Parenting is a challenging job. The physical, emotional, and financial demands seem endless. It feels as if we are always sacrificing what we want for the sake of our kids. Our dreams get delayed and often denied, as we usually put our kids as the highest priority in our lives.
We do this willingly, not only for the satisfaction that comes from raising children, but also from the anticipation that what we do today will echo well into the future. We are the most important influence in how our kids turn out, aren’t we? Children are the message we send to an unknown future, and it’s worth all of the work and frustration to help our children develop into moral, loving, and productive people.
Raising kids gets really tough when you have that nagging feeling that what you do may not really matter all that much. As we learn more about genetics, it appears that so much of how our kids develop is due more to chromosomes and genotype rather than our love and discipline. By the time our kids are preteens, we often feel helpless as we realize we are fighting a battle against cultural influences that we cannot … Read More... “Do I Matter As a Parent? A Child Psychologist Shares Some Good News!”
Once upon a time in Ohio the answer was “yes”. But not any longer. There is much misinformation on the internet about this subject. So, I thought that a review of the child custody laws over the years might be both helpful and interesting. There has been movement away over the years from allowing a child to choose in a divorce which parent to live with. These past “age of election” laws were seen as placing too much pressure on children.
On July 1, 2011, the Domestic Relations Court of Montgomery County, Ohio adopted a “new” and “revised” Standard Order of Parenting Time, previously known as the Standard Order of Visitation. Over the years, our elected officials in Columbus, Ohio have chosen to “rename” terms frequently used in the Domestic Relations Court. The phrase “parenting time” replaces the older word of “visitation”, and, the term “parental rights and responsibilities” replaces the older word of “custody”. It should be noted that with each change in legislation, the older or former terms have been replaced with longer names or phrases!
The concept of “paternity” refers to the process of going to court to establish a legal relationship between a father and his child. The process exists because society has created laws to make sure that children are supported by their own biological parents whenever possible. A paternity action will help determine who should be paying for that support and how much they should be paying. In Ohio, a paternity action will only apply to a mother and father who were never married because any child born during a marriage is presumed to be the husband’s legal child. Paternity actions between unmarried people are typically heard in a county’s juvenile court.
In order to terminate a marriage in the State of Ohio via a divorce proceeding, the party seeking to terminate the marriage must meet certain requirements as to residence of the parties. By law, if a party is seeking a divorce from the other party in Ohio, one of the parties must have been a resident of the State of Ohio for more than six (6) months and a resident of a particular County for more than ninety (90) days preceding the filing of the Complaint for Divorce. By contrast, if the parties in a marriage seek to terminate their marriage by a dissolution proceeding, one of the parties must have been a resident of the State of Ohio for more than six (6) months before filing their Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. By statute, Ohio Revised Code (“ORC”) Section 3105.62 reflects the following language:
Your decision to create life was born in the unrestrained optimism that having children would help make your existence worthwhile. Perhaps you came from a wonderful family and wanted to give to others the gifts of love, compassion and happiness. Maybe your own childhood was not pleasant, and you wanted children to help make up for an upbringing that was filled more with distress than delight.