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Dr. J's Antidotes to Despair:
People often feel overwhelmed by the culture. But despair and discouragement are always our enemies. Try these activities whenever you feel All is Lost.
1. Send the Ruth Institute newsletter to 5 friends. Tell them how the Ruth Institute has helped you make the case for natural marriage.
2. Post the current Ruth Institute article to your facebook page, or in the comments section of articles. (Just last week, a friend of mine e-mailed me in a panic. "Jenny, you've got to get over here on this site. People are saying really dumb stuff, and I need some research to back me up!") But you, dear Ruth Readers, have access to lots of research! Make sure it gets out there.
3. If you really feel despair, make a contribution to the Ruth Institute or other worthy cause. You might say, "Despair could get expensive." Yes, that's the idea! We can't have our team sitting on the sidelines wringing their hands!
Promise yourself you won't waste another minute worrying! Do something constructive instead!
Find more ideas for getting involved here.
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Jon and Kate plus Eight
minus Sane Divorce Laws
by Helen M. Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law and Ruth Institute Advisory Board Member
"Jon and Kate plus Eight." "Kate plus Eight." "Jon and the Other Kate." If there was ever a time we wanted to shield our eyes from supermarket tabloids, this must be it. Yet, while their story is topping the pop culture charts, it seems fitting to look more closely at it in order to acknowledge not only the emotional wreckage involved, but also the light it sheds on the travesty we call our divorce laws.
In case you are one of the handful of people not aware of Jon and Kate Gosslein's story, a little background is in order. This 30-something couple -- self-described Christians -- she a former pediatric nurse and he a former IT specialist, used fertility drugs to conceive twins in 2000 and sextuplets in 2003. After being discovered by the TLC cable network, they became the subject of a weekly reality-television program covering the chaotic activities of their large family. Over the course of four television seasons, viewers were treated to the sight of Kate's transformation - via plastic surgeries and talented hairdressers - into something of a fashion icon.
Viewers could also witness the couple's marital friction, which, speaking quite generally, consisted of Kate ordering Jon about in a less than gentle fashion, and Jon growing increasingly resentful. In June, 2009, the couple announced their split. Jon now refuses to allow his children to appear on television in a revised program to be called "Kate plus Eight." All of this created what the New York Times television critic called an "unintentionally brilliant" and "multi-platform" phenomenon. Blogs, talk-shows, and tabloids could not stop obsessing about the details of their behavior.
But now, back to reality. What we have here is a couple with eight children, 9 and under, currently living a terribly expensive lifestyle (a $1.3 million, 6200 square foot house, an apartment in New York, bodyguards, supersized cars, etc.), whose sole income is utterly attached to their union. (Kate has earned income from books, but it's safe to say that her proposed "brand" of baby clothes and toys could suffer dramatically without a television platform to give them visibility). They are divorcing because Cait felt she had "grown out of" Jon, "was done with him and ...no longer wanted to be with him." She refused to go to counseling, according to Jon, other than to "Dr. Phil," who apparently urged the couple to "keep their brand intact."
Practically speaking, this means two or possibly three residences (one for the children, which the parents "visit" according to a custody schedule, and one for each of the parents when they are not at the main house with the children), and two or three sets of utility bills and furnishings. It also means each of them will have to dream up alternative sources of income, although it's sadly possible that at least until Americans find a new tabloid obsession (say, if Brad and Angie split...), that each parent could get by for a while by sharing the gory details of their misery and the kids'.
Despite all of this, neither Pennsylvania (their home state), nor any other state, has any laws on the books to stop this train wreck from proceeding on schedule. Let's think about some of the most stunning elements of this in order.
First, Pennsylvania allows "no-fault" divorce. If there is mutual consent, a court can grant a divorce if both allege that the marriage is "irretrievably broken" and 90 days have passed from the filing of a divorce petition. If only one party alleges "irretrievable breakdown," then the court will grant a divorce after the passage of 2 years during which the parties have lived separate and apart. Now we know that courts do not take a penetrating look at couples' situations before granting divorces on the basis of "irretrievable breakdown." If they did, even setting aside the children's well-being for a moment, would they really conclude that Kate's feeling that she had "grown out of" Jon, while overwhelmed by impossible media and public pressure, really meet that standard?
Read the rest of this article from culture-of-life.org here.
Also, Dr. J did a podcast on this same subject, called Me-Centered Marriage. Listen to it here.
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