Recent family-related news included tips on how to protect your money when tying the knot, the devastating effects of “parentification”, reasons why divorce filings often rise in the United States in August, the divorce law in England and Wales may result in a spike in divorce filings and a photographic essay featuring the author’s 23 new found half siblings.
6 things wealthy people do to protect their money when they get married Sarah Wells, Business Insider, June 21, 2019 …An obvious choice when entering a marriage — whether it be financially high-risk or not — is to sign a prenuptial agreement. This is a legal agreement where both partners agree ahead of time to what division of assets they would accept in the case of a divorce…Another thing for engaged couples to consider is how debt will be dealt with during, and potentially at the end of, a marriage.
Children Cannot Parent Other Children Ashley Fetters, The Atlantic, June 24, 2019 A fundamental truth about children is that they have needs they cannot themselves fulfill…Experts call children shouldering parental duties in the absence of a capable adult caregiver “parentification,” or sometimes destructive parentification…Parentification, in other words, is bad for kids even in less extreme circumstances than a detainment facility…Many studies find that they continue to compulsively parent others into adolescence and adulthood, at the expense of their own needs and sometimes at the expense of those relationships with others…
Divorces spike in the summer. Here’s how to prepare for the end, experts say USA TODAY, June 24, 2019 With children out of school and family vacations planned, summer can be a time that adds stress to many marriages. It can also be a time to start planning for divorce if a spouse is considering it, family law and psychology experts say. Divorce filings consistently tick up in August and March, according to a study presented in 2016 at the American Sociological Association.
Divorce: New law could lead to ‘spike’ – minister BBC News, 25 June 2019 The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill, removes the need, in England and Wales, to find fault in order to start proceedings immediately. MPs approved the bill at its second reading – bringing changes a step closer to becoming reality…David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, said a change in the law would help in situations where there is one abusive partner, but the other does not want to raise these issues in court… David Gauke said people were holding off until the law changed leading to an increase “in the waiting list”.
A Family Portrait: Brothers, Sisters, Strangers Photo essay by Eli Baden-Lasar, Text by Eli Baden-Lasar as told to Susan Dominus, The New York Times, June 26, 2019 “It was never a secret in my house that I was conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor… I think [my parents] were just so focused on thinking about the new family they were creating that they never stopped to think about the implications of the huge, inadvertent social experiment they were joining…one way I could maybe make sense of all of this was through photography… I could use the camera as an excuse to meet each sibling and maybe the process of making pictures would help me find some sort of stability, even as I also recognized that conflict, discomfort and maybe even a kind of love would be part of the experience…
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