Divorce Balance

Negotiation > Recovery > Enhancement

Thursday, December 9, 2004
Can You (Co-)Parent Like That?

Who's up for a field trip today? Personally, I just got back from walking my son to the bus stop (a quarter-mile round trip; slightly above freezing, but without the driving wind and rain that started off this week).

So I've got about six hours until I have to return for the end of the school day.

As to our excursion, we'll be headed to the Michigan Court of Appeals in Lansing, Michigan.

Don't worry: You needn't be a law school graduate to get your money's worth out of this adventure. As a matter of fact, the research is strictly about you — as opposed to making courtroom preparations. In this case, maybe it would help to think of me as a virtual cousin to one of those ghosts who gives Ebenezer Scrooge a glimpse into consequences.

When "the system" talks about custody arrangements, have you ever stopped to think about what that really entails?

Try searching recent appellate decisions online. Here, I like docket number 231849, the opinion regarding Hurner v Hurner — a short page-turner dated September 28, 2001. In medias res, we find the former Mr. and Mrs. Hurner hotly debating issues of custody related to their son, born August 24, 1990.

Parenting challenges: Cooperation for speech therapy, hearing treatments, discipline problems, a parent-teacher conference, thwarted visitation, and, yes, meals for the youngest Hurner here.

And more! This Court of Appeals decision cites precedent in Fisher v Fisher.

"In order for joint custody to work, parents must be able to agree with each other on basic issues in child-rearing — including health care, religion, education, day to day decision-making and discipline — and they must be willing to cooperate with each other in joint decision making."

Further, I think you'll appreciate the insight this case provides into some of the meat and potatoes behind a number of child custody factors. (You should also see the separate expansive analysis of the "Best Interests of the Minor Child" by The Honorable John N. Kirkendall from our own Family Division of the Washtenaw County Trial Court.)

We wouldn't have gotten to see all this play out publicly, of course, if the Hurners hadn't ended their five-year marriage by consent Judgment in 1994: Joint legal custody, with sole physical custody to just one parent. Four years later, the other parent filed to change that arrangement, the trial court heard arguments — and agreed. The defending parent then appealed that ruling.

Here's part of the record from the evidentiary hearing.

"In fact, [their son] told me that mom and dad's relationship stinks; they're juvenile with each other. This is a ten year old saying that about his parents."

My goodness: Will you look at the time?  It's more than an hour back to Ann Arbor, and I can see that I'm going to have to stop and pick up my umbrella. Sure, it's 12° warmer now, but rain is coming with that.

We've gotta get our feet wet to parent hand's-on.

—posted by Dell Deaton @2:41 PM EST 12/9/2004 [500]

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