Parenting After Divorce (AND during marriage!)

Today I read an Opinion piece in the New York Times, and it’s so good, I think it deserves a spot in my blog for ya’ll to read. This article is just about parenting after divorce, but gives some insight into How NOT to Get Divorced. I particularly encourage all those who have an iron grip on what they believe their “rights” are with custody. You might be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Life Insurance in Divorce Actions

In my time as a family law lawyer, I saw a lot of divorce petitions that requested my client (usually the husband) carry a life insurance policy for the benefit of opposing party after the divorce.  I hate those clauses myself.  I think once you’re divorced, you’re Not Married, and therefore neither party should be required to support an ex-spouse after they die.  Hard pass.  But that doesn’t mean that people remember to change the beneficiary on their life insurance policy after a divorce is finalized, so…..what then?  Wouldn’t that end up giving the ex-spouse the benefit of the policy after the parties aren’t married anymore?

In Utah, that’s a No.  With an Unless….

At UCA 75-2-804(2), which is part of the Utah probate code, it says that “[e]xcept as provided by the express terms of a governing instrument, a court order, or a contract relating to the division of the marital estate made between the divorced individuals before or after the marriage, divorce, or annulment, the divorce or annulment of a marriage,” the spouse as beneficiary is automatically dropped when the divorce is final. (emphasis added) That language in quotes up there is the actual statutory language.  What it means is that it has to be expressly stated that the ex spouse will remain the beneficiary, either in a “governing instrument”–part of the life insurance policy, either in the policy itself or in a document referred to by the policy–or in a court order.  If not, the ex is automatically dropped as a beneficiary in the event of a divorce.

There have been a couple of Utah appellate court cases that have addressed what all that means.  The first one, which was decided in 2012, is Malloy v. Malloy, 283 P.3d 597 (UT App 2012).  In Malloy, the fight was between a former Mrs. Malloy and a more recent Mrs. Malloy, Mary Beth and Rhonda, respectively.  Mary Beth and Dan Malloy had been married first.  Dan got a life insurance policy through the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance (FEGLI).  He named Mary Beth as the beneficiary on it.  They got divorced, and Dan married Rhonda.

Dan never changed his beneficiary on his FEGLI policy.  Dan then dies.  Mary Beth was sent his death benefit through his life insurance policy.  Rhonda sued Mary Beth, saying she was the wife when Dan died, and she should get the proceeds from his life insurance.  Mary Beth won.  The court explained why.  The FEGLI policy, in a document that was referred to and incorporated in the policy itself, said specifically that divorce would NOT automatically drop the beneficiary (ex) spouse from getting the death benefit; that the policy holder had to make the change themselves on purpose.  The court said that constituted “express terms” under the UCA 75-2-804.  Ex-wife therefore got the death benefit, because Dan hadn’t specifically made the change before he died.

Your dead ex, reaching out from the grave…

Fast forward 5 years, to 2017, and the next time this issue came up in the Utah appellate court.  This time it was the Utah Supreme Court that addressed the issue, in a case called Hertzske v. Snyder, 390 P.3d 307 (UT 2017).  In this case, Snyder was the (now) ex-wife.  She married Edward Hertzske, father of the Plaintiff, Tyler Hertzske.  While life was good between Snyder and Hertzske Sr., Hertzske Sr. took out a life insurance policy on himself for $500,000 and made Snyder the beneficiary, with Tyler listed as the contingent beneficiary.  Later on Snyder and Hertzske Sr. divorced.  Hertzske Sr. apparently didn’t like Snyder At All at that point.  He even changed his will saying he wanted to disinherit her in any and all ways possible, but he never changed the beneficiary on his life insurance policy.  Hertzske Sr. subsequently died.

The lawsuit was over who got the $500k from the life insurance policy–Snyder or Tyler.  The divorce didn’t address the life insurance policy at all; and the policy language was kind of vague about how beneficiaries are changed–it didn’t say anything about how or if a divorce would change the beneficiary.  Definitely nothing “express” as required by Utah law.

The court said that it was necessary to interpret how UCA 75-2-804 interacted with UCA 30-3-5(1)(e), which is part of the divorce code.  We already looked at what 75- says, above.  UCA 30-3-5(1)(e) says that the court “shall” include language in the divorce decree “if either party owns a life insurance policy or an annuity contract, an acknowledgment by the court that the owner: has reviewed and updated, where appropriate, the list of beneficiaries; has affirmed that those listed as beneficiaries are in fact the intended beneficiaries after the divorce becomes final; and understands that if no changes are made to the policy or contract, the beneficiaries currently listed will receive any funds paid by the insurance company under the terms of the policy or contract.”

The upshot was that the court concluded that if a person wanted their ex-spouse to still be the beneficiary on a life insurance policy after the divorce was final, that the language in UCA 30-3-5(1)(e) HAD to be included in the divorce.  End of story.  And if it’s not, then UCA 75-2-804 applies.  Because if there was some other way of interpreting it, then the legislature would have created statute that was unnecessary, and they don’t do that.

The court said that since Snyder and Hertzske Sr.’s divorce didn’t have the statutory language from UCA 30-3-5(1)(3), Snyder, the ex-wife, didn’t get the $500k.  And since Tyler was the next in line for it under the life insurance policy as the contingent beneficiary, he should receive his father’s life insurance payout. (Which honestly only seems right.)

The moral of the story, then, is this:  In Utah, unless it is expressly stated with the language from the divorce code in the divorce decree itself, OR the life insurance policy says expressly that the beneficiary will NOT change after a divorce automatically, exes are automatically bumped from being beneficiaries on the others’ life insurance policies when a divorce is final.

Now you know.

Bitching on Social Media: KNOCK IT OFF

This is gonna be a little, short post, but it’s gotta be said.  STOP airing all your grievances on social media!  Keep your snarky little comments OFF Twitter!  Keep your personal, thinly-veiled jabs at the other party off Facebook!  You’re. Not. Helping.  Being pissed off about the ex boyfriend or ex husband or ex wife or ex girlfriend in a public forum is ugly, dumb, and completely immature.  ESPECIALLY if you have kids who have access to your vitriol about their dad/mom.

If your child support isn’t being paid, I’m sorry.  Stuff happens in people’s lives, and sometimes they CAN’T pay you AND keep the lights on.  And even if they’re just being hateful and refusing to pay?  Public shaming doesn’t make them any less hateful.  For real.  You’re not solving your problem.  You’re simply ramping up the conflict, creating drama, and adding more tension to BOTH of your lives.

If you and your ex are engaged in some sort of court case, DON’T GO SPEWING ALL OVER YOUR FB PAGE.  You look like a vicious b*tch–and that term applies to men who do it as well.  And then you provide evidence to the other person that they can simply blow up 16″x 24″ on a poster in court to show how horrible you are.  I cannot tell you how many times I’ve advised a client to SHUT UP on Facebook or Twitter.  You’re only hurting yourself with that kind of behavior.  You think your page is totally private?  Maybe it is, and maybe someone is seeing stuff and passing it on to the ex.  You will sink yourself, and you’ll have no one but yourself to blame. Because in the words of my Uncle Terry, and the Great John Wayne,

 

 

Things I Care About: Do Unto Others

If you’ve read very many of my blog posts, you kind of start to get a feeling for things that I’m passionate about. Like

Fathers’ Rights.  I deeply believe that the best way to keep our kids whole through the divorce process is for them to have BOTH parents in their lives.  In this world of family law, where custody seems to default to moms, we should not forget that there are a lot of really great dads out there who are heartbroken at losing time to just Be around their kids on a daily basis.  While that may not be practical in a divorce,  that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to keep Dad there as often as possible.  And intentionally keeping a loving father from his kids IS child abuse.  We need the courts to take it more seriously, and we need a general shift in societal thinking that defaults away from thinking that single moms are always saints.

and

Domestic Abuse.  By this I mean ALL forms of abuse.  We tend to think only in terms of physical violence as being abusive, but psychological abuse may be far more pervasive, and can take a helluva lot longer to get over.  Victims of abuse tend to be less likely to have custody of their kids, because they tend also to have less access to resources with which to hire a lawyer in a divorce.  Moms who don’t have their kids could well have been victims of domestic abuse in their marriages, and every day of their lives without their kids is just another stab in the heart by the abuser.  We as a community (especially a community like I live in here in Utah) need to lay off judging moms who did not get custody as though they’re some sort of addict or loser.  Heaping misery on the wounded is cruel; we are better than that.

and

Kids.  It seems like in any divorce action, kids always end up being the Big Losers.  They don’t get any choice in their whole worlds getting thrown into chaos; in Utah, they have no choice, really, who they get to live with.  And even if they DID have the option, how do you choose between two parents you love dearly?  I remember being a freshman in college and having a nightmare that my parents were divorcing, and that I was begging them not to, and they wouldn’t listen.  I woke up sobbing, and had to call my mom to make sure that it was just a really bad dream.  The biggest pain in my life is knowing the MY kids never got to wake up from that Really Bad Dream.  I’ve been divorced nearly 12 years, and I still feel horrible every time I think about it (like now, writing this post, and blowing my nose and wiping my eyes.)

and

Fairness.  and Decency.  and Human Kindness. and Equity.  I mean, seriously….whatever happened to these values?  I see them evidenced in some divorce cases, but way more often it’s as though the parties feel a need to feed the fight, and take whatever they possibly can, and hurt the other person, no matter what the cost.  I know I’m way too sensitive (part of why I can’t do this family law thing full time anymore), but I don’t think it’s asking too much for people to apply a little Golden Rule into their lives, even if their lives include ex spouses.  Do unto others as you would have them do to you, ya’ll.  Or better yet, don’t do things to them that you wouldn’t want them to do to you.

And if we would all live by just that one little rule, what a wonderful world it would be.

More Myths from Divorceland: The DisneyLand Dad

We’ve all heard the term–Disneyland Dad.  This is the father who doesn’t have to be involved with the kids on a day to day basis, who “gets” to just be the one who the kids have fun with, the one with “no responsibility,” because he doesn’t have to do blah, blah blah Hard Stuff…  Generally we hear about Disneyland Dads from custodial moms who are more than a little bitter.  But there are some problems with this categorization, which land it into Myth status.

Problem #1:  The assumption here is that it’s dad’s CHOICE to only spend time with the kids every other weekend, a few hours on a weekday (if that), and some time during the summer and at holidays.  Mom makes it sound like Dad is skipping out on the day to day parenting, the homework, the colds, the trips to the doctor, all of that Parent Stuff.  And why would that be?

It’s that way because Dad is the non-custodial parent.  That’s all he’s been allowed to be by a court order…And a lot of the time that court order put him in that position because that’s what Mom insisted on, sometimes just so she can be in control and force Dad to pay child support.  And why wouldn’t Dad want to take what little time he has to be with his kids and have fun with them?  That only makes sense.  I’m not saying it’s always this way, but it definitely IS this way some of the time.

Problem #2:  If Mom is really interested in Dad carrying more of the substantive responsibility, guess what?  She can involve him more.  If the parents live in close proximity to each other, there’s no reason Mom can’t do this. She can actually co-parent with Dad, as opposed to cutting him out of any part of the kids’ lives that she isn’t court ordered to allow.  I mean, if both mom and dad work, why SHOULDN’T dad take a day off work to stay home with a sick kid, or take them to the doctor every now and again?  Why should mom be the one to always take on that responsibility?  It doesn’t have to be that way.  And if it is, it’s more than likely because she is insisting on it, because “kids need their Moms,” and she needs a little more fuel to justify her assertion that her ex is a Disneyland Dad.

Problem #3:  Sometimes Dad’s are too far away to even get that every other weekend, and being there for doctor visits, etc., is a practical impossibility.  Why do you suppose that is? Sometimes it’s because Mom decided to relocate.  There are legitimate reasons for her to relocate, for sure, but if you’ve got a Mom who’s all about moaning about her “absentee” father of an ex, or goes on and on about how he’s just a Disneyland Dad, or a deadbeat who doesn’t have to do the “hard stuff in parenting,” chances are she lives far away from Dad specifically to keep the kids away from him.  Again, when he DOES have a chance to be with his kids, it only makes sense that he’d want to do fun things with them, and make those memories that Mom has prevented him from making on a day to day basis.

So next time you hear some Poor Single Mommy whining about her ex being a Disneyland Dad, who never has to do the Hard Parenting, consider that it’s highly likely that what she really is is a Martyr Mommy–and is doing her damndest to make her ex looks like a jerk not only to the rest of the world, but to her kids.  Which constitutes child abuse.

Maybe consider that before making a judgment about that Dad you know nothing about.

**Side note:  I was gonna post some quippy memes on here, but DAMN, PEOPLE!  There is some super cruel stuff out there!  Depressed me just looking for a pic.  Maybe if we could all just grow the hell up and act like decent parents blog posts like this wouldn’t be necessary!

From the FB Archives: March 20, 2013

Law school was tough.  Like, if you just had to do law school, without adding to it trying to still pay my bills and see my kids and deal with the weather in Wyoming when driving, it would still suck.  So I hunted for inspiration.  This was something I found inspiring…

It’s not just about being a Man

I was hunting on my computer today for my address labels document/template (what exactly DID I name that thing anyway???) when I came across this poem by Rudyard Kipling that I’d found years ago and loved.

 

If

by Rudyard Kipling; 1865-1936

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thought your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same:

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings:

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a man, my son!

 

Kipling wrote this with respect to becoming a Man, but I would propose that one does not need testicles to Become the thing one would If he/she could do all of the things noted above.  This is about being a solid human being.  Hoping that I can become Kipling’s ideal “Man” someday.

My dad, his sister, and his brother…These are those who have become Kipling’s ideal “Man”.  May I be as much in my life.

Something Utah got WAAAY Right: A Family Law Help

So I’ve mentioned before that while I think family law is a disaster in Utah, the Utah state statutes for child custody and parent time are fan-frigging-tastic.  I have recommended the use of them to many other people who are in other jurisdictions, just because they’re so orderly, specific, and DETAILED.  And the holiday division makes life SOOOO much nicer for everybody involved during all of the holidays.  However, there are those who are getting static because the other party is saying something like “we’re not in Utah, and I don’t have to follow Utah law, so suck it!”

With that in mind, I provide for you here, for your copying and pasting pleasure, the basic, general rundown of parent time in Utah for kids ages 5 and up, without all the statute formatting that you’d get otherwise.  That way it really DOES just look like a great parent time plan.  And if this isn’t exactly perfect for you in your situation, no worries…At least you’ve got someplace to start from.  I have even just used the holiday division in my cases where the parents have joint physical custody, because it just makes planning so much simpler.

S0 best of luck… and may your co-parenting be peaceful.

Parent time/Over 5 years:

One weekday evening, non-custodial parent chooses, from 5:30-8:30p.m., or from the time school is out until 8:30 p.m.  If the non-custodial parent does NOT choose a day, default day is Wednesday.  If the non-custodial parent chooses a different day, then THAT day is THE day—no switching around without okaying it with the custodial parent. (When school is NOT in session, if the non-custodial parent is available, that mid-week visit can go from 9 a.m. until 8:30 p.m.)

Every other weekend, beginning Friday at 6p.m. until Sunday at 7p.m.  OR if the non-custodial parent is available, from the time school gets out on Friday until Sunday at 7.  When school is NOT in session, the non-custodial parent can have the child for the weekend beginning at 9a.m. on Friday, if he is available to be with the child personally.

A step-parent, grandparent, or other responsible adult designated by the non-custodial parent may pick up the child for visitation, so long as the non-custodial parent will be with the child no later than 7p.m. (assuming a 5:30p.m. pickup time).  The non-custodial parent MUST inform the custodial of who will be coming to pick up the child if not the parent.

Holidays:  The non-custodial parent will have the child for holidays as described below.  The custodial parent will have the child on the opposite schedule.

ODD YEARS	EVEN YEARS
Child’s birthday on day BEFORE or AFTER, 3pm to 9pm	Child’s birthday ON THE DAY OF the birthday, 3pm to 9pm
MLK Day weekend, from Friday 6pm-Monday 7pm	President’s Day weekend, from Friday 6pm-Monday 7pm
Spring Break 6pm the day school lets out to 7pm the day before school resumes	Memorial Day weekend, from Friday 6pm-Monday 7pm
July 4 beginning 6pm the day BEFORE the holiday until 6pm on the day AFTER the holiday	Pioneer Day beginning 6pm the day BEFORE the holiday to 6 pm the day AFTER the holiday
Labor Day weekend from 6pm Friday to 7pm Monday	Columbus Day from 6pm the day BEFORE the holiday until 7pm ON the holiday
Fall School break (if applicable) from day school is out at 6pm until day before school starts again at 7pm	Halloween on the day it’s celebrated (if not on the 31st) from after school until 9pm, or if NOT a school day, from 4pm until 9pm
Veteran’s Day from 6pm day BEFORE the holiday until 7pm ON the holiday	Thanksgiving holiday from Wednesday at 7pm until Sunday at 7pm
The first half of the Christmas school holiday from the 6pm the day school gets out until 1pm on the day halfway through the holiday period if there are an EVEN number of days in the vacation, or until 7pm if there are an ODD number of days	The second half of the Christmas school holiday from time indicated in ODD years description until 6pm on the day before school resumes—the point being to equally divide the holiday between both parents

Father’s Day always with Dad, Mother’s Day always with Mom, from 9a.m. to 7pm of the holiday for each parent.

Summer extended parent time—4 weeks total for non-custodial parent, 2 weeks of which is uninterrupted parent time.  (During the “interrupted” time, the custodial parent gets a mid-week visit as described above.)

Custodial parent also has 2 weeks uninterrupted parent time, when non-custodial does not have weekends or midweek visits.

**For children under 5:  The only difference is in the extended parent time in the summer. 

18mos-3 years: 2 one-week periods, separated by 4 weeks, at the option of the non-custodial parent, one of which is uninterrupted. (custodial parent has 1 week uninterrupted as well)

3yrs-5yrs:  2 two-week periods, separated by at least 4 weeks, at the option of the non-custodial parent.  1 two week period is uninterrupted. (custodial parent has 1 week uninterrupted as well.)

Gotta start somewhere…

From the FB Archives: April 2, 2013

*Things got better for a minute, so I could take a deep breath…and then they tanked again after this.  Such is life.  And I AM in a much better place now.

2 April 2013

The Miracle of the Passage of Time

I signed a new client today, with the accompanying retainer payment, and got payments from a couple of other existing clients on their monthly bills.  And as I was getting in my car to go to the bank to deposit them, I could not help but reflect back.  Not too long ago, every new client with new retainer money, every payment from a client on work I’d done for them, was a miracle–a sudden, miraculous gift from heaven, that swooped in at the last second and saved me from imminent financial ruin.  There were a lot of financial miracles back not too long ago.  The man I did not know who paid for my gas when my credit card (unbeknownst to me) was expired and declined after I’d put $20 worth in my car.  The large Christmas present from my grandma that paid my child support and a couple of bills.  The money stuffed in my purse from my aunt that bought gas money to get home to see my kids.  The rent paid from across the waters by my big brother, coincidentally on HIS birthday.  And every time a check came in from a client, it was like some of the weight that threatened to crush me continually was lifted, if just for a little tiny bit of time.

 

I marveled today that I am not in that place anymore–that place of wrath and tears, beyond which looms but the horror of the shade, to quote William Earnest Henley, in that poem I love, Invictus.  There is still significant struggle, but it’s no longer for the basic necessities of life.  I have enough to keep consistently afloat every month, without the cellphone company calling and threatening to disconnect if I don’t pay immediately.  And today I am grateful, and marvel at the miracle of the passage of time.  I used to really like that quote, “It will all be ok in the end, and if it’s not ok, it’s not the end,” but I had a hard time feeling it.  I’m starting to feel it.  Thank God for that.

From the Archives: FB Notes September 25, 2012

*It’s always odd to look back to the same dates from years ago…Some things have gotten easier; some, not so much.  My number of moves since my divorce is up to 15… but hopefully I’m where I’ll stay for at least the next 5 years or so.

Wouldn’t Want To Get Too Comfortable…

In the first year I was divorced, I moved 3 times and held 3 different jobs (2 at the same time, then a new job altogether).  Not trying to be flaky, just trying to hold it together financially, so that I wasn’t always being strangled, get into housing that worked with my kids (when I had them), and trying to work my work so I could still see my kids ever.  In the second year, I moved twice and worked a regular job, a bunch of temp jobs, and finally a regular job again.  In the third year, I moved again, this time to Laramie to law school.  I moved back to my parents that next summer, then into a different place in Laramie in the fall; to Yellowstone the next summer, then back in the fall; to Utah and in with friends while I studied for/took the bar exam the next summer, then to my aunt’s after that, then to the house I’m in now.

 

All told, I moved 13 times in the first 5 years after my divorce.  I worked at least that many different jobs, and drove nearly 200,000 miles so that I could see my kids on a regular basis through all this.  Since moving back to Utah in 2010,  I’ve worked for 5 different law firms/attorneys…some with better luck than others.  My most recent, Feller & Wendt, was really great.  And then it was really stressful.  And then they cut me loose.

 

That was a week ago.  Today I went into the office to do the whole “wrap up” thing with business with them.  They are truly leaving me better than they found me.  They cut me loose because they don’t want to do domestic law AT ALL, not even in their peripherals, so I am taking all but the most horrible of the domestic cases (less than a half dozen) lock, stock and barrel–all monies due and owing to date become mine, and all monies earned going forward are mine.  100%.  Which is a helluva deal.  But they wanted me to lease my office from them for more than I can afford, and it’s 15 minutes away from the courthouse, and 20 minutes from my house, and all in the wrong direction from the locations of all of my out-of-valley cases (better than half of them).  Not really worth it to pay more than I can afford for space that doesn’t really work for me.

 

So I’m taking my practice back home.  Which is good and bad.  Good because I go back to being able to work in my jammies ;).  Bad because I am ALWAYS at work, and I have no place to bring clients or meet new consultations.  I have to do my own billing/accounting, etc., again, which I hate.  And I am again alone.  No one to commiserate with/to, no one to bounce ideas off of.  I hate that too.

 

What I LOVE is the autonomy.  No one breathing down my neck.  No one telling me when I have to be in the office.  I have other obligations in life that are NOT work related, that are really more important, and now I can be, again, more available to those people who matter most to me:  My boys.  But still;  I only lasted 9 months.  It’s extremely disappointing.  I was so looking forward to being a Real Lawyer, in a Real Firm, for a Really Long Time.  It seems in my life, nothing stays the same for longer than a few months.  Which is why I say it’s a good thing I am so damn flexible.

 

This, but without the smiling…

I’m gonna cry about this for a little while, because I’m so tired and so not wanting to move my office/make another major transition on top of **The Face issues, but whaddaya gonna do? Suck it up and move on, that’s what.

 

Finally, a quote I saw on a mug several years ago (and ended up buying):  “Just when the caterpillar thought it was the end of the world, it turned into a butterfly.” (anonymous)  Am I a butterfly yet???

**“The Face” issues–I got a staph infection in my face, which turned into a nightmare, all at the same time as this was happening.

From the FB Archives–November 1, 2012

*Another one from the archives…More about how a Nice Girl Like Me Ended up Being a Lawyer, and what happened next…

1 November 2012 ·

What I do for a living…

I’m exhausted today.  I practice family law, and to me that means that I am meeting people who are in one of the worst times of their lives, and doing what I can to comfort, advocate for, and provide a dose of reality to, my clients.  I see myself almost as a Mother to these grown people, who are not related to me.  Probably not good for my mental health.  The Dalai Lama has a book about loving others, and he advises thinking of yourself as the Other’s mother in terms of how you feel toward them.  While I don’t think he meant that I should make myself crazy by “mothering” my clients, there is wisdom in having that attitude about those we come in contact with daily.

I had been thinking about this Mothering thing I do, and how I really need to NOT do that, today especially, because I am so very tired.  I have problem solved, comforted, hand held, buoyed up, and advocated today, and it’s wearing the hell out of me.  At 3p.m. I was thinking it was time to curl up on the floor and let all of the Others’ problems sort themselves out.  I shouldn’t do this.  I shouldn’t take all this on myself.  I shouldn’t.  And what if I didn’t?

Edgar A. Guest wrote a lot of poems that are viewed by many to be trite, or cliche, but there is this one….It’s called Myself:

Myself

by Edgar A. Guest

I have to live with myself and so

I want to be fit for myself to know,

I want to be able as days go by,

To look at myself straight in the eye.

I don’t want to stand with the setting sun

And hate myself for the things I’ve done.

 

I don’t want to hide on a closet shelf

A lot of secrets about myself,

And fool myself as I come and go

Into thinking that nobody else will know

What kind of man I really am;

I don’t want to dress myself in sham.

 

I want to go with my head erect,

I want to deserve all men’s respect

And in this struggle for fame and pelf

I want to be able to like myself.

I don’t want to look at myself and know

That I am a bluster and empty show.

 

I cannot hide myself from me;

I can see what others can never see;

I know what others can never know,

I cannot fool myself, and so

Whatever happens, I want to be

Self-respecting and conscience free.

 

I had a client, at the end of a very long and stressful mediation, who snapped at opposing counsel, “How do you sleep at night??”  The attorney looked at her and without a break said, “The same way your attorney sleeps at night.”  She looked at me, and I looked at her, and I said, “Sleeping pills.”  The brain won’t shut down and leave these clients alone at night, when they are not paying me to worry about them….

So until I find out a way to separate myself from my clients and STILL respect myself, I will continue, on what may be a self-destructive path, for the sake of liking myself.

If you don’t like who you see, might be a good time to change it…