Co-equal parenting, Tips #26-28

26.

Promise to raise your children with standards at least as high as what society expects from them in terms of courtesy, judgment, work ethic, and morality—which, if American society is the measuring stick, should not be too high a bar to hurdle. Caroline let her adult kids run roughshod over her husband Theo, which meant that he could not do anything to rein in their disrespectful and abusive behavior.
27.

Ask yourselves, “If we had teenage kids right now, with our current attitudes toward discipline and parenting, how likely would the police chief of our town know us on a first-name basis by how often our kids were in the back of a squad car?” Diane and Clayton were on the same page as far as parenting was concerned, but the catch was that they were overly permissive. Even as they sat in my office, they allowed their four-year-old son to dribble his basketball clumsily around my waiting room, nearly breaking several of my items and not obeying his parents’ suggestion to sit down and behave.
28.

It’s at least as bad to take over all the parenting decisions as it is to abandon all of them. Garrett was expected to be the de facto parent of Stacie’s six children, but he was nothing more than a cash register, in Stacie’s opinion. She did not compel her children to respect him, nor did she give Garrett any authority to pressure her youngest son Kody to improve his grades.

Co-equal parenting, Tips #21-25

21.

Your own example will teach your kids more about the value and permanency of marriage than any quantity of preaching. Tom was rightfully concerned when Jean wanted to move in with her boyfriend just a couple months after the separation, before the divorce was even final.
22.

You may not have known about your spouse’s current baggage, or maybe the issues did not exist before. But either way, even if you were just negligent in being with that person, making kids with such a character ratchets the foolishness up to fully informed stupidity. Brad wanted a home free of alcohol and drugs, because he had been raised by two alcoholics. Problem was, Gail was both and alcoholic and a drug addict.
23.

There’s probably no more frequent activity, at least in an American home, than eating, so you and your spouse ought to have like standards, and, ideally similar tastes. Ron objected when Ann wanted to raise her children on a vegan diet. Although he usually ate vegan and organic, he didn’t want to be forced to do it for everything he put into his children’s mouths.
a.

Even when you quit or take a temporary leave of absence from the spouse team, you’re still co-captains of the parenting team, which is important for participants in marital squabbles of any length to remember. Harold and Angie, despite that their marriage had collapsed, agreed on everything related to the parenting of their children.
24.

Giving kids a voice is excellent parenting, but affording them a vote or a veto so they must juggle adult responsibilities, is as cruel as it is neglectful. Make a rule that potential activities, expenditures, or changes to the routine will begin with a discussion between the parents. You want to be certain that your children will not hatch a plan, conspire with their other parent, and make you the party-pooper when you have to say “no.” Marvin and Sheila couldn’t agree on much of anything, particularly her contention that Marvin tried to one-up her by stealing her parenting time with exciting activities for the children that Sheila could never afford.
25.

Your first duty, when you have kids, is to your kids, and you must pledge to love them unconditionally even when you can’t or won’t do that for each other. When NBA star Brandon Roy had his first child, he commented, “I didn’t know I could love someone this much.” Even though Alejandro cheated on Melody unapologetically, they treated each other civilly and raised two amazingly well-adjusted children who made their parents proud.

Co-equal parenting, Tips #16-20

16.

The reason you can’t put adult decisions in the hands of children is not because you think you’re stronger and more powerful than they are—it’s because you are supposed to know better. Amy permitted her son Johnny to disrespect his father, Jay. Johnny made it clear that he was in charge of his relationship with his dad, and thus he felt he entitled to treat Jay like last week’s garbage.
17.

The greatest contribution you can make by having children is to instill values in them. If you and your spouse have significantly different beliefs on core issues, you run the risk of manipulation by your children, inconsistent messages, or worst of all, no values instilled whatsoever. Just as importantly, you need to decide on the moral and behavioral standards that you will support and enforce in your family. Curt and Gloria disagreed on a host of parenting decisions, such as religion, pornography, and their daughter’s mental health.
18.

Your children deserve better than to be the third-party victims of your failure to keep yourself from addictions, so that you serve the best example for their behavior while protecting them from harm. Sam was a smoker and Stephanie wasn’t. She wanted the kids to be raised in an environment free of cigarette smoke, and he objected.
19.

Ideally, you would partner with someone who shared your religious beliefs or lack of them, but if you have differing degrees of religious beliefs, establish consistent practices in your home so that you do not confuse your children or undermine the other parent while also respecting your children’s age-appropriate freedom to choose their own level of faith. Willie was not religious and Joan was. Thankfully, Willie did not object to religion, so there was no problem, but there could have been. Just the same, when two divorced parents are either of different religions, or one is religious and the other is not, conflict tends to result. It will be very confusing to the children, not to mention disruptive to the parents, for the children to have to attend a different church every other week. Like so many other issues, religion is not one that should be inconsistent between the parents.
20.

Teach your children how to value others by how you and your spouse value each other. Show them how to be spouses and what to look for in a future partner. Harold believed that he was the sole head of the family, superior to his wife and children. Leslie wanted to raise her sons to be respectful of women and to understand that a husband and wife in a marriage were equal. She also hoped to instill some assertiveness in her daughter, even though Leslie herself had failed to stand up for herself as much as she should have.

Co-equal parenting, Tips #11-15

11.

It’s almost as bad to have an inconsistent parenting team as it is to have a consistently bad one. Beth was raised in a conservative home and she taught at an even more conservative school. In fact, the school had wacky rules about what the teachers had to agree not to do even in their non-work hours. How Beth even got hooked up with felon and drug-addict Art, I’m not sure, but she did.
12.

If you’re not on the same page as your spouse (or your ex-spouse), your children will either be confused or they will know exactly what to do—manipulate both of you while you point fingers at each other. Walt and Shirley completely disagreed, especially about the role of Walt’s new wife, Joanne.
13.

You will not accomplish getting your kids to hate one of their parents for the rest of their lives, so you should not even try to distance them from your spouse, no matter how upset you are. Martin pouted about Suzanne leaving him for another man, but he still committed himself to cooperating with her as a co-parent. Their children’s behavior was the best evidence that Martin and Suzanne were succeeding as a parenting team even though their marriage was strained.
a.

Just put out of your mind the idea that you I thought it was remarkable that Jim, a young man with an infant daughter, wanted to be such a prominent part of his child’s life. I also commended his wife Darlene for facilitating such a positive relationship between their daughter and both parents.
14.

If you don’t agree on your parenting styles, put the matter in the hands of a counselor or mediator who can give you some objective advice. It’s safe to say that Bobby and Vicky didn’t agree on their parenting styles, because their differences brought them to mediation with me. Each of them seemed to be rolling the dice, gambling that I would validate their perspective. If that was their objective, Bobby lost that crapshoot.
15.

Naming and blaming rarely accomplish much except a deflection of responsibility that results in no progress. Glenn and Judy had a destructive approach to parenting. It involved standing idly by as their children all became addicted to four substances each. They also blamed each other for the downfall of their family, though they were equally at fault.

Co-equal parenting, Tips #6-10

6.

Your home will be only as strict as the less strict parent. Rhonda and Eric had completely different parenting styles, and Rhonda was far more permissive, which led to conflict with her adult children because Eric had no leverage to enforce standards that would enable him to enjoy his own home.
7.

The kind of children you want to raise must be consistent with the type of home you foster, and most adults agree that they are glad their parents were strict, or they wish they had been. Patrick was an excellent father who set limits and guidelines, whereas with Cathy, anything went.
8.

If you walk all over your children, so will the rest of the world. Bev was far more open to free speech than her Saddam-esque husband, Tim.
9.

No one can do anything without both benefit and sacrifice; don’t forget that the benefit of having children comes at the price of giving up some of the carefree independence you once enjoyed. Neither Jennifer nor Matt was a very good parent. With their wild lifestyle, it sometimes felt to me as if they forgot they even had kids.
10.

You have no right to placate your children to the point that they do whatever you want, particularly when their other victims don’t have that leverage. Wendy’s army of six kids, coupled with her lax (my charitable way of saying non-existent) disciplinary tendencies, made life hell for Gerald.

Co-equal parenting, Tips #1-5

1.

Respect the other’s parenting style or don’t have children with that person. Both of you should concur that the other parent is responsible, competent, and mentally sound. Christine, designated Mrs. Crazy by me and my staff one year, was one of the most mentally unbalanced people I’ve ever met.
2.

Make sure your kids understand and actually believe that you are their top priority and that you will both be available to meet their needs. Even though Randy and Janet differed on many issues concerning their own relationship, they saw eye-to-eye when it came to their kids.
3.

Enforce consistent expectations at each home. Bruce and Michelle also had similar standards even though they had drifted apart as spouses.
4.

Understand that while the way you feel about each other may vary from day to day or year to year, what will never Ricky and Rebecca probably did one of the best jobs of cooperation I’ve ever seen.
5.

Your role as parents is different from your function as spouses. Even though Jerry cheated on Laurie, and although the two of them disagreed vehemently about money and property, they were on the same page when it came to their kids.

Consistency in discipline

Reach consensus on discipline methods so that those are not points of contention in your marriage. Some believe that putting forth a united front even when you patently disagree with your spouse makes you a hypocrite. I don’t see it that way. You are not a hypocrite because you have not said something you don’t mean. As long as you do not promise your children that you will always agree with your spouse—and you could never keep that promise, anyway—your private disagreement and public avowal of your spouse’s parenting decisions keeps you true to the only promise you should make to your kids: to support the other parent. This advice is equally applicable to divorced families as to married ones, although I admit it’s harder in the former than the latter.

Most parents have no problem allowing each other to use any legal disciplinary methods. However, I think it is also important to make a rule that no shame-based discipline methods will be used to correct your children, because those approaches are just cruel and won’t work, anyway.

Parenting is more like golf than tennis

Parenting is more like golf than tennis, more a competition with oneself to get increasingly better than a battle with the other parent. It’s even more transparent that when parents overtly state that they want to put their children first. Well, let me be more specific. When both of them identify that as their motivation, they are at least 75% likely to achieve it. But when only one parent is waving that flag, I find nine times out of ten that that parent is the one who is being selfish. Just claiming to be in favor of your children’s wellbeing does not make it a reality any more than joining a gym makes you physically fit.

Forgone opportunities, Tips #9-12

9. Make your children your first priority, which means asking yourself whether the temporary sacrifices you are asking your kids to make are for their benefit or yours. Marla had to realize when she divorced Kenny that she could not be divorced, be a full-time student, be a stay-at-home mom, and live at the same standard of living. She might have been able to pick even three of those, but not all four.

10. Your marriage will teach your kids more about marriage than they’ll learn from anywhere else. Reducing the embarrassing divorce rate starts not with adults but instead with kids, who don’t yet have such a temporary view of marriage. Armando possessively kept his wife Lena from leaving him because he knew his financial circumstances would plummet if she did.

11. Understand the blow that divorce will inflict on your children, and don’t set yourself up for divorce because you failed to inspect the goods before you signed the bill of sale. Most of the time, people don’t suddenly or even gradually morph into beasts or freaks. If they are, they probably already were. Homer complained about flaws that Mae had before they were married. He knew he wasn’t marrying a Penthouse model who was fully emotionally adjusted, so he had no right to complain about it a quarter-century after the fact.

12. If, on the other hand, you do enter with eyes wide-open and still make a dumb mistake, bear the brunt of your own foolishness so that your kids don’t have to pay the price for your stupidity. Roderick may have been overwhelmed by Della and her six kids, but he knew what he was getting into when he married her. Thus, he lost the privilege of complaining that he was working two jobs to support the family and still could not afford a Waverunner.

Forgone opportunities, Tips #5-8

5. Understand that your income may be significantly lower once you re-enter the job market than it would have been if you had had a career for your entire adult life. Penny understood that by marrying Randall and having two children with him, she would have to give up her full-time job in corporate accounting. When she finally went back to work in her home-based consulting outlet after her son entered first grade and her daughter started preschool, her income was about a third of what it was before she left the business world.

6. Think about the long-term consequences of the expenses you incur as a couple, particularly those that one benefits from and one earns the money to finance. Mickey decided that he would fund Guadalupe’s medical school even though she would make more money than he did. When their marriage failed just as she finished her M.D., she walked away with the ability to earn a handsome living as a pediatrician, while he left without much of anything. It was a chance they took, and neither of them did it maliciously or opportunistically. They were two well-intentioned people with a gamble that failed.

7. If you are going to be in a lifelong competition with your spouse over money and upward mobility, you probably should save yourself decades of heartache and skip the marriage. Doyle pouted about how low his income was—at $200,000 a year—because he didn’t have his own medical clinic the way his wife Roxanne did. He could not accept, seemingly, that he enjoyed a greater standard of living than 95% of Americans.

8. Never be so consumed with the pursuit of money that you forget the people those dollars are being earned to benefit. Preston and Elsie made over $300,000 a year when they were first married, but having children meant they could not each dump 80 hours a week into their work life.

Forgone opportunities, Tips #1-4

1. Acknowledge that you and your spouse will probably both forgo, or have already forgone, opportunities as married people that you might have enjoyed if you remained single.

It’s all about economics, like all the choices we make. Do you remember learning about “opportunity costs” in a high school or college Economics course? Among all the details I’ve forgotten from my Econ coursework, I do remember that opportunity costs are whatever you give up when you make a choice. We make all our choices because they are preferable, for some reason or another, to every other alternative.

Henderson had to understand that he would not get to live as well after his divorce as he had beforehand. Moreover, he and Thea would have had more money even after their divorce if they had not had two children.

2. Money isn’t everything, and if you don’t know that when you get married, you will know it once you try to deny it and live with the consequences. But Tex and Cathryn knew acutely from Tex’s personal experience that financial position wasn’t the only thing that mattered.

3. Despite its constraints, being married is usually preferable to living together unmarried, particularly if you have children. There are many advantages to being married. Maude and Elden lived in an unmarried domestic partnership. When everything fell apart between them, neither of them had any legal protection. Maude and Elden had signed a writing that explained how the home-equity loan on Maude’s home would be handled, but that handwritten note was all she had to lean on. There is no formal process for ending a domestic partnership (especially an unsubstantiated one) the way there is with a marriage. You can’t get spousal support, there’s no community property, and there’s no presumption of equal contribution or division.

4. Choose to be a career-minded person, a full-time parent, or some hybrid of the two, but make your choice and live with it, considering the long-term ramifications. Mr. and Mrs. Crazy, Kory and Christine, each exemplified the chances that we go without while we pursue what we do want. Kory married Christine and inherited her two children, who had a crazy mother (Christine) and no father. His budget and his patience were both strained from time to time by Christine’s then-teenage sons. Christine, for her part, continued her mantra of “I should have had a career, I should have had a career” when her marriage to Kory ended and she had to contemplate a $10-an-hour job at the age of 55. If that were not enough, Christine berated Kory for owning his business and pouring his heart into it instead of, in her words, letting her have a career.

Sibling bonds

Encourage strong bonds between your children and their siblings. If you ever separate or divorce, split the parents but not the siblings. That bond is too great, and separating them holds the kids responsible for an adult mistake. As bitterly as I sometimes fought with my sister when we were children, I cannot imagine my life without her. We had this interesting hybrid of interests—I played dolls with her and she collected baseball cards with me. We were all the other had, especially when my mom went back to work. If my parents had split us and I lived with my dad while my sister stayed with my mom, I would have been devastated, and my sister would have been just as traumatized.

A holistic approach to marriage

Consider the financial, emotional, spiritual, and relational aspects of your marriage. The traditional notion of a pre-nup is, in the words of Portland television and radio personality Dave Anderson, “how much money you’re not going to get when you divorce.” But that oversimplification (and he said it in jest, anyway) misses at least two points. First, pre-nups don’t have to plan for divorce; they can fortify an existing or planned marriage and have it stay strong. If you have children, a marriage ought to be more like a purchase than a lease, figuratively speaking. Second, a child-centered pre-nup includes monetary decisions but is neither limited to finances nor focused on finances. Money may not the only important consideration in a marriage, but it is the most contentious, with child-related issues a close second. Unless you want to live in an unhappy marriage with your children caught in the middle, you best agree about finances.

In addition, you have to ask yourselves how you and your partner react to the stimuli of the world to determine whether you’re ready and compatible as parents. Having children forces you to expect the unexpected. Are you a screamer or are you on an even keel? Do you get wildly angry or does nothing ever bother you? When something amazingly good comes your way, are you ecstatic or is it no big deal? Beyond that, you have to determine where you fit in your partner’s life so that you can determine your children’s place in that person’s life and in your own.

More on Child-Centered Pre-Nups

Marriages are not like dairy products. They don’t have a shelf life and an expiration date. A bad marriage results from poor planning, which is easy to avoid. All divorces—every single one—can be prevented. I don’t just believe that; I know it. You can’t have a divorce until you have a marriage, so there are two ways to stop a divorce. One way is to fix problems that come up in a marriage. The second way is to keep bad marriages from ever coming into existence. There is no such thing as a good marriage that turns bad. Divorce is inherently selfish because it holds kids responsible for adult failure. If you care about your kids as much as you may claim to, you must avoid a divorce, even if that means avoiding a marriage.

You can either die of a quick gunshot to the face or a slow-growing cancer. Marriages can hit the skids either because of one catastrophe, or, more often, because of minor skirmishes that collectively wear down one or both spouses. Committing to a workable marriage plan requires placing a microscope—or sometimes a periscope—over your lives in an almost paranoid way. It’s a good kind of paranoia, though, because it is designed to spot potential trouble before it ruins the children’s concept of the world as a safe place. Preventing disaster means eliminating proactively and preemptively any possible source of crisis, no matter how remote the chances.

Planning for your future is not the “kiss of death” for your marriage. I am trying to help people save their children’s sanity by understanding how to eliminate divorce. No child wants to come from a broken home, but no kid wants to live in one either. If people knew what to do—if they had steps to take—they would follow through, no question about it. I say the same thing about mediation, a relatively new approach to solving family law problems short of a full-blown, messy divorce. If people knew about it, they would use it. My mission has been to spread the word about the benefits of mediation. The same is true for a child-centered pre-nup. If people knew that it could save them and, more importantly, their children, from chaos, heartbreak, and misunderstanding, they would leap at the chance to write one.

Look, I understand why states like mine have a 90-day waiting period to get a divorce. We don’t want people getting out of marriages haphazardly. But why not? We let them get into marriages that way. We as a society need to put more effort into preventing problems rather than just dealing with them. Isn’t something that will last a lifetime worth a couple hours or even a few days of planning? Far from jinxing your marriage, planning for a potential divorce process before or while you’re happily married will help keep you on track. At least a third of the time, clients who come to me seeking divorce mediation do not ultimately divorce. Gregory and Misty went all the way through the process and decided not to divorce. The process of agreeing on all the issues of their divorce—matters they largely had never even considered before—made them understand that they could indeed stay together. Because Gregory and Misty were not allowed to jump to conclusions about each other and their relationship, they didn’t, and the waiting period saved their marriage. I would venture to guess, with no research to back me up, that over 90 percent of divorces are unnecessary and could be remedied with a child-centered pre-nup either before or after the problems arise.

No matter how sure you are that your partnership is forever, utilize the legal system’s protections whenever they are available to shield you from conflict and confusion. A lack of understanding leads to the breakup of relationships, as with Shawn and Stacy. They had a domestic partnership, not a marriage, but they faced all the same issues as married people, and they had an even more complicated situation because when things got tough, they didn’t have the legal protection of marriage law to fall back on. Once more, Shawn and Stacy’s kids were left in limbo, because their parents had nothing to commit themselves to each other. I’m not at all a fan of living together before you’re married, not mainly because of a moral objection, but more because it’s just confusing and risky.

And again, I know I’m going to run up against the arguments that you don’t need to lock yourself into a legal relationship if you’re planning to stay together forever. Well, the key word in that sentence is planning. You may be planning to drive safely to work today, but if you hit a patch of ice and skid into a ditch, I bet you have insurance coverage to protect yourself. Being legally married also gives you other protections not available to unmarried people, such as the ability to cover each other on medical insurance plans and to inherit as spouses with or without a will. A premarital agreement gives protection where none otherwise exists. People most in need of that protection are those in unmarried relationships, because there is no legal structure to insulate them in case of problems.

The Child-Centered Pre-Nup

A comedian did a skit about a man who had tied himself to a tree in a hurricane to prove that he could withstand the force of the wind. As the funnyman explained, “It isn’t that the wind is blowing. It’s what the wind is blowing.” Divorce is the same way. The problem isn’t only that marriages end. It’s how they end. To be sure, relationships splitting up is part of the problem, but we need to understand that it’s only half the issue. Keeping kids safe from divorce, or at least safe from its ravages, requires understanding that marital problems and breakups aren’t just about the adults. Too often, divorce ends families instead of just marriages, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Marriages that end in divorce fall into two main categories. One, marriages that have temporary problems, perceived as permanent problems, that are never fixed or are acknowledged only after they have escalated to crisis level. Two, marriages that never should have happened in the first place. This book is aimed at both categories. If you wouldn’t build a house on an unstable foundation, why build a family on one? Divorce inflicts permanent damage on children to solve temporary problems between the parents.

A successful Child-Centered Pre-Nup requires the husband and wife, or the prospective husband and wife, or the divorced husband and wife, to come to an understanding of shared values. It is the first step in defining how you will be as parents, regardless of whether or how you have been parents in the past. If you are future-focused, as you should be, you will understand that a Child-Centered Pre-Nup is but the first step toward being successful co-parents. A Child-Centered Pre-Nup is not a panacea.

A Child-Centered Pre-Nup is a type of “insurance policy” that acknowledges the possibility of divorce, just as an auto insurance policy recognizes the possibility of a wreck. It may seem suffocating to make binding decisions now, but consider the alternative. What if you don’t agree on important issues and just leave them to chance? I would rather you look back in ten years and think you had been paranoid now instead of lamenting that you didn’t put more time into considering all the issues. Why put your kids through a war zone when there’s an easy way not to?

With a Child-Centered Pre-Nup, you have a cost-effective, civil, and quick way to eliminate many of the problems you may experience or are already going through. A Child-Centered Pre-Nup is not like a traditional pre-nup or a traditional divorce agreement because it doesn’t require a lawyer. Family matters should be love-based, not law-based. Even people who don’t have children can relate to loving those future children unconditionally. Just the same, even those who have already passed through a divorce can be grateful to their ex-spouses for bringing them the children who have graced their lives. Taking a law approach to family (whether prospective, existing, or already divorced) converts a loving unit into a competitive contest. A lawyer who shows you how to get the most for yourself probably is not prioritizing your children’s interests above all else, which a Child-Centered Pre-Nup does.

Like it or not, marriages and divorces are legal relationships even as they are also personal. You are involved with the legal system at the front end of a marriage, and you will also face legal realities at the end of a marriage and even in its aftermath, especially with children. As long as you have children, you have to play by certain rules, and the judicial system is there to enforce the obligations that you should be honoring even without anyone prompting you. Most large counties in the United States have dedicated Family Law departments within their court systems because many people, especially people in troubled or broken marriages. No matter how specialized, though, the court system doesn’t want to make your parenting decisions for you. Even two mediocre parents probably decide better for their own family than a judge could.

States generally require divorced people to formulate a parenting plan before a divorce can be finalized. The problem is that the parenting plans provided by states are woefully inadequate. The overworked child welfare system and the harried court systems pretend that the only relevant issues to promote children’s stability are financial support and parenting time. Anyone who is a successful parent, and even those who aren’t parents, can probably agree that raising thriving children is a much more complicated undertaking. Because the courts are, and should be, nothing more than “parents of last resort,” We can end the epidemics of bitter divorce, parental absenteeism, and dysfunctional marriage with clear understandings in advance.

A Child-Centered Pre-Nup aims to prevent divorce. Even when divorce cannot be avoided, having the terms agreed beforehand makes the process easier, leaving civility in your hearts and money in your pockets. The alternative is to turn that same harmony and cash over to a pack of lawyers who will probably sap you of both. One of the “collaborative law” firms in Portland that tries to steal my business (more of a “collaborative flaw,” if you ask me) by pretending to care about families remarks that they are “transforming divorce.” As much as I detest them, that statement is accurate. They are transforming divorce into a complex, expensive, adult-centered nightmare. Are there longer, costlier, and meaner processes? Sure. But I think very few people need the active and ongoing services of a lawyer during a divorce, collaborative or not.

Think of a Child-Centered Pre-Nup like you might consider a will. The reason a will is called a “Last Will and Testament” is that a person may rewrite his or her will infinitely many times until death. Your Child-Centered Pre-Nup works the same way. You don’t have to know all the answers now, and even if you think you’re dead-set on what you want to do, you can change your Child-Centered Pre-Nup whenever you and your spouse change your minds.

According to the Center for Resolution, a mediation firm in Illinois, a fully-litigated divorce that includes contested custody and serious financial issues can cost upwards of $200,000. That amount could buy four years of tuition, room and board, and books for three children at even the most expensive state university in Oregon, as would also be true in most other states. In many housing markets, that sum could purchase a suitable family home. What’s more, even a low-conflict divorce with only moderate negotiation can run $15,000 when attorneys are involved. If you do not plan with a Child-Centered Pre-Nup, you take the chance that you will have to settle those same issues at a much higher financial and emotional cost. Money and sanity that could stay within your family goes right out the window when you turn to lawyers before you’ve fully tried self-help or mediation. How can parents say with a straight face that a custody fight is in the children’s best interests when it robes them of their financial future for the sake of the parents’ competing egos?

Marriages stay strong and divorces stay friendly when children come before adults. If you would like equal parenting time with your children, but you’re a man and you can’t breastfeed, the child-centered thing to do is to recognize that your wife can do something you can’t, and that may mean she spends more time with the children during their infancy. If you have teenage sons who would rather live with their father while they are learning to shave and getting interested in girls, you focus on their best interests rather than your own. In Oregon, as in most other states, parenting time is a right that belongs to the child

Family law uses the same general, child-centered principle. The state bar puts out desk manuals for practitioners and the public to have information about the different branches of the law. They are loose-leaf sheets in a three-ring binder for each specialty. A practice area such as Energy Law, with all its changing regulations and reported cases, has 27 volumes in the desk reference. Family Law has two volumes. The law on domestic relations is relatively vague, which makes it hard to tell clients straight answers to direct questions. However, when it comes to a Child-Centered Pre-Nup, having relatively little family law means that you can craft a solution that makes sense for you, and it will likely be upheld by a court because there’s not much law to risk violating. You, the parents, know best how to put your kids first.

A Child-Centered Pre-Nup, therefore, is about solutions. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. When it comes to divorce, very few people are part of the solution. We all know about the epidemic of divorce in the world, particularly in the United States. Are we doing anything about it? And if we are, are our efforts actually making the problem worse? People who don’t plan because they think they’ll be forecasting doom if they do will actually cause more problems by being so careless.

Getting your mental

My younger sister and I were four grades apart in school. While I was in law school, Emily was in college, and we both did our undergraduate work at the University of Oregon. One year, during a break from law school, I visited my sister on my old campus. Emily and I shared a quick wit and both of us possess acerbic tongues. She knew I would appreciate an article in the student newspaper, poking fun at the boneheaded comments of some of the student athletes. One of the basketball players, after performing poorly in a game, was quoted as remarking to his interviewer, “My mental wasn’t ready.”

Emily and I continue to recall that player’s lax attitude toward parts of speech, but maybe he had a point. We often go to the doctor for an exam—either yearly or before an event, such as a trip or a sports season. We call that visit a “physical.” It is so entrenched in our lexicon that the adjective has become a noun. Physical exams are so routine and so accepted that they have made their way into our common parlance.

What if everyone got a “mental” as often as a physical? To step across an international border, play on the high school tennis team, or qualify for a life insurance policy, you need to be examined by a medical doctor. That visit is not a fishing expedition to pry into your deepest, darkest medical secrets and scare up worries you didn’t have the day before. Instead, it’s a well-respected precaution that most often rules out problems rather than ruling them in. We entrust our physical health to a highly educated and experienced professional who can give us objective opinions about what we can do to stay healthy and the steps we must take if our clinician sees problems.

It would be a strong step forward if everyone regarded physical health as significantly as emotional health. When I volunteered in schools while in college and law school, I took a student under my wing when he began to have a form of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and missed a great deal of school. The school was less than sympathetic to his plight, and figured that he could force himself to attend his classes if he really wanted to. To the teachers and administrators, his absence indicated a lack of commitment. Even my own mother asserted, “It’s not like he got hit by a truck.”

“Yes,” I urged. “It is.” I had been depressed in high school and early in my college years. Some days I felt no more able to crawl out of bed than if I had been paralyzed by a spinal cord injury. We have to have respect for mental health just as we do for physical health.

Substance abuse around kids: Six strategies

1.

You should never be, nor allow anyone around your children to be, intoxicated or under the influence of any substance, whether legal or illegal.
2.

Substance abuse, keep in mind, does not have to result in an arrest, a conviction, or a stint in rehab.
3.

Discuss with each other a plan for getting a professional diagnosis if you suspect a physical or mental illness that the other partner disagrees about.
4.

You won’t be able to control your children if a substance is controlling you.
5.

If you’re going to bring a recent or current drug addict home to meet your kids, what kind of person would you keep away from them?
6.

Being a child-centered parent requires four basic commitments—that you and your partner be wiser, be smarter, be more mature, and have better judgment than your children at any given point.

Wills and life insurance: Five tips

1. Being child-centered means planning for unexpected contingencies so that your children have the most stability they can salvage amidst the catastrophes that might befall your family.
2.

Having a life insurance policy to insure your support obligation is wise whether you’re married or divorced.
3.

If you consider your life insurance policy part of your investment portfolio, don’t borrow against it until the risk you’re trying to protect against has passed.
4.

Even if you think you have enough life insurance because your policy has a death benefit of a few hundred thousand dollars, it may not be sufficient unless it is at least five to ten times your annual income.
5.

For practical purposes, a will has a maximum useful life of around three years while your children are minors.

Where there's a will, there's a way

Part of comprehensive planning includes writing a will as soon as you get married or as soon as you know you’re going to be having a baby, whichever event comes first. In your will, agree on what will happen to your children if one or both of you pass away before your youngest child is old enough to take care of himself or herself. Thomas and Cynthia lived 2,000 miles from each other after the divorce. Thankfully, they agreed on the family members who would care for their children if they both passed away prematurely. They wisely selected members of Cynthia’s family, which was a good plan because they lived in the same area, Chicago, where the children spent most of their time, whereas Thomas and his family were back in Oregon. Can you imagine what a disruption those kids would have experienced if, on top of losing both their parents suddenly, they also had to pack up and move to a totally new place? Two cataclysmic disruptions to their routine and stability when they could ill afford either one.

Five guidelines for choosing an alternate caregiver

1. Think about the age and personality of the people who will be anointed as your replacements if your life ends before you planned it would, so that the blow from your loss does not have to be even more devastating by having unnecessary fallout. Deborah’s mom was the first guardian that Tim and Deborah selected. I persuaded them to nix that nomination not because Deborah’s mother wasn’t lovely—she was—but because she was 80 years old when the children were 13 and 15. She would likely not live an incredibly long time more, and even if she did, she was hardly equipped to become a parent again to traumatized teenagers. Moreover, if she had passed away, Deborah and Tim would likely forget, in their grief, that she had been designated the alternate guardian, and they would neglect to appoint a new person.

2. If your children are already going to be the low people on the totem pole in a new family, and as they will already be dealing with the sudden loss of both of their parents, don’t make them feel lost in the crowd by placing with a family with enough kids to field a baseball team. Joe and Barbara, among all the conscientious decisions they made, weren’t perfect. When they selected the guardian of their children, they chose Barbara’s brother, who already had six kids. I sort of understand the rationale—pick a guy and his wife whom the kids know and like, and someone who has ample experience raising kids. But do you really think three kids could come into a family of eight after losing their parents in some sort of tragedy and not feel like the lowest three on the totem pole?

3. For your children’s alternate caregivers, endeavor to place them with a family with children near their ages, preferably a family they already know and enjoy. Charles and Brenda did the right thing when they agreed to name Charles’s brother and sister-in-law as their sons’ alternate guardians. The uncle and aunt had two children close to the boys’ ages, and the adults were vital and energetic. I believe that grandparents are not usually as practical a choice as some other relatives or close family friends would be.

4. Consider the location of the guardians you choose to name for your children in case you die before they are of legal age to care for themselves. Of all my clients, Jeff and Pamela probably did the worst job of providing a contingency plan for their children. First, they named grandparents as the guardians. Second, the grandparents lived 1,000 miles away in southern California. Third, Pamela and Jeff sent the kids to live with them frequently, whenever they felt like it, while both parents were still alive and very well.

5. Respect your children’s grief by planning for the unlikely event of both of your early deaths, pre-arranging alternate care so that they do not have to make adult choices that affect the course of their entire lives while they are grieving. Teresa and Donald had three couples in mind—all family friends—to care for their only daughter, Jackie, if both of them died before she became an adult. They both agreed that all three couples would have been equally acceptable as Jackie’s guardian. Teresa and Donald asked me to write up a condition in the Mediation Report that Jackie would be given a choice of those three couples. What? Ask a child who has just lost both parents in her teenage years to choose who will try to take their place? That was craziness, and I expected Teresa and Donald, two levelheaded, educated people, to be more aware of the pitfalls of such a choice.

Six recommendations for third-party childcare

1. Agree on the standards that you will use to select childcare providers for your children so that you are focused on your children’s wellbeing and not manipulating the other parent. Horace and Katarina were unmarried partners with a 3-year-old child. After Katarina initiated mediation, she thought of every reason in the book that she could not show up. Her last excuse was that she did not have childcare for her son, Dakota. Horace volunteered to arrange a care provider for Dakota. The person was a work colleague of Horace’s new wife, who was a social worker.

2. We will afford our children increasing freedom as they become older. Who provides childcare for the kids and whether they can take care of themselves can also be a heated aspect of inter-parental relations. The teenage children of Nancy and Kevin were too old to need babysitters, obviously, but Nancy and Kevin disagreed about how much supervision the kids needed.

3. Agree on the age at which your children will be allowed to stay home without adults for certain lengths of time—alone, with their siblings, or caring for other children. Ken irritated Sharon one afternoon when he left their fifth-grade son home for three hours without telling Sharon.

4. Agree on the level of independence to afford your children at each age, and do not contrive a concern about independence to manipulate some other aspect of your children’s lives. Daniel and Cheryl had a difference of opinion about whether their two children, ages 14 and 11, could ride Portland’s MAX light-rail train to my office.

5. Regardless of how, in moments of frustration, you may try to quantify your contribution to your children’s lives as greater than each other’s, always remember that your children are both of your children, not the personal possession of only one of you. Elizabeth had to understand that the son she was raising with her former boyfriend Charles was not just “her” toddler.

6. If your financial circumstances are or become such that you can hire a live-in or live-out childcare provider, do not lose sight of that person’s limited role in your household and your overarching obligation to be your children’s parents. For families fortunate enough to be able to afford domestic help, a nanny should be a supplement to the parents, not a replacement. However, in Lori and Brian’s case, the kids had a better relationship with their nanny than they had with their own parents.

Teen Bill of Rights, #301-310

301. My parents will not live with anyone who has committed a crime of any level except the most minor.
302. My parents will not make more than one big change at a time, so that my life can adjust to each one separately and as gradually as is appropriate.
303. My parents will understand that their in-laws are still my relatives and always will be.
304. My parents will plan for, and discuss with me in an age-appropriate way, what will happen if they pass away unexpectedly while I am still a child.
305. My parents will arrange for people who live close to me and already get along with me to take care of me if my parents themselves cannot.
306. My parents will agree on increasing independence for me as I get older and more responsible.
307. My parents will live in homes that they, not someone else, can afford.
308. My parents will consider my needs and my stability when they think about moving our family to a new home.
309. My parents will understand that tutoring, lessons, athletics, and entertainment are not luxuries, but instead they are parts of a normal life for a teenager.
310. My parents will understand that my schedule will need to be more and more flexible as I get older.

Teen Bill of Rights, #291-300

291. My parents will provide high-quality medical care for our family.
292. My parents will not abuse any substance, whether in my presence or not.
293. My parents will offer to pay for me to see a counselor who will keep my conversations confidential so that I have a safe place to talk.
294. My parents will not ask me to lie for them or to conceal the truth.
295. My parents will not set out to make me paranoid and afraid of the world.
296. My parents will let me speak to adults I trust without prying into my business.
297. My parents will attend counseling to deal with problems that they cannot handle on their own.
298. My parents will understand that counseling is not meant to convince me to agree with them.
299. My parents will be able to make their own decisions without depending on me or a boatload of other people.
300. My parents will be at least as smart, mature, wise, and possessed of good judgment as they expect me to be.

Four tips for selling a home during a marriage or divorce

1. If you ever divorce, agree that you will refinance your home in the name of whatever person keeps the house, or you will sell it.

2. Bear in mind that the fair market value of a residence is probably lower than what a real estate agent tells you that he or she would list the home for.

3. Consider a 15-year mortgage because they usually have lower interest rates and thus not too much of an increased payment, even though the full payoff occurs sooner.

4. Be careful with lines of credit, as those temptations sap the home of its value and do not even carry a very favorable interest rate

Teen Bill of Rights, #281-290

281. If their income decreases, my parents will cut spending on themselves before the family must make changes.
282. If my parents divorce and remarry, they will understand that their first duty is to the family they already have, rather than the new family they may want to go out and create.
283. My parents will tell me the truth about money.
284. My parents will practice what they preach about accountability and responsibility.
285. My parents will believe that education is important, and they will act in accordance with that ideal.
286. My parents will inspire me to believe that nothing is impossible through hard work and careful planning.
287. My parents will plan for my future education immediately if they have not already.
288. My parents will not place a higher priority on funding their cars and toys than my college education.
289. My parents will have enough education to support our family at a comfortable level.
290. My parents will both contribute to making my education happen, whether their contribution is monetary or not.

Five tips for owning a business

1. If you start a business, consider one that has the potential for a resale value, rather than a single-member personal services firm.

2. How you finance the purchase or founding of a business will directly impact the strength of both the business and family finances, as well as your marriage.

3. Before you think about acquiring rental property, consider the negative monthly cash flow that might result while you accumulate equity over time.

4. Rental properties are not as easy to maintain as you might think, so before you jump feet-first into being a landlord, contemplate whether you and your partner will be effective property managers.

5. Determine a method that both of you can accept to value the business, now or in the future.

Teen Bill of Rights, #271-280

271. My parents will have a family-centered approach to spending their money.
272. My parents will agree on a reasonable standard of living that our family should enjoy.
273. My parents will have reasonably similar attitudes about money so that they are not constantly fighting about finances.
274. Each of my parents will sacrifice proportionately for the family so that one person is not living the high life while the other is eating Top Ramen.
275. My parents will treat their marriage as the equal partnership that it is.
276. My parents will send me consistent messages about money.
277. My parents will neither overindulge nor deprive their children.
278. My parents will give me the skills to get what I need in the world.
279. My parents will agree on major and minor spending so that there are fewer arguments about money.
280. My parents will make deliberate, not accidental, decisions about money.

Teen Bill of Rights, #261-270

261. My parents will take the “high road” and do the right thing even when the other parent does not.
262. My parents will not deliberately put down the other parent in my presence.
263. I will not have to be responsible for my parents’ decision to pick a bad spouse or to be a bad spouse.
264. I will not be an ally of one parent over the other.
265. My parents will not engage in a power play, maximizing their competitive advantage over the other parent while ruining his or her credibility in my eyes.
266. I should not have to consider (excessively) my parents’ needs, but they will keep mine at the front of their minds.
267. My parents will understand that I will not always be able to be fully objective about them or myself.
268. I will define my own relationships with each of my parents, even if that means that I am closer to one of them than to the other.
269. My parents will let me form my own opinions about them and their character.
270. My parents will model respect for all people, even those they don’t like.

Teen Bill of Rights, #251-260

251. My parents will understand that if they suppress what I think, they will only make my feelings stronger.
252. My parents will have difficult discussions with each other in a neutral place, rather than at home.
253. My parents will speak to me the way they want me to speak with other people.
254. My parents will understand that I am probably far smarter and more capable than they may give me credit for, so they will not underestimate me.
255. My parents will be civil to each other even outside my presence, even when they are upset with each other.
256. My parents will safeguard their passwords and any letters, notes, or e-mails from one of them to the other.
257. My parents will each keep the other from isolating me from the other parent or the rest of the world.
258. My parents will not try to fool me.
259. My parents will not do anything to suggest to me that any financial problems they have are my fault.
260. I should not have to be either of my parents’ mouthpieces.

Teen Bill of Rights, #241-250

241. My parents will set a good example of how to be spouses by how they act.
242. My parents will help me eat a consistent and healthy diet.
243. My parents will never give up as parents even if they are no longer spouses.
244. My parents will love me unconditionally even when they can’t stand each other.
245. My parents will help me live up to the expectations of a normal person in society.
246. My parents will make their best efforts to get along with our extended family.
247. My parents will honor the commitment they made to each other and not be unfaithful to the other parent.
248. My parents will choose to have children with the other parent only when they believe that the other parent is stable and as ready as possible for that commitment.
249. My parents will not seek to make me afraid of them.
250. I will not be asked to be my parents’ therapist or friend.

Child-centered agreements, Part 3

I know what it’s like to be left for dead because when I was a sick infant, the doctors predicted I might die or be disabled. I also know what it’s like to trample that pessimism by reading at age three, earning a law degree, and writing (so far) two books. A child-centered pre-nup can help couples even if they have been at loggerheads for some time. I hope this book will shed light on strategies that you might have been too frustrated, inexperienced, or even madly in love to consider. It is never too late to put your kids first.

To that end, every parent should endeavor to protect his or her children. Everybody knows about keeping them safe from fires, diseases, and criminals, but kids are exposed to a much more frequent (and often more dangerous) risk—their own parents. Children will make plenty of their own mistakes and will learn some tough lessons. Having them take responsibility for your poor choices as well is just too much to ask. Prevention is the best form of protection, and a child-centered pre-nup forces you to confront issues before they even become bones of contention. Failing to have a child-centered pre-nup is no less egregious than leaving your doors wide open after you’ve received word that an escaped convict is tearing through your neighborhood.

A child-centered pre-nup leaves nothing to chance, enabling parents, and ultimately their children, to take charge of their lives. Whether you are dating, engaged, married, or divorced, you can plan for how you will react to what the future holds. Your children will live in a predictable environment, and you will rest confident that your household will never be lampooned on Wife Swap or Supernanny. You will never be hauled into court because the other parent wants to make a big deal out of a problem that you never addressed before it mushroomed.

People are pretty pessimistic about marriage these days, what with our 50%-plus divorce rate and all. But that statistic is misleading because it compares apples to oranges. Very few, if any, of those people had a child-centered pre-nup. I read recently that 38% of children of divorce are depressed five years later. I bet almost none of their parents wrote a child-centered pre-nup, either. We can bemoan destructive divorce, but we can also take heart in that we have a way to prevent it or fix it. Child-centered pre-nups will make grim divorce statistics a thing of the past.

Not enough people have come to terms with what poor marriage planning really amounts to—an insidious form of child abuse. Who among us would think it a good idea to allow your children to learn about electricity by putting a metal key into a wall socket? How about knowing your allergic and asthmatic daughter is being raised in a home where mold grows rampantly? Of course, no one would condone that degree of abject stupidity. But letting your family stumble toward collapse, with your kids caught in the crosshairs of the acrimony between you and their other parent, is as abusive as deliberately burning their arms with a curling iron.

Having a child-centered pre-nup honors the most sacred duty you will ever have—to be the strongest role model in your children’s lives, even in ways you don’t know. Nobody certified my mother or my father. No one made them pass a test. No agent came to the house to renew their license as parents. Other than my relatives, almost every other pivotal person in my life has acquired his or her standing through training that resulted in a license. My law professors were licensed by a state bar; my teachers had their credentials from the state; the same was true of my doctors, nurses, and therapists. Even my hairdresser had to pass an exam before she was allowed to shampoo my hair. But with the most important responsibility human beings can possibly undertake, we provide little preparation and do nothing to verify parents’ ability. If it takes over a year to be licensed to paint fingernails, why shouldn’t every parent devote a few days to draft a child-centered agreement that will last a lifetime.

That said, child-centered pre-nups are for people who care more about the truth and the future than what the other parent thinks of them. If you are hell-bent on telling your spouse what he or she wants to hear instead of what that person needs to know, you aren’t ready to put your children first and write a child-centered pre-nup. We are in the twenty-first century now. The era of the man being the head of the family is long gone. The era of the woman being the sole caregiver and final arbiter of all parenting decisions is also history. A child-centered pre-nup recognizes that we live in a society that is more balanced than it used to be, but we have a good distance yet to go before we achieve true equality on all fronts between husbands and wives.

Teen Bill of Rights, #231-240

231. My parents will enforce consistent expectations.
232. My parents will understand that how they act as parents can and should be different from their function as spouses.
233. My parents will be reasonably strict but not excessively so.
234. My parents will teach me how to be a member of society by respecting me.
235. My parents will not bribe me or manipulate me into doing whatever they want.
236. My parents will not try to get me to dislike either of them or to prefer one of them over the other.
237. My parents will not distance me from my other parent.
238. My parents will make adult decisions and will not force me to or ask me to.
239. My parents will give me values that are not confusing.
240. My parents will not place me in the crosshairs of their addictions.

Child-centered agreements, Part 2

Being a child-centered parent involves being committed to education and discipline. But wait—if you believe I’m talking about your kids’ education and discipline, I am not. I’m talking about yours. Many people investigate the options for a new car more thoroughly than they look into their compatibility with their spouse. It shouldn’t be easier to buy a handgun than it is to get a marriage license, but it is. The former has a three-day waiting period and a background check; the latter has neither. Child-centered marriage planning involves learning as much as you can, coming to agreements with your future spouse before you even tie the knot, or as soon as possible if you’re already married.

You can benefit from a child-centered approach even if you’re late in drafting an agreement. Married people as well as already-divorced parents can implement child-centered strategies. It is never too late to turn your life around, and the same goes for your parenting approach. I have successfully helped people before they even have children, those who are struggling in their current marriages, and those who are trying to pick up the pieces of a mess they made. Even if you have a 17-year-old who will be moving out in a year, wouldn’t you rather give that child at least one year of civility and predictability?

To this day, I am the only divorce mediator in Oregon to have made regular appearances on television, and to identify a child-centered approach as a focal point of my work. Because I thought even so-called experts were asking the wrong questions about divorce, focusing on the breakup of the home instead of the factors that brought the parents to that point, I had to take it into my own hands to emphasize the right aspects. You won’t get the right answers if you ask the wrong questions.

Teen Bill of Rights, #221-230

221. My parents will understand that their work is supposed to help them spend more time with the family, not just supply an excuse to avoid the family even more.
222. My parents will not use me to get back at my other parent or to gain some advantage for themselves against someone else.
223. My parents’ first responsibility is to support the family, not to take wild risks to suit their passions.
224. I will be able to feel that I matter equally to both parents.
225. My parents will not consider me a burden, and they will not do anything to make me think I am.
226. My parents will not organize their time so that one does all the paid work and one does all the housework and parenting.
227. My parents will not lean on their work schedules to escape their responsibilities at home or to avoid spending time with each other or the family.
228. My parents will value what both of them contribute to the household.
229. My parents will respect the other’s parenting style or will take steps to resolve any problems rather than just complaining about the other or contradicting the other.
230. My family is my parents’ top priority and my parents will both be available to meet my and my siblings’ needs.

Child-centered agreements, Part 1

Some believe that living in a child-centered marriage requires you to have a comfortable lifestyle so that money is not a concern. Again, that’s a myth. Whether you endure extreme poverty or enjoy fabulous wealth, you can be child-centered parents or adult-centered parents. Both kids are evenly distributed along the income continuum. Certainly, lacking money contributes to stress and tension in a household, but swimming in cash also can distance people from their true priorities, so it’s not as easy as looking at your tax returns to decide whether you can or will be a child-centered parent. Everyone can, and everyone should.

I have chosen family mediation as my life’s work because I am a child of divorce, and I am living proof that you will not always skid into the ditch just because your parents split up. In spite of the fact that my parents separated while I was still a toddler, separated again when I was nine, and finally divorced when I was 11, that rockiness never stopped me or my sister from living the lives we were meant to live. We both learned to read around age three, we did very well in school, and now we have three university degrees between us. Divorce was not a death sentence.

Being in a child-centered marriage involves planning before you even have children, so you’re ready for that lifelong and often challenging commitment. When I was born in 1979, ten weeks premature, my mother was barely 23. At the age that I was when I graduated from college, my mom had to get a crash course in the care of a baby with hydrocephalus. Thank goodness, my mom was ready for that challenge, but I don’t think she’d thought about it beforehand. Who would have predicted that her first child would be as sick as I was from the moment I was born? Even if you don’t choose that life, it might choose you, and you have no real option but to step up.

One of the most rock-solid benefits of a child-centered pre-nup is that it provides consistency for your children. Children want to know what to expect from their parents, whether we’re talking about the food in the fridge, getting help with homework, or the consequences for bad behavior. Many children and teenagers are deeply troubled after a divorce, but it’s not because their parents moved to separate houses. Do you really think it would help to stay in the same home if two people who hated each others guts and disagreed on most everything? Of course not. The issue is that the parents are not on the same page on important issues, which then cause conflict. That problem is largely foreseeable and avoidable, and it can’t be boiled down to whether they share a house or not. When children, teens, and adult children of divorce have trouble in life that is supposedly tied to the divorce, it is not the physical distance that is at issue. The harm is really a result of the war zone the parents have created by never agreeing on important issues and waiting for them escalate to an unsolvable crisis.

The Parable of the Starfish

I became a mediator because I wanted to try to do the right thing for families who were suffering from a problem that I knew had to have a simpler solution. Too many children were suffering from the aftereffects of their parents’ stupidity because no one had been brave enough to show them a better way or to tell them the truth. I realized that I had to take Mohandas K. Gandhi’s advice to “be the change you wish to see in the world.” I knew that I would not make many friends, and I would certainly acquire countless enemies, but as I stated about my uncle when I eulogized him, “Doing the right thing is seldom easy, and doing the easy thing is seldom right.” The easy thing would have been to let families proceed to divorce on a one-way track headed for a train wreck. I believed the parable of the starfish that I recounted in my first book, Two Ways to Machu Picchu. A little boy was rescuing starfish stranded on the beach, where hundreds were dying. “Why are you doing that?” he was asked. “There are so many of them dying, it doesn’t matter if you save a few.” Picking up one, the boy said, “But it does matter to this starfish.” I was going to throw back as many starfish as I could, and once the effort took hold, others would join me and we’d empty the whole beach.

People believe that divorce is evil and destructive. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but that’s simply not true. To assume that idea is to believe wrongly that divorce just happens out of the blue, which it doesn’t. Most states, including Oregon, where I work, have a waiting period between filing for divorce and finalizing a divorce. (Oregon’s period is generally 90 days.) The actions people take, or fail to take, before they ever set foot in a courthouse are what determines how bad your divorce is going to be. Those actions also go a long way toward deciding whether you will even divorce in the first place.

But here’s the deal—people who get divorced when they already have children have at some point lost focus on a child-centered marriage. Having children should require unconditional love and a selfless attitude. All too often, parents haven’t met those goals before they have children, and even if they have, they often don’t stick with them consistently throughout their children’s lives. My objective is to help every family—all the starfish on the beach—adopt a child-centered mentality that will remain their polar star, a vow to their children similar to the one they made to each other when they got married. But when you make promises to your children, you must keep them for life; there is no quick exit for parents the way there is for spouses.

Marriage plans

As a mediator, I can’t bear to watch another marriage go down in flames because no one bothered to prevent the disaster. I admit that I spend a fair amount of my time being the ambulance down in the valley. But around half of my work hours are consumed with building the fence for people who care enough about their kids to try and make their marriage work. It is never too late to change. It is never too late to reconcile. It is never too late to regain—or gain for the first time—a happy family. If you’re teetering on the edge of the cliff, it is not too late to step back. If you’ve slipped and tumbled partway down, it is not too late to keep from falling farther.

Anyone who has a marriage needs a marriage plan. Maybe you are dating or engaged, not yet married, so yours can truly be a pre-nup. Perhaps you’re married and have already made some mistakes you wish to fix, so, for you, it’ll just be a “nup.” Either way, use your marriage plan to put your kids—or your potential kids—first. Make tomorrow better than yesterday.

Teen Bill of Rights, #211-220

211. My parents will not make promises they cannot keep, and they will honor the commitments they make.
212. My parents will listen when I respectfully tell them what I believe is important for them to know.
213. My parents will behave consistently, not two-faced, around other people compared to how they act within our family.
214. My parents will be generous to other people with their money but they will also be sensible and set good examples.
215. My parents will honor the financial obligations they have to me and other people.
216. I am not a miniature clone of my parents, so I cannot be expected to have the same preferences and values.
217. My parents will remember that they are parents, not just people with kids.
218. My parents will understand that short-term financial sacrifices, such as one of them deciding to be a full-time parent.
219. My parents will establish clear standards so that I can predict what will happen as I choose my actions.
220. Even when times get tough, my parents will provide stability and a solid example for me.

Teen Bill of Rights, #201-210

201. My parents will not make me suffer because they are ill-equipped to handle life’s challenges.
202. I am not created to enhance my parents’ lives.
203. My parents will not use me as their advocates and will allow me to choose my own opinions without pressure.
204. If one of us has to feel miserable, my parents will choose themselves instead of me.
205. My parents will not compete with each other.
206. The time I spend with my parents will not be an unreasonable burden to me.
207. My parents will not base their decisions on anger, hurt, fear, or frustration.
208. My parents will focus on solutions to my problems and theirs, rather than just complaining.
209. My parents will not hold me captive as if I were a prisoner.
210. When my parents make a life change, especially an important one, they will prioritize my needs above their own so that that they, not I, bear the brunt of the adjustment.

Teen Bill of Rights, #191-200

191. My parents will not allow me to think that the world revolves around me.
192. My parents will not marry a bad person just because they like a “project” and believe they can change that person.
193. My parents will deal with their problems without running away from them.
194. My parents will not send me away just because life is difficult for them.
195. My parents will consider how their involvement with people, including new partners or spouses, will impact me.
196. My parents will not allow their new partners or spouses to make decisions, other than emergencies, that affect me.
197. My parents will love me unconditionally, even when it is less convenient for them.
198. My parents will understand that they will always be my parents, not just until I am 18 and they can kick me out of the house, although my own responsibilities will keep increasing as I get older.
199. My parents will not have children to benefit themselves or to make themselves feel better about life.
200. My parents will not marry someone with “issues” unless that person is in the process of taking steps to get better.

Teen Bill of Rights, #181-190

181. My parents will not compete with each other over issues of income and upward mobility.
182. My parents will never be so consumed with money that they forget the people their cash is supposed to benefit.
183. My parents will understand that their marriage will teach me more about what it means to be a husband or a wife than I’ll learn anywhere else.
184. My parents will appreciate that divorce is a blow to any family, so they will be careful getting into a marriage and even more careful getting out.
185. I will never have to pay the price for my parents’ stupidity, and they will not have to put up with mine, either.
186. My parents will understand that they are not the reigning king and queen of the universe.
187. My parents will respect my opinions as long as I express them appropriately.
188. My parents will not suppress my right to express myself and my individuality, with reasonable limits.
189. I deserve a voice in important family decisions, even though I don’t get a vote or a veto.
190. My parents will not spoil me.

A pre-nup is not a divorce plan!

As a law student at the University of Idaho, I had my heart set on being a family law attorney. Considering my background as a child of divorce with a “father” whom we did not regularly see, helping divorcing families seemed a perfect fit. But then, I discovered how nasty family law was. I would have to advocate with all my strength for people, even if I despised them and their angles. I would have had to sell out my moral character for my job’s sake. I don’t betray my values for anything or anyone, especially two feuding and misguided strangers.

I couldn’t abandon my passion for family law, but I also couldn’t tear someone’s head off in a courtroom just because I had been paid handsomely to be somebody else’s attack dog. That wasn’t me. I couldn’t believe that so many family lawyers—including the supposedly “collaborative” folks—could so willingly check their consciences at the door. I decided that helping people cooperate was more important than helping them fight.

After my legal ethics professor inspired me, I decided to enter the only branch of family law that had any moral compass. Not a litigator. Not an advocate. Not a so-called collaborative lawyer (a major euphemism that hides what they really do). I cared more about my character than that. I became a mediator.

Mediation, of course, comes from the Latin word for “middle.” The best part about being a mediator is that the mediator can’t control the outcome. The worst part about being a mediator is that the mediator can’t control the outcome. Mediation is, on the one hand, liberating because someone else has to make the decisions, and the professional is off the hook from the difficult choices that affect a family’s future. A mediator has certain abilities to steer the husband and wife toward common sense, but in the end, that mediator possesses no real power. The mediator is trapped in his chair—perfectly placed between the two combatants—and is like a pedestrian walking along the middle of the street. He or she can get hit by the traffic coming both ways.

Some religions—indeed, many people—are opposed to pre-nups. In fact, when I appeared on a Portland television talk show to discuss child-centered pre-nups, the host’s lead-in read something like, “The idea of a pre-nup seems totally unromantic.” That’s because most pre-nups focus only on finances and they look toward divorce. Essentially, those “a la carte” pre-nups fix a price to exit the marriage. If that’s all a pre-nup is, I don’t blame religious denominations or anyone else for hating that concept.

A marriage is not a financial transaction. Love songs, not money songs, are played at weddings. Cookies in the shape of hearts, not dollar signs, are sold around Valentine’s Day. People who complain about pre-nups probably object because they tend to turn love into a business relationship.

With most contracts, making the contract is more important than having that stapled packet of paper. That both people have sat down and come to an agreement keeps either party from violating it. If I write a rule at my office, talk about it with my employees, and have them sign it, I’ll probably never have to pull out that signed document and shove it in anyone’s face. The act of agreeing is what does the most to prevent future violations, not the flimsy sheet of paper the filing cabinet.

A run-of-the-mill pre-nup does the same thing, if you think about it. Pre-nups focused on a divorced payout tend to accelerate divorce, because that was the implicit objective from the start. If people want a happy marriage, and it’s often how some finance-obsessed celebrities do, they shouldn’t start out with a document that looks ahead to the end of a union that hasn’t even begun. It’s time to re-orient our thinking about pre-nups. It’s time to call most of them what they are—divorce plans.

Planning for marriages to succeed

I generally hate movies. However, the news of my being elected king of the world travels slowly. On my seventh-grade class trip to Washington, D.C., we cancelled our afternoon excursion on a snowy January Day and boarded the city bus for the closest movie theater. It was 1992, and Steve Martin’s Father of the Bride had just premiered. Although in the 15 years that have ensued following that trip I can’t perfectly recall the script, I remember Martin discussing the trauma of planning a wedding.

Maybe you’ve seen that film, or maybe—because bad luck has cursed you like a broken mirror—you’ve planned a wedding. If you have, you know the painstaking detail that brides and grooms devote to a series of events that will last, at the very most, 24 hours.

Perhaps you believe in inducing a massive coronary because a microscope detected a slightly greener hue to the turquoise ribbons on the ceremony invitations. That’s fine for those who get their jollies by putting themselves through high anxiety to achieve nothing lasting. I would like to believe that would-be spouses cared less about the pageantry of a wedding and more about the permanency of their union. There’s nothing wrong with a perfectly orchestrated wedding, but what about a marriage that also runs like clockwork?

When you open the phone book to “W,” you’re likely to find page after page of wedding coordinators. Well, flip back to “M” and see whether you locate any marriage coordinators. Huh? What’s a marriage coordinator? Browsing the Yellow Pages, you’ll notice therapists and clergy, but those professionals usually function as the ambulances at the bottom of the cliff. What if you need someone to prevent, rather than just clean up, a mess? What if you need a fence around the edge of that cliff?

A premarital agreement, or pre-nup, is the best way to preserve harmony and keep marriages strong. Many people wrongly believe that pre-nups are only for wealthy people who marry someone of more modest means. That view suggests that pre-nups anticipate divorce. Yes, for celebrities such as Donald Trump, Britney Spears, and Roseanne Barr, the pre-nups protected the affluent celebrities in their resulting divorces. But a pre-nup should be more than a warranty. It should be a marriage plan.

Americans tend to associate pre-nups with divorce because they associate marriage with divorce. As long as a marriage isn’t a forever commitment, a pre-nup plans for that marriage’s downfall. After all, something that doesn’t last forever will end at some point. It’s just a question of when. Very often, when something is planned well, it has a better chance of succeeding. If we planned success as diligently as we plan failure, far fewer marriages would skid into the ditch.

Teen Bill of Rights, #171-180

171. My parents will not obsess about money, but they will have appropriate balance so that they do not completely ignore financial issues either.
172. The time and effort that my parents use to make decisions will relate to how complicated or important each decision is.
173. My parents will make an effort not to decide important things while they are angry or stressed out.
174. My parents will have a plan in place in case something unexpected happens to our family unit.
175. My parents will focus on the big picture and what will be right for our family in the long-term, delaying gratification at least as much as they preach to me to stop living in the moment.
176. My parents will not knowingly bring someone with a lot of baggage into my life, and they will not hold me responsible for fixing anyone else’s problems.
177. My parents will fully examine who each other is before they get married, so that they choose to have a family with the best partner they can find.
178. My parents will understand that they will be good parents only if they can be good parents with each other.
179. My parents will carefully consider whether to work inside the home or outside the home, always focused on what is best for the family and able to live without regrets.
180. My parents will spend their money in ways that benefit the family equally.

If your ex-spouse has sole custody, does that mean that you cannot have access to the children?

No. Unless there are significant reasons to prohibit it, you will still have access to the children. You can still see them and go to their extracurricular activities. Usually, you can also have access to all their records—medical, psychological, educational, legal. Sole custody just means you do not have a role in making decisions, but you still have the right to be informed about the decisions that your ex makes.

Teen Bill of Rights, #151-160

161. Each of the children will each be allowed a birthday party with friends every year or every two years.
162. If the child is not old enough to have his or her own funds from allowances or earned income, my parents will provide up to $20 for each child with which the child can purchase a gift.
163. Regardless of the legality or illegality of tape-recording conversations or intercepting e-mail messages, my parents agree not to engage in either activity.
164. My parents will attend a parenting class or support group at least twice a year to gain new skills.
165. My parents will plan for the future, both theirs and mine.
166. My parents will be married rather than just living together so that they show some commitment to the family’s future.
167. My parents will surround themselves with people who will tell them what they need to know instead of what they want to hear.
168. My parents will be predictable and will not keep me guessing.
169. My parents will understand that leading a family involves being on the same page about money, feelings, religion, and countless other aspects.
170. My parents will set financial goals, with a clear plan for achieving them, and they will show me how to do the same.

Does joint custody have to mean 50/50 parenting time?

No. And also, the “every other weekend” scheme is a bit tired out as well. Within those two extremes is a spectrum of many scenarios. One client is often out of town, so his parenting time is two weekends a month flexibly scheduled. One sees his kids for one overnight one week and three overnights the next week and every Tuesday night for dinner but no overnight. One does a “three days with one parent, four days with the other parent” and then switches it each week. Depending on your schedules and your kids’ ages and needs, you can fashion whatever works for you.

Teen Bill of Rights, #151-160

151. My parents will agree on the religious beliefs, if any, that our family will practice.
152. No abusive discipline will be used on the children.
153. My parents will not discipline their children for speaking respectfully to the parents, even if the parents do not agree.
154. No shame-based disciplinary methods (critical comments, name-calling, etc.) will be used to correct the children.
155. My parents will have consistent standards for discipline so that the children know what to expect at all times.
156. Only my parents, and no other person, including caregivers and subsequent spouses or partners of either one of my parents, will be permitted to discipline the children.
157. The parents will not be permitted to pit one parent against the other or to manipulate the children for the parents’ own gain.
158. The children will receive a weekly allowance, which will either be given freely or in exchange for reasonable chores.
159. The children will eat a consistent and healthy diet with fruits or vegetables served with every meal.
160. My parents will allow an age-appropriate bedtime or curfew.

What if one parent wants sole custody and the other wants joint custody?

The court cannot order joint custody unless both parents agree. In mediation, they almost always agree to a joint custody arrangement. If you go to court, the court WILL place the children with one parent or the other if the parents do not agree. You are rolling the dice and potentially losing custody if the judge disagrees with you. One of the mothers in my mediations, a drug addict who had twice attempted suicide in front of the kids, assumed she was going to be awarded custody. She rejected the limitations that the father tried to place on her in order to get joint custody. The case went to court and sole custody was awarded to the father. It’s a gamble that succeeds half the time and fails half the time.

Teen Bill of Rights, #141-150

141. My parents will take care to safeguard their passwords and printouts of correspondence with the other parent, so that the children do not intentionally or unintentionally come into contact with disparaging or otherwise private correspondence about either parent.
142. When any significant or permanent change is made in the children’s routine, schedule, or living arrangements, my parents will together inform the children and patiently request, entertain, and answer all questions that the children have.
143. Both my parents will encourage each other’s involvement in the children’s lives.
144. My parents will consult with the other before enrolling the children in any activities that may conflict with the other parent’s parenting time.
145. My parents will encourage frequent and predictable contact between the children and both parents.
146. My parents will be increasingly flexible and accommodating of the children’s desire to spend time with their friends, whether at the homes of either of the parents, at the homes of the friends, or in an acceptable alternate location.
147. If both my parents die before any or all of the children reach the age of legal majority, the minor children will be placed in the custody and care of someone that the family agrees is in the best interests of the children.
148. My parents will emphasize to the children that they are each co-equal parents.
149. My parents will agree to tell the children that they (the children) were not the cause of any problems that exist in the marriage and that those problems had nothing to do with the children’s behavior.
150. The children will have a bed and a designated place for clothing and other belongings in the home that respects privacy and, when appropriate because of age, gender differences.

Is it true that the mother is presumed to get custody of the child?

No. People may be thinking from the Britney Spears case that you have to drop your kids from your arms, drive without a license, be drunk in public, and be addicted to drugs before you can lose your kids. Not so. The question is who can provide the care that is in the best interests of the child. That could be both parents, or the mother, or the father, or, if neither one is a fit parent, someone else.

Teen Bill of Rights, #131-140

131. My parents will refrain from comparing the children to the other parent in a negative way.
132. My parents will accept the children’s love for, and loyalty to, the other parent.
133. Neither of my parents will complain to the children about each other.
134. Neither of my parents will rely on the children for emotional support.
135. Neither of my parents will complain about money to the children.
136. My parents acknowledge that both of them are important to the children.
137. My parents will agree to be sensitive to the children’s emotional needs and their loyalty to both parents.
138. My parents will agree neither to criticize the other parent in the children’s presence nor to speak about the other parent in any way that would make the children uncomfortable or cause the children to have less respect, love, or affection for either parent.
139. My parents will make all reasonable efforts to stop other people who are speaking negatively about either parent in the children’s presence or within their earshot.
140. My parents will have all divorce-related conversations with lawyers, mediators, professionals, friends, and family members outside the presence and earshot of the children.

Eleven Divorce Myths Debunked, Part 11

When people hear the word “divorce,” their minds rocket toward catastrophe. Sadly, those predictions of doom are often true. But divorce itself doesn’t create a crisis any more than a stick of dynamite explodes a building. Instead, a chain of deliberate actions transforms what could be simple, quick, and inexpensive into a costly, messy, and time-consuming debacle. Family and Divorce Mediator Matthew M. House, J.D. corrects some common myths about divorce so that the public is not terrified by the prospect of their lives collapsing just because a marriage ends.

MYTH #11: Divorce is costly and time-consuming.

TRUTH: If you don’t want a competition with your spouse, there are cooperative ways such as mediation and even some self-help options that will get you a result that YOU control while not spending a fortune. You can even be done in a couple of weeks.

Teen Bill of Rights, #121-130

121. If my parents must move residences, they will agree to avoid moving during the school year.
122. Both parents will be allowed to communicate with the children by telephone, in writing, or by e-mail during reasonable hours, no matter which parent has parenting time.
123. My parents agree that they will not interfere or monitor the communication between the children and the other parent, absent extenuating circumstances.
124. To keep contentiousness to a minimum, my parents agree to have difficult or even potentially difficult discussions in a neutral location, rather than at either parent’s home.
125. Arguments between the parents will not take place in front of the children under any circumstances.
126. The children will not be used as the allies of one parent against the other.
127. Schedule changes or other issues that need to be resolved with the other parent will not be resolved during exchanges of parenting time.
128. When either parent needs information from each other, they will seek that information directly from each other, rather than using the children as messengers or as reporters.
129. My parents will be polite to each other, even out of earshot of the children.
130. My parents will avoid disrespect and put-downs of either spouse, and will not place any restrictions on the information that the children may freely convey to the other parent.

Eleven Divorce Myths Debunked, Part 10

When people hear the word “divorce,” their minds rocket toward catastrophe. Sadly, those predictions of doom are often true. But divorce itself doesn’t create a crisis any more than a stick of dynamite explodes a building. Instead, a chain of deliberate actions transforms what could be simple, quick, and inexpensive into a costly, messy, and time-consuming debacle. Family and Divorce Mediator Matthew M. House, J.D. corrects some common myths about divorce so that the public is not terrified by the prospect of their lives collapsing just because a marriage ends.

MYTH #10: I can have contact with my kids only during my designated parenting time.

TRUTH: Not at all. It’s perfectly reasonable to call or e-mail your kids, and let do the same, within reason, even when they are with the other parent. Unless you and your ex have an agreement to the contrary, both parents are always welcome at extracurricular events and school functions such as piano recitals, parent-teacher conferences, soccer games, and birthday parties, even if they don’t occur during one parent’s parenting time.

Teen Bill of Rights, #111-120

111. My parents will communicate with each other about the children’s health.
112. If a child goes to the doctor for an illness, misses school because of illness, takes a prescription medication, or regularly takes a non-prescription medication for more than 24 hours, the other parent will be informed within 24 hours.
113. My parents will not have any qualms about the other’s ability to act in the best interests of the children.
114. My parents will agree that the other parent is responsible, competent, and mentally sound.
115. Other than minor traffic violations, neither of my parents will in any criminal activity.
116. Neither parent will associate during parenting time with a person who has been convicted of, or has pled guilty or no contest to, an assault against any person, or any other crime, or any crime in which the victim was a child.
117. During parenting time, neither parent will be, or associate with a person who is, intoxicated or under the influence of any substance, whether legal or illegal.
118. My parents will not use tobacco in any form in the presence of the children, and will not allow anyone else to do so.
119. My parents will have equal access to us children and to our lives, including the equal right to consult with the children’s school administrators, teachers, tutors, care providers, counselors and doctors directly.
120. In the case of a counselor, my parents will afford the counselor the discretion to keep my conversations confidential and not reveal my comments to either parent or anyone else, other than for mandatory reporting requirements for abuse or imminent harm.

Eleven Divorce Myths Debunked, Part 9

When people hear the word “divorce,” their minds rocket toward catastrophe. Sadly, those predictions of doom are often true. But divorce itself doesn’t create a crisis any more than a stick of dynamite explodes a building. Instead, a chain of deliberate actions transforms what could be simple, quick, and inexpensive into a costly, messy, and time-consuming debacle. Family and Divorce Mediator Matthew M. House, J.D. corrects some common myths about divorce so that the public is not terrified by the prospect of their lives collapsing just because a marriage ends.

MYTH #9: Unless I have sole custody, I’ll have to check with my ex for everything.

TRUTH: You will consult with each other on major decisions, but the day-to-day parenting decisions remain with the parent who has the children during that parenting time. If you are concerned that your ex will make bad decisions on different topics, you can make a written agreement beforehand that will address those issues. That agreement will then become a binding contract and you can be assured that you will be protected if it is violated.

Teen Bill of Rights, #101-110

101. My parents will organize their working hours, weekends, and vacation plans to accommodate the children.
102. Both my parents will inspect school records, law enforcement records, and medical, dental, and psychological records and will be aware of what is happening in their children’s lives.
103. The consent of both parents and the input of the children will be required to change the children’s schools from the school that the children attend or would customarily attend.
104. The consent of both parents and the input of the children will be required to make major decisions about the children’s education, such as the need for tutoring, special testing, and the like.
105. The cost of those services will be paid by both parents without complaining.
106. If my parents are no longer married, neither of them will live prior to marriage with any partner, whether man or woman, in the home that Husband or Wife shares with the children, no matter whether the children are in the home at the time that the partner is present.
107. In case of a change of address, telephone numbers, or any child’s health, my parents agree to inform the other parent immediately.
108. My parents will set up their taxes so that they receive a refund at the end of the year or they at least owe no additional tax, so that there are no financial surprises.
109. Neither of my parents will sell or give away any assets worth $50 or more without consulting the other parent.
110. My parents will not ruin their credit and our family’s stability by driving themselves into debt or bankruptcy unless an unavoidable emergency comes up.