Blogs from 2017

You know that divorce is expensive: you've seen it on TV and magazines, heard about it from family and friends who have gone through the process. Somehow, although you know it to be true, the full reality of your expenses in divorce doesn't hit you until you're in the middle of it, looking at your deflated bank balance and wondering how much more is to come.

Some divorce expenses are avoidable; others are not. You may be surprised at simple actions that you can take to reduce the cost of your divorce, including things like attorney fees that you might not have imagined you have control over. Even when it's not possible to reduce your costs, being prepared for them can reduce your stress and give you the opportunity to budget so that you don't feel quite so much of a financial squeeze.

Divorce Expenses You Might Not Expect

Of course, you expect to pay attorney fees—more about those later. But there are other legal costs associated with divorce as well. If you are the one to file for divorce, you'll be paying a filing fee of $165 dollars if you're not represented by counsel, and $185 if you are. If you need to use a professional process server to serve your spouse with divorce papers, that might cost anywhere between $50 and $200 (or more if service is very complicated) but you can usually expect to pay around $50-$75. You cannot serve your spouse with divorce papers yourself, but there are lower-cost ways to achieve service, such as certified mail, or having your spouse simply agree to accept the papers and officially acknowledge that he or she received them.

In addition, if you need to file a motion during the divorce to ask the judge in your case to take an action, there is sometimes a $31 motion filing fee.

Some legal expenses seem costly, but can save you money down the road. One example is mediation. If you and your spouse decide to mediate your divorce using a private mediator, you will have to pay a fee, typically hourly, for their services. Most divorce mediators are also family law attorneys, and their mediation fees are comparable to legal fees. Especially if you are also using a lawyer to help you prepare for mediation, bills can mount quickly.

However, if you and your spouse are successful in mediating a settlement for your divorce, that means you can avoid the significant expense of discovery, motions, trial preparation, and trial itself. Legal fees to take a divorce to trial are often in the tens of thousands of dollars. Avoiding that expense by sharing the costs of a successful mediation can result in a good return on investment! This is not to mention the non-financial benefits of having your divorce resolved sooner, on your own terms, and likely, more amicably.

Another often-unexpected divorce expense is the cost of experts to provide valuations for marital assets. You may not need the services of an expert to value assets like a home, car, or bank accounts, but for complex assets like a family business or professional practice, the use of an expert is highly recommended. Experts, especially those with strong credentials, can be costly, but they are usually worth it.

If your spouse has a professional practice that is subject to division in a divorce, and they claim it is worth $500,000, you can simply choose to accept their valuation and your share of a property settlement based on that amount. But if you retain a valuation expert who determines the business is worth twice what your spouse claims, the increased amount of your settlement will more than make up for the cost of the expert's fee.

Divorce may also lead to surprise expenses that are not directly connected to your legal matter. You may have increased living expenses, whether or not you move out of the marital home, simply because you are no longer sharing those costs with another adult. You may have increased child care expenses because your spouse is no longer in the home to care for the kids if you must work late or travel. When planning your budget, don't forget to take these increased costs into account.

A Surprising Resource for Keeping Costs Down: Your Lawyer

Yes, lawyers are one of the biggest expenses in a divorce, but your attorney can also help you keep your bills down. In your initial consultation with your attorney, ask her: "What can I do to help manage my legal costs?" Most attorneys are pleased to hear this question. They must charge for their services, but they don't want to charge their clients unnecessarily, and most attorneys welcome the opportunity to partner with clients to work in a cost-effective way.

Your attorney might suggest, for instance, e-mailing her instead of calling. A fifteen minute phone call may cost you a hundred dollars, or thousands of dollars over the course of your divorce. Your attorney may charge much less for dashing off a quick e-mail response, and as a bonus, you will have written documentation of her advice. Your attorney may also advise you about what financial documents you should gather early on, potentially saving thousands on attorney fees in later discovery and motions to compel your spouse to produce those very documents.

Your attorney may also give you some "tough love" if you are letting your emotions drive up the cost of your divorce. Sometimes, you need to be gently reminded that the cost of fighting over some material things is often greater than the value of the things themselves.

Divorce is a legal matter, but also a financial and emotional matter. It is important that you have a good relationship with your attorney and see your attorney as a legal resource. Your attorney should help you understand the law and as a practical matter, your lawyer should also help you manage cost and plan for unexpected expenses.

We often bemoan the fact that our kids won't lift their heads from their screens long enough to have a conversation with us, but when your kids are across town or across the country, their connection to their devices can work in your favor.

When you are sharing custody of your children with their other parent, it's hard to not be part of their day-to-day lives. This is true whether your children are apart from you for the weekend or the summer. The ability to touch base as needed and without great fanfare makes time together seem more like "real life" and less like "visitation," a word that's fallen from favor in family law because of the implication that a parent is a mere "visitor" in their child's life.

How can you use technology to maintain a feeling of connection with your kids without treading on their time with their other parent? By using their preferred methods of communication, and by setting some ground rules with your co-parent if possible.

Making the Most of Technology to Connect with Your Kids

For younger kids, being able to Skype or FaceTime with you while they're with their other parent can be a great comfort; at the same time, it can reassure you that they're doing okay while you're apart. Depending on their ages, their use of technology will be assisted by their other parent. You can and should work out ground rules with each other for when and how you'll each use tech to help the kids stay in touch.

Using tech with older kids provides much broader opportunities to connect with them on their level, in a way that ideally feels helpful to them, but not intrusive or overbearing. A study at Brigham Young University found that teens who interact with their parents on social media platforms tend to feel closer to them in real life.

Another recent study found that four top social media sites for teens are Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Of the four, parents tend to be most familiar, and comfortable, with Facebook. But if the goal is to stay connected with your kids, it's worth making the effort to meet them where they are, literally, metaphorically and digitally.

Apps That Can Help Parents and Teens Connect

Each passing day brings the development of more apps, social media platforms, and games that can help you and your kids stay connected.

WhatsApp boasts "fast, simple, secure messaging and calling for free*, available on phones all over the world." The asterisk after the word "free" refers to the fact that data charges may apply, which is one drawback to this messaging system that offers many benefits: free voice and face-to-face calling, unlimited text messaging, the ability to transmit documents, and the ability to see if your message has been delivered and/or read. WhatsApp is available on your browser as well as your phone, for maximum convenience.

A picture—or a GIF—is worth a thousand words, and many teens choose Tumblr over Facebook for blogging and sharing visual content. Tumblr lets users create blog posts using a variety of formats, but is most popular for videos, photos, and animated GIFs. Tumblr is also available on iOS devices and Android phones as well as browsers.

Kik, an alternative to regular text messaging, has been popular for some time. Advantages include that it's free, and mimics the appearance of SMS messaging on a smartphone. You can also send GIFs, emoticons, photos, videos, even drawings. Kik users communicate with each other under user names, not phone numbers or real names, and conversations are private and not available for public viewing. While this privacy can be an advantage, it can also make it harder for parents to monitor Kik than other social media apps.

You and your teen can also sign up for WeChat from your phones. WeChat allows you to share "Moments" (the equivalent of a Facebook status update) and play games with your contacts. You can also send brief audio clips, share your location, and of course, use emojis. A unique feature: you can shake your phone to discover and chat with others who are "shaking" at the same time.

If you want to expand your emoji game beyond smiles and hearts, try an emoji translator like Super Emoji Translator. Your creative emoji use may impress your kids—and at the least, you can avoid embarrassing yourself by sending an emoji that means something you didn't realize.

If your kids are on YouTube, find out what channels they follow. It's a good way to learn about (and keep tabs on) their interests, and possibly discover some that you have in common.

Technology can take some of the sting out of your kids having to spend time apart from you. Soon enough, they'll be in your home again—where you may have to text them in their rooms to remind them it's time for dinner!

There's no doubt that technology can play a negative role in marriage and divorce, from the availability of internet porn and websites for married individuals looking to stray to social media like Facebook and Twitter, where individuals can connect with old flames or badmouth an ex for all the world to see.

For good or ill, however, we live in a world in which technology is increasingly important in every sphere. And while technology has certainly made some things more difficult, it also has the capacity to help people work together and stay more connected—and this is true even in the realm of divorce and co-parenting.

In divorce and co-parenting, you may need to have regular communication with someone you'd prefer not to (your ex) while having less time to connect with those you do want to see (your kids). Using technology to co-parent can offer both a buffer for necessary interactions with your ex and a way to see and communicate with your kids when they can't be with you.

Working Together More Easily With Your Co-Parent

After a divorce, or the end of a romantic relationship, what had been your most intimate relationship must now become a highly effective business relationship: co-parenting. Old ways of communicating with your ex may be ineffective, inappropriate, or just plain painful.

Yet good communication is essential to the success of your new joint venture: raising happy, healthy kids together while living apart. Technology to the rescue! There are a number of websites and apps, both established and emerging, that can help you and your ex share information without having to actually talk to or see each other when you don't want to.

You will need to communicate about a variety of issues, not the least of which is what's going on in the kids' lives: who lost a tooth, who had a fight with a best friend, who got the highest grade in the class on an exam. You will also need to communicate about finances, such as when a camp deposit or orthodontist payment is due. Of course, communicating about scheduling issues is critical; many divorced parents have a tale about a child who was stranded after a sports practice because both parents thought it was the other parent's turn to pick up the child.

Even when parents do their best, whether living together or apart, messages often get missed. When raising one child from two homes, miscommunication may be attributed to malice, leading to increasing mistrust and poor co-parenting. How can technology help?

E-mail and texting have been around for a while, of course, but they have their limitations. There's the temptation to become angry and say things you'll regret in an e-mail - keyboard courage. Sometimes the information you exchange gets lost or forgotten altogether in a tangle of e-mail threads. Texts may not go through or may get deleted. (It's wise to take steps to save texts in case you need to produce them in a later dispute with your co-parent) Instead, consider using one of the many apps now available to communicate effectively with your children's other parent.

Apps for Effective Co-Parenting

Our Family Wizard has been around for a while, and has frequently been recommended, and sometimes required, for use by courts. This website and app allows you to communicate online with your ex, share important events, and create an easy-to-use picture of your parenting time schedule. When you add information to the site, it can't be tampered with, meaning that if a dispute arises over, say, whether you shared information about your child's recital, the website can offer proof of what was shared, and when. There is a fee for use of Our Family Wizard, but most parents consider the cost well worth it. For parents who are unable to afford the annual subscription fee, there is a fee waiver available.

If scheduling issues with your co-parent are your primary concern, Moiety is a free scheduling app that bills itself as "awesome for everyone, essential for co-parents." The website also offers helpful articles and tips on co-parenting as well as the ability to create recurring events on shared calendars. For security, Moiety features a biometric login.

2Houses boasts that it is used by over 112,000 families in over 142 countries. Offering such features as a color-coded calendar, shared photo albums, and shopping lists, the app is easy to use via web platform, iPhone, and Android. 2 Houses is designed for scheduling, storing documents,management of finances, and exchange of information on school, activities, and medical care. It also features a community that allows users to journal and comment on each other's posts.

Cozi, like many of the other apps available, is useful for families that are living apart or together. This free app offers a family calendar, to-do lists, and shopping lists. It also lets you see your agenda for the day at a glance. In addition, families can use Cozi's journal feature to capture special family photos and moments, and share them with co-parents, grandparents, and others.

Cofamilies bills itself as an "online divorce solution that puts co-parenting first." The app, which allows parents to arrange schedules, exchange funds, and make decisions together more easily, also keeps a record of all communications in case they need to be presented in court to resolve a legal dispute.

Because of the convenience and popularity of co-parenting websites and apps, it's likely that more will continue to pop up. You tend to get more features with the apps you pay for, but most offer a free trial period so you can see how you like them before committing. With any app, what is most important is how it works for your family.

Next to child custody, child support is one of the issues parents worry about most in a divorce. The Maryland Child Support Guidelines calculate child support on an "income shares" model, which focuses on the relative incomes of the child's parents rather than the specific expenses of the child. Income, of course, can consist of more than what's listed on your paystubs. To calculate income for child support purposes, what types of income do the Maryland Child Support Guidelines take into account?

Understanding "Actual Monthly Income" and Maryland Child Support

The first thing a court needs in order to compute child support is to understand the family's custody arrangement. As a general rule, the parent who has primary physical custody of the child will receive child support from the other parent, though things may shake out differently if the custodial parent has a significantly higher income, or if the parents share physical custody, meaning each has the child for more than 127 overnights per year.

After ascertaining the custody arrangement, the court needs to consider the actual monthly income of each parent. Actual monthly income includes certain types of income and excludes others. Included for purposes of calculating child support are:

• Salary or wages
• Bonuses
• Commission
• Tips
• Rental income
• Business income
• Dividends
• Interest income
• Income from investments
• Distributions from trusts
• Distributions from annuities
• Income from self-employment
• Workers' compensation benefits
• Unemployment benefits
• Severance pay
• Disability benefits
• Spousal support (alimony)
• Social Security benefits
• Gifts, prizes, and lottery winnings
• Capital gains

While this list is extensive, it is not exhaustive. Means-tested government benefits such as Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF), Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), food stamps (SNAP), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are not included in actual monthly income.

After the court identifies actual monthly income, some amounts are deducted in order to arrive at each parent's adjusted actual income. If either parent pays alimony or pre-existing child support, those figures are subtracted from actual monthly income. Note that the parent must actually pay those amounts, not just be ordered to pay them.

Parents' adjusted actual incomes are then plugged into the Maryland Child Support Guidelines to determine the basic child support obligation; other factors, such as costs of health insurance, extraordinary medical expenses and work-related childcare are also taken into account in reaching the total child support obligation for the family.

Note that use of the child support guidelines is mandatory for calculating child support in Maryland, but only for families whose combined household income was less than $180,000 per year. Beginning July 1, 2022, the Maryland child support guidelines are updating the threshold for combined family income from $180,000 to $360,000. If the combined household income exceeded $15,000 per month, the court had the discretion to take other factors, such as child-related expenses, into account in calculating child support. After July 1, those numbers will double to $30,000 per month (or $360,000 per year). This should provide more prompt and predictable results for families earning between $180,000 and $360,000 per year. For families over the new threshold, the Court will have discretion in determining the level of child support.

What if One Parent Intentionally Reduces Their Income?

Unfortunately, some parents are more interested in dodging their child support obligations than in actually supporting their children. This may lead to a parent choosing to be unemployed or underemployed, or to working "under the table" and failing to report all of their earnings. Is there any recourse for the custodial parent, who might otherwise be penalized in child support calculations?

Fortunately, yes. There is a mechanism called "imputation of income." In essence, the court treats the underemployed parent as having a certain level of income, whether or not they do in fact. In order to impute income to a parent for child support purposes, the court must find that they are "voluntarily impoverished," and that they could work but simply choose not to.

Courts do not impute income to a parent simply because the other parent thinks they are not looking for a job or working as hard as they could. The court must be persuaded that the unemployed or underemployed parent's financial position is truly voluntary. Voluntary impoverishment may include refusing to look for a job, voluntarily quitting a job one already has, or working in a job that pays significantly less than one could reasonably be earning. Deliberately concealing financial assets or self-employment income can also lead to a finding of voluntary impoverishment.

Take Action if You Have Child Support Concerns

You may have suspicions or even knowledge about your soon-to-be ex's income, but you need to be able to prove it to the court. This is where the assistance of an experienced Maryland child support attorney is an important investment. The child support award the court makes is only as good as the information the court receives in order to perform a child support calculation; a knowledgeable attorney can make sure the court is not overestimating your income, or underestimating the other parent's.

The result of hiring the right attorney for your child support may be that you will pay less, or receive more, in child support every month for many years—something that can add up over time. Not only does an attorney's help improve your likelihood of success in a child support matter, but Maryland courts will also allow you to seek attorney's fees in pursuing your child support claim.

If you need to establish, enforce, or modify child support, especially if you suspect your child's other parent has not provided accurate income information, we invite you to contact our law office to schedule a confidential office consultation. We look forward to working with you to ensure that your child's needs are adequately provided for and that your rights are protected.

Divorce is never easy, and it's particularly challenging for parents of young children.

In addition to worrying about the legal issues of child custody, parenting time, and child support, there is the very personal consideration of how the children will handle the divorce emotionally.

Unfortunately, as much as you want to spare your children, you can't make your divorce completely free of pain and stress for them. Fortunately, though, the way you choose to communicate with them before, during and after the divorce can help them navigate this challenging time and even come through on the other side with great resilience and a good relationship with both parents.

Here are seven tried-and-true tips for talking to kids about divorce.

1. Plan Carefully to Break the News

By the time you tell your children about your upcoming divorce, you will probably have made your peace with the idea. The news will likely rock their world, however, even if it's not a complete surprise. If possible, break the news together with your spouse so you can both reassure the kids of your love for them and answer their questions together.

This should go without saying, but choose a quiet, private venue—home is best—and leave plenty of time for questions. A weekend morning or early afternoon is best, so that children won't have to go to school or tobed with the news swirling around their heads. They will need unscheduled time to process the information and ask questions.

2. Listen More Than You Talk

Of course, you're the one with news to break, but your mission is to establish a channel of communication with your kids about this very important issue. To do that, you're going to need to know what they're thinking and feeling. And while you're talking, you can't be listening. When talking to kids about divorce, it's important to let them know that you want to hear their questions and what they're feeling, even if they're angry at you.

3. Keep it Simple

You may be tempted to give your kids a lot of information, but resist the temptation. This is big news, and it will take time to absorb, so stick to the basics: you are filing (or have filed) for divorce, you both love them very much, and you will both still be there for them all the time, even if not in the same home. Don't overwhelm your kids with explanations they didn't ask for and may not understand. Again, be open to questions; they will tell you what they need to know.

Especially with young kids, don't go into lengthy detail about what a parenting schedule is going to be. Give them information closer to the time they'll need it.

4. Stand in Their Shoes

Divorce may truly be the best thing for your family at this point. However, you should expect your children not to feel this way. You may feel that you have little control over whether you divorce, but remember that your children will have no control at all, and that the foundation of their security has been utterly shaken. So even if your marriage was very unhappy, your children may prefer that you remain in it.

Your children's primary focus, whether they are preschoolers or teens, will be on how this divorce will affect them. This is actually developmentally appropriate. They're not being selfish; they are trying to figure out what their world will look like, and practical things like "Who will take me to soccer practice?" are of paramount importance to them. Don't dismiss or minimize their concerns.

5. Language Matters

The same ideas can be framed in very different ways depending on the language used. You want your children to understand that they will still have their family, even if the configuration is somewhat different. Use language that supports this concept. For instance, instead of saying, "You'll be visiting Dad from Thursday to Sunday, then you'll come home," you might say, "You'll be at home with Dad from Thursday to Sunday, and then you'll be at home with me."

It should go without saying that you should never talk negatively to your children about their other parent, no matter how awful the other parent has been to you. Your children want, and need, to love you both. If one parent talks badly about the other, the children will feel like they are betraying one parent by loving the other, which creates great stress and anxiety. This is one of the worst things you can do to your child.

6. Maintain a Routine

Especially for younger children, having similar routines at both homes can be comforting. You may want to have duplicates of favorite books, toys, and comfort items, so there is always one wherever the children are. Some families even have the family pet travel back and forth with the children; this can be enormously comforting.

When talking to your children about moving back and forth between homes, reminding them that they will have the same bedtime routine at their other home, and verbally walking through it with them, will be comforting for them.

7. Reassure and Repeat

If your children are young, they may (like many children) get it into their heads that something they did caused the divorce, and that if they do the right thing, they can fix the problem. Reassure them, as often as needed, that this was a grownup decision, that it was not their fault, and that the divorce does not change your love for them. And while you shouldn't badger them to tell you their feelings, you should periodically reiterate that you are open to talking about the divorce whenever they need to.

If you have children and are divorcing, we invite you to contact the Law Office of Shelly M. Ingram, LLC. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your children's needs with you and help you plan for communicating about your divorce with your children.

Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat can not only contribute to the demise of a marriage, they can cause endless trouble in a divorce. If you're going to be social online, you need to be smart in real life.

Social media is a double-edged sword. These platforms can provide a wealth of social connection and support, which are invaluable if you're stressed out, lonely, or isolated. Unfortunately, if you're already feeling like something is missing in your life, social media can also make you vulnerable to further discontent. Everyone else's (carefully-curated) life looks better on Facebook, increasing your dissatisfaction.

If you have a spouse who seems to always be at work, out with friends, or focused on the kids, it can be thrilling to have an innocent online flirtation with that ex from high school. Eventually, of course, your spouse may find out, leading to a huge argument. There's also the possibility that your "innocent" flirtation might escalate into a full-blown affair. Even if you're not doing anything wrong at all, too-frequent use of social media diverts your attention from your family. That may make your spouse suspicious of your online activity, leading to more conflict in your marriage.

How do media like Facebook and Twitter affect divorce? Some studies estimate that social media are a factor in one out of five divorces; other sources put that figure at closer to one in three. Either way, it's important to recognize the risk social media poses both to your marriage, and to the outcome of your divorce if your marriage can't be saved.

Keep Facebook From Destroying Your Marriage

Social media in a marriage is like ivy on a building. It may appear harmless, but if there are cracks in the structure, it's easier for the intruder to gain a foothold and cause destruction. Step one in protecting your marriage is recognizing if there are any weaknesses in the structure.

If you feel like your spouse isn't giving you enough attention, for example, the answer isn't to express your frustration in 140 characters on Twitter; it's to talk to your spouse. Turning to social media creates two problems: you're not addressing the problem with the person who can help solve it, and you're airing marital trouble to people who have no business knowing about it. Your spouse may (rightly) see that as a betrayal.

When you're tempted to vent on Facebook or Twitter, ask yourself how you'd feel if your spouse posted —the same words about you. If you'd be hurt or angry, so will they—so step away from the keyboard.

This caution goes double for online friendships which could evolve into an emotional or physical affair. Before hitting "send" on a message, ask yourself if you'd be fine with your spouse reading it. If the honest answer is "no," recognize that you're crossing a line.

Asking how your spouse would feel when reading your posts, comments, tweets and messages isn't merely an exercise, by the way. A poll by a British law firm indicated that 58% of people said they knew their spouses' online passwords—even if the spouse didn't know they knew.

A Guide to Social Media Use During Divorce

Recognize the specific ways in which social media use can harm you. If your post on social media reveals a new, expensive purchase, especially if you've been crying poor to your spouse, it could come back to haunt you when child support, spousal maintenance, or property division are determined. If you're tagged in a picture at a party with a love interest, or engaged in questionable behavior, that may be used as evidence against you in a custody battle.

If you post on Facebook, Twitter, on InstaGram about your animosity toward your spouse, that could be used to portray you as someone who is unable to cooperate in co-parenting. And if anything you post on social media contradicts what you've told a spouse or judge, you could be portrayed as untruthful, with doubt cast on your general credibility.

If you're thinking right now that you're experienced in the use of social media and that your privacy settings will protect you, don't be too sure. There are plenty of ways those walls can be breached. As noted above, a spouse may know (or guess) your password. A friend may tag you in a photo without your knowledge. A mutual friend you forgot to block may feed screenshots to your spouse. Someone acting on your spouse's behalf might send you a friend request that you accept, giving them access to information they can then share with your spouse.

One survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reported that two-thirds of attorneys had gathered information on a client's spouse via Facebook. Therefore, if you must use social media like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Instagram, don't post any content you don't want to reach your spouse's attorney, lest it end up in front of your judge.

Because you should assume your spouse's attorney will know how to gather evidence from social media, you should also have a divorce attorney who's just as skilled to safeguard your own interests. Feel free to contact us for more on how to protect yourself.

With all its risks, however, social media still has benefits for those going through a divorce, like the ability to receive support from far-flung family and friends. It's also an opportunity to lead by example. Refrain from posting bitter thoughts or negative observations about an ex. Instead, accentuate the positive (like what a great time your child had with your ex last weekend) and model respect. Not only will this promote a cordial relationship with your ex, but it will send a signal to your loved ones that they, too, should behave respectfully toward your child's other parent. In the end, your child is the one who will benefit most.

In Maryland, the law doesn't presume that joint custody or sole custody is in the best interests of the children. This differs from many states, which start from a position that presumes joint custody is desirable, and requires parties to demonstrate that it is not.

The fact that Maryland doesn't have a legal presumption in favor of joint custody doesn't mean that it's harder to get. In fact, many divorcing or separating parents do end up with joint custody. There are many advantages to joint custody, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily the right thing for your family. Let's take a look at some of the reasons you may want to consider joint custody, and some reasons you might conclude it's not best for your kids.

Advantages of Joint Custody in Maryland

When we speak of "joint custody," we're actually talking about two different things: physical and legal custody. Physical custody is what most people think of as custody: where the child physically resides. Legal custody refers to who gets to make important decisions for the child, such as educational, religious, and medical decisions.

Joint physical custody has one obvious advantage for children: it lets kids spend a substantial amount of time with both parents. This means that rather than the children feeling like they are "visiting" one parent, they get to be at home with both parents. And while parents miss their kids while they're with the other parent, joint physical custody also gives parents some needed time to themselves.

While joint physical custody does not mean that the kids will spend exactly equal amounts of time with each parent, it can reduce the unintended effect of one parent having to serve as the disciplinarian, while the parent who sees the kids only for limited periods gets to be the "fun" parent. No one wants to deal with a co-parent who hands back an undisciplined, unwashed, sugared-up child at the end of a day of "visitation." With joint physical custody, both parents have to live with the results of their parenting.

As for joint legal custody, a major advantage is that "two heads are better than one." It can be easier for parents, and better for children, when the adults have someone to confer with regarding the major decisions. Two legal custodians can mean the advantage of two different perspectives.

When Joint Custody is Not Appropriate

There's no doubt that joint custody can be good for kids, IF parents are able to do one thing: keep the best interests of the children as their guiding principle. It's good for children to have two loving, dedicated parents deeply involved in their lives. It's very bad for children to be whipsawed back and forth between two different homes where the rules and expectations are different. Children in such situations may barely have time to adjust to the "law of the land" at one home before being whisked back to the other. This can lead to insecurity, anxiety, depression, and acting out.

The more stability and consistency parents can provide between homes, and the more cordially they are able to work together to make decisions for the children, the better off the children are likely to be. That means that in order for joint custody to work, both parents must be focused on the children's needs, not on punishing or spying on each other. It also means that while it's okay for parents to have different styles, they must be able to communicate well enough to help the children navigate those differences.

Of course if deeper problems exist, like a history of physical or verbal abuse by one parent, or one parent having a history of behavior that endangers the child, such as driving under the influence or passing out from drinking while a child is in their care, joint custody is not appropriate. When joint custody is not appropriate, an attorney can help you present evidence that will help a judge decide against joint custody in order to keep your children safe.

If you'd like joint custody, but are unsure if you can actually make joint custody work with your children's other parent, it may be better to try negotiation as opposed to litigation. With the support of attorneys committed to helping you resolve your differences, such as in collaborative law or mediation, you may be able to craft a creative parenting plan that will allow you to overcome barriers and work together as successful co-parents.

If you have children and are divorcing, or if you are in the midst of an ongoing custody dispute, contact the Law Office of Shelly M. Ingram, LLC. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your children's needs with you and help you decide if joint custody is right for your family.