Single Dads

Divorce happens. Here’s a guarantee: prior to every divorce that has ever occurred, someone had to stand up and take stock of their relationship situation and find it in some way lacking.

Adults in the real world have to consider the warning signs. Those indications will tell you either that it’s 1. time to leave your spouse, or 2. do the serious legwork necessary to make things better for yourself and your family.

Here are some rather obvious clues:

• You are spending more time at work, not because you love work, but because you don’t want to spend time with your spouse.
• You and your spouse no longer go to bed together.
• You dread weekends (or other times when you have days off) because you know that you’ll be at home, and your spouse will likely be with you.
• You or your spouse is cheating.
• You don’t want to do the things that you liked previously to do with your spouse.
• When you attend social or work-related events, you tend to or would prefer to leave your spouse at home.
• You or your spouse are ignoring your physical appearance or personal hygiene.
• Your kids are your only incentive to stay married.
• You or your spouse are drinking or using drugs much more than usual to achieve some altered state.
• Being with your spouse makes you unhappy, depressed, or indifferent.
• You or your spouse is physically or emotionally abusive.

Many couples go through some of these from time to time, but lingering problems such as these are all strong indications that something serious is wrong. Ask yourself some questions and provide some answers. What led up to your present feelings of doubt? When did the behavior start? Where do you see you and your spouse in the future? When you see yourself or your spouse slipping into any of these behaviors, seriously consider getting some additional, and hopefully professional, help. But if that doesn’t work, rationally consider the all your options before making additional life-changing decisions.

There is no doubt how I feel about deadbeat dads; in fact, I have made that quite clear, and recently, that as a single dad, deadbeat dads make my life more difficult. Even so, as a person that actually pays child support (and more than I’ve been asked, by the way), I admit to a touch of confusion on the subject of punishment for deadbeats.

Don’t be too confused at all. I do believe that men, or now increasingly, women, who don’t pay child support for their children when asked by either their significant other or the legal system, are a low class indeed. Truly, who but the most trifling of society wouldn’t want their children to be taken care of when they aren’t there? I know that I do.

However, I’m torn about the punishment for those neglectful people. In my state, the most popular punishment for failing to pay child support? Revoking their driver’s license.

Now, at first glance this seems ok. After all, driving is a privilege, not a right. Surely this would entice people to pay their child support, so that the state doesn’t have to take up the slack with welfare programs, right?

I say wrong. In this particular case, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, and I think that it’s easy to see why. A reasonable person can see that the people that most likely to pay their child support are the those that are most able to pay. Therefore, it’s easy to infer that those are least likely to pay their child support are those that are LEAST able to pay, meaning, the poor.

So, you’re a poor person who has been ordered to pay child support. What are your choices?

1. Pay. Unfortunately, you’re poor, and can’t pay. Does this mean get another job in today’s economy?

2. Don’t pay, and lose your driver’s license, which for a lot of people, means either losing their job, or busing or cabbing to work. For many poor, especially in areas without mass transit, this is probably a poor option.

3. Don’t pay, and flee to stay ahead of the legal system, leaving behind at least one poor child without one parent.

There are the options, and that’s exactly why yanking the driver’s license doesn’t work; it leaves an already relatively poor person with an actual incentive to abandon their children. Hence, you get the permanent underclass of a poor child and single parent, and legal scofflaws. Surely that can’t be the intended impact of the law.

It’s a poor policy, especially in our vehicle-centric society.
Let’s look for other options for deadbeats, please. But deadbeat dads still drive me crazy.

More good news for children this Christmas season.  According to a news report released today, apparently the Food and Drug Administration believes that the flu drugs made by Roche and GlaxoSmithKline might have the unfortunate side effect of giving children neurological problems including hallucinations and convulsions.  Fortunately, the government is considering warning labels on these items.  How appropriate.

I am not a humorless individual, and quite often I can see the underlying humor in a lot of bad news.  Unfortunately this is not one of those times.  In my new role as an occasional entrepreneur, I think that someone could make a fortune on creating a website where a parent or other interested party could search and locate certain products such as:

• Toys proven to not contain lead,
• Medications that have been proven not to harm children,  and
• Child safety items that don’t harm children in any way.

I would, as a single parent would sign up for such a Internet site with great relish, indeed.

There are other items that I think would go well in a website such the one I propose, but at the moment, the news that proven influenza medications might make certain children convulse in their beds has dampened my ability to consider additional consumer products that might go on such a site.  I will, however, claim “dibs” on such an idea.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, far and away my favorite holiday. Not only because Thanksgiving is one of my holidays with the three-year-old, but because I love turkey, dressing (and yes, my mother still makes the best dressing on the face of the planet,) and the football, the family, and the pageantry.

As a result, I thought that I’d share with you what I’m thankful for this holiday season.

Grace. Being able to be with my daughter on Thanksgiving is a blessing like no other. Just being in the same room with her is enough to put me in a good mood; this gets better when you’re watching Ratatouille, playing Chutes and Ladders (yes, that game from your long ago past), and feasting on sweet potato tarts. Ah, the joy.

My girlfriend. She inspires, helps to keep me grounded, and makes me feel better when I just feel tired of all the work. She is wonderful, and I was honored to spend my Thanksgiving with her.

My family. They are capable of both driving me nuts and keeping me sane. They taught me some of the best things that I know. And dang, can they cook a feast. My mother and father are great people, as are a brother, sister-in-law, two nieces, and a myriad of cousins, uncles, and aunts, my of whom I’m fortunate enough to have in the immediate area. Grace and I are very lucky indeed.

So, to all of them Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope that yours was great as well.

Scenario: you are in a bad relationship that you’ve carefully considered and have determined that cannot be saved. Your problem is that you have children that you adore and don’t want to leave. It’s a quandary without a perfect resolution.

Let’s face facts. Long before you accept that you and the soon to be ex are not compatible under any conceivable circumstances, you know deep in your gut that the relationship between the two of you is going nowhere. This is the exact moment that planning should begin. Here’s your template.

Get A Lawyer.

This is the first step, and possibly the most important.  Having a competent attorney can determine the all important issues of alimony, property division, and parenting time.  Attorneys are your advocates in the court that YOU pay; consequently, one of their main jobs is to make you look good.  Not having one is almost undoubtedly something that you will regret.  This is where I personally made my first mistake.  Pay the money and get a lawyer.

Steady Yourself Financially.

Getting a grip on your finances is almost a factor of step 1.  Lawyers cost money, and you need to have it to pay for them.  In addition, all kinds of items are taken into account during a breakup, especially if you have children.  Economics plays its role as well.  Don’t quit your job, don’t stop paying credit card bills, and pay down some loan debt if you can.  You might need that credit later; in fact, the messier your breakup, the more likely you’ll need credit.  If you have shared accounts, you might have a whole new set of problems, but get a grip of the money that you personally earned.

Lose The Bad Habits.

Warren Buffet once said his father told him that you should never do anything in public that you don’t want to read about on the front page of your local newspaper, and by God, the man is right. We’re not talking about habits necessarily as much as things that might embarrass you.  In other words, falling off the barstool in the singles bar trying to pick up your ex-babysitter might not be the best idea.  Try not to do that.  Instead, consider positive activities that would probably be good for you anyway, especially considering the fact that you are soon to be single:

Taking a class with other similarly situated people (meaning single or that share your interests in some way)

Developing a hobby (reading, writing, and exercising are especially good for the brain and body)

Spending time with supportive friends and family is good, since you’ve probably spent a substantial amount of recent time avoiding them.  Reconnect.

Breaking up is hard enough to do; making it harder on yourself than it should be is ridiculous.  Do the above three things first and spare yourself unnecessary suffering down the road.

Priorities. When it comes right down to it, I have only three of note: first is myself, then is my family, finally would be work and friends. Why does this single dad mention that?

This single dad mentions that because at the moment, the my inner space is a touch out of whack. If you were wondering why I haven’t written as much lately, it’s not because of writer’s block; it’s because item no. 3 from above has finally begun to intrude on my primary concerns. In short, I’ve been a very busy dad lately, meaning, yes, I’m working too much.

I would imagine that this is a common problem with parents generally, and possibly single dads - especially, ones that are highly motivated by the thoughts of their children’ present and future - in particular. We must make money to pay for added responsibilities. Child support, alimony, clothes, health care… all of that costs money. Tack on other items like college planning, private schooling, and other optional items, and suddenly, it might never seem to be enough. So, if you’re like me, then you must work, and work like a dog sometimes, to pay for it.

Lately, though, I have been noticing little warning signs: not writing as much as usual, not sleeping as well, appetite fairly suppressed, and I realized that work and life are out of balance. I started writing on this website because it was something that I enjoyed, and because I wanted to leave my daughter little reminders of how I was thinking when she was a baby. That’s a me thing, and to shirk that in even the smallest thing means that am not looking out for myself. Hence, it’s time to take a step back.

Goodbye, part time job. Oh, how so painfully well I knew ye. Guess I’ll have to find some other way to drop a little extra in the college fund.

Come to think of it, I suppose that I just got my daughter a new pair of shoes last month, and they were pretty inexpensive.  I bet she’ll make the rest of the year just fine.