Conference quokka::non_custodial_parents

    re.0
    
    Your second from last paragraph caused me to blow a twenty amp fuse.
    
    I have waited awhile to reply so that I may stay within the required
    dictum of ediquitte mandated by the moderators of this conference.  
    Surely, I would not wish to question your intellegence, motives or
    present state of sobriety, or not as the case may be.  Nay, I would
    never wish to do those things.
    
    But from personal experience I would like to say this;
    
      The Peoples Republic of Massachusetts does indeed share the opinion
    expressed in your second from last paragraph.  In fact, it is Law,
    covered throughout Chapters 208, 209, 210 of Annotated Law of Divorce.
    These very subjective and biased laws have effectively removed me from
    99% of my property, 62% net of my gross pay, and most galling of all
    have, by Law, decreed that I am not a parent.  And as a result, this 
    society and Judical System view me with contempt and disdain.  By law,
    I have been discarded.
    
       I hope my reply has contained a modicum of civility.  But what I
    have experienced and feel within are light-years from civil.

    re. -1
    
    I apoligize to base note author.  I am a speed reader and overlooked
    the "to be" in the paragraph aforementioned.  By doing so I believed
    the author suggested that "in the best interest of the children" it
    was desirable for one parent to vacate and become designated "non-
    custodial".  That is what the author did not suggest.  The State of 
    Massachusetts does, though.  And hence, my tirade.
    
       I withdraw my question as to your intellegence and motives.  But
    retain the right to question your sobriety as you mine.  And if I
    knew how to type one of those damn keyboard "smiley faces", I would.

  RE: .0   Thank you for clarifying the subject.  I can't believe that
           any judicial member would subject a divorce to such a thing.
	   That's like saying, "Here, take this gun and both of you play
	   with it, until someone is a winner".  Don't they realize 
	   that if they wanted to share the same domicile they wouldn't
	   be in court??  Jeeez, I thought I had heard of everything.
	   Who would be liable to pay the maintenance bills, water, gas,
	   etc.  Would they say to divide everything in half?


  RE: .1 & 2

	   Thanks for being civil and the apologies to the author.  The P.R. 
	   of M. does indeed "bite the big one" from everything I have seen.  
	   Hopefully someday, MA will be run by some humans instead of 
	   non-intellectual, ignorant, S.O.B's who love playing "TAXMAN" 
	   and driving off bridges.

    I have heard of, but never seen, the Bird's Nest arrangement.  I
    cannot imagine that it would be *mandated* by the courts, but that
    if a couple wanted to try it and brought that to the court as the
    agreement, it would probably be approved.
    
    Seems to me that it would require exceptionally strong adults to
    make it work.  I wouldn't be able to do it, and I did manage 7 years
    of joint physical custody.  The potential for continued argument,
    wrangling and general nastiness as the divorced parents had to continue
    to face housekeeping and payment issues strike me as the stuff of
    horror shows.  And the potential for the kids to continue to 'not
    understand' that Mom and Dad *won't* be getting back together must
    also be awful.  And then what do you do when Mom or Dad wants to
    get remarried?
    
    Too many on-going potential problems for me, thank you.
    
    Alison

As far as your analogy to a loaded gun, I think that's pretty severe. Seems like
it still will depend on the people involved whether they will do the right thing
by their children and each other, but it still ends up with a court approved
agreement. If the bills get shared according to an agreement, it still should
be possible to work it out so that both sides are comfortable. In my view, custody
is never guaranteed whether you are male or female. Granted there are numbers to
support the probability that she will get custody, but she could lose. Rather
than go thru the whole custody suit, wouldn't it be better to try to find middle
ground ?

I figure that each parent loses and the kids lose, when one parent is pushed out.
Perhaps over time it might be possible to sell a house and use the profits to
finance two modest dwellings, but isn't it important to try to keep the kids
lives as stable as possible in the meantime ? If you were the non-custodial
parent, wouldn't you rather reside part-time with your kids in their house,
rather than have visitation in your new quarters ? (I guess this speaks for
the guy who is not looking to get out).

I believe that the share of bills ends up being cut up like the support shares.
Percentage of income as fixed by the court. And potential for change as the
years go on. (nothing different here, except it could put both parents on an even
keel).

I have heard some complaints about cleaning differences. My rebuttal is to
consider that as time goes on, both parents will view the house more and more
as the kids house. The adults messes are likely to be small compared to the kids'
messes.

I figure that the house should be off limits for love affairs. I don't think the
kids should have to figure that stuff out.

I think the clash of styles of parenting is probably a big issue. I have heard
that straight custody works best when the non-custodial parent stays involved
with the kids and in touch with the spouse. But there are many ways that the
difference in parenting style will get in the way even in the straight custody
case, when visitations and vacations occur. It starts to look like the issuing
of custody is one of a power struggle in parenting styles. As though being given
more time will allow one to influence the kids more strongly. Also, sapping $
strength (so that one cannot buy influence).

I have heard of cases where two households are kept, but it sounds so difficult
for the children (anyone know of this first-hand?). It would seem that they would
appear to be losing their roots in the backandforth. Although the sharing of
time and closeness probably has a good side to it.

.3 asks about remarriage. It would seem to me that remarrying wouldn't make one
more acceptable to move fully back into the house. If as the kids get older, they
choose to live with one set of parents, then the bird's nest is no longer
necessary. The point is, both parents equally share in the breakup of the nest
when the time is right. 

I imagine that rather than starting with my own apartment, I would be more likely
to be able to swing a roomate situation. I figure that should be fine for awhile.
Unfortunately, it seems like that wouldn't work well if I become non-custodial,
since I will need to have space for my kids to stay overnight (and with two kids
that is sort of difficult (get a 3 bedroom  apartment?$). When I try to imagine
how my case is different, I don't know where to stop. I just figure that most
couples who own a house are running pretty close on their finances and the
breakup almost always will result in losses to both sides, since two homes
cannot be supported as easily as one. 

Lot's of thoughts, trying to forge a reasonable solution. Please take a deep
breath before responding.

     Maybe I'm too cynical from my own experiances but this entire note
    reminds of a divorce fantasy. Idealistically it's possible but on a
    practical level I cannot imagine this as a working model, it is a
    surrealistic version designed to put the children first and relegate
    a defunct marriage to a hollow shell of living together and effectively
    going on as before without the  umbrella of "marriage". Human nature
    does not conform, with perhaps a tiny, tiny minority, to this scenario.
    Excuse me if anyone disagrees but when I hear of an even tiny proportion 
    of divorces function in this manner I'll be willing to alter my opinion. 
    
    
    					Julius

    On the whole I agree with Julius (.6) that this whole approach sounds a
    bit optimistic to me.  However, a spin off of it mentioned in .5 (the 
    creation of two homes that the children "shuttle" between) accurately 
    describes the first six years of my divorce.
    
    It worked wonderfully!  But it required me to rent a relatively
    expensive apartment (more than I could really afford, but less than a
    modest house in the same area would have cost) in the same general
    neighborhood of the "family" home.  The children had rooms, clothing
    (not full sets), and toys at each home.  With the exception of sleeping
    time, the children spent approximately the same amount of time in each
    home.  Because I had rented in the same neighborhood, they didn't have
    massive disruptions in school, social, and friendship situations.
    
    Ten years later and after listening to many other approaches, I still
    consider this the best possible arrangement short of two loving and
    friendly parents remaining together in the same home.  Neither of my
    children suffered any of the terrible traumas of being part of a split
    family; both remained in the same "world" they had come to expect and
    enjoy prior to the divorce; and both have relatively healthy
    relationships with both of their parents.  (I qualify this last
    statement only because my son, at 16, is exhibiting some typical
    teenage rebellion against his father that, judging by it's current
    mildness, won't harm their relationship over the long run.)
    
    But "bird nesting"?  Given the bitterness typical of most divorces, I
    can't imagine it would work for very long.  Especially if, as
    previously suggested, romantic relationships for the parents were
    excluded from the "nest."  They just as well have stayed married and
    slept in separate rooms!  
    
    Karen 

    .5 > I have heard of cases where two households are kept, but it sounds
    .5 > so difficult for the children (anyone know of this first-hand?). It
    .5 > would seem that they would appear to be losing their roots in the
    .5 > backandforth. Although the sharing of time and closeness probably has a
    .5 > good side to it.
     
    My response is similiar to .7, though my experience is current, and of
    less than a year's duration (and not yet blessed by the courts).  My
    boys are 8 and 4.  They spend half each week with me, and half with
    their mom, who moved a few miles away.  Their school and pre-school
    arrangements have been unchanged.  As far as they're concerned, they
    simply have two homes, while poor mom and dad each have only one.  This
    arrangement was picked after considerable reading, and consulting a
    couple of child psychologists.  It was the later that suggested the
    half-weekly intervals, as appropriate to the time horizons of a 4 year
    old (closer to 3, originally).
    
    So far, it has worked remarkably well, better than I could have hoped. 
    The kids seem to be doing fine, and the parents are at least still
    sane.  The boys clearly like predictability of schedule, but I do think
    they feel they have two reliable home-bases.
    
    I have no experience with bird-nesting, though I have read and thought
    about it.  It seems to me that there is too much potential for the kids
    to feel that they aren't part of _any_ real coherent household, just
    that they always sleep in the same bed, which isn't very important. 
    There is also lots of potential for maximizing parental friction, and
    perhaps no economic advantage.  I think the pattern is sufficiently new
    and rare that it hasn't been systematically studied; psychologists'
    impressions are that it usually doesn't last very long.  Joint physical
    custody (50/50) is little studied in general.   Presumably only about
    3% of divorced families follow this pattern for long.  But as some who
    have replied here show, it can be made to work.  Excellent reading is
    "Mom's House, Dad's House, Making Shared Custody Work," by Isolina
    Ricci.  It does not presume a 50/50 split.
    
    		- Bruce

    
    
    I occurs to me that if the parties involved were able to manage such
    a situation, they wouldn't have been divorced in the first place.
    
    Steve
    

I am feeling a bit foolish about bringing up this topic. However, I think
its because the audience is so unresponsive and unprepared to deal with it.
I was given a few books on custody arrangements when I first realized that
we were getting divorced. I read about it in the book. I don't recall the
title but it was a kind of survey on the subject and the bird's nest was
mentioned as an alternative that is sometimes used since it affirms the
concept of the children's home. Later, a Cambridge lawyer suggested the approach
to me. She said that she has encountered it on several occasions. 

I don't believe everything I read, however in this case it is obviously not
a fantasy. I can only guess that it takes a kind of imagination that isn't
present here.

Recall, I was looking for people with experience with this approach, or second
hand knowledge with the way it works. Apparently, its rarer than I thought,
at least for our cross-section of the world. If you can't imagine it, perhaps
you never will. 

    Yes, I can imagine it, but I still don't think it's realistic over a
    long term given human nature.  I'd be interested to hear the stories of
    anyone who has participated in such an arrangement for longer than,
    say, six months to a year after the "separation."
    
    I can imagine it _could_ work, but then I can also imagine divorced
    couples reconciling.  It just ain't gonna work for me.
    
    What about you, ATSE::KATZ?  Do _you_ think it will work for all
    parties involved over a long period?  What attitudes and compromises 
    would be necessary for it to work?  Are they likely to be found in a 
    couple facing the breakup of their marriage?  Are they likely to be 
    found in _your_ situation?  How long would you expect the arrangement 
    to last to make it worth implementing?  What messages does it give the 
    children about their power over their parents' lives?  Is this good?  
    Will the long-term positive effects outweigh the emotional and financial 
    expense of creating such a solution?  Would the Cambridge lawyer be 
    willing to put you in touch with these other people who have used this 
    solution so you can hear the pros and cons from them?
    
    As a replier to your base note, I'll not apologize for being a bit
    doubtful about the realities involved in a bird nest situation.  But
    I'm only bringing my own experience to bear, and as I said earlier, it
    surely wouldn't have worked for me.  So we developed the next best
    alternative.  Like the other responders to the base note, I offered my
    OPINION, based on my experience, on how the bird nest concept would
    work.  Your mileage may vary.  
    
    The question is, if you're seriously considering this alternative, would 
    it work for YOU?
    
    And good luck to all of you, no matter what you decide.
    Karen