down on Thursday or whatever day it is. And the judge says, you're going to go be with your dad every Tuesday, [00:08:00] Wednesday. Why don't we take the six months? So we have to make, to work toward making that happen.
Yeah.
Sarah: I also see a lot of my male clients give in to mom very easily. Oh really that, I don't want to take her time from the child. I obviously want a relationship. I want 50, 50, but every time I talked to her about it, she gets so riled up and angry about it that I'm willing to just take, maybe 35, 40% of it.
Elizabeth: I remember all that, an old attorney, but a very seasoned attorney. That's very well known, said to me one time, you know what I do with mamas and daddies, I tell dad. Let her have whatever she wants for the first year. She'll calm down. Things will come around. And he said, it's always in the last 50 years I've been practicing.
That's, what's always happened, and sometimes if you push and push, and if you'll just sit back and do the best you can, sometimes that's not bad advice. I remember that I would do that, but
Chris: That's a tough thing for me with clients is because that is my nature too, is let it simmer for a minute.
And then, and I tell people let's get a court [00:09:00] order in place. Because once you have a court order, everybody knows the deal. They know what the rules are, everybody settles down. And that is something I personally struggle with clients is getting them to back off and just stop pushing. Just, as our younger paralegals would say, stop doing the most, is what they say.
Elizabeth: Okay. Got it.
Sarah: I just
Elizabeth: learned that one too.
Chris: Yeah. Just stop pushing, stop trying to, go for the juggler in week three best case. Let it simmer, he's either going to do what's right.
Which should make you happy or he's going to not do it. And we're fine. I'm pushing,
Elizabeth: give him a D if you think he's going to fail, give him a chance to fail. We got to
Sarah: have that. That's what judges do. That's media, the temporary hearing. So in wake County, when she fought for temporary and permanent custody automatically get a temporary custody.
Elizabeth: What's the difference than that?
Sarah: I see like temporary
Elizabeth: expires at some point.
Sarah: Yeah. And that doesn't so it can go on forever. I know at some point.
Elizabeth: Those
Sarah: getting in the weeds, a lawyer does not expire [00:10:00] Morphin to what the court would consider a permanent hearing or a permanent order. So really the only difference is how do you change it?
And a temporary order, you don't have to. Prove anything to change it. You can get into another order after that. And you can use evidence that you used in the temporary hearing in the next hearing. But if you have a permanent custody order, you have to show a substantial change in circumstances that somehow either benefits or hurts the minor child that would warrant a change in the custody schedule.
And you also cannot use evidence that you had prior. Knowledge of, and may have used and the permanent hearing last time. So it's just harder to change a permanent order, but otherwise both of them just continue on until the child is 18. And I love
Elizabeth: orders or separation agreements because it sets out what everybody's supposed to do.
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: Sometimes.
Elizabeth: Hopefully a good one will a good one. We'll
Chris: come across some bad
Elizabeth: ones. We're going to exchange on Mondays at 7:00 AM. Because if y'all don't, co-parent. Then we need specifics in there. You can. [00:11:00]
Chris: And that's what I like. What I tried to do in my consent orders is I say, this is it.
If you can't agree, I give you the leverage to, the leniency to, work it out yourself. And there's
Elizabeth: already language in there, y'all can get consent to do anything else you wanted, but let's say people say to me, I get these. Separation would, and we want to spend Christmases together about five years from now, when you're remarried, you really want your ex showing up?
No, no left
Sarah: or nesting. I hate that.
Chris: What did you call it? Gen an index nesting. Whereas the kids have one house and mom lives there part of the time. And then dad lives there part of the time
Elizabeth: could not, that would make my
Sarah: therapist be like, that sounds great because why should the kids have to move around?
I agree with that, but no,
Elizabeth: I'm not saying that's a good deal. What I
Sarah: understand he is good in theory. It's
Elizabeth: good.
Chris: It comes out to one of two ways. It's either, the spouses are. Going back and forth [00:12:00] from the marital residence to their parents' house
Elizabeth: or to the, share it at a party or this really sad, like bachelor
Chris: apartment with a futon.
Sarah: And then what is the other spouse doing in there when you're not there?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Chris: You're still sharing a bed with your spouse, just not at the same time.
Sarah: I also think it's confusing for the kids. Especially, if you haven't really been honest about it and they don't really understand what's going on with mom and dad are they broken up?
What's going on? And no one really talks to them about it. They just, I think the kids are resilient. Like you always say, listen, they bounced back. Don't keep them in this weird phase of in-between. I don't think that's good for anyone. It's not good for the parents. It's not good for the kids.
Elizabeth: I've had one case. They did it, and then they stopped doing it. Have you all had anybody that did it longterm? I haven't either.
Sarah: Six months I've yeah. The
Elizabeth: interim period where we're trying to settle everything out and then otherwise
Sarah: I tell them right away if it's a bad idea.
Elizabeth: Yeah. I agree. You can't sustain that. No, [00:13:00]
Sarah: there's no way whatsoever, but yeah, when it comes to mom and dad, so what if mom and dad can't ever agree and they always are fighting. They have court orders, litigation constantly. What can you do,
Elizabeth: dad? We can get a parent coordinator. You can go to mediation, pare coordinator is someone you.
Call and say, he's doing this or she's doing this, or I want to try this and I want to do this. And instead of waiting for more to get in court, that parent coordinator can make a decision about that. They can't change the custody schedule, but a lot of issues about where they go to school. What time are going to do the exchange, what they're eating for dinner.
The color of their socks, all of that. And then I have a parent coordinator. You can do that and you can make that decision.
Sarah: Yeah. As long as it's not in the order. So what are your thoughts on there's this whole thing about legal custody? And if the parents can't co-parent then maybe one parent should have sole legal.
Elizabeth: I agree with that because if you can't co-parent and how can you, legal custody is making decisions about big things, where they go to [00:14:00] school, their healthcare, and those sorts of things. So how can you have joint legal custody if you can't agree on things? Because you've got to agree.
Sarah: I agree completely, actually, a lot of cases where I have the dad as sole legal custodian.
Elizabeth: I don't have Barry. I don't know about you, but . Joint, unless they agree. Otherwise, for the most part,
Chris: the only one I have, that's not joined is where one of our judges gave sole legal of one child to mom and one sole legal of the other child today.
Sarah: That's splitting the baby.
Elizabeth: What happened? It wasn't my habit, but it wasn't.
Who split the baby. And
Sarah: I was like, Elizabeth, don't tell their clients
from the Bible. When I wrote it,
Elizabeth: I didn't actually do it. It's
Sarah: not a client's name.
Chris: It's not my client. So
Sarah: I'm like thinking in my head right now, how many cases I have with sole legal. I have a ton and I think I just [00:15:00] fight extra hard for that. And a lot of, I have for some reason I have a lot of guys that are like
Elizabeth: the decision regarding school, or are you going to make decision regarding X?
But I think judges want again, they want to give them the opportunity. To try to co-parent and I think they should, or I'll put it in separation agreement. If you can't agree, then that stays status quo and y'all can go to mediation or go back.
Chris: [00:16:00] In our court of appeals, just signed off on, the whole theory of joint legal.
But if you can agree, mom gets to decide or death, which I don't think is joint legal at that
Elizabeth: point. I think,
Chris: It's just words. But yeah,
Elizabeth: parents are very invested in that. I have a lot of clients who, if they get that, even if they're 50, 50 custody that gives this still gives them some sense of control.
I
Sarah: think it's good if you can't co-parent
Chris: I don't relish, being in the judge's position to determine which one is better to do that.
Sarah: Yeah, I haven't had it happen a lot in court. I'm I, when I speak about, have a lot of [00:17:00] cases, I just negotiated and we've done a consent order and otherwise it's someone that's going to have primary custody in the other person hasn't been involved yet.
And maybe that can change in the future when a judge decides it,
Elizabeth: primary custody used to have legal custody too. Is that child living with you? Primarily and you get to make, you should be able to make
Sarah: decisions if mom or dad isn't around that often. Why should they make big decisions affecting their health care education?
They're not the ones that are going to deal with the fallout of recuperating from a surgery or, extra homework for going to some extra skilled high school.
Elizabeth: Is it more boobs or dudes that have. The legal custody,
Sarah: equal boobs and dudes.
Elizabeth: Okay.
Chris: Are mostly boobs.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I think so, because they've been the primary, I don't care if they work the same hours. I still feel like it falls to the mom. The majority of the time, maybe not in your household, but since Margaret Terry's at our office.
Sarah: I think, yeah, [00:18:00] everyone wants a little custody of Margaret.
She has said that a lot of times it comes to this legal decision-making and my cases, because one parent, maybe it's a little extra neurotic that causes issues with making decisions. Like they changed their mind a lot that they don't really think about the kid. It's more about their whole plan as vindictive or the mental health issues that they can't.
They can't really do it for the kid. They're still stuck in this vindictive mentality. Where, what decision can I make? That's just going to mess with dad.
Elizabeth: Mine is more, even if they both work, but. Mom's always been the one that went to school and went to the doctor and did make those decisions.
And then all of a sudden, Oh, you want to separate from me? And now you won't make that's hard. That would be hard pill to swallow.
Sarah: But maybe she took transported the kids and did those things, but they still
Elizabeth: call on it. You make the appointment, you take them, you go to the doctor, you get the prescription and.
Yeah, I think you have some vested interest in that's modern vindictive. It's more of, I've [00:19:00] always done it.
Chris: And then there's the other where they just disagree to disagree. Mom was, mom wants the kids to go to this school. It's really good school, but dad doesn't like it because mom wants
Elizabeth: it.
Yeah. Oh my God. All the time. All the time,
Chris: joint legal custody there, or you just can't agree because you don't want
Sarah: to and yell at them. And sometimes that's what judges do. And I appreciate that.
Elizabeth: They do have that. We do have that at the end of the day, Monash. Everybody,
Chris: the one I'm thinking about where they just can't get along. The judge did that a couple of months ago.
Sarah: I've had judges say you're both being awful to your kid and your kid. If you don't make changes, going to end up in jail or on drugs or on the street, and it's going to be both of your faults, I don't care.
And then she ordered that my client has sole legal, I've got it bothered. A lot of times they both should you get to the point where you're in court and you can't just. Work together then you should get yelled at,
Chris: right? [00:20:00]
Elizabeth: I agree.
Sarah: Cool. That's why I get, like, when I go to the smaller counties and the judges take me in and chambers and tell me their orders, where they go tell it to my client.
And I'm like, no,
Elizabeth: I never had that happen. Oh, I hate
Sarah: it happens at these small counties. I don't like it. I'm like, you go yell at my client. Now I have to go like whimper to them that we lost, like no kill yell at
Chris: them. And in these smaller counties and actually been in chambers with the judge and say, I think it'd be really good if you.
Came out and, really let them have it about this and the judge yeah.
Elizabeth: Or counties are going to try to, particularly, I loved her though, bringing you back in, in the middle of a trial and tell you what she's going to do, and y'all need to talk about this. As I think back on that it was brilliant because you stopped the trial.
Everybody came to some agreement. And it was a consent order. I don't like it.
Chris: I was in one, a couple of weeks ago where we had a, here are what we did. There was a hearing before us and we [00:21:00] saw this happening. So we didn't, but basically the judge lets you have your whole hearing. She let everybody say what they needed to say, get it off their chest and then said, all right, I'm going to let, y'all go in the back and try to work this out.
If you can't come back out, I'll give you my ruling.
Elizabeth: And that way they got
Chris: to say all what they wanted to
Elizabeth: say.
Chris: And that's what I, that's what I tell opposing counsel. Sometimes it's look, they just.
Elizabeth: Oh, I say that all the time. I say that all the time.
Sarah: I just think if you're there, the judge needs to make their decision because then if they, this is my opinion.
Elizabeth: Yeah. It's not my fault, not your fault. That's what the judge said can help you.
Sarah: I don't like to, for it to fall on me and okay, fine. The judge said this is what they want to happen. So let's like figure out how to make this work and then it doesn't work. And then it's Sarah. Why did we not just let the judge I'm like, I touched told me to do this either way.
I just want the judge to do their job. Like we're here. You make a decision
Elizabeth: to get mad at us. We're here, dud, that's your job. And then they monitor. So our client pipe, I don't know why you can [00:22:00] figure this out.
Sarah: I like the ones who admonish our clients and then tell us how good a job we did.
Elizabeth: They all say they all do that.
Sarah: Like your attorneys are so amazing. Both did a great job. Sometimes I'm like, did the other side really do a great job?
Chris: I do that little shout out though. Like your attorneys did a great job. I had one, a couple of months ago where the judge was like, you should both think your attorneys right now and then waited for them to do it
Sarah: so awkward.
Oh, that's great. Yeah. We started this conversation. I'm boobs and bursty is, and I think at this point, roles have changed over the last 30 I'll deviate a little bit. I saw something and it's like, how old was someone like 1984? Oh, 20 years ago, it was with the eighties, but now we're in 2020.
Elizabeth: It would be 40 years ago. So
Sarah: anyway, so instead of, like I said, not 30 years ago, but 50 years that roles have changed a lot between women and men and [00:23:00] women are out working just as much as men and both are taking on more roles than the other. So there's not the 10-year tender years doctrine, like there used to be anymore.
Yeah. When you come into play with the charts apart a little bit, so how does it come into play with child support? It's
Elizabeth: just been done. How many. Overnight to have with the child as to what you're going to be paying in child
Sarah: support. If the child is under three, then someone's not working
Elizabeth: the caretaker and the networking.
They can't say that you can earn an income.
Sarah: I'm not going to impute income to you. So there's a little bit of that trickle down from the tender year and still in the child support realm. But generally, and also we say boobs of our students, but sometimes it's boobs,
Elizabeth: boobs, and dude's versus dude. Yeah.
Sarah: And it's going to be, who is best for the kid to be around.
And most times it's both parents that a child should be around to people that they've formed bonds with relationships with. And it doesn't really matter who wants it more if you both ask for it. And you're both good parents that they're going to try and equalize
Elizabeth: that, [00:24:00] but it should be, I think.
Sarah: Yeah.
What do you think, Chris?
Chris: I absolutely agree. I think the roles have seriously changed. I'm a dad in my mid thirties and I've had that conversation with, people my parents' age and I can't believe how much you do. Like we never did that. And even once it was, why are you doing that?
Elizabeth: When they say, when they talk about that babysitting, that makes me lose my mind.
Chris: I'm not babysitting
dollars an hour. If it's babysitter
Elizabeth: 10.
Chris: I haven't had one since mid
Sarah: March. That's true.
Elizabeth: Oh, that's true. Yeah. All right, Dan, we digress. We're already,
Sarah: we have a big question. So straight from the boobs. So this topic kind of came from, we'd like to bring relative relevant or relevant
Elizabeth: relatives and relevant
Sarah: double first cousins.
Devin episode. But things immediate today, we'd like to bring it to into context. And so if you've been paying attention at [00:25:00] all the tabloids or anything like that, Kelly Clarkson our beloved first American idol is going through a divorce and recently came out that she was awarded primary physical custody due to trust issues between the parties and there being conflict.
Would you guys have touched on a lot of that, but it got us thinking about how we. Legitimately from the intake side of things. If someone's calling in, we have had males express that we don't even know why I'm doing this because I know the court is going to favor a rule in favor of the mom.
And so you guys have talked about bigger counties and smaller County court. So just in your opinions, and obviously this goes out to all three of you, is there, does there tend to be a sway in the courtroom in favor of the mom or the dad?
Elizabeth: I don't think in more urban counties, I would say no. Literally, you're starting from 50 50, and you'd better have some pretty damn big evidence to show me Ms.
Stevenson to make me move off of that. And I can't say that I, there are cases where it's warranted, not 50 50 for the most part. Every child should be [00:26:00] able to have a relationship with their parents, whether their parents get along or not. That's not the child
Sarah: in smaller counties where it's more traditional.
When you think about the mentality of smaller counties and
Elizabeth: younger.
Sarah: Yeah,
Elizabeth: I have middle school or I live in elementary school kids. I think even smaller counties. And Chris, you can tell me if I'm wrong
Chris: now. And it's, it is political and, just societal norms, I guess the urban, more populous counties tend to be more progressive and a little more liberal.
And they move quicker towards those shared roles and, not along gender lines and it just is what it is.
Sarah: I was in that smaller County, one of them recently, when it was my client that moved out of state, the mom, he always did the, she stayed home for the last two years, took care of the kids, medical appointments and education took care of all of it.
And she took the kids, moved out of state, enrolled them in school here in North Carolina, dad filed for custody and the judge was like, they need to stay here. I don't care where mom is. But she comes back 50 50, if not then I guess. [00:27:00] Yeah. And so that's not always is a given and the smaller County is that you might think be more traditional and rural, but there's other things that come into play like logistics.
If one parent's going to be traveling for work, then it's not realistic that they have 50 50. If they're gone Monday through Friday, like that can't. Really work.
Elizabeth: Or if you're the third shift, the pilots of doctors.
Sarah: Yeah. But you also, sometimes when someone does work and the mom or the dad is I don't see how they can realistically do this.
Like they work a lot. I also tell them that they're going to have to figure it out. If they want 50 50, they're going to have to do after school or before school daycare, whatever that doesn't negate, the fact that the kids should have.
Chris: I agree with that. Yeah. And especially as I get older, we talk about the Tinder years and all that, but middle schoolers, high schoolers, they don't want to be around you anyway,
Sarah: like in the Kelly Clarkson situation, that there was a lot of.
Co-parenting issues that there was a lot of aggression and I have seen some cases and I [00:28:00] agree with it. It's probably case to case, but if it's so bad that they can't literally cannot interact with each other, then maybe 50, 50 is not the best solution. Because at that point you got to think about the kids and making sure they're having some stability.
And if the parents interacting as much as they do. Somehow just cannot work
Elizabeth: or I don't have them not interact. I've been dropped off at school, so they don't see each other. They're all sorts of ways around
Sarah: Kelly. Clarkson's really rich. I don't know what kind of school they go to. I don't know, but
Elizabeth: I don't know because I had the Kardashians.
I don't follow it. So I don't know
Sarah: if her kids are school age.
Elizabeth: Or not, I don't know what trust issues mean, but I
Sarah: don't get that either.
Elizabeth: I don't know if it means, I don't know. And we're in California or New York or wherever they have a
Sarah: personal problem.
Elizabeth: I know what's have to do with their kids, but
Sarah: I didn't try to live a divorce in the media.
Like personally, I wanted to not talk about it at all. So imagine it being blah, whatever's false or blown up in the media, but it also touches on this is what I was thinking was alienation. [00:29:00] I have seen cases where one parent say mom's alienating the kids from dad, meaning that she, talks bad about dad constantly, that she makes the kids not like dad, because the things she does.
And she says that I have seen cases where a court will just flip it. And say, you know what they need to be with dad more often, because mom is just doing so much harm to these kids and creating such a tension with dad that she should not be
Elizabeth: around that. A lot of cases about that, but I think alienation is a term of art and not throw that around
Chris: and you have to have that conversation a lot.
With what we do, I understand what you're saying. Halianazation because you understand it as what it is, but I understand it on the legal side and I understand I need. $20,000 for an expert to come in here
Elizabeth: because I can't
Chris: prove because you say it is
Sarah: so hard to prove.
Cause then you have to haul the kids in and testify. If you want to hear what mom's been saying to the kids, and a lot of times judges don't want that, or you don't want that. There's a spectrum level of it. Yeah. Mom might say that you're an [00:30:00] asshole once or twice around the kids.
Elizabeth: Never. I'm gonna tell you, every parent who has separated, divorced from the other parent has said that at one point in the not alienation, it just, it's just been tricky.
Human, human.
Sarah: Yeah. And then Kelly Clarkson's order court order or whatever it says that you can't.
Elizabeth: Disparagingly
Sarah: about the other person. They all say that. And then my client will call me and say, I'm pretty sure it's happening. I'm like I can't do it.
Elizabeth: I can't do anything about that. I'm sorry.
I'm really sorry.
Chris: Yeah, judge. And talk about this.
Sarah: It's a feel good provision. That's what I call them and make everyone feel good that they're there and that you think says
Elizabeth: plants all the time. As I can get you an order, I think at you, primary custody, I can say you have legal custody. I can't make the other party not be an asshole.
You're never going to change that you laid down, you had a child with this person. You love them at some point. And here we are, but a judge did not can't change that person.
And so I, I'm not a miracle worker.
Sarah: And if one [00:31:00] person's really awful and maybe there's personality disorders in play, but they're still like a decent parent.
Not great, but decent, the kids get older and they can see
Elizabeth: those things. We'll figure it out. They all figure it out.
Sarah: Figure it out.
Chris: Yeah. I said that in an email to an opposing counsel,
Saying my client doesn't want any unsupervised visits and said this child is four months old. So within the last 13 to 14 months, your client thought he was okay, enough to laid down and making the child with, but not to watch.
Yeah. Yeah. And what I always say this wasn't a problem until it was needed to be a problem, until you need it a problem
Elizabeth: that there aren't problems. There are, but I think we're sad. We've been doing this enough that you're pretty savvy, I think. And you can pick up on things.
Sarah: Yeah. For sure. And if it's serious, we'll tell you. Yeah, that's serious and we're going to do something about it.
Chris: And I think we always try to err, on the side of tell me more than you think I need to know, because I'm going to pick up, I'm going to pick up on some things that you might not think are [00:32:00] important that I need to hit on.
And you're going to tell me things that I'm just going to say. I don't really care.
Elizabeth: Yeah. You're going to tell me red flag for me. No, you probably shouldn't write that is over the top and you should not be doing
Chris: that. Yeah. Send me everything. Send me all those emails. All those text messages.
Sarah: Marijuana is a weird one. I feel like
Elizabeth: marijuana. Yeah. Mary, Jay
Chris: marijuana itself is not
Sarah: like I have, if I had a case where like they smoked pot every day and have they always done this? Yeah. I'm like the kids are how old 12 or eight and
Elizabeth: The kids or the parent,
Sarah: the dad, or the mom, I've always smoked pot.
And it's yeah, it's illegal still in North Carolina, and that can be used in court to show. That's not good if they're doing that when the kids are like around them, but also you said that you're okay with it because you live eight years with kids and, that's
Elizabeth: Don't do that.
Sarah: Don't do that.
Elizabeth: It's not going to mean you're good learners either that
Sarah: yeah. Drugs and, obviously alcohol is a huge issue. I think more so than something like that, because if you're drinking to excess and that's really gonna, and you're in charge of the beds [00:33:00] and we've seen some pretty sad situations with alcohol and dependency and some other drugs independency, but if that's not the case in your relationship and everyone's pretty decent parent boobs and dudes are gonna tie
Elizabeth: that.
Do I think at the end of the day, You just got to get over it when it's hard and we're, we'll go see a therapist. We always say that we'll sit here and listen to you. But at the end of the day, I'm going to tell you if you're in wake County. We're going to start with joint custody and I'm not going to tell you, Oh yes, you're going to win.
You're going to do this. Cause I'm not gonna set you up for failure. You may not like what I have to hear, but I'm going to tell you what
Sarah: and the worst is. If you go to court and you get all nasty and you're throwing text messages around and pictures, and everyone's talking, a lot of dirt about the other parent and you still get 50 50 think about how awful that is for your co-parenting.
You can't compare enough for that.
Chris: And for every bad text message you got, they got
Sarah: one that's worse. Oh, Lord. I find that out the hard way every time. And I'm like, Oh yeah, these are really bad. Thank you for sending them to me. I do discovery on their side and I get texts like, Oh my God, you [00:34:00] said that to them.
And everyone's just really crappy. Gets both suck.
Elizabeth: Here's what, here's her going through? All of this is as downloading your me your phone, Brett will download your text messages. This is becomes your life and is it really worth it now? It's probably not.
Sarah: What I'm hearing is it's not boobs versus dudes, it's boobs and dudes, Babson dudes, just a bunch of them,
Elizabeth: all of them.
Sarah: All right. Thanks Chris, for being here again and joining us today. Absolutely. Hopefully that was helpful information for all the boobs and dudes out there.
Elizabeth: Huh? So ain't that some shit that's up. Shit.