A potential client is trying to convince me to take on her case, listing the reasons why she should have child custody.
“I have a house, I have a car, my ex doesn’t have anything,” she says, among other equally unconvincing reasons. “We even have a swimming pool.”
“Well, you are not going to have that house and that car for much longer,” I inform her.
She is visibly shocked: “Why not?”
“Because you will have to sell them to pay my fees.”
Maybe it’s my working-class background. Maybe it’s my disdain for most matters material and for showoffs. Or for non-sequitur arguments. In any case, I have a problem with parents who think they are entitled to child custody because they are wealthier than the other parent.
Luckily, they never hire me. Because in the end, their wealth is more important to them than their child.
By the way, I have neither a car, nor a house, and I am perfectly happy. But then, I don’t have any children either. – Which happens to be the best advice I can pass on. For free.
The Happy Hermit 
Good answer. Make them think, if briefly.
„I have no car, I have no house because I have children.“, l always tell my four children when they try to convince me to buy a car or go for a fancy holiday.
🤣🤣
I’m glad you wrote this piece about the child custody laws. Thirty years ago my American friend from medical school met and married a Münchener, and moved to Germany to do her Fachartz im Practicum. They had a son and everything was fine for a long time. Until it wasn’t. Being American, she expected that there would be joint custody and that their son would live half-time in each country. She wasn’t prepared for the custody laws in Germany at that time. Since her medical license was only valid in the US, and her son was not allowed to split his time between countries, she had to choose between working only 6 months of the year and then renting a place near her son’s home in Germany. It was difficult, but worked out well in the end. But I think people will benefit from learning about these things before the time that it might become really important to them. I wish my friend had gone into her situation knowing the things you wrote about. Thanks
I should clarify that the German custody laws (now) also see shared/joint custody as the norm after a separation/divorce.
However, shared/joint custody doesn’t necessarily mean what people think it means. It means shared/joint responsibility and decision making, not a 50:50 split of a child. After all, a child is a human being and not some piece of property that can be passed back and forth.
And sending a child back and forth between two continents is in fact possible under German custody law. But it is rarely in the interest of the child, especially once he/she has started schooling.
As you say, it would be good if people thought about these things before getting married and having children.
But on the other hand, it’s also unrealistic to plan too far ahead regarding child custody.
Nobody knows what the relationship, the child and the world will look like in 5 years from now. Also, people who talk about these things while they love each other usually cannot imagine what life will be like once they hate each other. :/
I have to address another point, which, as a lawyer dealing mostly with German-American family law, I come across a lot:
American clients who tell me “this works totally different than from the US”.
When I ask them which state, most of them don’t even know that family law is state law.
When I ask them what the exactly the rules about child custody in Colorado or in Connecticut are and where I can find them, they don’t know either.
Soon, it turns out that they know absolutely nothing, except what they remember from having seen in a movie once.
And that’s no surprise, because most Germans don’t know how German child custody laws work. Same in Brazil and in India, I guess.
The fact is that most people aren’t lawyers, and even fewer are specialists in family law.
That’s not a problem.
The problem is people being super confident about issues they have no clue about, except some piece of gossip from their friend’s friend, which they once overheard at a party.
And while most people sort of realize that they are no experts on coal mining or on Renaissance paintings, they somehow don’t realize it when it comes to family law. Although they spent just as little time in law school as in a coal mine or in the Renaissance.
I sometimes provide advice in Facebook groups or on Quora, mostly to warn people against doing the most stupid mistakes (international child abduction). It regularly happens that some overconfident housewives will “correct” me and “explain” the opposite. As they are more and have more time, I have neither the time, nor the energy to argue with them. But it’s sad, because I know that some people will always follow the “advice” which corresponds with what they want to hear (regardless of the quality or the source) and will mess up their lives.