If You Have Children You Will Be A Family Forever

Even though you may be divorcing, you are always going to be a family for your children.

If all goes according to plan, your future could include grandparenthood together. In the routine course of your children’s lives, there will be special moments (and probably some scary moments) that you’ll share with your parenting partner, including but not limited to: bar mitzvahs, confirmations or first communions, little league games, graduations, and perhaps the occasional wisdom tooth extraction or ER visit.

These special moments create indelible memories of childhood, and your children have a front row seat to the Mommy and Daddy Show. They hear not only what you say to each other, but watch (with eagle eyes) how you treat each other. That is why you owe your children nothing less than paying attention, at all times, not only to what you say to your parenting partner, but also how you say it, especially when your children are watching. Whether you know it or not, they are keen observers, and are constantly “taking notes.”

In this blog posting, Lauren Behrman writes that there are some words and body language that almost reek of disregard, and it would be a gift to your children if you eliminate these from your vocabulary and repertoire.

What Story Do You Want Your Child To Tell About Your Divorce?

We all know that divorce is hard on kids. My clients truly worry about their children and want to put their children first. But it can be really hard to do that. When we feel threatened ourselves—at risk, angry and scared—it can be really hard to keep ourselves, as parents, out of the emotional fray and remember our priorities.

In this blog posting, Katherine Miller writes about asking her clients to write a story they would like their children to tell about their parents’ divorce:

"If this was very successful, and you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse were to get through a divorce in a way that minimized the difficulty and pain for your children, and supported them in the best way you possibly could, what would they say about your divorce? What would they say about your personal actions? What would you want that to be?"

These are hard questions. Oftentimes, what our clients would want their children to say about them, individually and as parents together is not what is actually happening.

Changes in the 2017 MA Child Support Guidelines - Part 2

Every four years the Child Support Guidelines in Massachusetts are updated by a Task Force appointed by the Chief Justice of the Trial Court.  In 2013 the Guidelines were updated and significant changes were made to the formula and to the parenting time language.  The Guidelines have been updated again for 2017, and the new guidelines took effect on September 15, 2017.

In part 1 of this blog posting I wrote about the changes with respect to parenting time.

The 2017 guidelines also offered a new formula for children between 18 and 23.

The 2013 guidelines indicated that the formula was not presumptive once a child turned 18, though the statute still allowed for support to be ordered. This left a lot of room for deviation and in many cases resulted in simply a continuation of support at the same amount. The 2017 guidelines require a 25% reduction in the amount of support attributable to a child over age 18. This means that there is a presumptive amount of support owed for children over 18, up until age 23, though the court still has discretion to deviate, and the emancipation factors still apply.

When there are multiple children Table B on the Worksheet indicates how the total percentage is reduced, since only the portion attributable to the adult child should be affected.

This change will certainly lead to numerous modification requests by parents, and I am hopeful that many of them will consider using mediation and filing Joint Petitions for Modification rather than litigating these issues which should be pretty straightforward under the new guidelines.

Changes in the 2017 MA Child Support Guidelines - Part 1

Every four years the Child Support Guidelines in Massachusetts are updated by a Task Force appointed by the Chief Justice of the Trial Court.  In 2013 the Guidelines were updated and significant changes were made to the formula and to the parenting time language.  The Guidelines have been updated again for 2017, and the new guidelines took effect on September 15, 2017.

In 2009, the Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines added language acknowledging the increase in shared parenting by specifically defining how the Court should calculate child support differently when parents share parenting time "equally, or approximately equally."

However, the 2009 Guidelines still left questions as to how to handle cases that didn't fit a one-third or equal parenting time.  The 2013 Guidelines made an effort to clarify these two issues, though arguably the result was still quite vague.  The 2013 Task Force added language allowing the court to consider a deviation upwards when the payor had less than 1/3 of the time, and added an averaging calculation for cases where parenting time was in between 33 and 50% of the time.  The average category in particular was highly criticized for increasing litigation over small amounts of parenting time.

The 2017 Task Force, recognizing these issues deleted the in-between category, and clarified the deviation factor by adding a principle to guide Judges in their determinations:

"recognizing that deviations should be used when appropriate to tailor a child support order to the unique circumstances of a particular family."

While the 2017 Task Force has highlighted the importance of the appropriate use of discretion this only increases the uncertainty that parties have when going in front of a Judge, and this remains a strong argument for self-determination and the use of out-of-court settlement options, such as mediation, whenever possible.