The annoying beeping of my work desk phone interrupted the room’s silence.

I usually did not receive calls at my

desk. I answered the phone with an inquisitive hello and suddenly felt an eerie chill run throughout my body. The shaky
high-pitched voice belonged to the receptionist in our HR department. "Christina, someone is in the lobby for you. They
need to see you right away. They, they, um, they have a badge and need you to come right now." My goodness! A badge?
I started thinking back. Did I forget to pay my taxes? Did I do something wrong? Is this a mistake? Then, I realized what
it may be. Quickly gliding down the stairs, maneuvering through the hallways I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself.
Once I arrived at our HR department, I was greeted by the receptionist. "I'm sorry Christina," she said while pointing to a
man in the lobby. Our eyes met. He was Wearing a white-collar long-sleeve shirt, black dress slacks, and a police badge
on his belt. His large hands held a stapled stack of paperwork. “Christina Planck?” His voice was authoritative and
serious. “Yes, that’s me,” I replied. He then proceeded to go on with his purpose for coming to my place of work. My
heart began sinking to the floor. “I have some paperwork for you, it is a summons to appear in court.” He continued
explaining, but his words faded out and I have no recollection of most of the words he spoke. My mind only focused on
the seriousness of the matter. As the unempathetic man left, his last words kept playing over and over in my head. "You
need to bring a lawyer."
In 2015 on a cold, sunny February day, I was joined by my then-husband in a conference room in a well-
decorated attorney's office. We were both ecstatic the day had finally come that we would be legally divorced. We did not
fight with each other and both could agree on decisions about our then five-year-old son. We knew he needed us to get
along. We wanted our son to have each of his parents equally, so we chose to co-parent. My soon-to-be ex-husband had
recently built a house in a town with a better school district than where I had lived at the time, so I agreed to let him be the
residential parent for school purposes ONLY. We drafted a shared parenting plan. No one paid child support, decisions
about my son had to be made together, and time was divided evenly at each of our houses. We even asked the attorney if
we could attend the mandated parenting class together. The attorney's eyes widen as he informed us that it was not
allowed and then added this was the easiest dissolution he had ever worked on. The only thing about this particular
litigation was that I did not have the knowledge I do now and since we both used the same attorney, one of us had to
choose to be represented by their law firm. Given it was my son's father's acquaintance I thought it would only be fair to
allow it to be him that was represented. Little did I know this decision and the legal mumbo jumbo would come back to
haunt me four years later.
It was September 18, 2019, the day my world as I knew it flipped upside down. I decided to keep my son home
because I believed he needed a mental health day. He was displaying signs of stress and exhaustion. The eight-year-old
child decided he move up from flag football to tackle football. The program was intense for a third-grader. Practice after
school only allowed him a short time to grab a snack and gear up to meet his team on the practice field. After the
strenuous drills and physical demands shouted out by the Peewee coach my child had absolutely nothing else to give. He
never gave up though, even waking up between 5:15 and 5:30 in the morning to get ready for daycare and then school
from his father's house. When my child stayed with me, he only added another hour to hour and 15 minutes to his wake-
up time. On average my son's days lasted about 15 hours! Sometimes even 16! I cannot speak for anyone else, but I do not
function well with consistent 15 to 16-hour days. No wonder he was exhausted,
I had received an email from my child’s teacher that he was doing well academically but seemed fatigued. She
had encountered some problems that I will not elaborate on. Days went on and the teacher became more concerned asking
that we seek counseling to help him with his struggles. My co-parent and I thought we could handle the issue and we tried
talking with our son together. Being unsuccessful, an incident occurred and yet another email was sent by the teacher. So,
I decided to keep my child home the next day and notified his father via text informing him that I kept him home for a
mental health day. The date….September 18, 2019.
For my son's mental health day, I took him to a counseling place. My son was timid and leaned on me for strength
while I filled out all the paperwork for an assessment. I spent the rest of the day rejuvenating my son and building up his
self-esteem. He told me he felt so much better and was happy that he was going to counseling. I could tell the little guy
had felt hope to overcome the issues he was facing. This was not accepted by his father and a text conversation went down
that ended badly. Very bad. One thing led to another and before I knew it words were flying everywhere creating
animosity.
 On September 19, 2019, I received an email from my child's father wishing to follow the parenting schedule in
our court documents. What? What parenting schedule? He sent the image of the parenting schedule in another email and I
inspected it carefully. Well to my surprise, since our parenting schedule was a verbal agreement there was not a document
protecting my son's schedule that we had followed since we had split up when our child was one year old. This was a first
for me. The new parenting schedule was not at all fair. It was as a generic schedule, following the court’s recommended
parenting time, allowing me to see my child every other weekend and one day a week when it was not my weekend. This
was horrible. Not only was my son going through difficult times, he now was having his mother’s normal time taken from
him, and not given the opportunity to seek counseling.
The lawyer who wrote up our dissolution in 2015 was not fair to me at all. The paperwork basically took my
rights away as a co-parent if we were to not verbally agree on issues. I had no idea it was written that way and had not
even picked up the paperwork since 2015. This created an opportunity for my son's father to do whatever he wanted when
he got upset with me. The schedule resembled a single parenting schedule with visitations from me. Just as if my son's
father was the sole custodial parent. It was not a co-parenting schedule at all. Although the words said shared parenting
and we had been co-parenting for four years, this vanished with a quickness. This was a sorrowful and stressful time for
me. My son was detrimentally affected as well.
During this time my son and I talked and texted on the phone as much as we could to help our broken hearts feel
better. This only served as temporary comfort. Every minute that child was with me, we spent together side-by-side. We
laughed, cried, cuddled, and our bond grew stronger as the days went on between our short visits. There were times I had
to not be selfish and allow him to spend time with his cousin instead of me. As much as I missed my son, he missed his
cousin the just as much too.
The only way out was to hire an attorney with funds I did not have. I called around and quoted the litigation
process. The lowest amount I could find to retain an attorney was $2500 and it only went up from there. I even found an
attorney who wanted to charge $7500. This was only to retain them!!! Most were $200 to $300 an hour. I did not know
what to do, but soon I would be faced with only one option.
Remember the day at work when I walked down the stairs? When I was greeted by the man with the badge? Yes,
now…there was but one option- hire an attorney. I began to work overtime, asked my family for money, took out loans,
and arranged payments to retain an attorney to represent me. I had to fix this problem at all costs.
My son was sad when he had to leave me one night. I looked into his eyes as held him close and said, "Mom will
fix this. I am trying everything I can. I promise. I will do my best, and everything will be ok." My son hugged me, and a
tear fell down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away, so he did not see.
As the days continued, I showed up at every football practice I could. (An extra chance to see my son.) I showed
up with my shoulders back, my head held high, and a huge smile on my face. He always kept his water bottle by me so he
could come to see me when he took his water breaks. It had been two weeks since his father imposed the new schedule
when I had arrived at football practice one evening. My son saw me, and his eyes locked on me. I saw him swallow hard
and quickly look away. I instantly felt something was wrong but smiled and waved being cautious to not make a scene so
I would not embarrass him in front of his friends. Later into practice, I saw my child grab his stomach and he was
struggling. His coach ended up having him take off his helmet and sit down. My son started to cry trying his best to not let
anyone see. It seemed like each time he looked at me he would almost vomit. He said, "I do not know what is wrong with
me, I have felt sick for two weeks. My stomach hurts, I feel like I am going to throw up." My son did not know he was
feeling anxiety from not seeing me as often as he was used to. He did not know that the sick feeling was because of
heartache.
 Time went on and text messages came poured through between my son and me. We flooded each other's phones
and his father did not like that. There were quite a few texts that said, "I miss you," that he was going to cry and lots that
said, "I love you." I noticed his grades starting to lower, found uncompleted work in his folder but he was still doing ok.
He was often sick with a cold, or runny nose. One time he told me that no one had given him "love" for 7 days! (Which
was the last time I had seen him.) Sacrificing what little time I had with my son, I put him in counseling so he could get
the help and support he needed to get through this mess. He told his counselor he loved me and missed me, and that it
hurts him when his parents talk bad about each other.

Months went by of this darkness. I found creative ways to see my child whenever I could, like extra school
events. I noticed my son started leaving his personal belongings behind at my house so I would bring them to him when
he had to return to his dad's. He called me and asked for me to drop off food, toys, and drinks giving him a chance to see
me. One time he even played with his wrestlers in my car for half an hour. It was that time it became apparent he was
leaving things behind on purpose. I pulled up at my child's father's house, on the street of course, and saw this barefoot
blur fly to my car. It was my son, but he came to the driver's side door. His eyes were red, and his face had tears rolling
down his little cheeks. I could not get my door open fast enough and he jumped in my lap. My son is two-thirds my size,
but I still let him sit in my lap and I held him tight. He got in the passenger side of the car and we played with all his
wrestlers. I would tell my son’s father a child needs both his parents equally and he needed us to get along for him. Many
times, I would send articles about what successful co-parenting is, and beg him to reconsider his decisions. I told him that
children who do not have both of their parents develop behavioral issues or may struggle in school. Other conversations
consisted of me expressing the importance of respect for our son regardless of how he felt about me, or I felt about him. I
begged my son’s dad to consider our child’s best interest and wishes which was to have both of us equally.
 Unfortunately, the litigation process was drug out due to COVID-19 rearing its ugly head. My son began remote
learning, and this actually worked out in my favor. I ended up getting my child a lot because of school being shut down
and his father knowing I could help our child with his schoolwork. I started to see a change of heart in my son’s father.
Thanks to spring break occurring on my weekend, I had my child for ten days straight. We partied like rock stars! (Kid
rock stars that is.) Once we realized school was not going to reopen things slowly worked back into the 2-2-3 schedule.
We finally started to co-parent again making sure that our son completed assignments and discussing his progress with
each other. My son was very happy. All that time we lost together was made up because I ended up getting my son more
so that I could help him with his schoolwork because his dad had to work.

Finally, eight months later this all came to an end with a happy ending. My son’s father and I had been praised by
the court for coming to a mutual agreement to split the responsibilities of raising our child. We agreed on the 2-2-3
schedule, and all medical decisions, school decisions, and costs were to be made together in the best interest of our child.
Nobody paid the other parent child support. Nobody had more say than the other parent. Everything was equal, and that is
just what my son needed. It was indeed a true shared parenting plan legally documented!

It has been five months since the finalized court order and my son is thriving. He loves everyone in his family and
enjoys his time spent in both homes equally. He made the honor roll last quarter and had straight "A"'s. My son has barely
had anxiety issues, and his outbursts are almost nonexistent. Co-parenting was happening now! There was hardly any
conflict between us! We were accommodating each other, considering the other’s schedule, and helping when we could!
We had agreed to keep our son out of extracurricular activities for the time being. Most importantly, we kept our child as
our main focus while making decisions. Our son had come back to life. I recently spoke with my son and asked him how
he felt. I always conduct ongoing assessments and check-ups to make sure my son is doing well and if there needs to be
adjustments. He told me he felt loved and more confident and enjoyed looking out into the audience during his play and
seeing both of his parents there. I kept the court proceedings and struggles a secret from him as much as I could, but he is
very intelligent. He quickly learned that things were settled, and he hugged me. wrapping his arms tightly around me. I
took a deep breath in and my whole body relaxed. Regardless of my child's father's and our indifferences about each other,
our son was still benefitting through our co-parenting. This supports the research and articles that experts have conducted
and wrote that I have read. Our son has a healthy relationship with both of his parents. He loves that he gets two birthday
parties and has two Christmas.
 Although some may not agree that co-parenting is the best style of parenting, I feel they are wrong. Some may
they think it hurts a child going back and forth between homes, or that parent’s conflicts cannot be overcome. My
opinion- they are wrong. Parents must work together after a divorce or separation for raising their child or children. My
personal experiences show co-parenting is better than if a single parent has the child and primarily makes most of the
decisions. Our son is attached to both of his parents and it helps him feel more secure to know that both of his parents are
there to support him. He does not feel like he must pick and choose, and we do not put him in the middle of our
disagreements. My suggestion to any parent that must go through divorce or separation is to pick co-parenting for their
parenting style. Children thrive in this type of environment and I feel it is best for all those involved.