Ex-it Strategy

In this insightful discussion, we talk about the growing phenomenon of 'default parent' divorces among millennial marriages. The episode explores the dynamics of household responsibilities, the emotional toll of being the default parent, and how this imbalance often leads to marital discord and eventually divorce. The hosts share personal anecdotes, client experiences, and offer practical advice on managing these challenges through better communication, therapy, and allowing mistakes to foster growth in co-parenting.

00:00 Introduction and Team Introduction
00:44 The Default Parent Epidemic
01:46 Impact on Relationships and Divorce
03:11 Gender Roles and Societal Expectations
04:40 Challenges in Co-Parenting Post-Divorce
12:39 Historical Context and Modern Dynamics
14:41 Advice and Solutions for Default Parents
17:06 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Creators and Guests

Host
Cameron Heinsohn
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Host
Elizabeth A. Stephenson, MSW
Attorney/Partner, Parent Coordinator, & Collaborative Lawyer at New Direction Family Law
Host
Sarah J. Hink
Attorney/Partner at New Direction Family Law
Producer
Joe Woolworth
Owner of Podcast Cary in Cary, NC. Your friendly neighborhood podcast studio.

What is Ex-it Strategy?

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.

74 - Ex-it Strategy - Default Parent
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​[00:00:00]

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Hi everyone. It's Elizabeth Stevenson with New Direction Family Law.

Sarah J. Hink: And Sarah Hank, her law partner and partner in crime, the podcast partner.

And of course we have Cam Heinsen, our, yeah, what is the title? The director of Public relations and marketing and all the things that keep us running.

Cameron Heinsohn: Yeah, I think technically it's marketing and business development manager, but that's kind of a, all the things that keep us going. Mouth kind of a mouthful, but Yes.

Um, so I was just telling Elizabeth and Sarah, I think we're gonna start by talking about this. Millennial marriage epidemic, um, of default parent divorces. Right? So you both have, you know. Are seeing a lot of [00:01:00] that feedback from your clients. What are these, well, what

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: does that, can you tell everybody what that means?

Oh,

Cameron Heinsohn: sure. Yeah. So, um, the default parent in a, in a relationship or in a couple is typically the person that has taken the point on, um. You know, kids scheduling and household items and anticipating everybody's needs. When does this need to happen? Preventative maintenance for the house. They know when the library books are due, right?

Mm-hmm. Like the person that becomes the sort of go-to, um, and they have coined this term default parent, although like I don't have children, but in my relationship, you know, we work to make sure that. There isn't a default person. Right, right, right. Um, so, but the, that's kind of the coined term is default parent.

And so we're seeing, um, what a lot of the articles and things that I've been reading and, you know, feedback that you've gotten from your clients is resulting in this epidemic of divorce from. People [00:02:00] who didn't necessarily like having a big event. There was no affair. There was no like illegitimate children popping up.

There was no incident. It's just people just are tired.

Sarah J. Hink: Right? Yeah. Right. When person's overloaded, if other person's not carrying any load at all. Or at least it feels that way.

Cameron Heinsohn: Yeah,

Sarah J. Hink: I know with you know, our daycare. I'm always the main contact, but no one asked me to be the main contact. They just assume a lot of times the mom's the main contact.

Yeah. Even with our vet, I'm like, come on. You know, like Jamie takes care of like the dogs usually all the time. I'm like, he's, you know, he's on top of the dogs. But I think there's an assumption just historically that moms are the default parent for communication. For school education. Mm-hmm. Correct. Even medical purposes, medical

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: purposes especially.

I think that you just sort of take that role on. And it's just, this is what I remember about being married, is that you would ask the other partner to do something. Mm-hmm. And they would do it badly. And my personality is I'll just, I can do it so much quicker, just let me do it. Yes. [00:03:00] Yes. I think that's built, I think that might, that was a strategy I think a little bit too, you know, because if they're not gonna do it, it's gotta be done.

Mm-hmm. So it just falls to that person.

Cameron Heinsohn: Well, and I think it. We see it happen to women a lot, especially with children because it starts with feeding that like Right. If you're nursing, like you are on top of the child's schedule, you are on top of how much they're eating. Yeah. And I mean, you're, you know, it just, it starts there and it just kind of steamrolls from there.

Right, right. But you can

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: help in other ways, like mm-hmm. While I'm feeding, you can make me a cup of tea or bring me something to eat, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And take care of me a little bit. And then when I'm not breastfeeding anymore, then we can start sharing. This load, you know, so. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sarah J. Hink: I mean, I definitely am lucky that I know my partner is does his share.

Right. If not more so. But I knew I needed that before I had child or anything. I was like, I need a parent that's gonna be that way. Um, 'cause otherwise it wouldn't work because I don't have that personality to, I would be the same way. I like, well, I'll just do everything. And then if you're just doing everything and the [00:04:00] person's not resentment grows, and then eventually you're like, correct.

Well, you know. I might as well just do it on my own. There's so many clients I have who are like, by having a divorce and separating, I feel like I'm actually lessening my burden. Mm-hmm. You're right. Like I, they look at their spouse as a child that they're also caring for, but they shouldn't have to be caring for washing their

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: clothes, making their meals, all

Sarah J. Hink: of that.

Yeah, exactly. And it's like, I actually have, you know, less on top, less responsibilities by losing this other person that's supposed to help me. Mm-hmm. Um, and it, I think we see it a lot with, with the women, but it, I've also had male clients who feel the same way. For whatever situation, they are the ones that are the default parents.

Right. So it's not a hundred percent always the women. Yeah. Okay. But

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: that, talk to a client today and he's a stay at home dad and you know, sort of the same mm-hmm. Same thing, but they do say the biggest, the best predictor for getting a divorce is resentment. Yeah. You know, and you just, it's like they still love the person, but you don't what's the, what's the, what's in it for me to stay in?

This is the question. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You [00:05:00] know, it doesn't

Sarah J. Hink: just anger,

Cameron Heinsohn: I mean, and. You know, on the other side of things, like you tell me what you need, tell me what you know. But then it becomes on the default person or parent to. Manage that. Like now I have to delegate to you instead of you just being able to understand enough about the processes inside of our home and like our flow to be able to just handle something without me having to assign it to you.

Right? It's not about the. Task, it's about the anticipation and the planning and all of that.

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yeah. So you're just adding one more person to the kid chore chart.

Sarah J. Hink: Right, exactly. Basic, basically. Exactly. Yeah. And you know, it might have worked different, you know, 20, 30 years ago when a lot of the women did not work outside the home.

They were the managers of the household. But now that women are out in the workforce, they're the manager of the household and working outside the home, so wearing all the hats and the men haven't really gravitated to sharing the responsibility of managing the household. Right. And that's kind of where this [00:06:00] breaking point is a lot for my clients, a lot of the women is that, you know, they have full-time jobs.

They're making. A lot of times more money than their spouses. So they're the breadwinner. They're the ones that are catering to the children, getting them where they need to go, taking on top of their schedule, paying the bills, managing everything. And then they just look over their bum husband, just like who walks?

Drinking beer? The laundry basket. One more time. Yeah, like doing nothing and just kind of like going down some like internet, you know, rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and they're like, what am I doing here? Like, this is insane. How did I get here? I don't wanna be this guy anymore. Well, I think you say, well.

Not, we're not gonna get political, we're gonna generalize, but Right,

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: right. I mean, not to be political, but I think there is a movement toward more of a traditional household and you know, and so I love TikTok. Mm-hmm. I watch all the time. So there's called trad wives and Yeah. You know, tra wives side of TikTok.

But the question becomes, and there's one I really resonated with last night, and she showed how. Her blue collar husband who owned his own [00:07:00] business, you never know when they're coming home. So she, she did all that. She got the, she wanted a nice quiet when he came home, so she got the kids done, put 'em to bed, made his dinner, put water in his, Stanley, put it on his desk, lit a candle, laid out his clothes, and I'm thinking.

That's, I didn't have a problem with that necessarily. Yeah. Is that wrong of me? No, that was, she was a stay-at-home mom chores. I know. That's a job. Right? Right. Mm-hmm. But I didn't think it was, that to me is different than what we are talking Yeah. About, I

Joe: think.

Cameron Heinsohn: Yeah.

Joe: Yeah. That would've been a different story if the guy was like, I need you to light a candle.

Fill my Stanley. Yeah. Yeah. But she was choosing to do it. So, but I was thinking, man, if I sweet, I want a wife that does that,

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: a

Joe: husband that

Sarah J. Hink: does that. I mean, it's, it's just all about respecting each other and listening to each other's, you know, desires. I think when I get overwhelmed with, you know, responsibility sometimes I like think about going back to trod life, tried wife life, right?

Right. Oh, just to stay home and like knit all, I don't knit, but I would probably [00:08:00] hate knitting, but just like garden. I like to garden. If I stayed in my garden like fed children, then you like, I think his grass is always greener too. If you think about the whole trad wife first. Yeah, it's not the same.

It's like choices and everyone's gonna have their own. Right. No, I agree with part of that, but when women take on all the roles or anyone takes on all the roles, the roles, mm-hmm. That's when it's an overload. That re you know, definitely leads to resentment. And there's just so many people I talk to in my cases that are just like, I'm just exhausted and I'm just don't wanna be in a relationship with this person.

I don't feel like I've been in a relationship with this person.

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Right? Mm-hmm. And here's the problem, here's the, here's the problem in Sarah and i's world with that in litigation. Is that judges will say, I know you've done it all, but let's give dad a chance to do that. Yeah. And let's do it on a 50 50 basis.

'cause, because a lot of clients who come in who have been the primary parent, expect to be the primary parent. Mm-hmm. And, and it. It. Sometimes it works that way, but a lot of times it does not work that way.

Sarah J. Hink: Yeah. It's like they wanna give them, and I tell my clients, I'm like, well, unfortunately Court [00:09:00] wants to give them enough rope to hang themselves.

Right, exactly. To see if they can, you know, pull their bootstraps up to be a father or a mother, whatever, and parent, co-parent, um, and take that responsibility. But we also see cases where they fail and you do the 50 50 that's. The judge says you're gonna do, and dad still like somehow gets out of taking the kid to doctor's appointments.

Right. And

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: soccer and showing

Sarah J. Hink: up at school doesn't do, still doesn't pull their weight. And that's really frustrating too, because here you are, you're separated and you're like, a lot of people, they want like a break. They're like, I just, I love my kids, but I need a break. Right. I need to not have all this responsibility.

But it still turns out a little bit where they're managing those aspects of the kids' life still. Yes. I agree.

[00:10:00] Well, some of the reading that I was doing and preparing for today too, it. Was interesting insight on the [00:11:00] impact that it has on the kids because the kids get used to going to the one person, right for.

Cameron Heinsohn: Everything that they need because, and, and so they have become emotionally, like they don't have the same relationship with the other parent. Mm-hmm. Right. They, you know, and, and it becomes very difficult for the other parent to parent them because they don't, the relationship isn't there. And then the other parent's getting frustrated and they're kind of emotionally divested in what's going on with the kids.

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Right. And ki and, and they've already had a big change, Al already. 'cause they're separated. Mm-hmm. And now having to deal with, um, making, if let's say dad misses an appointment, that's stressful, you know? Mm-hmm. And so who's gonna do, who do I go to? What do I do? You know? So it's not good for the kids. Yeah.

Either, I don't think.

Sarah J. Hink: Yeah. And sometimes there, there is the mother bear controlling type. Parent who are well true, fails to relinquish any of this control. And I see a lot of those too. And that, I mean there's just, obviously we see a lot of [00:12:00] dynamics we do. And unfortunately the kids get caught, caught in a lot of, caught of the different dynamics, whatever way you wanna put it.

Um, but. We, I think with everyone who's works out the, out the household, managing a household on top of that is really difficult. And I don't think our society right now is really caught up to where we are. Mm-hmm.

with everyone working as hard as they're working and having children and families and everything.

So there's a lot of different ways to look at this, but we haven't quite adjusted. Yeah.

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: And especially if you're a work from home or working from home and working from home, looking after. Kids, even if they're in school age, you know, at some point they're coming home. You still gotta take care of 'em. Yeah.

You know, it's still hard.

Cameron Heinsohn: Yeah. Well they were talking ab like historically, right? As you're looking at it, as America came up. The, the family always worked together. Like the home was the business, it was farming, it was, right. Mm-hmm. You know, like, and the, the whole family was there working together and not really until like the industrial revolution came around, was the man leaving, leaving, right.

He was [00:13:00] always there doing the, you know, manual work of upkeeping the home, right? Mm-hmm. And so that's really like. If you look at history as a whole, that one little period of the man being outside the home and the woman not was, has been pretty short.

Sarah J. Hink: Yeah. Right. And like,

Cameron Heinsohn: so, you know, we adapted to that lifestyle so, so quickly it seems like as a society and we just have like, to your point, have not gotten there.

Yet on this new way of life where

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: people are leaving the home, you know? So to take one, yeah. Right.

Sarah J. Hink: Makes me think of when I was, I just, when I was a little girl, my mom would always tell me, never rely on a man. Sarah never rely on a man. For whatever reason she was telling me this constantly doesn't matter.

But, you know, I didn't get married until later in life. Didn't have a child until later in life. And up until those things happened, I'm very self-sufficient, like Right. I still don't need a man. Um, so at what point there's. A generation like ours who is like, I don't need a spouse. You really actually wanna be with your spouse to continue [00:14:00] being with them.

Yeah, correct. Which I think is different from generations ago where you looked at it more as a family unit as like, well, I need them for financial reasons. Correct. And, and other reasons besides, or religious religions or reasons than mm-hmm. Just wanting to be with them. Yeah. Right. And so you just stay together, you just get to

Cameron Heinsohn: be more selective now?

Sarah J. Hink: Yes.

Cameron Heinsohn: Like,

Sarah J. Hink: or not, or just, or just don't get married,

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: you know?

Sarah J. Hink: Yeah. I mean, people are. Getting married less. Right. Or having children Less. Less, less. That's right. And there's a lot of single men out there crying on the dating app, so why don't these women wanna date me? And it's like, well, you have to figure that on your own.

Sometimes. You wanna choose the bear. I mean, choose the bear.

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I'm

Sarah J. Hink: like,

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: I don't need a man. So I don't think there's a. I mean, the only thing you can do is ask, you know, get into therapy and see if you can work it through. And if you know, people are either gonna change or they're not.

Sarah J. Hink: Yeah. And maybe they just don't wanna be married anymore.

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: Yeah. And so you gotta, when people come to me with that, it's like, well, let's get a plan in place. Mm-hmm. Y'all get to therapy in three months. If [00:15:00] you're not doing anything, and in your mind, I wanna be out by the end of the year. Okay, then what do we need to do to make that happen? Mm-hmm. Kind of thing. So just because you feel that way that.

I wanna get out of this and I'm done. Um, make sure that you're done. You know, if there's no, if there's no reason that you feel unsafe to stay, stay there. Give it, give it a go and give it a try. And then if it doesn't work, then you've done all you can do. Yeah. You know, at that point

Cameron Heinsohn: there was a lot of, um, you know, like conversation around,

how do we fix this, right?

Like, how do, if you feel like you're the default parent, what do you need to do in order to get. The other person, you know, on your same level. Mm-hmm. So that they understand and, you know, typical sort of advice like communication and therapy and things like that. But they were talking about where,

it becomes really difficult is to truly let somebody come in and share the workload with you.

Mm-hmm. Um, the mental workload that, um, they are, [00:16:00] they have to feel the consequences of what happens when they. Drop a ball, right? Yeah. Right. And so for moms, that's really hard. Or for dads, that's really hard, right? Because it's typically, it's a kid thing, right? Yeah. That you're dropping the ball on, right?

And so they, you know that, and it just becomes the cycle again of, okay, now I'm back to having to be in control of this. Um, and I read a really interesting one-liners, like, successful women will let consequences land. And that's like so hard. Yeah. So

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: like

Cameron Heinsohn: for someone that like, you know, so it's like you say,

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: you know, you give them some rope to hang themselves and then they do, okay, well we try, but then what do you say?

Sarah J. Hink: Well, look, you know. I was gonna say motherfucker, but like, look what you did. Like then where does it go? Like, are you gonna have a constructive conversation about you dropped the ball, how are we gonna fix this? Or Yeah. Or no, look, you dropped the ball loser. Like I knew it

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: like, well, I mean, it depends on the personality, I guess.

Yeah. And then if you've got, if you are working and you got money to take [00:17:00] care, you know, you may need a little time to get some money stashed away and that sort of thing. So Yeah. You know, just gotta do what you gotta do. Yeah. But I don't think there's a,

Sarah J. Hink: I don't see it changing anytime

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: soon. No,

Sarah J. Hink: definitely not with the current climate.

I don't see this. I I, it, I, I know men happen to them too, but it really is a, a gender division I feel like. Right. Um, just from the, historically, the women being the, the go-to for all the, the kids stuff. Mm-hmm. Right. And

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: the other thing I always say to people, you know. People don't keep, if you keep doing something for somebody, why in the world are they gonna change anything?

They're not. They're

Sarah J. Hink: not. Right. It's like their mom did it for them, you know? And then they stop

Elizabeth A. Stephenson: washing his clothes, stop taking his meals, stop going to the grocery store for him. And he got, like you say, he's gotta have some consequences or nothing's gonna change. Right? Ain't that some shit?

[00:18:00]