Month: August 2020

Like Mother, Like Daughter

August 27, 2020 / Doing Divorce

“Like mother, like daughter” she said in response to my daughter reporting I took her to a doctor to inspect a dime-sized black spot on her thigh that after a week was not resolving. When my distressed daughter relayed this to me, I asked for the context. “I don’t know mom! Why does she ever talk about you?” Without context to guide my reaction, I was left flailing to understand. “Like mother, like daughter” are the words I want to hear about my daughters in relation to me. I still beam with pride when someone says it in reference to

Private Education Expenses

August 25, 2020 / Children, Divorce Made Simple, Financial Support

We know there is stress and confusion regarding the start of school this year for families in Nebraska. What may be adding stress to some divorced parents is the decision to send their children to public school or whether to enroll them in private school depending upon each schools’ coronavirus precaution and procedures. The Nebraska Supreme Court Child Support Guidelines have no specific provisions regarding the expense of private education. However, both parents can agree in a divorce decree that they want their children to attend private school and agree upon how the education expense will be paid. Previously, the

Choosing the Fires

August 21, 2020 / NEXT: An Empowerment Series

“Don’t look back,” he said as we parted. For a decade after a divorce I’d been goodbye-ing my children. But this time, instead a farewell at his father’s front door, I left my youngest on a lawn thousand miles away from home. He was 15. Introverted and incredibly intelligent, he was too smart for high schools and I wasn’t smart enough for home school. Instead of starting his sophomore year with his classmates, he entered his freshman year at college. He stood alone under a sunny sky amidst a campus of strangers as I walked to my rental car weeping without shame. It wasn’t a pandemic, but it wasn’t the back to school we planned. There would be no parent teacher conference to meet his teachers. No open house to see his classrooms. And, there would be no cell phones. Will he be safe? Will

Privileged Listening

August 14, 2020 / NEXT: An Empowerment Series

“Fifteen minutes is a long time,” she said, the 4th of July sun beating down on her. I was shocked. According to this straight A, double major college student, many in her generation found mere minutes of waiting a barrier to registering to vote. It was hot on the rooftop. I felt my rising blood pressure make me hotter and my urge to pontificate escalate. Did she not know how suffragists were arrested, beaten, and jailed? How they were mocked for decades for their dedication making this right real? How Susan B. Anthony sacrificed all that she had for the

Defending Eyebrows

August 7, 2020 / NEXT: An Empowerment Series

“Too dark of eyebrows. Too dark accentuates under eye and wrinkles. Use a wand for pink highlight in inner tear duct.” My friend of 40 years gives me helpful advice. For as long as I can remember she’s shared on everything from which type of Miracle-Gro to use in my window boxes to why Gevalia coffee was an essential morning brew. She is a great researcher with as much life experience than me and her expertise is based on both. My pal loves and only wants what’s best for me. So why did I pause upon receipt of this helpful tip in a tiny text? What was it that made me want to explain? I put it on carelessly at the last minute. It looks much lighter in the

Back to School: Corona-Style

August 6, 2020 / Doing Divorce

I just turned it off one day. It was too much. I could no longer consume, react, and mourn the rancorous dissension filling up my social media feeds and nightly newscasts. To mask or not to mask, to reopen restaurants and bars or not, to social distance or stay quarantined – it was all taking its toll. And then I read an article that by turning it all off I was exercising again my white privilege – leading to more helplessness. Now it is back-to-school time. I read posts like “Kids. Need. School,” and I want to engage. Who is

Month: August 2020