Kids and Family - Experts and Resources

How Pets Handle Divorce

Posted to Relevant News by Jill Brooke on Wed, 08/11/2010 - 9:48am

Here's your pet's pet peeve. Your beloved animals suffer anxiety when you separate or divorce, just as you do. In fact, the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals in London has added divorce to the list of events that can lead to "acral lick dermatitis."

Other causes of ALD – a constant chewing, sucking, and licking of a part of the body – are dogs who are isolated or bored, punished continually, or who have nervous and stressed owners. Sean Wensley, a senior vet at the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, says, “As a result of such licking, the area can become raw and itchy, which in turn leads to further licking or chewing."

Pets mirror our emotions. If your parrot plucks his feathers feverishly, your poodle pouts with downcast eyes, your calico cat meows mournfully, vets translate these things as a form of depression because, folks, they are "furry" upset by the disruption in the house.

And why shouldn’t they be?

Yours And Mine: Couples Divorcing from Shared Finances

Posted to Relevant News by Amanda Lockhart on Fri, 11/20/2009 - 10:00am

Is there anything more laborious than all of the logistical BS you have to take care of when you get divorced? It’s not bad enough that your marriage ended and you have a bazillion unanswered questions about your future swirling in your head. Now you have to actually concentrate and get your finances figured out, separate your accounts, set up your own legal and financial identity — the list goes on.

Well, according to an interesting piece in U.S. News and World Report, fewer people are having to navigate that whole logistical minefield. The number of married couples who have at least two checking accounts is on the rise. The idea of his and her checking accounts is a growing trend especially among divorced people as they go into second marriages. And it makes sense in a lot of instances.

Can Stepmother Sandra Bullock Be a Better Parent Than Biological Porn Star Mom?

Posted to Relevant News by Jill Brooke on Fri, 11/06/2009 - 9:56pm

Rarely when fathers seek full custody of a child are the facts so stacked against the mother as in the case between "Monster Garage" star Jesse James and his ex-wife, porn star Janine Lindemulder. The couple are battling in court for custody of 5-year-old daughter Sunny. Not only is Lindemulder a porn star, which is a career that one can argue has negative moral and lifestyle implications on a child's upbringing, but she is married to a felon and has an alleged drug problem. James on the other hand is married to Sandra Bullock, who has been called "America's sweetheart."

I guess it won't surprise you that few fathers get full custody. The ones who even attempt it usually have an arsenal of evidence. According to the Association of Matrimonial Lawyers, the majority of cases are now joint custody.

Bullock and James have had sole custody of 5-year-old Sunny for the past six months since Lindemulder was in jail -- yes, jail -- for tax evasion.

Stepfathers Who Inspire – and Some Who Don’t

Posted to Relevant News by Jill Brooke on Sun, 10/11/2009 - 8:36am

Christie Brinkley’s children have the unique distinction of having both the worst and best stepfather in America.

Peter Cook got gonged as a bad stepfather for using his stepson Jack’s computer to look at porn and according to Alexa, he also was nasty to her. But Billy Joel gets an honorary mention as one of the best, because after he and the supermodel divorced and split custody of their daughter Alexa, Christie Brinkley remarried and had two children, Jack and Sailor. But Joel became a loving paternal figure for Alexa’s siblings. In fact, Jack and Sailor call him Uncle Billy. Which is why even though technically he isn’t a stepfather who lived with them, he has shown how elastic the heart can be in extended families and gets our honorary mention.

This list was inspired by the movie “The Stepfather” which is coming out next week. In it, the stepfather is far from a loving helpful figure. Instead, this stepfather is every child’s nightmare.

Madonna and Guy Ritchie Make Nice for Daughter

Posted to Relevant News by Jill Brooke on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 12:17pm

You gotta love your kids more than you hate your ex... or even dislike your ex. Which is why Madonna is showing that she is a real Madonna — a.k.a. motherlike figure — in listening to daughter Lourdes's request to be nice to her stepfather, Guy Ritchie.

I guess in Madonna's world, Papa Shouldn't Preach, but her daughter can.

In an interview with the New York Daily News, a friend of Madonna's told the paper that the couple, who recently divorced after eight years together, are "working very hard to have an amicable divorce because Lourdes came to them begging, ‘Please don't be mean to each other.' Then she told them she wanted everything to be as friendly as possible."

California Girl Sold Into Marriage

Cash, beer, meat part of deal

Posted to Relevant News by Maureen Dempsey on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 12:16pm

AOL News reports that a 36-year-old father has been taken into custody after plans to trade his 14-year-old daughter for marriage went awry. Greenfield, California, resident Marcelino de Jesus Martinez reported his daughter as a runaway; all the while she was residing with the man to whom Martinez sold his daughter for $16,000, 100 cases of beer, and several cases of meat.

Now, before we get all judgmental, we need to know the facts: Martinez and the soon-to-be-groom, 18-year-old Margarito de Jesus Galindo, are members of the indigenous Mexican Trique community.

The members of the once-tribe have remained close, even retaining their Trique language. (Many are employed by California's produce harvesting industry.) Arranged marriages of this sort are common within the community, with girls as young as 12. (Although money is rarely exchanged and looked down upon with the Trique community, says AOL.)

Divorcing Man Wants Kidney Back, Ex-Wife Resorts to "Spy Bear"

Pain of divorce often leads to rash actions

Posted to Relevant News by Jill Brooke on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 11:57am

Because pain makes you self-centered, we have divorce stories where a man wants his kidney back from his soon-to-be ex-wife and an ex-wife spikes her daughter’s teddy bear with a listening device to spy on her ex-husband.

Yes, folks, this is the reality of what happens in divorce — but not often to this extreme. While the media is delighting in these tantalizing morally depraved morsels of family splits and fits, and many divorced parents can privately say, “Well, I wasn’t that bad,” — these stories do serve the purpose of being a cautionary tale.

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