Courts of law have clev­erly dis­guised their mis­sion to ‘pro­duce rev­enue for the state’ by pay­ing lip ser­vice to impor­tant issues like the ‘dead­beat dad law’ and shared parental respon­si­bil­ity laws. The sys­tem right now is based on ‘ide­al­ism’ but as we all know, ide­al­ism is never going to work. Human nature will never allow ‘ide­al­ism’ to become a real­ity. So let’s grow up, and start get­ting practical.

The courts profit every time par­ents go fil­ing new motions. It’s in their best inter­est to actu­ally make and enforce laws as unfairly as pos­si­ble to con­tinue to cre­ate and pro­duce their streams of rev­enue. What is not in their best inter­est is to guide you on how to co-parent, but regard­less of their busi­ness model, your kids well being is not, and should never be, on the chop­ping block for the sake of some bureau­crats job.

Now this is where this is going to get hard for some peo­ple, but it’s time to grow up. If you keep look­ing to this ‘sys­tem’ that has screwed you for it’s own per­sonal gain once, why would you keep going back to it to fight your bat­tle? More­over, why are you fight­ing a bat­tle at all? You don’t need to fight a bat­tle and you don’t need the big bad judge to ‘admon­ish’ Mom or Dad for not being what YOU think is, the ideal par­ent. Fur­ther­more, you cer­tainly do not need to be try­ing to prove a par­ent unfit to get cus­tody, remove child sup­port, or reduce it.

What you should be doing is work­ing TOGETHER to be sure that between the two of you, with a lit­tle extra effort, you both are giv­ing the kids the same life and lifestyle you could give them if you were still together. It might mean either or both of you work­ing a sec­ond job, it might mean one of you or the other giv­ing up man­i­cures or golf. Regard­less, divorc­ing is not a rea­son to take away from your kids, and shared cus­tody should not be a means to give them less of a life than a two income home would give them.

Grow up. Don’t look to the courts to make either of you par­tic­i­pate in this. There’s no profit in that for them. It’s hard to pros­e­cute the dead­beat dad law because there is no profit in it for the state. Get with a coun­selor to learn how to get along and get with a finan­cial advi­sor or even a busi­ness advi­sor who can help you start a part time busi­ness to cover the income that was lost to either of you in the divorce. Keep it out of the courts, and every­one will be hap­pier, espe­cially the kids. Just grow up.