Watch Out for the Little People

I don’t know about you or your family, but every time I complained about something when I was a kid, my dad would always have some snappy comeback.  You’re tired of riding your bike to school?  When I was a kid, I had to walk to school in the snow uphill both ways and I liked it!  You’re tired of mowing the lawn?  When I was a kid, I thinned beets every day for 40 years and I liked it!  You don’t like liver (or whatever it was on the menu)?  When I was a kid, I ate liver for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every night and I liked it!  You don’t like hand-me-downs?  When I was a kid all of my brothers and sisters had hand-me-downs and we all liked it!

I suspect it wasn’t so much that my dad was trying to do one better than me as he was trying to teach me something.  In so teaching me perhaps he was trying to strengthen me or protect me from some of the harsher realities of life.  That or he was just trying to drive me crazy with his little euphemisms.  

In any event, we here at the Riverside County Law Library have many resources keyed into helping and protecting kids.  Some of them are Legal Rights of Children (West), Representing Children in Child Protective Proceedings (LexisNexis), Lawyers for Children (ABA), Handling Child Custody, Abuse & Adoption Cases (McGraw-Hill), The Child’s Attorney (ABA), California Child Custody Litigation and Practice (CEB), A Judges Guide: Making Child Centered Decisions in Custody Cases (ABA), and Child Custody Made Simple (Single Parent Press).

So, next time your child (or inner child) gets whiney, send them over to your local Law Library for some lawyerly advice.  On second thought maybe not.  I mean what are you going to do if when the next time you tell your kid to eat their vegetables they say, “On advice of counsel, I respectfully decline”?!