Virginia Woman Leaves Toddler in Car; a headline like that can make a divorced father sick to his stomach. Worse, the woman is alleged to have left her two-year-old kid in the car so she could hang out in a bar. If you were the child’s father, how would you deal with that? Would you move heaven and earth to ...
Child custody cases can become legal nightmares, as in the case of Virginia’s own Lisa Miller, who fled the country with her daughter more than 10 years ago, supposedly on the advice of her counsel at the time. You can avoid upending your life, your ex’s life, and the lives of your children with a piece of paper, the consent ...
Sultan Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif, 17th century ruler of Morocco, holds the record for siring the most children in history, at 867. He was not a man to cross; he had four wives and 500 concubines and killed any man who looked at them. Not much is said about his 525 sons and 342 daughters, but you just know he ...
Virginia’s laws are full of odd expressions: in loco parentis; legitimate interest; confirmatory adoption. Sure, they all mean something to someone, but most Virginians can live their entire lives without ever stumbling into these words. Unless you are a stepfather or a nice guy trying to do right by a woman you love by acting like a father to her ...
In Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” a lowly shepherd discovers an abandoned baby. He says, “Mercy on ’s, a bairn! A very pretty bairn. A boy or a child, I wonder?” And the audience laughs, because “boy or child” sounds like an actor forgetting his lines. But in 16th century England, a “child” was a girl. And today, in Virginia, an ...
The scientific debate has raged among anthropologists for decades: why are human babies born helpless? Pelvic size, maternal metabolism, the size of Junior’s noggin — all have been offered as reasons why those tiny humans cannot walk, feed themselves, or sit upright. No other mammal is born so dependent on its parents. A newborn baby arriving after a divorce adds ...
Newborn human babies are evolutionary throwbacks. Helpless, unable to walk or run after birth, and cognitively stunted due to limited brain size (according to Scientific American), human babies vividly demonstrate the biological battle between mom’s pelvic size and a baby’s big head. So who is better equipped to take custody of a newborn human? Mom, or Dad? Look to The ...
Guardians ad litem in Virginia seem to hold great sway over family law cases. Perhaps you are concerned about a court-ordered investigation and report issued by a guardian ad litem (GAL) and you wonder, can you do anything about it? What’s a GAL? A guardian ad litem (GAL) is a court-appointed legal representative whose client is your child. In any ...
Now I lay me down to sleep, but Dad’s new girlfriend is a creep. Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs,” helps people differentiate between needs and wants, and to make clear that some needs are basic and biological: food, water, safety, warmth, and rest. We may want a separate bedroom for our visiting children to get their rest, but is it ...