Sunday, June 2, 2002

A story published today by the Henderson Gleaner reports that when families are broken apart, the rip goes right through the middle of a child's heart.

But tearing kids in two in the name of family is an age-old tale.

"Unfortunately, cutting the baby in half is not an option," said Elizabeth Vaughn, who for eight years was domestic relations commissioner in Henderson Circuit Court and was recently appointed family court judge. "There wouldn't be a mother or father who ran forth to say let her have the baby or let him have the baby.... It worked for Solomon in the Old Testament , but it won't work for the rest of us."

Henderson Circuit Court has granted about 350 divorces in each of the last 10 years, according to records at the Henderson County Judicial Center, and in each of those years about 165 cases affected minor children.

When the database was analyzed, it showed that in Henderson County a person filing for divorce is most likely to be a woman in her late 20s or early 30s, and that it takes her about six months to get the divorce finalized.

She's been married just under 10 years at the time of filing the divorce and has a single 7-year-old daughter, for whom she receives $51 a week in child support.

She is most likely to share custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, but the child lives with her most of the time.

In fact, the data shows that in recent divorces the trend is clearly toward joint custody, with parents sharing custody in fully two-thirds of the cases.

But the mother is still primarily responsible for child-rearing. Of the 102 cases involving joint custody, the father was the primary care-giver in only 15 of them.

And in cases where custody is not shared, the court was more likely to award the children to grandparents rather than to the father. The vast majority of children in sole custody cases were housed with their mothers.

But that's more by choice than by law, according to Steve Gold, the current domestic relations commissioner, whose role will end when the family court office is fully operational.

"There is certainly no legal preference," he said. "Both parents are absolutely equal under the law." He noted that in many cases the parties work out custody arrangements on their own "and I don't see them."

"That was a voluntary thing in many situations," said Vaughn. "Most fathers believe ... the mother was better suited for the care of the child. It wasn't a matter of people fighting over custody."

But when custody fights erupt, the child is often caught in the middle -- and sometimes is even used as a weapon.

In some cases the court does not have any good choices when it comes to custody -- it must simply make the best of a bad situation.