Wise Custody Judges And Their Views on Custody

Wise Custody Judges And Their Views on Custody

The woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”

But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”

 Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”

When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

1 Kings 3:26-28

If you are involved in a custody battle, I hope this post will shine a new light on your situation.  In a custody battle, the parties involved are for the most part – angry and bitter and their instinct is to destroy the other side, playing as dirty as possible.

My advice?  Don’t.

“BUT I AM FIGHTING FOR MY CHILDREN!!!!”

Don’t.

The very first custody battle in history was taught in Sunday School.  Found in the Old Testament, in 1st Kings 3: 16-28. There, two women came, seeking a ruling from King Solomon.  They were both prostitutes, living in the same house.  They both had babies, within 3 days of each other.  One night, one of the babies died.  The Plaintiff said in the morning, when she was nursing the baby, she noticed he was dead.  She alleges the Defendant switched her dead baby with the live baby.

The Defendant said, “No, that’s not true, the live baby is mine, and I did not switch the baby.”

King Solomon ordered that a sword be brought in, so that the baby may be cut in half.

The false mother said, “Great idea.  Neither her nor me will have the baby, that’s fine by me.”

The true mother screamed in horror and said, “No, please don’t do that, let her have the baby.”

From there, the wise King awarded custody to the true mother (we have no idea Plaintiff or Defendant, that part is unimportant).

The point is this: think about your children first.

In custody battles, everyone is trying to prove the other person is “unfit”.  What does this mean anyway?  They are trying to show the other side is an drug user, alcohol abuser, bad driver, mentally challenged, in a gang, etc etc etc.

Think About Your Children

What about your children?  Do you know their daily routine and how they feel about things?   What about protecting them from your immature behavior?

If you could only see the emails I get every day, “I want to DESTROY him”.  “I want to pay to get these kids, I don’t care what it takes.”  “She is going DOWN”.

That is not the way it works in court.  Accusations against each other will piss off the Judge.  It may be novel to you, but the seasoned Judge has heard the other side is a “cheating whore” or “deadbeat dad” at least 10,000 times before 10 am.  Impress the Judge by being gracious to your ex.

Show the Judge that you have the children’s interests first.  That their status quo will remain – that they will continue to have frequent and continuing contact with both you and their other parent when this divorce is over.

YOU, NOT YOUR CHILDREN, ARE DIVORCING YOUR SPOUSE.

Think about this.  If you do not wish to SHARE custody in their best interest, then STAY TOGETHER.  Obviously you two cannot stay together, but your children did NOT make this choice.  They did not ask to be born, and the worst thing you can do to a child is to take them away from the other parent.  (Obviously there are exceptions to this rule – if the other parent commits domestic violence, has a drug/alcohol addiction problem (not one you just made up for the divorce), etc).

I hope you will not engage in custody battles.  In closing, I wanted to share the the wisest 200 words of another Judge, Michael Haas.  Read it.  Then read it again.

No matter what you think of the other party — or what your family thinks of the other party — these children are one-half of each of you. Remember that, because every time you tell your child what an “idiot” his father is, or what a “fool” his mother is, or how bad the absent parent is, or what terrible things that person has done, you are telling the child half of him or her is bad.

That is an unforgivable thing to do to a child: that is not love, that is possession. If you do that to your children, you will destroy them as surely as if you had cut them into pieces, because that is what you are doing to their emotions.