Two Vital Insights


Insight #1: When parents are living happily together, their best legal interests are overwhelmingly mutual, and their best legal interests remain overwhelmingly mutual if they separate.

It is a cruel and dangerous myth--one at the heart of so much family suffering--that parents’ best interests turn against each other just because they separate. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if separated or divorced, parents’ best interests always include saving their children, their peace of mind, their money, and their opportunity to make their own decisions.

We believe in parents, and we have seen many parents undertake outright heroic things for their children. Very often this heroism comes alive when parents are helped to grasp that helping each other succeed as co-parents is a valuable opportunity, not a burden.

Insight #2: Often separated and divorced parents’ best way of succeeding is to notice their children’s losses and needs--and to respond to those losses and needs as lovingly as they would if there had been no separation or divorce.

For decades American society has seriously under-appreciated the losses and needs of children of divorce. This unfortunate orientation has brought about a double tragedy: not only do essential needs of children go unmet, but parents miss out on their very best light to their own better future.