What Is a Parenting Plan and How Can I Make Mine Rock?! (Part 4 of 4)
“The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.” — John Rawls
Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.
“Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. . . . This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are color-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behavior was obvious to every one.
[T]he most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining “It’s not fair” before you can say Jack Robinson.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
In the previous 3 blog posts on the Utah Code’s requirement that divorcing parents who share legal and/or physical custody you learned what the plans must contain and how they might look.
This fourth and final blog post treats parenting plan provisions that we have seen and that we believe generally ought to be avoided. There is no way to make this an exhaustive list (people’s talent for silliness and self-inflicted wounds is limitless); I tried to limit the list to the kinds of bad provisions I see crop up with some regularity, although a few of the provisions I cite here are just so bad that they deserve to be cited no matter how rare they are. Click here for example of provisions.
You didn’t need a parenting plan when you were happily married and living under the same roof as a family. Unless your ex-spouse is irreparably unhinged or irredeemably malicious, a the only parenting plan needed in divorce is a commitment to being fair and reasonable, doing to others as you would be done by. But parents with joint custody orders are required by Utah law to have a parenting plan. Formulate a parenting plan that contains only the provisions you must have in place to ensure that the basic, essential needs of the parent-child relationship met, no more and no less.
If you need assistance with your parenting plan, please contact one of our attorneys.
Tags: child custody, Children in Divorce, Parent Time