Nobody wants to be a bit player in their own life story. You expect to be center stage; your needs, your opinions, even your whims should be your first consideration. Until you become a parent. Then everything you are subsumes to the needs of your child. As educator and author Elizabeth Stone says1, “Making the decision to have a child ...
Ursula Wilder is a spook. We can say that because Ursula Wilder has already had her cover blown. She is a psychologist at the CIA, and was interviewed by NPR1 for a piece about keeping spies from spilling secrets. If you live or work in the northern Virginia area, you are, statistically speaking, within shouting distance of someone with some kind ...
For the 2014-2015 school year, more than six million school-age children were identified as special needs, according to the National Center for Education Statistics1. This is 13 percent of total school enrollment. Managing your divorce as the father of a special needs child is not easy, but you are not alone in your struggle. Fortunately today our societal view of ...
At least the Virginia legislature is not as bad as the Cleveland Browns, 0-16 for the 2017 season and benighted with an even more dismal performance than 2016’s 1-151. Most sports teams do not trumpet a 6-20 season (uh, dream on, Cleveland). Virginia’s legislature, though, is not a sports team. Passing six family law bills for 2017 is actually a ...
Johann Sebastian Bach produced The Brandenburg Concertos in 1721 as a way to get a job. He never heard them in his lifetime, and his prospective employer the Margrave of Brandenburg apparently never even looked at the scores. Yet, in our day, the six Brandenburg Concertos1 are some of the most popular classical music in the world. They also happen ...
The song Cheaper to Keep Her by Johnnie Taylor is packed with advice on divorce and marriage. Does Taylor's advice still ring true 44 years after its 1973 debut? Paying Support: Johnnie Taylor Says One of Taylor's stanzas packs a wallet-emptying wallop: When your little girl make you mad And you get an attitude and pack your bags Five little ...
Single parents have to be in several places at once. Grocery store, school, work, home and then is tonight Scouts, Muay Thai or music lessons? Single Dads may feel mighty stretched when squeezing in meals for their kids, but research has shown that eating together is really, really good for children. Here are some simple, Dad-friendly and kid-approved meals you ...
Your typical Virginia bar-room lawyer will have plenty of free advice on “legal separation,” despite the fact that such a thing does not exist in Virginia. The phrase does not even appear in the vaunted Code of Virginia. In this meme-dominated age, California celebrity often eclipses actual facts, and in California, people can obtain a “legal separation.” Not so in ...
America loves apple pie and underdogs. We root for the Bad News Bears and we shed a tear for the recovering addict. If you did not get shared custody of your children after a Virginia divorce, or your ex-wife got sole custody, you have a worthy but challenging task ahead: reversing sole custody. A Virginia court has literally judged you ...