Why Kids Shouldn’t be Your Highest Priority

kids highest priorityIf I’m speaking with a group of parents and I want to elicit a lively debate, I only need to say the following:

“Kids shouldn’t be your highest priority”.

As a youngster, I remember my dad telling me that “your mom always comes first,” but I really didn’t understand what he meant.  It wasn’t until I spent many years working with kids and families that I realized that focusing your life around the needs and wants of your children was a serious mistake.

I’ve gotten some passionate feedback on this position from many parents. My favorite comment was from a mom of an infant.  “I’ll tell that to my six-month-old the next time she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming for food.”  One reader’s comments were more personal. “You must not have kids. Having children means sacrificing what you want for what they need.”

As a parent of three children, I understand that there are many times when taking care of our kids must come before anything else. Parenting involves lots of compromise and sacrifice.

However, always putting your children first is bad for them, bad for you, and bad for your relationship with your spouse.

It’s … Read More... “Why Kids Shouldn’t be Your Highest Priority”

Divorce And Household Chores, Does It Also Divide The Family?

A New Divorce Study Suggests that It Does!

divorceI confess that I am a bit of a junkie of surveys and studies. So I am always on the lookout for interesting ones that relate to family and/or divorce issues. Recently, I came across this Norwegian study that found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally with their husband was around 50 percent higher than among those where the wives did most of the housework.  I showed write-ups about it to my wife of 34 years, and she immediately scowled and dismissively said something like, “Yeah right.”  So at the risk of alienating my wife and also being politically incorrect, I decided to share the findings here.

In what many may conclude is a slap in the face of gender equality, the report found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally, was around 50 percent higher than among those where the woman did most of the housework.

“What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the divorce study entitled, “Equality in the Home”. “The more a man does in the home, the … Read More... “Divorce And Household Chores, Does It Also Divide The Family?”

Divorce: How To Choose And Manage Your Battles

10 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Taking Divorce Legal Action

divorceThe dissolution of their marriage offers the opportunity for each partner to stand up for themselves in a way they had not before. Bravo! Finding your voice and learning assertiveness skills can create better relationships with others while assisting you in getting what you need.

Sometimes though, in our desire to not let ourselves be hurt or abused again, we may become inflexible and unwilling to give in on anything. If we become rigid, we cross the line into aggressive behavior. This new contentious behavior can backfire. In the realm of divorce, it can create additional problems such as higher legal bills, increased acrimony with our ex, tension with our kids and conflict in our daily lives.

Rolling over and acquiescing to everyone and everything isn’t the answer either. We must learn to choose our battles; it’s old advice, but good advice. In reality, divorce is not about winning, you will have to compromise. During the divorce process, it is critical to reflect before you react. Here are 10 questions to ask yourself before taking legal action:

  1. Do you really know what happened?So many times, we jump to
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Divorce Linked to Stroke in Men

Study Shows Higher Risk Of Stroke For Men Of Parental Divorce

divorceIt often is said that children are the most affected by divorce. Now a Toronto study has found that men with divorced parents are significantly more likely to suffer a stroke than men from intact families, according to a recent study from the University of Toronto. The study, published in the International Journal of Stroke, shows that adult men who had experienced parental divorce before they turned 18 are three times more likely to suffer a stroke than men whose parents did not divorce. Women from divorced families did not have a higher risk of stroke than women from intact families.

The Toronto Star reports the University of Toronto researchers examined data from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (CDC) from a health risk survey involving 4,074 males and 5,886 females.  According to Esme Fuller-Thomson, Chair at University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Department of Family and Community Medicine and lead author of the study, “the strong association we found for males between parental divorce and stroke is extremely concerning.”

Angela Dalton, co-author of the study, adds that “it is particularly … Read More... “Divorce Linked to Stroke in Men”

Child Custody Dispute to be Decided By the U.S. Supreme Court

Active Military Members Fight For International Child Custody In The United States Courts

child custodyJeffrey Lee Chafin v. Lynne Hales Chafin

Docket 11-1347

Facts of the Case:

  1. Jeffrey Lee Chafin, a citizen of the United States and an active duty member of the United States Army, is the biological Father of Eris Chafin, now five (5) years of age.
  2. Lynne Hales Chafin is a citizen of Scotland and the biological Mother of Eris Chafin.
  3. The parties met in 2005 while Father was stationed in Germany and married in March 2006 in the country of Scotland.  Eris Chafin was born in 2007 while Father was still stationed in Germany.  Eris is considered to have dual citizenship as a citizen of the United States and as a citizen of Scotland.
  4. Sgt. Chafin was deployed to Afghanistan for fifteen (15) months in 2007 and 2008.  During that period of time, Mother and the minor child lived in her native country, Scotland.  When Sgt. Chafin returned to Germany from Afghanistan in 2008, the parties decided to remain separated from one another.
  5. When Sgt. Chafin was transferred to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, in early 2009, Wife/Mother and Eris joined Father and moved to Alabama
Read More... “Child Custody Dispute to be Decided By the U.S. Supreme Court”

Social Media Issues in Divorce Litigation – The New Frontier

social mediaIt is no longer a secret that attorneys that work in the domestic relations arena are mining social media networking sites, such as Facebook, for helpful evidence about the opposing party.  A person’s Facebook page is often a very fertile source of embarrassing information that may help sway a judge’s opinion about which parent is best to be the primary caregiver for the children at issue.  That is why it is extremely important for those engaged in a custody battle to be cognizant of what information about themselves (and their children) that they are choosing to share with the world on social media networking sites.

The old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words” is very often true, especially when the picture is speaking to the lifestyle habits of a parent.  Anyone can dress nicely and appear respectful when testifying in court, but it’s what they do when they are unaware someone is looking that is the true test of their character.  Judges know this and it often impacts their decisions.  Pictures of people smoking marijuana or drinking in excess are becoming some of the most popular forms of evidence to disparage a particular parent’s capacity to raise … Read More... “Social Media Issues in Divorce Litigation – The New Frontier”

Divorce: Did Your Parents Marriage End When You Were 23 or Older?

Share Your Responses to This Important Divorce Research Survey!

divorceMary Murphy is a licensed clinical social worker and a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology from Oregon. I learned about Mary’s research project and survey from reading an article about it posted by Connecticut psychotherapist Donna Ferber. I have enjoyed collaborating in the past with Donna on a number of diverse topics. In Donna’s words, “Ms. Murphy’s work is of great value as she is looking to gather data from an often overlooked population. The effects of divorce on adult children are often minimized and her research helps shed a light on this issue.”

Here is Mary’s own introduction to her survey and research project:

Assumptions, Adult Children, and Divorce

Articles and books on divorce are replete with studies and discussions about the impact of divorce on children. That is, young and adolescent children. But what about the adult children? There is an emerging focus on considerations relevant to children who are adults when their parents divorce after decades of marriage. Cracks in assumptions, such as “they will be just fine”, or “they are mature now and have their own lives”, are being called into question. Regrettably, these assumptions and many Read More... “Divorce: Did Your Parents Marriage End When You Were 23 or Older?”

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