What does alimony have to do with The Baby Mama Syndrome? Next to nothing. Only married people getting a divorce can get alimony.
On the other hand, Florida legislators keep trying to pass alimony “reform,” a code word for changing the law to the disadvantage of people who need protection or help. Tort “reform” is a good example.
The proponents of alimony reform combine it with a provision that would require a judge to “presume” that parents, whether they’re married to each other or not, are entitled to fifty-fifty custody of their children. In other words, the judge would be told by the law to assume that each parent is entitled to have the child half the time. That’s a horrible idea.
Read my book. Or read the posts on this website about The Baby Mama Syndrome, on being a baby mama or baby daddy, about domestic violence and contraception, and about romantic rivalry between two women over a man.
You cannot know what I know from years of resolving custody disputes, or knowing what’s in my book or those posts, and think a presumption of fifty-fifty child custody is a good idea.
The legal meaning of “presumption” is critical to understanding the problem. If the judge is required by the law to “presume” something, in this case that fifty-fifty custody should be ordered, someone has to prove that the presumption is wrong or it controls the decision. If no one proves that fifty-fifty child custody is wrong in a particular case, under the proposed law the judge should set up a custody arrangement that has the child spend time equally with both parents. At present, a judge has to decide what’s best for the children, not base custody on the presumed rights of one or both parents.
Let’s look at two common situations in which the presumption would be bad. First, a woman flees an abusive baby daddy with their child and he takes her to court demanding fifty-fifty custody. Neither of them has an attorney, which is more often than not the case. They get to court and he glares at her or flashes gang signs or does something else to show her she’s about to get another beating. She clams up, says nothing about why he shouldn’t have the child half the time. In the absence of proof that the custody presumption is a bad idea, especially if the judge doesn’t pick up on the intimidation, the judge will most likely order fifty-fifty custody without ever knowing the man is abusive.
By the way, studies routinely show that half of fathers who abuse their intimate partners also abuse their children. Often this is described as “co-occurrence.” Studies show that child abuse occurs in between 30-60% of cases involving domestic violence. (See pages 6 and 7 at the link.)
Here’s another typical situation. When unmarried (or married) parents have a custody dispute, the man is often making enough money to hire a lawyer but the woman, who has been a stay at home mom, is working at minimum wage at Wendy’s for 30 hours a week, has no benefits, and is having trouble paying for child care and rent. The lawyer knows how to navigate the legal system and confronts the mother in court with a demand for fifty-fifty custody. She probably doesn’t bring witnesses and the lawyer has a bunch of them. She doesn’t know how to cross examine them. She may have gotten written statements from friends or relatives, but they can’t be introduced into evidence because they’re hearsay. So the lawyer presents uncontested testimony that the man should have the child half the time, and the judge orders it because that’s what the judge is supposed to do under the proposed law. To be clear, the father may in fact be the best parent or the two parents may be equally good or equally inadequate. The point is that a parent without a lawyer is at a disadvantage, and when the judge is required to assume something unless that parent proves otherwise, the unrepresented parent (male or female) may have no chance of a fair result.
And it gets worse. Sometimes, before the hearing, the lawyer gets the woman to agree to fifty-fifty custody because “that’s the law” and convinces the woman that because the child is with each of them half the time there should be no child support despite the father’s far greater income. So when the child is with the father, the kid has a big screen tv, the current Play Station, goes to movies and Disney World, and gets any other thing the child wants. With the mother, there may not even be sufficient food on the table and nothing for the child to do, except maybe go to work with the mom.
Those domestic violence and financial situations will exist whether the law is changed or not. But under the present law, the judge has to make a finding that the custody arrangement is in the best interest of the child, and is not required to assume they are both entitled to the child half the time unless one or the other parent prove that fifty-fifty custody is a bad idea in their case.
In many cases under the current law, I have exercised my authority as a judge to ask questions of the parents and their witnesses so I could figure out what’s in the best interest of the children. That’s the way it should be. Presuming that the child should be shuffled back and forth between the two parents so each of them gets the presumed half-time with the child is not the way it should be.
Now back to the book and the blog posts. Consider all the parents I have described in those writings. Does anyone really think every one of those parents is entitled to a fifty-fifty presumption of custody? How about the fathers who seldom see their kids and have never supported them but ask for custody because the Department of Revenue sues for child support to repay the government benefits the mother has received for their child. Or what about the woman who daily exposes her child to violence against the present wife or girlfriend of the baby daddy?
And completely apart from the inadequacies of the parent, the lack of a consistent home may in and of itself be bad for the child.
Many times the father is the best parent. Many years ago we got rid of the “tender years” doctrine that required the judge to presume that a small child should be in the care of its mother. Many times I was able to decide that the father should be the child’s primary custodian, because my job was, as it should be, to decide what was best for the child
These proposed laws about alimony and custody are not designed for the children, just for one of the parents. When a judge makes a life-altering decision affecting children, the judge should be guided by what’s best for the kids, not what’s best for the parents.
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