1388: Family Court | Skeptical Sunday

The Jordan Harbinger Show

In this episode of Skeptical Sunday, Jordan Harbinger and researcher Nick Pell debunk the widespread myth that family courts are inherently

Key takeaways

• All 50 US states now utilize gender-neutral custody and child support laws.
• The 'best interests of the child' serves as the primary legal standard in nearly every jurisdiction.

Main topics

• Family Court Myths
• Gender-Neutral Custody Laws

Notable quotes

Every single man I have ever spoken to... has had allegations of some unseemly quality or another thrown at them.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a reality check against internet-driven narrativ

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:03) Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer and researcher, Nick Pell. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. On Sundays, though, it's Skeptical Sunday. A rotating guest co-host and I will break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic, such as targeted advertising, internet porn, hypnosis, homeopathy, the death industry, weddings. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about it, Speaker 4 (0:58) or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today on the show, if you ask the average guy what family court is like for men, he's going to tell you it's a grim, shadowy kangaroo court run by man-hating judges seeking the destruction of the nuclear family and his home especially. It's a persistent idea that the mom always wins and walks away with half of what the man owns in custody of the kids. If he's lucky, he's going to get every other weekend and a couple of weeks during the summer for a trip to Disneyland. But how true is this in 2026? Is this a caricature based on the truth or an outdated stereotype that bears no resemblance to reality today? And if gender bias is gone from our nation's family courts, why are some activists seemingly intent on bringing it back? Here today to help us take custody of the truth is writer, researcher, and family court veteran, Nick Pell. Nick, you spent, well, a lot of time in family court. I'll just leave it there. Speaker 3 (1:49) Yeah, it was about two years just on my divorce, and then my ex-wife came back three months later. I'm only legally allowed to talk so much about my specific case. Obviously, my sole experience isn't what we're here to talk about today, but I think my experience is fairly typical. Okay, how so? I know everyone probably expects me to be like, oh man, family court sucks. They just soak these poor guys dry and then take their kids away. That was not my experience at all. Part of this is a function of living in Arizona, but my experience, as we'll learn, is going to be much more typical than the horror stories you might have heard. Speaker 4 (2:32) So just to highlight this, Nick, you got divorced in Arizona. So this is the state that you have direct experience with. But you've also researched other states. And, you know, the usual disclaimer applies here. None of this is legal advice. You got to talk to a lawyer for your state, for your situation, etc. Speaker 3 (2:47) Yeah. Anytime some guy has a horror story, I'm just like, dude, who is your lawyer? I mean, one of the lawyers I spoke to but didn't hire, she got 50-50 custody for a Coke dealer. Speaker 4 (3:00) You've told me this before, and that's kind of crazy to me because, of course, I'm thinking about the stereotypes as well. Like, oh, the mom usually gets custody. And it's like, no, this was a dad. He was a Coke dealer and he got 50-50 custody. How does that happen? The Speaker 3 (3:12) courts decided that for whatever reason, him being a Coke dealer wasn't compelling evidence that he was an unfit father. I'm guessing like he was. Selling eight balls at the bar or something, you know, like maybe I don't Speaker 4 (3:24) think I don't think this guy was Scarface. Yeah, he's not a cartel Sicario that happens to sell coke on the side. Right. OK, no. Speaker 3 (3:31) But you generally have to prove in family court that somebody is an unfit parent. That's the standard if you want to deprive them of their parental rights. Now, what constitutes unfit? That varies from state to state. And there are still some pockets where, yeah, it's possible maybe men are getting a raw deal. But for the most part, no, this is just not the case. Speaker 4 (3:56) So we'll get down into the nitty gritty here, because I know that this is a persistent claim, especially online. I see it all the time. Men simply have no rights in family court. The judges always side with the moms. They rubber stamp maternal custody. They make you pay for the privilege. Yeah, I do see conflicting accounts, but usually when someone's ranting about it, it's that. Well, Speaker 3 (4:14) when someone's ranting, it's usually something negative. But this is a completely false caricature of family court in virtually every jurisdiction in the United States today. There's Speaker 4 (4:25) a sense among men that any allegation against them in family court is just going to be taken at face value. Speaker 3 (4:30) Here's the thing, and I figured this out very early on. Every single man I have ever spoken to. who's been through family court, has had allegations of some unseemly quality or another thrown at Speaker 4 (4:42) them. That's such a, what a coincidence. Yeah. Speaker 3 (4:45) So I think there's definitely an impulse with some women to just start throwing accusations of abuse at men once they're in family court. Anecdotally, this is particularly true in cases where men initiate the divorce, which is not, I think it's about 30 % of. divorces are initiated by men. But here's the thing. This is not the first time, not the first time this year, not the first time this week, probably not even the first time today that a judge has heard these accusations. And if it's just an accusation without any corroborating evidence, he probably doesn't care. Speaker 4 (5:25) I think there's a tendency among people to think that their divorce or their custody battle is very special. It's very unique. It's totally different than any other one. In reality, they're all just they're pretty similar. Speaker 3 (5:34) Yeah, there's not a lot of variation. You know, women go into court and say, my ex-husband is an asshole. And well, Speaker 4 (5:42) that's Speaker 3 (5:42) probably Speaker 4 (5:42) why you guys are getting divorced. Yeah. Speaker 3 (5:44) Yeah. Not a lot of people like the person they're divorcing at the moment they're divorcing them. On the men's side. What I've seen is that sadly a lot of them give up because they just accept these myths about family court at face value. The alleged bias against men, the ease with which accusations are entered in as evidence, the notion that you Speaker 4 (6:04) only get joint custody when the mother agrees. So what do the actual laws look like? Speaker 3 (6:10) Every state in the union has gender neutral custody laws. That does not mean that they default to 50-50 custody. 50-50 is not the default. So what is the default? Best interests of the child, which, all things being equal, includes both parents and Speaker 4 (6:27) probably with 50-50 shared Speaker 3 (6:29) custody. Speaker 4 (6:29) That's super vague, like a lot of legalese, to give judges wide discretion, I would imagine. So what does best interests of the child mean? Speaker 3 (6:36) This is more or less what you're going to see in every state, by the way, best interests of the child. There are some rare exceptions. Florida gives some leeway to single mothers until the fathers pursue parental rights. And that starts with a confirmation of paternity. But for the most part, this is it coast to coast. Best interest of the child is the North Star in all 50 states. What that means, however, that is what varies from place to place. In many jurisdictions, best interests of the child does not. automatically mean a presumption of joint legal or physical custody. So Speaker 4 (7:14) joint legal custody that pertains to decision making and joint physical custody is about where the child is physically present for people who don't know. So the legal legal is like, can we send him to school here? Can I get him this doctor? Physical custody is where is he spending the weekends? Where is he spending the week? Speaker 3 (7:30) Arizona, which again, where my divorce took place, is generally considered the hardest 50 50 parenting state in the country. They don't really deviate from this unless somebody doesn't want a parent or one parent is very, very clearly unfit. Joint custody is a starting point, but judges do have leeway to change that based on circumstances. In Arizona, it is extremely difficult to deprive someone of their parental rights. Anything short of abuse or neglect. probably isn't going to fly. Speaker 4 (8:04) So why did your divorce take so long? I felt like it just lasted forever. Boy, you thought it lasted forever. I was the one going through Speaker 3 (8:10) it. Speaker 4 (8:10) It was really hard on me, Nick, your divorce. It was hard on your wallet, but I paid you back. Speaker 3 (8:15) That's right. Lawyers is the main reason, like lawyers. We'll get into the specifics of that kind of later on. But yeah, I mean, lawyers. What's wrong with this country, Jordan? Lawyers. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm kidding. I love my lawyer. Speaker 4 (8:30) What are other states like? What's the story about how we get from the 80s where, I don't know, every divorced kid ended up with mom and now where parents share parenting duties even after they split up? I mean, how did that happen? Speaker 3 (8:41) Kentucky was the first state to assume 50-50 was in the best interest of the child. Utah, likewise, has very father-friendly states, which is why it's being targeted by activists. Again, we'll get... We'll deeper into that later. Minnesota is another state that has very strong presumptions of equal and shared parenting time and rights as best for the child. And Speaker 4 (9:04) what's on the other end of the spectrum? Speaker 3 (9:06) Alabama, Tennessee and New York are places. Yeah. Not the collection of states you were expecting. No, no. Don't usually hear those three states mentioned together. No. These. are the places where you're most likely to find judges who want to give custody to moms. But again, their laws are gender neutral. So this is a judge discretion thing like you talked about earlier. This all comes from the Jackman Law Firm, and it seems kind of semi-anecdotal, but it squares with what I've heard in my experience. There's a deference in some states to more traditional parenting arrangements, which... could mean that judges are going to tend to put younger kids with the moms. Which Speaker 4 (9:57) is where the whole best interest of the child part can mean just about anything. Are there any factors which are used to determine what that actually means, though? Or is it just like, hey, this judge is in a good mood today. Everybody's getting custody. It Speaker 3 (10:09) needs to be kind of repeated constantly that different jurisdictions, even maybe within the same state. are going to have different criteria and that they weigh differently. So of the stuff I'm going to talk about, some of these mattered in Arizona. Most of them didn't, though. Arizona is like, if your child is fed, clothed, bathed, and not abused in some way, you're getting your kid if you want them. But in any event, factors such as emotional ties and relationships. That's going to refer to the nature and strength of the child's emotional ties with each parent, siblings, or any other significant individuals who may affect the child's best interests. Speaker 4 (10:54) So like step parents or, I don't know, a live-in girlfriend or something like that? Speaker 3 (10:58) Sure. Maybe grandparents, aunts Speaker 4 (11:00) and Speaker 3 (11:00) uncles, if they're close, you know, stuff like that. Then there's your actual ability and willingness to feed, clothe, and care for the child and provide them with a stable, loving home. Stability is very important to family court judges. And they want the kid living in the same place, going to the same school, engaged in the same community. The more established the child is, the less likely the courts are going to be to disrupt that routine. Speaker 4 (11:28) That makes sense. You've told me that courts generally hate. changing anything about a parenting agreement, at least as it pertains to the kids? Speaker 3 (11:35) Yeah. So in Arizona, where I, again, got divorced, courts just don't make changes. Okay. And that's, you know, a common theme in many states. If something's working, the courts don't want to change it because what they change it to might Speaker 4 (11:52) not work. That makes sense. So what about... what the child wants. What age are they kind of like, hey, the kid can say something or, you know, because I know if a kid's little, it's like we don't ask which parent they like most because they don't know what they're talking about. It's whoever was nice to them that morning or whatever. And they can't really make a mature decision and they were getting pressured. But at some age, right, they're like, hey, where do you feel most comfortable? You're almost an adult. Speaker 3 (12:15) It's unfair to a child to ask them to pick between their parents. You Speaker 4 (12:19) know, I Speaker 3 (12:19) agree with you. I mean, my lawyer was like. Your worst case scenario is that the judge takes your kid into chambers and says, hey, what do you think of your parents? And he says, I like my dad. Yeah. You know, not I dislike my mom, but like, yeah, I like my dad. You know, like, what are they going to do? It depends on the age and the child's maturity. Again, it varies from state to state. I think in Arizona, it's like 12 is when they start having some kind of say. But anecdotally, because I'm on a lot of forums. where people gripe and moan about their family court judge. That's in theory. In practice, at least my judge and the judges in my county, they do not give a shit what your kid wants. They don't care at all. It's too easy to manipulate one of them. My kid was five, so they certainly weren't going to ask them. Kids that young can be very easily manipulated. A 14-year-old's like, oh, yeah, dad gives me no bedtime and lets me drink beer with my friends on the weekend. I want to go live with him. And judges aren't stupid. They know that asking a 16-year-old who they want to live with could very well result in, like, dad lets me do donuts on the front lawn, so I want to go live with him. Speaker 3 (13:35) If you go to your state's website and you're thinking like, oh man, when my kid's 14, they get to say where they want to live. No, in theory, they have some kind of input, but in practice, I think you're going to be hard pressed to find a judge. He's going to care much what your teenager thinks about where they're living. Yeah. Unless it's like, dad doesn't get me to school. Speaker 4 (13:54) Right. Or yeah. Mom's new boyfriends always try to get into my room at night. Some stuff like that. Yeah. Speaker 3 (14:00) Or mom's new boyfriend's an asshole. Speaker 4 (14:02) Right. Yeah. You Speaker 3 (14:03) know, who's. smoking pot all the time which is legal here but like you know i'm trying to study and he's blasting his ario speed wagon records Speaker 4 (14:12) at two in the morning Speaker 3 (14:13) like you Speaker 4 (14:14) know what i mean stuff Speaker 3 (14:14) like that but just like oh yeah i want to go live with mom they don't care they don't give this a lot of weight because kids are too easy to manipulate and like kind of the whole thing with children is that they don't know what's best for them yeah so you'll probably be uh familiar with this turn of judges. I'll give that due consideration. Speaker 4 (14:32) Yeah, right, right. It's kind of like noted. Be quiet now. Yeah, Speaker 3 (14:36) I'll put this in the pay no mind file. Speaker 4 (14:38) Yes. Yeah. Speaker 3 (14:39) So the big thing is courts want to see if the parents are cooperating. If one parent isn't, that's a big deal. That's a way bigger deal than what the kids want. If one parent is just constantly stonewalling or being a problem or communicating with foul language or. being sarcastic all the time. They're not going to like that. This is all relative. And the courts understand that the parents in the middle of a custody battle may not be on their best behavior. Speaker 4 (15:07) Surprise, surprise. Right. Speaker 3 (15:09) No, this is not like, again, your divorce is not special. Right. You know, you're maybe on your third. You're probably just on your first. They see 50 a week. So it's just, they're not, it takes a lot to impress them positively or negatively. mental and physical health matters. When Speaker 4 (15:27) you Speaker 3 (15:27) say Speaker 4 (15:27) mental and physical health, so is that, that's like of the parents, right? So if somebody is, I don't know. Could also Speaker 3 (15:34) be the kid, if the kid has mental health. Yeah, Speaker 4 (15:37) the reason I wanted to stop you is because I meant what? So it's like, if you. Obviously, look, if you suffer from a little bit of depression or something or you have bipolar, they're not going to take your kid away, I suppose. But if it's like, yeah, dad goes in his room and doesn't come out for weeks at a time and I have to clean the house, feed myself, get to school on time and basically parent myself until he goes back on his medication, like that's going to be a problem. Speaker 2 (15:57) And not that this was you, Speaker 4 (15:59) but I know that your mental health was a thing in your case or your ex tried to make it like a really big deal. Is that accurate? Yeah, Speaker 3 (16:06) she did. She did. It was a whole Speaker 4 (16:08) it was a whole thing. Speaker 3 (16:09) Arizona courts anyway, and I suspect a lot of other states, they do not care about, you know, mom spent half a day in bed because she's depressed. They don't care. Unless you're at the level of like, I have ninjas living in my attic and they steal my thoughts and you can't see them because they hide Speaker 4 (16:27) every time you come by. You know, there Speaker 3 (16:29) was a guy that I found via a forum who was like, do not be afraid of your custody evaluation because. My ex-wife is schizophrenic and she passed one of them. And then I had to have one of my older children smuggle an iPhone into her house and be like, look, this is a pile of garbage so high in the house that if it falls over, it's going to injure one of the children. That Speaker 4 (16:55) was when the court said, oh, Speaker 3 (16:57) well, we're going to take a closer look here. You know, I mean, there's literal human feces on the wall at this guy's ex-wife's house. That's really sad. That's horrible. It is horrible, but that's what it took to get them to take a look. And I think people aren't really going to like this when I first say it, but they'll maybe understand when I explain a little. This is kind of as it should be, because you should have to document actual dangers to a child's safety or welfare to remove someone's. parental rights. It should not be, oh, mom gets kind of bummed out sometimes or, you know, sometimes mom gets a little agitated or something or Speaker 4 (17:35) dad or whatever. Divorce court is messy, emotional and wildly expensive. But at least when this next thing drains your bank account, you actually get something useful out of it. We'll be right back. Speaker 4 (17:47) This episode is sponsored in part by CookUnity. I've been craving Kung Pao chicken lately, that spicy, savory sauce and peanut crunch, but restaurant hopping adds up. CookUnity brings that satisfaction home for less. I like my meals protein forward, so their high protein options caught my attention. 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