A cautionary tale for parents, divorced or otherwise.

Yesterday, I was at the park with my daughter, Grace, her half-sister Noelle, and their mother.  It was a gorgeous day, and the playground was relatively close to the kids’ school and two other schools, but when we arrived, there were no other children there.  We stuck close and let the kids play in the sand.

I scanned the area.  Nothing particular was out of whack; it was, quite simply, a very simple park, with playground, a port-a-potty (yuck!) and a large, fairly well restored plantation-looking house that I could only assume was some sort of neighborhood gathering place or clubhouse back in the day.

At about the time that I started explaining to Grace that the loud pecking that we heard on the house was simply a very loud woodpecker, I noticed one thing out of place.

One middle aged man in a lawn chair.  Sitting about a block away from us at the other edge of the park looking at nothing in particular.

My parental instincts made a loud buzzing sound.  It was very similar to the sound the inside of my head used to make when a good-looking woman was within some distance of my personal space, but I hadn’t seen her yet.  I used to call it a Spider Sense, after the character.

While watching and playing with the kids, out of the corner of my eye I kept looking at this pudgy, middle aged man.

After a while of only having one other kid come to the playground, my ex and I watched as two children, then three, of about third grade or so came from the public school nearby and start playing… with the parents nowhere in sight.

We made plans to leave.  However, I wasn’t planning on going anywhere with these kids on the playground, and some grown man across the park, who was still looking… wherever.

Finally, the man folded up his chair, after sitting in the park for what had to have been an hour and a half, packed it into his van (which I know sounds cliched, but it’s true, it was a van) and drive away… after circling the park for a block.

It wasn’t until the van was out of sight until we finally picked up the kids and left.

People.

You might be a single parent.  You might be a couple of parents that both work.  I don’t know what scenarios you might have.  However, the lesson here I think is a good one:  pick up your young children from school.  You never know who might be watching, and if that individual - who might have been no more than a person watching cars drive by in the park, mind you - had harmed your children because they were vulnerable and you were simply too busy to pick them up from school on a regular weekday… well, where would you be then?

Just a story with a happy ending.

Today.

Many moons ago when I first started the blog Single Dads, I wrote a post where I gave you a list that included a bunch of things that you could do immediately financially for your kids.  In the spirit of the immediate fix, I’ve decided to jot down a few things that you can do immediately if you are deciding about getting a divorce from the financial side.

Get a new checking account. Be honest and start thinking about your family’s shared cash. Is it possible that your soon to be ex will drain your joint accounts? If the answer is “maybe”, then you have a problem, especially if it’s a contentious situation. Get a new bank account.

Start looking at your credit card situation.  If you’re at all like me, you’ll find that you had a lot more than cash tied up in your ex - you’ve got credit tied up in them as well. Unfortunately, anyone will tell you that credit can be your death if things go sour.  Divorce is death on your credit.  I immediately stopped using my cards that I shared with the ex when I had that “feeling”. You should too, if you know what’s good for you.  You are going to need that money, probably to pay lawyers.

Closing vehicle loans.  Seriously, do you really want to haggle over who gets the SUV if the dreaded thing goes down?  How about do you want to haggle over the SUV loan?  Please.  Get rid of the payment if you can.

Those are just a few ideas.  You’ve got to consider wills, insurance, and other financial matters as well.  And most importantly, know where you are going to LIVE.  You need a place to hang your hat.

A while ago, I wrote a post called A Fact And Forgiveness where I basically said that forgiveness is the key to being in a relationship with your children and your ex, and that accepting your ex as part of your family would eventually make your situation much better.

Well, I have a secret.

I didn’t know that for sure.

Sure, I can talk a good game, but in all honesty, I didn’t know for a fact that forgiveness was the key.  After all, I was in a situation where things were relatively contentious between myself and my daughter’s mother; we would argue or wouldn’t speak at all, and the relationship was strained, to say the least.

So.  It’s would great pleasure that I tell you that I was actually correct.  Tomorrow, with the blessing of the State of Colorado and Grace’s mother, my daughter will be having an extended, meaning weekend, stay over at my apartment.  I would jump for joy, but my legs are a bit sore from an rigorous workout today (ouch).

Sure, I’m quite sure that working hard, paying child support, providing health care, and participating in school events had something to do with it too.  But in the end, my head had to change - and once that it did, everything else fell into place.  And there it is - in the end, I did what needed to be done.

Forgiveness works, people.  Fight when (and if) you have to, but seriously, as the phrase goes, you catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

The great thing about having a little time off from Single Dads and my other blog is that I have no shortage of things to write about.  However, some things are timelier than others.  This article from the Buffalo News, however, made me just a little upset.

Dante Brown is a playful, rambunctious toddler growing up on the city’s West Side.

TraJanae Sanders is the same kind of kid, growing up on the East Side.

A lot separates these 2-year-olds, but in some important ways, their young lives already echo with similarity. Both are poor.

Both are being raised by young women who bore them as teenagers.

And neither child has a dad at home. Dante and TraJanae are two faces of a change that’s deeply affecting many neighborhoods in Buffalo — where today 43 percent of children live below the poverty line.

These two children, and at least 18,450 others in the city, are growing up in low-income homes headed by women alone. This is fatherless Buffalo.

Nifty.  Nice job out there in Buffalo, guys.

Look, men as a whole are dumb enough; I don’t think that I know one person that wouldn’t agree with me, and I do know a lot of people.  However, there’s no reason to make us look MORE dumb by not sticking by your kids.  YOUR KIDS, GENTLEMEN.

I’m not with my daughter’s mother, but I’m definitely with my daughter, Grace, and by God, she knows it, and will know it, for the rest of her life.  I’m not going ANYWHERE.  Shoot, it’s hard enough to not see her for a weekend.

I have a million stories to prove that.  Stay tuned.  In the meantime, on behalf of the millions of men out there that love their kids and would never abandon them, mothers of the world, I apologize.

I took a pretty extended break from blogging for a little bit (my most significant break since, oh, 2004 or so) but after a vacation to SXSW, spending an increasing amount of time with my four-year old (that’s about to go up too - more on that later) and trying to concentrate on work, I found the exact article to ease my way back into the writing gig when I saw this this little educational nugget about the public educational system, or lack of it.

WASHINGTON - Seventeen of the nation’s 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday.

MSNBC gets the cite.

Let’s see.  I live in Denver.  It’s one of the most highly educated cities in the nation, I’ve heard somewhere.

Denver:  Denver County School District - 46.3 percent graduation rate.

43.6 percent graduation rate?

So I’m going to have to try to send my daughter to private schools for the rest of her days?

Public education.  My wallet.  I weep for them both.

I was reminded recently that an excellent exercise for both the newly or not-so-newly divorced that I find useful is to actually list out what it is that you are thankful for.  Why?

Well, giving thanks for what you have is a great reminder for what great things you have and for the great things that you have yet to do.  Everyone needs a refresher every once in a while.

With that in mind, here is my list:

I’m thankful that I have a wonderful family, with parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, and cousins all in town within a short distance.

I’m thankful for the fact that my daughter is growing up to be a wonderful little girl.

I’m thankful that I love to cook and can afford to buy some of the good stuff.

I’m thankful that I live in such a wonderful apartment in such a great part of town.

I’m thankful for the view from the living room balcony.

I’m thankful that I at least try to quit smoking, and especially thankful that: 1.  My daughter has never seen me smoke, and 2.  This time, it may take.

I’m thankful for my health insurance.

I’m thankful that I have pets (parrots).

I’m thankful that I have enough space in my apartment that my daughter can have her own room.

I’m thankful that I’m not the only one in my neighborhood that recycles.  So many people are doing it that the recycling bins are continually full.

I’m thankful for this and countless other things.

What are you thankful for?

Scenario: You break up with your wife, who has your children. You see your kids and pay child support for years, then discover to your horror that one of the kids that you thought was yours in fact wasn’t yours at all. So, you seek to decrease child support payments. Seems like a no-brainer, right?

Wrong. Not in New Jersey.

TRENTON, N.J. - Paternity doesn’t count when it comes to a Hunterdon County man’s bid to lower child support payments for a child that’s not his.

An appeals court upheld a lower court which denied the man’s request in 2006 after he said he discovered he was not the father of the 10-year-old girl.

The appeals panel found the judge put the best interest of the child first.

Via Newsday.

So, wait. Married couple has a kid then another. Couple gets divorced. Man pays child support, then finds out that one of the children isn’t his. He wants his child support reduced, and they rule against him? Really? I would think that the ex-wife committed a crime in lying to the ex-husband in the first place, then his acting on that crime would nullify the child support responsibility.

This story is filled with so much wrong. Women should hate it too. Doesn’t this one individual basically make a bunch of women who deserve child support for their children look bad?

I’m quite sure that I don’t have the whole story, but my, that sounds ridiculous. I can’t imagine how screwed up that poor child is going to be as well.

What’s the lesson to learn here?

I would expect that one of the things that lots of divorcees with kids grapple with is relationships with the ex. Speaking from experience, I can say equivocally that this happens… everywhere. You broke up with your ex for a reason, be it infidelity, finances, emotional abuse, or whatever it is… and if you have kids, there is some sort of split relationship, most likely, involving them.

People. People. Let me enlighten you on one irrevocable fact.

You WILL be dealing with your ex for the rest of your life, unless you are in one of the extreme cases where it’s unsafe for you, or your children, to be near the ex. You can’t avoid, ignore, or otherwise shut them out. You may think that there is, but there is not, because the kids are involved, and will be forever.

What does this mean for you, the traumatized, or on the other hand, insufferable other parent?

It means that you will have to get over it. Deal with the other parent. When you have to, converse with the other parent. In fact, consider the other parent, as distasteful as it might be for you or them, part of your family, because when it comes down to it, that is exactly what they are. Not a conventional family in the way that you might like, but a family, nonetheless. Existing children will guarantee this fact. Surely, you will still recall what it is that made you so unhappy with them, fine. You can remember that if you like.

But the key emotion, and the hardest to learn, is this, with all apologies to Don Henely:

Forgiveness.

Even if you don’t love them anymore.

With quite a bit of interest, I read the article Expert Says That Poll Results Show “Crack”In Court System in Divorce360.com today, expecting to see some more disparaging remarks about dads not paying support. I wasn’t shocked. According to the poll, 43% of custodial parents don’t receive a dime of child support.

Sadly, my anecdotal evidence probably bears this out. I meet quite a few dads and moms, with and without “custodial” care of their kids, and probably close to half the single parents that I know with kids get little or no child support at all. However, there is a lot more to this statistic than meets the eye.

The first item that leaps to mind is the thought of “custodial”. By definition the custodial parent is that parent that has the child or children half time or more. By tradition, this means “mother” in this country. Even though the number of fathers that have the custodial tag applied to them is surely on the rise (ask Kevin Federline), still, Mom still rules the roost, and the courts, when it comes to parenting. In fact, I’ve seen a case where a father actually HAD his son living with him full time was still paying child support to his ex - at the same level he was when his son was staying with his ex-wife.

Hopefully that was an extreme case, but somehow, I don’t think so.

The realization, however, that I finally came to over some time is that the statistics are not the complete story, and that these individual stories are the most important facts of all. No stat can give you enough information, for either divorced men or women. Before you jump to conclusions based on the raw facts presented here, think critically about circumstances as well.

Many, many years ago, my father used to take me to the window of a place that I lived to look out on the city below at night. He would gesture at and talk about the seemingly endless number of lights that we saw, flickering on and off and tell me something along the lines of “there are millions of stories in the naked city…you are just one of them.” Years later, I was told that he was referring to a classic radio program from his youth, and I realized exactly the lesson that he was trying to teach.

The world is a very big place, he was saying. All things in context.

I’m still no fan of deadbeat dads or moms.

But my father is a very smart man.

I love Saturdays.

Lately, my daughter has been spending a lot of weekends here, which, I have to admit, is wonderful for me. In the past, I’ve heard of a lot of other co-parenting fathers taking their time with their toddler kids to do the fun things, like go on trips, go to playgrounds, and just simply play. The very first excursion that I took Grace and her sister on together when I was still with their mom was to the Art Museum - and Grace was still a little, little baby at that time.

I like to do “fun” things with Grace but I love to plan activities that count towards her future development.

Our most recent weekend adventures involve the “learning” Leapfrog videos. If you’re not familiar and have a toddler, I can’t recommend them enough. Right now our family is a little obsessed with the Letter and Word Factory DVDs, which are fun for me and for her no matter how many times we see them. Better still, the DVDs come equipped with learning games that teach your kids skills, like recognizing words that rhyme, or letters. She gets to acquire skills that she will be able to use for the rest of her life; I get to swell with pride at her increasing ability to communicate like a big kid.

You can’t get a better win/win situation.

Being that I have no idea what she’s learning when she’s with Mom, I figure that exposing her to as many opportunities to learn while she’s with me is the best thing that I can do for both of us.

But we also went to the playground.

Ah, the wonders of the toddler attention span.

Something that you need to definitely have to do when you divorce is watch yourself, and watch your name. Google it if you have to. I have personal experience with this phenomenon.

My present girlfriend had the wonderful experience of being stalked by her ex. He started a website solely for the purposes of trying to make my girlfriend look bad, put her down, and talk about personal information. He would put pictures on his site and allude negatively towards her work habits, personal experiences, and et cetera. Absolutely a prince, you might say. Eventually, it took a threat from the FBI, local law enforcement, and various websites being pulled from free sites for violations of terms of service to make him cease and desist.

My ex is similar, but does a different kind of stalking. On her MySpace page, (a page that which I read regularly) she describes how miserable she is and attempts to slam me as having a drinking problem and being an irresponsible and deadbeat dad… despite my regular OVER payments for child support - never missing a payment, regular visits, and general overall support. The reason that I am not with her is that we don’t get along. I DO want to be with my child 24/7. It’s a huge difference, and an emotionally and legally expensive one.

Solutions? I’m not sure that I have one, and if anyone has any great ideas, then I’m all ears. I’m already considering legal action.  However, if your breakup with your ex was acrimonious, then learn to use Google. Be your best private detective. Keep a journal It can be a little annoying and perhaps may cause you fume a bit, but make sure that you have all the possible information. At least that way, if you decide to follow through, then you’ll have all the information. Over at WiredSafety.org, they have a lot of great information about cyberstalking and a number of other Internet crimes.

Here’s one that you can write down; despite any odd thing that I might see in her behavior, actions, or choices, you will never see me slam her in print. That’s no better than gossip, and despite the fact that our relationship didn’t work out, she does have good qualities for someone else. That won’t stop me from being the dad of a three year old.

Remember as well; self improvement is the best form of revenge.

One of the ways that I absolutely knew that I was going to run into problems with my ex was with her religious views.

Over the years, it’s become more and more evident that religion is an ENORMOUS relationship bugaboo, especially since I tend to be vaguely suspicious of what I perceived as overly religious people due to:

1. Personal experience,

2. Education on the transgressions of self-described religious people,

3. The hideous war crimes committed by religious organizations in the name of God, and

4. The rise of televangelism.

Even so, I have nothing against religion in general and consider spirituality a good thing overall.

That said, I remember when my exes’ mother was staying in my house and we somehow got into a discussion on evolution. I asked her what she thought, and with some level of anger, she mentioned, “Well, we didn’t come from monkeys!”

I somehow resisted the urge to suggest that we came from space aliens instead, and made a mental note to watch Grace’s mother. Carefully. And I knew that religion would be one more nail in the coffin of our strained relationship.

Now, my ex goes to church between 4 and 7 times a week, and my daughter attends a religious school.

Just because one goes to church a lot doesn’t mean that they are a good person. The road to divorce can be paved with religious beliefs along with other good intentions. Take it from me, you and yours had better either be very open to different belief systems or in strong agreement.

Hello everyone!  Back from the holidays.   They were busy.

I certainly didn’t get a whole lot of everything, but come to think of it, I don’t really need that much.  The real highlight of my holiday was spending time with my daughter.  Now, SHE cleaned up.  Is it a popular vice of co-parents that they completely and totally overspend for the holidays?  I think that Grace has every Princess toy known to mankind now.  Yet, I still am finding that I need to get her more.  She really needs a tent.  Also some new clothes, even though she already has quite a few.  but the temptation to keep buying clothes (she’ll be four in a few months, and she’s always growing) is ridiculous.  I’m never sure that her mother is going to buy her clothes.

Anyway, I’m back.

Culture is an excellent propagator of divorces as well. Let’s prove that in today’s lesson.

Many years ago, I knew a woman that I’ll call Jill. Jill was an attractive woman, more intelligent than most, who was at heart, a nice and relatively well meaning person with an interesting personality and a decent person. She was a good cook, a loyal individual, and a snappy dresser. In short, she was a great catch for just about anyone.

Unfortunately, she had one major flaw.

I’ll call it “The Cosmo Factor”.

Everything that she knew about men she seemed to cull from the pages of women’s magazines. Cosmopolitan, Elle, and others were a continual staple of her reading diet. If she wanted to know how to impress a man? Cosmo had an article with the goods. Why did men leave their girlfriends? The answer was in Allure. Any and all answers to all of the burning questions surrounding the classic, awesome, and continual Battle Of The Sexes could be found in a pop culture magazine geared towards women. Each magazine contained to the gospel to her. None of her male friends had the courage to tell her how wrong those periodicals were, though… much to our detriment.

Eventually, we drifted apart.

Enter 2007. To my horror, I read an Internet article titled 6 Sneaky Ways to a Better-Looking Partner , and God help me, the first person that I thought of was her. Here’s the intro, via Yahoo.

Pride may be one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but your lover’s lack of pride in how he looks can be even deadlier - to your love life, that is.

Sure, dedication, intelligence, and a sense of humor are what really stir the chemistry between you, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want your partner to feel like they’re on top of their game, looks-wise.

After all, a confident partner is a sexually motivated partner, and sometimes an extra dose of sensuality is all a relationship needs to go to the next level. But beware: Goosing your loved one into taking better care of himself can be dicey territory, and even the most polite suggestion that “maybe you need to lose a few pounds” can lead to somebody sleeping on the couch for a week.

As I read this, I stifled a scream. Please, not the return of women again trying to change their men. Aren’t divorce rates high enough in this country and others? Isn’t the level of resentment, among men and women, high enough, finally? Doesn’t anyone believe that men can read?

People, people. If you’re getting involved, and the thing that you want to do is CHANGE your partner, I can promise you you’re not doing it right.

And guys, before you start thinking that you are all clever, “Maxim” is a man’s answer to Cosmo.  Both magazines give false hope to clueless individuals.  I could have called this the “Maxim Factor”quite easily.

So, for this article, I award this comment on the article 6 Sneaky Ways to a Better-Looking Partner:

You have failed.

At no time in recent memory, has an article failed more than this one.

Please, never do this again.

Not long ago, I took a position with another company for a day job, and honestly, I couldn’t be more pleased with my choice. I’m close to home and getting to my daughter or her school is quite easy, but these weren’t the primary reasons that I took the job. That got me thinking today.

If you’re a divorced parent looking for a new job for the holidays, or even just after the holidays, there are a few things that you should keep in mind for your hunt, besides just money.

1. Health Insurance

My new employer gives me the opportunity to cover my daughter as well as myself at no cost to me. This might be a benefit that you might be looking for as well - especially if you have an ex where the health insurance situation might be suspect. All kids need health insurance.

2. Life Insurance

Does your employer, or perspective employer, offer life insurance? In today’s times, you definitely, DEFINITELY need some life insurance, especially if you care about what might happen to your children were something critical to happen to you.

3. Family Friendly Policies

These have REALLY come in handy for me. My employer doesn’t mind me working from home, or taking time off for school functions. This can be a real boon for a divorced parent, as things tend to come up that you don’t know about necessarily until the last minute. Health situations, holiday parties, last minute pick ups, and other situtations can and will occur. How does your new employer (or old) look at these situations?

4. Other Benefits

Some employers offer benefits such as health savings plans, flexible transportation plans, and 529 plans directly deposited from your paycheck. Any or all of these can be a big help to a divorced or even NOT divorced parent. Does your prospective employer offer any of these or other less popular but just as valuable benefits?

Take a look at the full benefits offered by your prospective employer, and consider those before you make a leap into the unknown.

As a man with children and an ex, I’m always keeping my eye out for things to help my daughter out (and me) out financially. One important thing that you can do at the end of the year is start planning for your kids future, both financially and educationally, and one way that I’ve done that is by using a 529 plan.

A 529 plan is an investment vehicle for future educational expenses that grows federally and state income tax free that has various rules and regulations based on the state in which you live and the specific plan in which you want to enroll. In Colorado, the plan that I enrolled in was found at CollegeInvest.org, and I can tell you from experience, it definitely pays to shop around for a plan, as fees and past performance can be vastly different. Also, in my plan, my ex has no claim to the money invested and my donation to the plan is state income tax deductible up to $250.00 as long as I donate that amount to my daughter’s plan before year end. Nice. Another bonus is that if your children don’t use the 529 money, you can use it yourself for qualified expenses, and in other cases, for unqualified expenses, although a tax hit would probably occur. If my daughter doesn’t use the plan that I started for her, I’ll buy a boat and give it her name instead. Probably.

Naturally, before you were to invest in such a thing, you definitely want to do your research or talk to a financial planner or another tax or financial professional before you jump. For me, though, it’s perfect. Better, I feel like I’m doing something positive for my daughter, as I suspect that college expenses in the future will be astronomical and I have no indication that my ex is doing any planning for my daughter’s educational future, period.

But now is a great time to look at some sort of educational planning for your kids. Take a look at it.

One of the most accepted reasons that a lot of people stay in miserable, abusive, or otherwise ridiculous relationships is to keep the family together. He’s staying with her because of the kids, people whisper. Once the kids leave, they’re done - they’ve been done for a long time. I’ve heard it among friends. I’ve said it about others. For a while, I thought that I would be one of those people.

So, with some shock, at present, I respectfully disagree with those assessments.

I submit that while some may believe that they stay in terrible relationships and marriages because of their children, it’s actually due to a much more subtle reason that I can only describe to you now, after some time removed from the situation.

When I first broke up with my ex, naturally, I hated being away from my daughter and her half-sister. But after spending a good part of three years with a family unit, and changing diapers, reading stories, going to parent/teacher meetings, brushing hair in the mornings, I was a little surprised to notice after a short time that not seeing the kids on a continual basis was not the thing that bothered me most.

Nope. After the ex, I went out and got an nice apartment that had a lot of room and a spare bedroom for my daughter, grabbed some furniture, and almost immediately started having Grace over, which was great. Also, I had a chance to meet and spend time with other people, which eventually led to my present relationship. But I would notice that when I walked by my daughter’s room , filled with her playpen, some clothes, some blankets, toys and books, when neither of the kids were at the house, I would get a chill. Even seeing her door from my master bedroom was bothersome.

As time went on, I noticed myself closing the door to her room when she wasn’t at home. This didn’t help. Still I could feel that empty room calling out to me. I tried sleeping in her room on the floor, and found that didn’t help either. I even tried moving the bed around didn’t work. The couch in the living room was even less comfortable.

It occurs to me now that it wasn’t just being away from my daughter that was painful, it was that haunted, empty room, and I submit that is the dark secret for many parents, men and women, that keeps us from that necessary divorce or split: fear of that empty room.

As time as gone on, I no longer fear the empty room. My daughter shares a room with her half-sister at her mother’s house; here, she has a room all to herself. Within that room I have pictures, a bookcase, two beds and a dresser. All match. All of her toys are exactly where she leaves them when she leaves our home; her dolly is in her crib and covered with her blanky, gloves are in the wrong drawer, birthday balloon still in the closet, Elmo in my daughter’s bed, piggy bank (with change), still sitting on the bookcase, and puzzles strewn all about, and the scribbled picture she drew me in crayon as a present… and I can look at all with a smile.

Don’t be afraid of the empty room.

Happiness can still follow. Believe it.

It’s the holidays, and ’tis the season to tell your honey that you love them and want to marry them. An awful lot of people of the marrying type have seen movies like When Harry Met Sally, where the big proposal takes place on New Year’s Eve, and I’m sure that there are countless other films like that one that I just can’t recall at the moment.

Well, hold that thought. Perhaps before you pop the question (or accept a question that is popped), consider the future, and do it carefully, because the last thing that you want to do in the long run is end up in a situation where you’ll think about divorcing your spouse, because divorce is not fun and you want to avoid forever if possible. Here are some guidelines to help you find your mate, and keep them.

On Compatibility

Here your question is this: do they like what you like? Are they a geek? Do they like to write? Is your prospective mate a hard worker, or lazy? Do they like wine, beer, or milk? If you and your prospective spouse are employed professionals, would you hire your spouse, given their personality? Your best bet is that the person that you want is into what you’re into. In the famous words of Chris Rock, whatever they’re into, you’ve got to be into too. If your hobbies, work ethic, and activities jibe, you’ve got a much better chance.

On Finances

Is your mate a well organized financial person? Are finances important to them? This is interesting, because in many families, one person or the other picks up the other person’s financial slack. In that case, is the person who is the “slacker” willing to make an effort? Is money something you discuss, not scream about? What is your combined debt situation, and is that a deal breaker?

In most of the successful marriages that I know, the man is the one that needs the organizational help the most. Make of that what you will.

On Emotion

Are you in love? Meaning, can you look into the future and envision yourself with this person for the next ten years? Do you trust this person’s opinion and cherish their advice and support? In short, are you committed?

If not, you’ve got trouble. If so, there’s a shot.

On Children

If either of you wants children and the other doesn’t, then you’re going to have a problem. If you’re a woman and want kids when he doesn’t, won’t, and isn’t ready, resentment will set in. If you’re a man and you want kids and she doesn’t, you’ve got a similar situation… and she will have a lot of competition from co-workers, acquaintances, and strangers. Neither position is at ALL positive for future of your relationship.

If one or both of you already has children, how does your future spouse treat their existing children or your existing children?

On Family

Not a lot of people remember that if you’re marrying someone, you’re marrying their family as well. Not only that, but the way that your prospective partner treats their existing family is a window into how they might treat you down the line. Look at your partner’s relationship with their mother, father, brothers and sisters. Do they have a good relationship? Beyond that, keeping in mind that every family is just a little crazy to begin with by definition, how crazy is your partner’s family? Is it something that you can live with?

On Filling The Gaps

One of the most attractive things relationships in general is the ability to fill the gaps: those things that people aren’t good at, but are activities where their partners excel. Did you want to me a stay at home dad, and your prospective spouse the breadwinner? Do you hate to cook while your spouse loves to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday?

These are great examples of filling the gaps. If you’re aware of your gaps, vaguely aware of your partners, and are comfortable with those differences and are willing to accept those without trying to change their personality to be like your own, then you have a darn good thing going.

The biggest reason for divorce is not cheating, money, or domestic abuse; it’s MARRIAGE. Therefore it’s reasonable to consider carefully your situation with your significant other before you take the plunge, because divorce is a cause of poverty, suffering, and heartache. Think, if just for a minute.

Remember when a few weeks ago, I called for someone to put up a website that had a list of toys proven to contain no lead?

Well, in spite of my calling of “dibs” on the idea, someone did it.  I find it sad that no one in America respects the power of dibs anymore.

The Consumer Action Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Toys, which is available to the public at http://www.healthytoys.org, shows how the commonly purchased children’s products rank in terms of containing lead, cadmium, arsenic and other harmful chemicals. It comes in time for holiday shopping — and amid the slew of recalls.

This is for your information, you parents out there, single or otherwise.

The main problem now is what, exactly, to buy my daughter for Christmas?  There’s only so many clothes that I can buy, and books, although great for three-year olds, get a little boring after a while.  I’d love some suggestions; feel free to leave some ideas in the comments.

On occasion I suffer from writer’s block, that bane of bloggers, journalists, authors, musicians and poets everywhere, and after reading an article from someone that I read regularly on the pratfalls of writing, it occurred to me that the waffling over the decision to get a divorce and the affliction known romantically as writer’s block have something in common: both can be partially explained by the emotion of fear.

This writer mentioned a few fears: failure, success, rejection, mediocrity, and risk. Think about the possibility of a divorce that looms. What are your fears with divorce?

There is the fear of success, meaning that you won’t have to deal with a painful relationship any longer, which also means that you won’t have the certainty of knowing who you’re coming home to at night.

There is the fear of failure, meaning that you broach the divorce solution with your spouse and they reject that, which could mean, if you weren’t resolute in your feelings for a divorce prior to the conversation, that you might change your mind and be stuck in terrible relationship.

There is the fear of separation of family, meaning that if you have kids, you might not be able to see your children whenever you might like.

There is the fear of rejection, meaning that after your successful divorce, other people might find you to be a poor relationship risk.

There is the fear of the unknown, meaning that you might have been together with your ex for so long that you have no idea what it’s like out in the single world again, and that you have to start your search for your true love all over again, and you might fail at that.

If those fears aren’t enough to terrify you, there are others: fear that the ex will sully your reputation, fear that you’ll lose mutual friends, or fear that your ex will leave with your money or possessions that can also come into play.

If you are truly ready to get a divorce, seriously consider your fears. Only after serious contemplation will you be able to conquer those emotions that hold you back.

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,