Susan Reff: On today’s podcast, we’re going to be talking about co-parenting during COVID. Get it, co-parenting.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Got it Co-Vid. Cool, huh? Good one. Cool. Yeah. So this topic has become really a tiresome.
Susan Reff: Yeah.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: And like a roller coaster of things since March of 2020.
Susan Reff: And like, what’s going to happen next?
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. And we sort of thought in our office that maybe we kind of came through all the kinks of how to help our clients through these things. And then now we have vaccines for ages five to 11. And so all the COVID things that are happening with X parents, right, they’ve been divorced or they were never married and they have or they’re
Susan Reff: In the middle of their
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Divorce. Yes. And they have different opinions about how to treat COVID things for their kids. So we who’d a
Susan Reff: Thunk differing opinions
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Between divorced people, right? Yes. So we wanted to really kind of take a look back at the history of COVID and how it has created interesting situations in custody situations. So what was the first thing that happened? Like, I feel like our phones were ringing off the hook. April one of twenty twenty.
Susan Reff: I feel like the majority of those calls too, were from people with an open case with our office or cases that had just recently closed with us and they were all freaking out about. Remote learning and who was going to be in charge of the remote learning, like which parent?
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. And I I think I mean, it was also this point in the world where our office literally was like, Are we going have to close? Is business still going to happen, right? Like, we didn’t know what we were doing, either going bankrupt. And then all of a sudden the phone starts ringing the beginning of April and we’re like, OK, well, I guess we’ll get our bang for our buck on the COVID questions.
Susan Reff: Yeah. And I think, you know, it came about that, you know, kids schools shut down so kids were at home and then some of the schools picked up the remote learning really quick and some of them didn’t, you know, I mean, I think ops kind of struggled and there was just kids at home like, What are you going to do?
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Well, remember, though, it was like two days before the start of spring break in ops, and they were like, OK, well, this is perfect timing. We’re going to shut down for these 48 hours, then spring break will happen and they’ll all come back and it will all be over. Yeah, that’s what happened there. And then no one came back after spring break.
Susan Reff: I think that was like the feeling everywhere, like if we just can close and no one does anything for two weeks, we’ll be fine. We’ll see past this because that’s why everybody like ran out, bought all the toilet paper. They’re like, I’m not going to be able to go to the storm and I have to buy all this toilet
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Paper, right?
Susan Reff: So I have to buy it now.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: We’re running out again, right?
Susan Reff: I have heard that Alissa told us that she had called all the Costcos and they were like, Oh, shipment comes in next week.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Oh yeah. And then Alissa said that she she was running out at her house, and so she ended up buying some toilet paper on Amazon, and it was like one hundred dollars for like eight rolls or something.
Susan Reff: I can
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Say that I bought toilet paper at Hy-Vee
Susan Reff: On Sunday and they were
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Stocked. Oh, good, but it wasn’t Costco.
Susan Reff: It was at Hy-Vee.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Do you like the Costco brand better or what?
Susan Reff: No. Oh I, you got
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Four rolls instead of 40.
Susan Reff: I prefer Charmin toilet paper. Oh, wherever I buy it from, is
Tracy Hightower-Henne: It to play?
Susan Reff: I don’t know. Foreplay. I don’t
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Know. So have you tried the Costco brand? The Kirkland?
Susan Reff: Yes.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: You don’t like it. No. Oh, I think it’s actually pretty great. It’s not like paper.
Susan Reff: I’ll just say that I have very sensitive skin.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: It’s going to say there’s something and lack of common ground.
Susan Reff: Yeah, I have laundry detergent issues. I have all I have to use all this sensitive skin stuff.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Ok, so I’ll accept the shaman is what you need. What about the office? Because that stuff’s kind of scratchy.
Susan Reff: Well, I think
Tracy Hightower-Henne: It’s do you bring your own role with you every time you go in?
Susan Reff: No, I don’t. I just
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Feel I’m getting a facial expression of move
Susan Reff: Along. Stop talking about toilet paper. Let’s talk about remote learning. Ok, being at home.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: The other part of the remote learning, though, that was really interesting, is not only did schools shut down, but all the people at work were, you know, almost immediately to work from home. Right. So we had all these people at home, school kids and potential people working from home. So if you think about the ex spouses, they’ve been divorced for whatever period of time. They have a parenting plan that probably says they have 50 50 custody and one parents working from home and the other parents not.
Susan Reff: And I think another thing to think about, too, is some people, like their jobs, were put on hold, you know, like if they were working in in a service industry or they, you know, like if they’re waiting tables or something like that. So some people were without a job and so their home.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. And I think interestingly, the first couple of phone calls I think that I remember back in the beginning was like, I’m working from home and my child needs to do remote learning, but my spouse is going to work and my parenting days or Mondays and Tuesdays, and his parenting days are Thursday and Friday. But because I can stay home with the kids, I should have them during the day on Thursday and Friday. Well, the other part, too, is that daycares were still open.
Susan Reff: Some it was like hit or miss, some were open and some were not.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: So then the parents who were remote work from home were like, Let’s save on daycare costs and the kids don’t have to go to daycare. And then the parents, though that had to go to work, there were some that were like, Well, but that’s my parenting time, so the kids shouldn’t go to your house during that time. But on the flip side, there were also parents that were like, my work from home means I literally have to work at home, so I can’t do the remote learning help and work from home, right? It was so different for every person.
Susan Reff: And inevitably, people who were divorced could not agree on what they were going to do.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Who’d a thunk it?
Susan Reff: I’m just shocked. I’m so
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Surprised. But the other thing that I think about too, you know when you said some people just kind of were out of a job. Teachers weren’t out of a job, but then they had to create a whole thing and work from home. So the teachers that also had young children that had to do their remote learning and then the teachers were doing, you know, teaching a class remotely from home that had had been chaotic in their houses.
Susan Reff: So I can tell you in my experience, so we are in the West Side School District, our remote learning in March of twenty twenty, the teacher didn’t teach. So what happened was every morning the kids were required to log on at 8:30, which is the normal school start time, and they did a 20 minute video class chat and the teacher went over the lessons. The kids were going to be assigned that day, and then the kids got a blast through the entire school email system, what all their assignments were. And they didn’t hear from the teacher again until the next morning at 8:30. So they were literally on their own. And this was, I think, in West Side every grade. So my son was in what grade was he in? He was
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Just last
Susan Reff: Year. He was in fifth grade.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: What grade is you now? Minus one?
Susan Reff: No, he was in fourth grade. Ok. When it started, it wasn’t last year. It was the year before. It was the school year before. Ok. So he was in the he was in fourth grade. He finished fourth grade remotely. So he was independent enough to like do his own assignments.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: But they were doing that, like for first graders.
Susan Reff: Yes. Wow. Note So then in fifth grade, when we started the school year remote, the teacher was actually teaching, so there was like a schedule. So the teacher was on camera, but they could. The technology to do that, like for the whole school day, was not there until some time passed.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: And I think when we look at our office, everyone that works here, it seems like you were really the only person who had a school age child that needed some assistance during the day like we had. We have a couple of people who have high school age kids that were just staying home, I think, on their own. But then it went all the way down to like babies. Yeah, and they all. Went to daycare.
Susan Reff: Yeah, I think in our office, the people whose kids were just daycare kids, their daycares were open. Yeah.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: It was the after school care type things.
Susan Reff: Well, you know, like Tara said, her daycare serves like Children’s Hospital and Methodist Hospital, so they they agreed to stay open. I mean, there was no mandate that daycares had to close. Right. So but I think some just did.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right. So then we moved into this idea of socializing and we were having parents call and say, you know, again, they’re divorced parents in a typical situation and one parent’s calling and saying, Well, my ex spouse is taking the kids to parties and not doing the quarantining, social distancing, things they’re all telling us to do. So it’s basically one parent saying, I’m trying to follow CDC guidelines and my ex-spouse is not. And because of that, we should modify and I should get full custody.
Susan Reff: I had a case that was pending during this time and the parties had split and they had agreed to a parenting time schedule for a temporary schedule that was like when Dad wasn’t working, he had the kids. It worked out to be like two and a half to three days a week. And then COVID started and she called me, and she’s like, Well, dad’s in a band. And so the band is still performing like at bars and restaurants and clubs and garages, and he’s taking the kids. And there’s before it was like, not a bad thing because there was other kids there and it was like a fun family environment. But now it’s a dangerous environment. Mm-hmm. And so we went back to the judge and the judge said the only thing I will agree to modify is that both parents have to follow the CDC guidelines. So that was the order. So then it was like, OK, whatever the CDC says and know they were like saying like gatherings of 50 or less was OK or whatever. Yeah. But then it was on the parents to know what those were because they changed daily.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: I remember doing some consults for the parents that literally the message was, Traci, I want to modify and I should get full custody in so many words, because I’m the better parent and I’m smarter and I’m going to be able to keep them safer. Yeah. And it was like I felt like this was their moment that they were waiting for, like, Oh yes, I’m finally going to get
Susan Reff: Finally a pandemic. Yes.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: And I think those consoles were like, Listen, I don’t think you’re going to get full custody. I suppose we could go and ask for modification. And I remember all the emails going back and forth on our listserv saying, Has anyone tried this argument? And some people were coming in and saying yes, and the judges are not interested in hearing this at all? Yeah. And the judges were really putting the onus on us as the lawyers to like weed these people out and calm them down.
Susan Reff: And, you know, along with the idea of I’m a better parent because I don’t take my kid to the big gathering like the other one does. Then there was the argument of and I make sure the kids always wear a mask and I always wear a mask. So and the other other parent doesn’t do that. So of course, I’m the better parent. You know, like putting that in there, too. And again, yeah, the judges are like, really?
Tracy Hightower-Henne: And on the flip side of that, to the parents that were taking the kids out to the, you know, banned things were saying, Well, the other parent is keeping these kids like hostage inside and they’re not learning anything and doing anything.
Susan Reff: And they’re not socializing, not having, you know, they’re never seeing their extended family. That was a big one. I especially with holidays, yes.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Well, let’s talk about that because then the next thing that happened really summer of 2020 comes and now the question is traveling.
Susan Reff: Yeah, and I think we saw this in two ways. You know, we saw it with the parents who only really get summer parenting time because they don’t live in the same area. So, you know, parents split and, you know, one parent gets a job offer in Texas, so they move to Texas and then they have the kids for the whole summer. And then it was other things like, well, summer family vacations, the Fourth of July. Or we always go to Branson for a week in the summer with, you know, do a family reunion. You know, those were like the different types of travel issues that we saw.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: And I even remember, like in that situation, some clients saying, Well, maybe I don’t really care if they take. Take our kids on a family vacation. We can’t just have everyone in the same house together. You know, they’re coming from all these different households and and Uncle Joey that was from Full House Uncle Joey is like super risky behavior and like, he’s going to infect everyone. Yeah, I was like, No, that’s probably Uncle Jesse.
Susan Reff: And then they wanted to like, say, like, Oh, well, they can go if they have their own private room or whatever it was like, that’s really not going to happen. The judges aren’t going to say, OK, you can go on the summer vacation if that one parent ensures the kids have their own room and all gatherings are outside and well.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: And not only like, are the judges not interested in these details of someone’s travel schedule and the logistics? We almost couldn’t get into court. Right? I mean, the judges were like, We’re courthouse is closed. You got to figure out how to do something different.
Susan Reff: Well, you know, and the courthouse wasn’t really closed. It was like each judge was kind of doing whatever the heck they wanted to do because our Supreme Court refused to close the courthouse.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Well, but remember, there were memos that came out that basically said, do not come to the courthouse unless you need to. Yeah. And it was like, and that means if you need to file a protection order.
Susan Reff: And it was so confusing because then if you went down to county court for criminal cases, it was operating a little differently, but not differently enough that, you know, there was no court happening, right? So it was like, what the heck like? And every day it was changing, you know, we would get a memo and then we would get a memo, and I remember we would print them and we like stacked them up on this countertop. And it was, you know, like this one’s from the Supreme Court, this one’s from the District Court, this one’s from county court, but only Douglas County. And then this one’s from SRP.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: But then juvenile court email them.
Susan Reff: And juvenile court is still doing a lot of stuff remote. So who
Tracy Hightower-Henne: The heck? We still don’t even know what’s happening every hearing.
Susan Reff: Am I supposed to be there in person or is this, yeah, remote? Yeah.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: So well, what was that Japan case?
Susan Reff: So we had a case that the dad was in the military, and I think this was a situation where dad only had the summer parenting time because he didn’t live here in in the Omaha area. And so his normal parenting time was all summer long, and he was trying to make the travel arrangements for the kids to come out to see him. And he he was, I think, probably some military. So he was stationed, I think in California or maybe Hawaii. I can’t remember which. And mom was like, Well, the kids aren’t coming with you and top it off. He had gotten us an assignment for just the summer to go to Japan, and he was going to take his kids with him to Japan on his assignment. And he thought, Well, it’s my parenting time. And this was when, like, the numbers in Japan were really, really high.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: I mean, it was basically going to Wuhan, China.
Susan Reff: Well, and I think even the borders potentially are like travel wasn’t allowed, but because he was military, he was going to be allowed. So and the kids, his are his family so he could take them.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Have you have you have you had a military case where the they talk about the flight, the military plane flights? No. Well, and the reason I’m asking is because like if the borders were closed and Japan, you know, right now, we barely can’t go to Europe. And can we even go to Canada? I don’t know. But the military spouse or flint military flights, you can literally get on a plane and there’s no seats and it’s just like the open, like a cargo. Yeah. And so they say that even your kids can come when you have parenting time and you’re going over to an assignment that they can come. And so I’ve had cases where these parents are like, you know, I want the travel schedule and they’re like, I don’t know what plane I’m going to get on. We’re going to go and wait and see which plane we can get on next. So I wonder if that was sort of happening with this guy’s Japan assignment.
Susan Reff: And then they go and they get in the back and there’s like a tank and, yeah, a bunch of supplies. Yeah. And then a bunch of kids. Yeah, no sandwiches handed out on that plane, I’m guessing.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Probably some crackers.
Susan Reff: Oh man. So I think what we ended up doing in that case was we I don’t know if we filed a show cause or a motion to enforce the dad’s parenting time, and it actually got to hearing. And I’m sure at this point it was well into the dad’s supposed
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Time and the mom, she said she withheld the child and
Susan Reff: Going, Yeah, and the judge said, I am not allowing the child. And to travel anywhere, they can’t go to California or Hawaii, whichever one it was with the dad and then the. For sure, they cannot go to Japan. So basically, the judge said, Sorry, dad, you don’t get your parenting time because you don’t live here and we’re in the middle of a pandemic and I’m not going to change mom content, right? Yeah.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: But at some point that dad got some make up parenting time.
Susan Reff: Yeah, I don’t I don’t remember the rest of the case how that turned out. It wasn’t my case, but it was. I mean, how do you make up that you really can’t?
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. So but then we had other judges that were like, I’m not making this decision right and I’m not going to hold someone in contempt..
Susan Reff: I think COVID was a very, very, very good reminder that. All of our judges do things completely differently. No, and and one judge might rule one way with one case and then do the opposite on the next case
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Of it depends on what side of the bed they woke up on, literally.
Susan Reff: Yeah, but nothing highlighted it more than covered in my experience.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: I mean, sometimes I want to walk into judge’s chambers and be like, Hey, judge, did you wake up on the good side of the bed today or the bad side? And I’ll maybe know how you’re going to rule?
Susan Reff: I, I really want to say, what the fuck all the time?
Tracy Hightower-Henne: I think we maybe should. Or if you say, WTF is it better or you say W taf, what the actual fuck?
Susan Reff: Yeah, I just spell it out my head. I don’t know. Well, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, that could be another podcast like what we really want to say to judges, but don’t.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: That would be fun. And then invite them and send them all the link.
Susan Reff: Maybe we could get a guest judge and they would tell us why they do stuff.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: I got it. We will do the microphone voice changer and have anonymous guests. And then judges won’t know who’s saying, what about them or what they thought?
Susan Reff: My my kid has one of those as a toy. It’s like it looks like a little megaphone and you talk in it and it’s like, where? Where makes your voice funny? We could bring that. Yeah, we would know, though we would have to sign a confidentiality agreement with the judge. Yeah. We won’t tell anyone. Oh, you
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Want a judge to come in? Yeah, with the voice changer. Oh, I thought we were just going to have some lawyers kind of like shit talking judges decisions.
Susan Reff: Oh, both.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: To be clear, not shit talking judges, but their decision. Yeah. So we could I could have we could have a judge and a lawyer that has an issue with that judge and then try to mediate the issue.
Susan Reff: Yeah. I accept judges can’t comment on like pending things, right?
Tracy Hightower-Henne: So I don’t. But if they’re if they have a voice-over voice changer, maybe they put
Susan Reff: A paper bag over their head with the cutouts. Do you ever do that when you were a kid as a mask? So, so we won’t.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: We won’t even know what you said. We’ll invite 10 judges and one of them shows up. We won’t know which one that is.
Susan Reff: When I was a kid, my mom was not excited about Halloween, so I often did. The paper bag mask like wrote Frankenstein was really easy to do because Frankenstein has like the square head. And yeah, and then you didn’t. And sometimes we would do clown face on the mask. That was the easy one to do, too. Funny, funny, but sad.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah, OK, so that brings us to where we are now, and that’s the vaccines, and we just had a consultation with a potential client. As far as I know that she has not yet become a client, but her position was that she did not want her children to get vaccinated, and they were in the age five to 11 group, and she was concerned that her ex-husband would go get the kids vaccinated, and she wanted to know what she could do to stop that. And that conversation was, we don’t know, but here’s different tools in the toolbox. We could file what’s called an injunction, which is basically sort of like a cease and desist court order that says you’re on notice that you can’t do this. And then it’s sort of like extra bad if you do it. And you know, the problem is in that situation is most parents have joint legal custody, which means you get to jointly make medical decisions, and the court relies on the ability for them to do that. And but on the same hand, you go, you take your kid to Hy-Vee or Coles, they’re going to jab him in the arm. They don’t care what your decree says, right? They’re not going. They don’t even care if that’s your parent or not. Yeah, they find a kid off the street and take him in and is going to jab him in the arm. So we’re not finding kids off the street. You looked at me funny, like, I was like, Well,
Susan Reff: That’s a really extreme example to make this point. They don’t ask
Tracy Hightower-Henne: You, yeah, they don’t kill your parents. And so the conversation we had with this woman was, you know, if your husband ex-husband goes and gets them vaccinated, there’s no huge ramification, right? Other than potentially a punitive penalty, which just means you’ve got to pay money because you knew you shouldn’t do this.
Susan Reff: Yeah, because you can’t vaccinate a kid, right?
Tracy Hightower-Henne: A person. I mean, like, maybe if you right after they jab, you cut their arm off and you get the vaccine out of their system. That’s only thing you could do.
Susan Reff: But if if one parent did that, I think we’d have bigger problems than whether the kid got vaccinated.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: I mean, I think that would turn into. Criminal defense client, yeah, and maybe a divorce and probably estate planning,
Susan Reff: Maybe some modifications, so based on real material changes of circumstance,
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. So but the other interesting thing is, you know, the new newest age of vaccines is younger than the previous, right that you started at 16 and then it went to 12 and now it’s under 12, right? So why is it different with these younger kids?
Susan Reff: Well, I think with some of the older kids, they were their own advocate. You know, they were saying like, I really want to get the vaccine or I really don’t and, you know, probably able to say why they felt that way. You know, like I I’d like to get the vaccine because, you know, then I feel like I’m more safe or I don’t want to get the vaccine because I’m I’m not, you know, I don’t know how to make a case for that, really. But I mean, I could imagine someone saying something like, Well, I don’t think it’s been studied enough or whatever. Or, you know, my my one parent doesn’t want me to get it and I align with that parent. I think that’s more of what we were seeing.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Well, one thing we talked about, though, was foster kids. And that’s a whole group of children that have an interesting implication that the Department of Health and Human Services is their legal guardian.
Susan Reff: Yeah. Foster kids are in a unique situation that nobody else is in, because when you’re in foster care, the Department of Health and Human Services, which is an agency, is your legal parent instead of your mom and dad. But your mom and dad still have medical decision making power over you. So like, if a kid got really sick and they were in foster care and the doctor’s like, well, we think we should remove their tonsils, the parents have to give consent. And most of the time they do, because the doctor is saying, like, here’s what we need to do. But for this vaccine thing, it’s it’s a different thing, right? Because the doctors, the kid isn’t going to the doctor because they’re sick. So some of the foster kids, especially some of the older kids, were saying, I want to get the vaccine. They’re telling their caseworker. And some of these parents are either, you know, completely off the grid, missing in action, you know, whatever can’t get consent or those parents are refusing to consent. So a lot of those foster kids were then going through their guardian ad litem and having a hearing, and the judge was determining whether the child should get the vaccine or not. Well, that takes time. Yeah, and clogs up the system with something that you know, shouldn’t be there.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: So, so the court is the place to go, right, if you have questions about this. But I think I think the biggest takeaway is, you know, speak with an attorney about what what situation you’re in and if it may be a unique situation that going to court is appropriate. But probably you’re going to get advice that the court’s going to assume you can work it out between the two parents. And I think the other thing that I would say is if you are against getting the vaccine for your kids, you need to make that very clear with your ex-spouse or your co-parent. Then that way, if they do get them vaccinated and if you have joint legal custody, you might have some avenue, right? But also remember, yeah, unless you cut their arm off, it’s pretty much a done deal.
Susan Reff: If it gets done, you undoing it is not possible.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: What’s done is done. Yeah. So what? It’s covered in co-parenting, co-parenting in COVID. Yes, I’m sure there will be more things that we could have never dreamed about from COVID and how it applies to co-parenting. We just haven’t seen it. We haven’t
Susan Reff: Heard. So next time, maybe we’ll know more about it.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Well, we’ll clue you in. Yeah.
Susan Reff: Thanks for listening.
Tracy Hightower-Henne: Check you later.
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