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Opinions Please; Do you think skids should able to have access to their own custody documentation?

SecondGeneration's picture

How much detail have you or would you share with your kids/step kids about the legal battles involving them?

I ask this because I find it interesting, ofcourse it depends very much on the ages of said children. For me, my parents separated when I was 4/5 years old, fierce battles followed, I moved in with my father at 6/7 years of age.
I went from being an only child to one of 5 on one side and one of 4 on the other. A grand total of 7 new step siblings...yay!
Father went from being a dad to one to being a step dad of 4 all older than I was and my mother became a step mum to 3, again all older than I was.

To say the situation was difficult would be an understatement at times it was hellish and thats from my perspective so I can only imagine how awful it must've been on the adults!
There were issues for each child and each set of biological parents, putting us all together in one big disfunctional time bomb. We actually ended up doing ok but the bad moments were really bad.

Being the youngest I seemed to pick up tendancies from my older siblings and thus hit teenage back-chat stage far younger than anticipated. For the most part I disliked my BM and loved my SM but there were times when it went the other way, I definately hated them all at various points.
I remember very clearly during one "I hate you" type argument that my dad calmly explained that there was alot more to what had gone on when I was younger and perhaps I ought to know it before lashing out. He went and retrieved a folder containing all of the legal documents, from his lawyer, my BMs lawyer, court documentation, everything was there in one big ass chunk.
He told me he had kept it because he knew a day would come that I would want and need to know more about what had happened and this was the best way to give me the information in an unbiased manner, I could read his argument and BMs argument and would be better able to judge for myself.
It took ages to read through and alot of it was never spoken about again but I am glad he did that, it allowed me to understand better what they had gone through at that time and how things had ended up being the way they were.

For me now, my SD is only 3, my partner and her BM were never married so theres no nasty divorce, they split when she was a few months so she has no memory of them being together and I didnt enter the picture until she was 2. So its probably not going to be relevant for her, that being said my partner will be keeping the documentation, but since the situation has never been all that dramatic between them we might be lucky.

I just wonder what you all think? Those of you with teenage skids with issues dating back years, do you think it would help them in some way to actually have some of that knowledge? In such a nutural, truthful form? Or do you think that a child, no matter what age, should never know exactly what goes on with legal battles?

Comments

askYOURdad's picture

I don't see an issue with sharing that type of stuff, but not until the kid is at an appropriate age and the motivation behind sharing it as well.

I had a pretty crazy upbringing as well and a mentally unstable parent. My dad waited until I was 18 to tell me, and in actuality, I asked him. I learned a lot and a lot of things started to make sense that hadn't before. I don't think having that information at 13 would help. I think it was only helpful in hindsight after I had drawn my own conclusions.

moeilijk's picture

Are you talking court transcripts? Or do you mean court orders?

I would definitely make all *final* legal documents available (unless there's a good reason why not), but transcripts and he-said/she-said and any inappropriate accusations, IMHO, should be left out.

For example:
Child support, how much, formula used, was it paid - YES available
Multiple accusations of molestation later shown to be vicious lies.... I'd keep it to the documents that state "unfounded allegations of xyz" than the details of how skanky and vicious the lie got.

smomof2's picture

I was only 4 when my parents divorced and it the custody battle was nasty-my dad ended up with custody. Growing up I often heard from my mom and her family what a horrible person my dad is for fighting for full custody of me. My dad never said anything mean about my mom or try to defend himself. I was 25 when my dad finally told me the truth and let me see the paperwork. Yes, my dad fought hard to gain full custody in an region where mothers usually favored and granted custody. But the truth was that according to the records, my mom left my dad one day while I was in preschool and she never called or come to visit me for 2 weeks! She did however take my older sister(who was 8 at the time with her) so when she decided 2 weeks later to come back and get me, my dad said no way and fought hard (which I'm so glad he did given how messed up my mom is). I'm grateful dad didn't tell me the truth while when I was teenager even when I gave him and my SM a hard time.

In short, I do believe the kids should have access to their own custody documentation but not until they're adults and mentally ready to handle the truth. In my case, the truth shed a bad light on my mom

SecondGeneration's picture

Ah yes thats a good point Ripley I was meaning purely in terms of custody battles.
I got all the letters, which did include some rather awful statements and reasoning but since I was 13 or so when I was given them I was old enough to see if as their points of view.

I dont think anyone told me why my parents split, fact that BM was having an affair and I met my step father plenty of times before they'd even separated probably contributed towards my then hatred of both BM and step father but you are right the whys of a split should often be left unsaid, its too easy for a child to try to identify a bad guy and then you get all kinds of guilt

SecondGeneration's picture

Ah yes thats a good point Ripley I was meaning purely in terms of custody battles.
I got all the letters, which did include some rather awful statements and reasoning but since I was 13 or so when I was given them I was old enough to see if as their points of view.

I dont think anyone told me why my parents split, fact that BM was having an affair and I met my step father plenty of times before they'd even separated probably contributed towards my then hatred of both BM and step father but you are right the whys of a split should often be left unsaid, its too easy for a child to try to identify a bad guy and then you get all kinds of guilt