1. Fathers are obligated to be present for their children at every stage of development.

Talk about assumptions! How many times do we hear about young men who get girls pregnant to prove their masculinity? How many times do we believe it?

How many times do we hear that teen dads don’t want to take on the chores of parenting? The diapers, the formula, the midnight colic? What do we do to help them learn these skills?

In states around the country, child support agencies are beginning to challenge these assumptions and offer programs that give young dads the resources young mothers get. To the Contrary! The problem is, we don’t hear about them enough. They don’t get the same kind of press that the struggling single mother programs get. You don’t hear about the young father pushing the stroller from the bus stop to the grocery store to the day care center. Why? Maybe we’d rather not recognize him. More and more often, young fathers, especially those who didn’t have the benefit of a healthy relationship with their own fathers, are telling us they want our help. They want to be involved and engaged with their children. Maybe it’s time we gave them as much help as we give the girls.

1. Fathers have the right to be assured of their parentage when their children are born, without respect to their legal relationship with the mother of their children.

Maternity is pretty easy to figure out. Always has been. While developments in reproductive technology have blurred the distinction to the public, even a host womb knows whose kid she carries. But paternity isn’t so easy. The law in most states presumes (there’s that pesky word again!) that a child born during a marriage is the child of the marriage. But we all know that isn’t always true. Consider the following hypotheticals:

* A married couple divorces and during the divorce, mom files for a paternity test, claiming dad isn’t really dad. Is it a ploy to keep dad out of the kid’s life or is it the truth?

* A teen girl tells her boyfriend she’s pregnant and he’s the daddy. His parents hit the roof and tell him to do the right thing. Go down there and sign that affidavit acknowledging himself to be the baby’s father. Ten years, no college and thousands of dollars of child support later, he learns from a family friend that he might not be the father after all.

* After years of marriage, a couple splits and during the divorce, the father learns that one of “his” kids isn’t really his. Mom refuses to participate in DNA testing or identify the biological father and the court decides he has to support the child until he is 18.

* Romeo and Juliet engage in a torrid extramarital affair. They are married, but not to each other. Romeo finds out Juliet is pregnant. She tells him it’s his child. He leaves his wife, loses his home, loses his kids, only to have Juliet tell him she’s not so sure anymore and she wants to make her marriage work. The courts refuse to allow a DNA test because Romeo is not Juliet’s husband and he wasn’t when the child was conceived.

Recognition of paternity fraud is on the rise. Across the nation, people are talking about the problem: Armin Brott, Parenting Coach, on Paternity Fraud. And the solution — DNA testing of all children at birth, upon request — is coming from unlikely sources. Geraldine Jensen, of the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support, recommended it several years ago: Paternity Fraud a Growing Issue.

And how about the kids? What difference does it make to them? We might all wish that a father who learns he isn’t a father would love the kid enough to say, “You know what, I raised this kid and I cared for him, and, while I don’t think I should be obligated to financially support him, he’s still “my” kid.” A lot of them do. But there are others who can’t jump the hurdle of looking at the child and knowing they were lied to, cheated on, or otherwise treated unfairly. How fair is it to the child to run the risk of losing a father’s love and respect because Mom lied? It’s a lot more complicated to try to deal with the problem when the child is older. Then, there are other important issues that kids need and have the right to know about, such as genetic issues, health problems, a whole host of information that is a lot harder to track down and deal with when the child is older.

States could make DNA testing mandatory at birth for every child, born in — or out — of wedlock. DNA testing is a non-invasive, simple test that could be performed at birth. Parental obligation to support a child turns on parentage. The state has an interest in ensuring accurate parental identification. If a husband is not the father of a child, not only are his rights and the child’s rights protected, identifying the biological father is far easier than trying to find out who it was five, ten or more years in the future.

The right to marry is a fundamental human right protected by the United States Constitution and the constitutions of most states. With divorce rates at between 50% and 60%, and the human misery I routinely see as part of my daily work, it’s very easy to be seduced by the idea that if we could just force people to use some common sense we could reduce some of the misery.

On the one hand, I wish it was possible to require folks to go to premarital counseling before they married. Or pass a test before they could procreate. But not only does that kind of government intervention run afoul of the Constitution, it isn’t realistic. Human behavior can’t be legislated in, or out, of existence.

There is no foolproof way to keep a second, third or subsequent marriage from failing. But there are real, common-sense ways to increase your odds for success.

If you need help with a premarital agreement, and you live in Maryland, let me know. I’d far rather get to know you that way, than through representing you in divorce litigation.

Remember the Three P’s:

• Patience – Take plenty of time to get to know your partner before you seal the deal.
• Prenuptial Agreement – Get one, preferably one that covers more than just money and property.
• Premarital Counseling – Spend a little money now and increase your chances of avoiding the big money and the bigger heartache later!

The final in this series of three posts about how to prepare to succeed in marriage focuses on premarital counseling. I’m not talking here about a few sessions with your priest, pastor or rabbi, I’m talking about an intensive course of counseling that lasts at least six months, but can continue up to a year before you marry or move in with your partner. You should find a qualified marriage counselor to help you with this unique course of counseling.

Premarital counseling has two primary purposes: First, to help you both develop skills you will need to succeed in marriage (such as communications skills building based on your unique communication styles and conflict resolution skill building to teach you how to use conflict to resolve problems and bring you closer); second, premarital counseling uses psychological testing and other tools to help you both identify areas of difference that might become a problem for you later on. Washington Post on Premarital Counseling

In addition, this aspect of premarital counseling can help you identify more serious issues ranging from drug and alcohol problems you might not know about to personality problems that might not be immediately apparent to you to areas of conflict that aren’t so serious, but can put a real monkey wrench in a marriage, like inherent laziness or lack of initiative in a spouse.

Premarital counseling also helps you both identify your respective expectations about marriage. Take, for example, a couple getting married in their late 30s or early 40s. You’d expect them to be mature enough to know all this stuff in advance, right? Wrong. What happens when her ultimate goal for retirement in twenty years is to move to Arizona, live in a senior center, and make crafts, and his is to move to the wilds of Wyoming and hunt mountain lions?

Premarital counseling isn’t cheap. If you figure $125 to $200 an hour, once a week, for six months to a year, you may spend as much as $2,500.00. But when you consider that a divorce attorney (in this part of the world, anyway) will probably ask you to plunk down at least $10,000.00, and you amortize how much that amount would be worth if you have to pay it five or ten years from now, you get a sense of perspective. Spend the money now. It’s worth it!

Most of us have heard of pre-nuptial agreements. Most people, when planning to marry, are pretty reluctant to even consider them. They think a pre-nup is for the wealthy or the untrustworthy or both. They think a pre-nup means they don’t have confidence that the new marriage will succeed.

This is simplistic thinking. If there is one thing that helps relationships succeed, it is ensuring appropriate boundaries. A contract is an expression of expectations and intentions that put boundaries around a relationship.

A contract between committed partners, whether married or unmarried, can be one of the best ways you can help your relationship succeed.

A traditional pre-nuptial agreement primarily covers property and financial issues. It helps define what couples expect and intend for their estates. But a couples contract does that, and more. A couples contract is a must for any couple who lives together, married or not.

Not only does a couples contract define expectations and intentions for income, property and estate rights, it can define how couples will handle conflict, if it should arise and what they want and expect in other important areas of their lives.

Maryland does not have a statute governing pre-marital agreements, but has set standards for pre-nuptial agreements by appellate court decision (Frey v. Frey, 298 Md. 552, 471 A.2d 705 (1984)). Other states have adopted the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act (the “UPAA”) (check out this link for a full text version: UPAA).

Like any contract, it’s well worth the expense of seeking competent legal advice before you enter into it. Whatever you do, don’t just download a form from the internet and fill it out the day before you move in together or get married. And if your partner has a lawyer, be sure you do too.

The standards that make these contracts enforceable are based on the assumption that each person in the relationship has a full understanding of what they are doing when they enter into them. That’s why it’s useful to have competent legal advice. Make sure there is plenty of time to think about it too. There should be plenty of time (at least a week or more) between each stage in the process: between the time you get a draft from your partner and the time you sign it; and between the time you sign it and the time it becomes valid (i.e., either when you move in together or get married).

Investing the time and money to draft a couples contract will help strengthen your marriage or partnership by giving it clear boundaries, standards for resolving conflict, and a set of intentions that can’t be questioned. Properly drafted and entered into, a pre-nuptial or couples contract is one of the best ways to avoid or diminish problems later in the relationship.

Most of us who practice family law believe that it should be as time-consuming and expensive to get married, as it is now to get divorced; and as quick and easy to get divorced, as it now is to get married. This is the first in a series of posts about what you can do to avoid getting burned a second, or third, of fourth time. Hey, it’s never too late to learn!

There’s this great song by a great American musician, Keb Mo, called “The Itch.” The lyrics, written as a tongue-in-cheek prayer, apply to anyone who’s been burned by what they thought was love and marriage. The refrain says, “Don’t let me do the same !#@% thing all over again.”

Problem is, most of us (yes, that does include lawyers . . . and doctors . . . and Indian Chiefs . . . and older, as well as younger, people . . . and it includes those who have done it once, twice, or three times) do the same !#@% thing all over again . . . and again . . . and again.

This human tendency to repeat error is especially poignant when it involves fathers who have actually won custody of their children, after great struggle. I’ve seen it over and over again. Here’s the story line: father is married to a less-than-ideal mother; divorce ensues; father fights like crazy and wins custody of the kids; father struggles as a single parent, gives up time, gives up the opportunity for much of anything for himself, and after a few years is wiped out; enter a new woman; father, being exhausted and feeling like it’s time he got a little happiness in his own life, is swept away and in a very short time, marries the new woman; problems ensue. Sometimes, the problems come from the ex-wife. Sometimes, the problems come from the new wife. Sometimes the problems come from the kids, who have found a new reason to get one over on poor old dad. But wherever they come from, they could have been avoided by one simple word. Pause.

That’s right, pause. Just stop. And then stop again. And take your time. Lots and lots of time. You DO deserve some happiness for yourself. Especially if you’ve sacrificed a lot for your kids. But you deserve lasting happiness, not temporary happiness. And the best way to be sure you get it in a new relationship is to take plenty of time before diving into a new relationship.

Start out by living your life for yourself. Find things that interest you, and pursue them, not finding a new mate.

Develop friends. This takes time. If you’re living your life for yourself, exploring things that enhance your mental, emotional and physical well-being, you’ll meet people that have the same goals. Get to know them. Gradually. Very gradually. Don’t get sucked into the trap of thinking that you need someone else in your life to fill a role or a slot. Everything you need is already here. Develop friends who have the same philosophy.

When you move beyond friendship into what feels like romance and attraction, do the same thing. Pause. Take time. Lots of time.

Patience is the first step in avoiding the mud puddle of the Same !#@% Thing. Practice it.

“The legal system in America has become unbalanced in recognizing and rewarding the place and importance of the American father in the lives of children.

It is time to refocus our emphasis in the American family to give fathers the recognition and support they need to take their rightful place in the lives of their children, to define paternal obligations and expect American fathers to live up to them.”

Besides being one of most unusual presidential candidates in decades, Barack Obama is also a father. Like many men in America today, he grew up largely without a father. So when he spoke just before Father’s Day this year, calling on fathers in America to be responsible adults, some father’s rights activists called it, “father-bashing.” But was it?

The Washington Post online article coverage of Obama’s speech, as well as radio and television broadcasts of the speech left me scratching my head, trying to figure out how his speech was in any way derogatory of fathers. Obama’s Father’s Day Speech.

It’s a fact that for far too long, many, even most, American fathers were not as involved in their children’s lives as they have been in the last twenty years. Part of the difficulty for the legal system in recognizing the importance of the role of fathers is that the extent and quality of engaged fathering is a fairly new phenomenon. The reason there is so much emphasis on mothers as primary caretakers is because, well, they were, for a very long time. Things are changing now, and the law is typically slow and reluctant to catch up with social trends. It’s only in the very recent past that behavioral science has begun to identify and study the impact of engaged fathers on children.

The right to parent is a fundamental human right recognized in the United States Constitution. But for every right there is a corresponding responsibility. I’ve met with fathers who came to me because of my emphasis on father’s rights, but when they sat down to talk to me, all I heard from them was what a terrible person the wife or the ex-wife was. All they wanted to talk about was how to win the divorce battle and make sure the wife or ex-wife lost. This kind of potential client is certainly concerned with his “rights”, but he doesn’t show a shred of interest in the rights of his child or children to be free from conflict, as far as possible.

Mr. Obama talked about the responsibility of American fathers to be engaged. Father’s rights are indeed important, but not in and of themselves. They mean nothing to the children when they are divorced from the willingness of fathers to take on the obligations (all of them) of fatherhood. Mr. Obama made an important point. Critics assumed all he was talking about was economic obligations, and those shouldn’t be ignored, but I also heard him ask fathers to become engaged emotionally, to be leaders. That’s hardly father-bashing. It’s more like father-building.

The divorce is over. You have a custody order. Maybe you even have joint custody and a significant amount of time with your child or children. Months or years go by. Then your ex drops the bomb. She’s moving. She sends you a letter telling — not asking, telling — you that she and the kids are moving. It could be a move within your state or one that will take your kids across the country, but either way, there is no way you are going to be able to be with your children as you were before.

This is a familiar scene and one that motivates an increasing percentage of custody litigation in family courts around the United States.

In Maryland, our statute skirts around the issue, giving the court the option to include, in an original custody order, the requirement that the parent who has primary residential custody of the children, “provide advance, written notice of at least 45 days to the court, the other party, or both, of the intent to relocate the permanent residence of the party or the child either within or outside the State.” Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law Art. sec. 9-106(a) (as amended). We also have case law that supports the presumption that a move outside the state is a sufficiently serious change in circumstances to support a change in custody . . . sometimes . . . it depends.

On the other end of the spectrum are states that have mandatory relocation provisions written into their state statutes. For example, my colleagues in Michigan have described a statute there that they say requires either advance written agreement between parents or a court order before a parent can move more than 100 miles away. I can imagine all kinds of trouble with that kind of requirement as well.

Any time you look at a legal problem you have to look at both sides of the coin. What if you have residential custody and you need to move? What if you lose your job, or you have a family crisis that demands a move? Should the law force you to choose between economic survival and staying in your child’s life?

These questions, and others closely related to them, are problems the courts have to grapple with every day. They highlight the need for focused, child-centered, legislation crafted to protect the interests of children in an engaged and meaningful relationship with both parents. Rethinking our statutory mandate on child relocation would also give our judges the tool they need to ensure those relationships are protected.