Family Law Prof Blog

Spending Differences Among Generations

From CNN:

Baby Boomers are living it up, splurging on cruises and restaurants. Younger Americans are struggling just to keep up.

Bank of America internal data shows a “significant gap” in spending has opened recently between older and younger generations.

While Baby Boomers and even Traditionalists (born 1928-1945) are ramping up spending, Gen X, Gen Z and Millennials are cutting back as they grapple with high housing costs and looming student debt payments.

“It’s fairly unusual,” David Tinsley, senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, told CNN in a phone interview.

Overall, household spending dipped 0.2% year-over-year in May, according to the bank’s card data — but the generational breakdown showed a more varied picture.

Spending increased by 5.3% for Traditionalists and 2.2% for Baby Boomers. In contrast, spending fell by about 1.5% for younger generations.

If not for the aggressive spending by Boomers, Tinsley said, overall consumer spending would have been even more negative.

So, what is going on?

Read more here.

 

 

Climate Change Impacting Family Decisions

From CNBC:

Climate change is affecting people’s decisions about where to work, what companies they buy things from — and how many kids to have.

More than half of parents, 53%, say that climate change affects their decision about having more children, according to a new survey.

Global research firm Morning Consult conducted the survey on behalf of computer tech company HP, polling more than 5,000 adult parents in India, Mexico, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom polled between May 18 and 26. About 1,000 parents in each of the five countries were surveyed.

Read more here.

Call for Papers

The Section on Family & Juvenile Law is pleased to announce a Call for Papers for its substantive panel at the 2024 AALS Annual Meeting to be held January 3-6 in Washington, D.C. The theme of the overall conference is Defending Democracy, and the theme of the panel is reproductive justice, broadly construed. For roughly five decades, from Roe to Dobbs, bodily and reproductive autonomy were an essential suite of fundamental rights and individual privacy interests enjoyed by people who identify as women. Now, in a post-Dobbs reality, the thin, tenuous nature of reproductive autonomy rights and privacy interests has been laid bare. The once-believed-to-be inviolable rights to reproductive autonomy pose a keen challenge for a society that dreams of democracy.

The committee broadly defines "democracy" and "reproductive justice." Accordingly, we invite people who may not style themselves as reproductive justice scholars or advocates to consider connections from their work to this important issue. We invite both cause advocates who fight/fought constitutional prohibitions against reproductive autonomy and scholars who present imaginative, optimistic solutions for regaining basic human rights to reproductive justice. A primary goal of the panel is to hear fresh ideas that have the power to illuminate a complex legal problem within a multi-faceted, interconnected space that can reveal common ground among cause advocates and scholars.  The planning committee seeks proposals generated from a wide-ranging and inclusive understanding of reproductive justice for an interactive panel experience. Potential topics might include, but are by no means limited to, abortion; the impact of Brackeen and other developments in adoption law and policy; how reproductive justice interacts with marginalization on multiple levels; reproductive justice issues related to juveniles, and connections between reproductive justice issues and the use of reproductive technologies.  

Please submit a proposal of 400-600 words by July 15, 2023.  Submissions should be sent to Cynthia Godsoe [email protected] , Kim Hai Pearson [email protected], and Stephanie Tang [email protected]. We plan to announce the selected panelists by August 1, 2023. The committee looks forward to your expansive thinking and creativity.

Child Care Crisis Continues

 

 

Transgender Athletes

From Gallup:

A larger majority of Americans now (69%) than in 2021 (62%) say transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender. Likewise, fewer endorse transgender athletes being able to play on teams that match their current gender identity, 26%, down from 34%.

...

The shift toward greater public opposition to transgender athletes competing on the basis of their current gender identity has occurred at the same time that more U.S. adults say they know a transgender person. Thirty-nine percent of Americans, up from 31% in 2021, say someone they know personally has told them they are transgender.

Read more here.

Public Support for Same-Sex Marriage

From Gallup:

Seventy-one percent of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal, matching the high Gallup recorded in 2022. Public support for legally recognizing gay marriages has been consistently above 50% since the early 2010s.

The latest figures are from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 1-24.

When Gallup first polled about same-sex marriage in 1996, barely a quarter of the public (27%) supported legalizing such unions. It would take another 15 years, until 2011, for support to reach the majority level. Then in 2015, just one month before the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision, public support for legalizing gay marriage cracked the 60% level. In 2021, it reached the 70% mark for the first time and has been there each of the past three years.

Read more here.

Least Marriages in 30 Years in China

From CNN:

China last year recorded its lowest number of marriages since public records became available, furthering a nearly decade-long decline in matrimony that has coincided with falling birth rates and triggered government concern of a demographic crisis.

Some 6.83 million couples married in 2022, according to data released by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs on Friday. That’s down around 10.5% from the 7.63 million marriage registrations in 2021 and marks a record low since 1986, when the ministry began releasing statistics, according to state media.

The data represents marriage during what was an unusually challenging year for people in China, as the government’s stringent Covid-19 controls saw multiple cities and districts across the country locked down and daily life disrupted by a host of restrictions.

Read more here.

FL School District Sued

From Politico:

 A group of students alongside the authors of a children’s book centered on a penguin family with two fathers sued a central Florida school district and top state education officials Tuesday claiming that limiting its availability is a violation of free expression.

The lawsuit, one of several challenging Florida’s policies for launching local book objections, aims to require Lake County officials to make the book — “And Tango Makes Three” — available to all students.

Read more here.

Missouri Might Move to 50/50 Custody

From the Joplin Globe:

Gov. Mike Parson could soon make Missouri one of the first states to establish 50/50 shared parenting time as the standard in child custody cases.

But the bill on his desk, passed in the final hour of the legislative session, did not include changes that some family law attorneys and domestic violence advocates worked on for months — and has raised concerns that it could make it more difficult for victims to escape abusive relationships and protect their children.

“On the one hand, it can prevent some parents from being unreasonable when taking the kid away from a good parent,” said Adam Sommer, a family law attorney in Warrensburg and host of the progressive podcast “Heartland Pod.” “It also is going to — the flip side of that coin — is going to give abusers easier, quicker access to kids that I think is going to be an unfortunate byproduct of this.”

Under current law, judges decide custody cases by weighing the best interests of the child and the idea that each parent should have “significant,” though not necessarily equal, time with the child. That contact should be “frequent, continued and meaningful.”

Read more here.

School Investigation

From BBC:

Teachers at a kindergarten in New Taipei City have been accused of sedating students with cough syrups containing drugs like phenobarbital and benzodiazepines.

Police have been investigating for weeks and say it's not clear why the children were fed the addictive syrups.

But the scandal has sparked family protests outside government buildings.

Hundreds joined a demonstration in New Taipei City on Sunday calling for greater transparency from the police investigation, with many criticising authorities for their lack of public disclosure.

Read more here.

Estonia Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

From CNN:

Estonia’s parliament passed on Tuesday a law legalizing same-sex marriage, becoming the first ex-Soviet country to do so.

Two adults will be able to marry “regardless of their gender,” after the parliament approved amendments to the country’s Family Law Act, according to a press statement.

The amended act will go into effect from January 1, 2024.

Read more here.

JAAML Seeking Authors

The Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (JAAML) is seeking authors for its Fall 2024 issue devoted to the topic of family law history. Submission guidelines can be found here.

The JAAML was established in 1984 and features peer reviewed articles, reviews, and editorials covering all aspects of Family Law. The Journal is published by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and issued semiannually. It is based at the University of Missouri–Kansas City Law school. Professor Mary Kay Kisthardt ([email protected]) is the faculty editor-in-chief.  The Journal provides an active board of editors along with a full complement of law students also working on the publication.  

For inquiries, please contact issue editors Steven Peskind at [email protected] or Gary Debele at [email protected].

AAML Journal Constitutional Issues in Family Law - Part II

 

Unwed Parents: The Limits of the Constitution

Author: Albertina Antognini

Comment, Swimming Free of Regulation: The Need for a National Regulatory System for Sperm Donation

 

Choosing Parentage Laws in Multistate Conduct Cases

Author: Jeffrey A. Parness

Ordered Liberty After Dobbs

Authors: Linda C. McClain & James E. Fleming

Family, Religion and the Constitution: Penumbras of Sovereignty

Author: Nan D. Hunter

Comment, Home is a Body Where You Get to be You: The Intersection of Minor Guardianship and Transgender Youth

 

Out of Bounds?: Abortion, Choice of Law, and a Modest Role for Congress

Author: Susan Frelich Appleton

The Thirteenth Amendment in Family Law: The “Involuntary Servitude” of Support Obligations

Authors: Laura W. Morgan and Jennifer Koiles Pratt

Constitutional Issues in Assisted Reproduction

Authors: Gary A. Debele & Sydnie M. Peterson

Constitutional Issues in Family Law: An Annotated Bibliography(Part 2 of 2)

Author: Allen Rostron

The Legal Basis for Homeschooling in a Pandemic and Beyond

Author: Margaret Ryznar

How Functional Parent Doctrines Function: Findings from an Empirical Study

Authors: Courtney G. Joslin & Douglas NeJaime

The Blue Family Constitution

Authors: Naomi Cahn & June Carbone

Scientist Parents Create Scientist Children

From Nature:

Children whose parents have science degrees are twice as likely to pursue science degrees themselves than are those whose parents have degrees in other fields (N. Tilbrook and D. Shifrer Soc. Sci. Res. 103, 102654; 2022). Scientist parents can be role models for their children and often provide early exposure through science-focused extracurricular activities. Their children can see at first-hand the highs and lows of a career in academic and industry research — the discoveries, collaborations and opportunities to live and work abroad. But that can be tempered by intense workloads, temporary contracts, pressures to publish and time away from families.

Four researchers share how their parents influenced their choice of a research career and how their own parenthoods have influenced their science.

Read more here.

Looking for the Same Politics in Marriage

From the Atlantic:

Marriage rates in America are falling fast: Many men and women are marrying later, and more and more people. are never marrying at all. Marriage is in retreat for a host of reasons, but one overlooked cause is the rising difficulty many young people have finding a partner who meets all of their requirements—emotional, physical, financial, and political. That last requirement has only become more important over time, with fewer Americans willing to date or marry across the aisle.

Dating apps and websites report a growing share of users setting political criteria for matches. The Survey Center on American Life, a project of the American Enterprise Institute, recently found that about two-thirds of liberal and conservative singles would be more likely to “swipe left” and reject a potential match who did not share their politics.

This bodes ill for the future of marriage—given that growing numbers of young men and women find themselves on different sides of America’s deepening political divide. (We base our following analysis on the fact that most young adults who marry will do so with a different-sex partner—according to Census Bureau data, heterosexual marriages accounted for about 98 percent of weddings of people under 35 in 2021.)

Read more here.

Polish Health Authorities Clarify Abortion Rights

From ABC News:

Polish health authorities said Monday that there was a violation of patient rights in the case of a woman who died of sepsis in the fifth month of pregnancy last month, a case that has gained scrutiny after a tightening of Poland’s already restrictive abortion law.

Poland's health minister, Adam Niedzielski, also stressed that every woman whose life or health is threatened by her pregnancy has the right to an abortion.

He announced that he was appointing a team to examine the country's guidelines on the termination of pregnancy, saying its members would include women.

“In Poland, every woman in the event of threat to health or life threat has the right to terminate a pregnancy," Niedzielski said.

Read more here.

Helicopter Parents Continue to Helicopter Parent Adult Children

From Forbes:

With the ascendancy of remote work, parents have closer proximity and greater access to pry into their adult children’s work lives. While the trend of "helicopter parenting" is nothing new, it is gaining traction, according to the Wall Street Journal. It runs the gamut from acting like Cyrano de Bergerac, whispering what to say in a Zoom interview, arguing with a manager because of the treatment of their adult child in the workplace, to weighing in on job offers and salary negotiations for their professional offspring.

Parents want to help their kids succeed, especially in a hypercompetitive economy and job market. It was harder for them to interfere in a pre-pandemic environment when mostly everyone worked in an office setting. With the institution of hybrid and remote work for both young adults and parents, it’s much easier for them to meddle in their affairs. Young adults might be more likely to allow their parents to interfere in work matters if their interpersonal and communication skills atrophied during the pandemic, while they were isolated and sheltered at home, or never existed.

Like a mentor, parents want to serve as sounding boards for their children on big-picture matters, since they are experienced professionals. Parents can share the lessons they’ve learned in the workplace and what to look out for when navigating their careers.

Read more here.

 

 

Abortion Update in IN

From the Rolling Stone:

A CONTROVERSIAL INDIANA law once championed by Mike Pence could end up protecting abortion access in the state if a lawsuit filed by the ACLU is successful. Last week, a superior court judge granted class action status to a suit seeking to strike down the state’s near-total ban on abortion on the grounds that it violates Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which then-Governor Pence signed into law in 2015. 

The complaint, filed on behalf of five unnamed plaintiffs — three Jews, one Muslim, and one whose belief system is described as “universal consciousness” — as well as the organization Hoosier Jews for Choice, asserts that Indiana’s near-total abortion ban violates their sincere religious beliefs. In seeking class action status, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the law infringes on the beliefs of countless additional Hoosiers, including practitioners of Unitarian Universalism, Episcopalianism, and paganism.

A judge on Tuesday agreed, finding that there is a large enough group of potential plaintiffs in Indiana with the same objections to the law as the existing plaintiffs for the challenge to proceed as a class action lawsuit. In a 29-page ruling, Marion Superior Court Judge Heather Welch found there was “sufficient evidentiary support that the religions to which plaintiffs and putative class members belong would guide its practitioners to seek abortions under particular circumstances based on testimony from leaders of these faiths.”

Read more here.

 

 

Pride Month at White House

From PBS:

President Joe Biden welcomed hundreds to the White House on Saturday for a delayed Pride Month celebration aimed at showing LGBTQ+ people that his administration has their back at a time when advocates are warning of a spike in discriminatory legislation, particularly aimed at the transgender community, sweeping through statehouses.

The event, which the administration described as the largest Pride event hosted at the White House, was initially scheduled for Thursday, but was postponed because of poor air quality from hazardous air flowing in from Canadian wildfires. But the haze that blanketed a huge swath of the East Coast this past week had lifted over the nation’s capital, allowing the president and first lady Jill Biden to hold their South Lawn party.

Read more here.

Woman Sentenced for Abortion in UK

From CNN:

 

A British woman who used medication to induce an abortion after the United Kingdom’s legally allowed limit has been sentenced to prison for 28 months, the PA Media news agency reported.

 

In a case that sparked calls for an overhaul of reproductive justice laws in the country, the mother-of-three, 44, was handed the sentence by a judge in Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court in central England on Monday. She was sentenced under the Offences Against the Person Act, which dates back to 1861.

 

She had pleaded guilty to dispensing drugs or using instruments to obtain an abortion. The maximum sentence in the country is life imprisonment.

 

Read more here.