In Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's "The Making of a Divorce Culture," the author makes an interesting statement:
"Just as no patient would have designed today's system of health care, so no child would have chosen today's culture of divorce."
Your task here: design a system of divorce that you consider fair.
For example, would you make it more difficult or easier to end a marriage? Start a marriage?
Would you build in any protections for children? The spouse who earns less? The spouse who earns more?
Blog away.
harder to marry. harder to divorce. that will cause less divorce and less marriages to be divorced. this would also prevent marriages for money and such. as for the kids, if a divorce does happen, the kids should be able to stay with who ever they want as long as it dosnt interfere with their school. as for the money and which spouse has more money, they are to keep the money they make. and the things they buy.
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In todays society it always seems that divorce is the easiest way out. I personally feel that it should be a mutual concent, and that both should think things through before spliting. If they have kids they need to think about them aswell. If the children are old enough, I think that they should be able to choose who they want to live with, but if they are young I don't think that they should be split up. The parents should take turns until they are old enough to make their own decisions. Now as far as the money goes, I also agree that one or the other should not get to take the other spouses money or posetions, they should take what is theirs....car's, income, etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm NOT an expereinced child with a divorced family, but if it was to be that way this is how I would want things to go so that everything is fare.
In todays world, you do not see much divorce in the younger generation. The reason is from the younger ones that I know or have come across are not married but are living togetther. From experience divorce can/is hard on any child. When my parents divorced they agreed that mom would have us during the week and my dad on week-ends. That worked ouy great. We did not get treated any different at either house and we has the same rules at both places. My parents got along great when divorced. They split most of the stuff. My dad had my mom keep the house, car, and bank account. I think he was just being a father and keeping his children comfortable made him feel good. They are both great parents and interacted wonderful with the children. Not a night went by when we were at either house that we did not call the other parent to say good night and love you.
ReplyDeleteI am a survivor of divorce. I was married for 32 years. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead talked about exactly what happened to me. My ex-husband was all about making himself happy. The night he left he said that he had never been happy and it was time he made himself happy. I was quite blindsided as I thought we had a very happy life. Our three children were all grown and living on their own. Even though they were young adults they too suffered emotionally. They don’t have much contact with their dad. Our family went from being referred to as the “Walton’s” by our friends to a very dysfunctional family. I have tried to hold the rest of us together but life is never the same for the family. Holidays are very hard. I tried to encourage counseling to all of my girls but they didn’t feel they needed it. I don’t agree.
ReplyDeleteI think the court should insist on a mediator for all married couples seeking a divorce. It is unreal to think it is fair to leave the marriage with what you each make because traditionally women make less money, and in more cases than not the mothers retain custody of minor children, and will have more expenses. I feel each marriage should be judged financially by a mediator, especially if the couple doesn’t have money for lawyers. There were many extenuating circumstances in my case, and I walked away with nothing.
As for the children, I think any child, whether a minor or not should be supplied with counseling by the person who wanted the divorce.
I do think it is too easy to get a divorce!
I think that i would most likely make it more difficult for people to get married to begin with. A lot of times, people jump into marriage without even being together for a long time. How can you fully understand what a person is like until you are with them for awhile. Also, I think that it would be better for people to have to wait until they are of a certain age to get married. People who are younger are often times less finacially secure then people who are older, and money is one of the biggest things that causes fights among couples.
ReplyDeleteI think there should be a probational period where before you get married you have to live with the person for a while before you can get married. I think this will weed out thoughts who just jump right into it and realize later on that they didn't want to be with that person.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the child should have a choice of who they want to time spend with. From what I have seen my friends who come from divorce parents would rather stay with one and not the other I do think they should have a choice.
Taking money is not cool at all. They should be able to support them selves with out the support of others.
there is no easy way for a divorce I think but they should seek out other options before they split up.
I would hope that it was hardier to get divorce because of the fact if you have children. I mean children can have serious affects from witnessing divorces at a young age. Yes both parents after being separated could take care of the child, but it isn't the same. I think anyone can judge or state rules when it comes to getting married. I would hope the man and the women would think long range before they think short range. It is like if you are hunting for deer or moose. You think about what you are going to do well before you actually do it. Building protections for children? I don't know how to answer that. That again is something the parents would have to deal with. There needs to be something done with regards to one spouse getting more money than the other. I mean if something belongs to the women or man then they keep their own belongings. Anything that was purchased or something like that when they were married should be given to the children. Again you cannot regulate this at a person standing on the side line point of view. That has to remain internal.
ReplyDeleteTo echo Lindsey and say, "I hope everything turns out to be fare."
I personally think that a couple shouldn't get married unless they want to be with each other forever. I agree with JJ about the harder to marry and harder to divorce. If this world was that way, then there would be more marriages and less divorces. I think that each parent should split the cost between the two. I hate seeing my friends parent's trying to get money from each other. Divorce or not, the parents should split the cost of the children.
ReplyDeleteEvryone thinks their relationship will last forever but in some cases its just a hole lot of nonsense. Some people want divorce to be simpler than it already is but id have to say it should be harder you should make sure your getting what you want in the divorce. At the same time many of the decisions should be privet and resolved by just the divorce couple like: who gets the children? the parents know the best choice for themselves and the child
ReplyDeleteI think marriage is far too easy in this country. Hell you can go to Vegas and get married right now! Divorce I'm torn on. I don't like that people use marriage and divorce as a money skeem, but sometimes the person wanting out of the relationship is very unhappy, so how can I say I want it to be harder for them?
ReplyDeleteI am a child from a divorced family. It was hell on Earth to go through, but I wouldn't have wanted them to stay together any longer. They had been together 20 years my brother was 18 and I was 13. They kept the situation calm infront of us, and let us choose who we wanted to be with but my dad was sneaky and coniving and tried to trick me into staying with him full time. My brother called him on it and then we both agreed to split our time up every-other week back and forth.
The children should be able to choose in cases like mine, but there should be a mediator or somebody the kid can talk to that is unbiased.
Money is such a cruel and unusual weapon in marriages/divorces, but they both should leave with what they had and if there is a parent who gets full custody they should recieve money for it.
I try posting last night. Twice to exact, and it wouldn't let me. So what i said was that i would make it harder to get married. I think that the couple should have to be together for so many year fist before they are able to get married. The first couple of years will be like a probation. The first couple of year will be like a test to see if they will last. I don't think that as many people would make it to marriage, or get married if they live with the person first.
ReplyDeleteNext if there are kids involved i think that the kid should be able to choose which parent they want to live with. This would prevent the kid from being put with the wrong parent. Also if the kid is able to choose, they could choose to live with both parents. But if they do happen to chose on over the other, than the other parent should have full visitation rights unless decided other wise for the safety of the children.
Tried*
ReplyDeleteOne more thing. As far as the children having the right to choose who they want to live with I think that would be hard on the kid. They would have so much guilt about who they didn't choose. That's too much to ask of a young child.
ReplyDeleteI kind of agree with Treg. I feel like if a couple wants to get married, that there should be a "law" that the couple would have had to be together for 5 years. In the case of divorce, if one spouse did not do anything unethical, then it would not be allowed to the opposing spouse to milk them for their money/belongings.
ReplyDeleteIf there are children around, I too believe that it should be in the hands of the children to decide when and with whom they would like spend time with. However, for the first year or so, there should be a mediator type person checking in once in a while to see if the child is seeing both parents even if it is just occasional with one of them.
However if one of the spouses just ups and leave on their family, I believe they should be punished by jail time (only a couple months) or a hefty fine.
I would have to say that I would make it harder to divorce. I believe that when you get married you are making a commitment to that person. To many people get married and are divorced within the next couple of years. I think that it is much harder when you have children. If the children are older they should be able to decide where to live. But if they are younger the parents should know the best choice for were the children to live, or a court can decide that.
ReplyDeleteIm not too fimiliar with divorce but I do know one thing if it involves children its even harder. My family beliefs are you are responsible for your actions. If you plan on getting married you have to understand that it takes work, effort, and love for it to work. It is up to you what you want to do just have and understanding of what your doing. Divorce may be the easy way out if you dont have children. You probably will see the person whom your divorced to for the rest of your life. Maybe if it was harder to get married or the couple wanting to get married lived with one another for a while they would realize what type of commitment there making.
ReplyDeletei would have to save make it harder to get married. if its harder to get married then there would be many more precautions taken and then you would assume that if it took someone that much work to get married that they would be able to work together and then the couple wouldnt even think about divorce.
ReplyDeleteThey say that getting divorced is the easy way out of a marriage which i do believe is true. but a lot of the time there are children involved and it seems like today throughout a divorce even with children involved, parents become selfish and can sometimes forget about how the children feel or dont take into consideration what they feel. so i do completely agree with making it harder to get married in the first place. Maybe the couples morals and values would shift alittle if they just had to work that little bit extra in order to make it happen in the first place.
One more thing , I would say make it harder to get married.
ReplyDeleteI would have it be harder to get married, because people now a days get married without even knowing the person that well. That bugs me. Also if it was harder for people to get married then they might actually get to know the person and know if they are in love. I would also make it easier for people to get divorce, because if you didnt want to be in the marraige, i shouldnt have to be a difficult to get out of a sucky relationship. If they had kids though make it harder to get divorced, its not fare to the poor kids.
ReplyDeleteI would have to say that allowing for marriage to be harder to do and allowing for marriage to be harder to divorce would create the realization of a serious marriage. Most children seem to take some kind of mental scar from divorce. Divorce can influence a lot of people not just the ones that make the decision.
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