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Post by greer on Jun 22, 2006 17:19:31 GMT -5
Laws in the US vary from state-to-state; it may not be fifty-fifty at all and I know that my mom had a friend who waited to divorce her husband until she had been married for 25 years or so she could get a bigger chunk of his assets. They have also changed a lot since the 1980s.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Jun 22, 2006 18:42:21 GMT -5
Completely OT, but macca! You're getting really close to 1000 posts! Yeah I know... how sad is that ;D Also, greer, it sounds as if laws are quite different in the US. But it makes sense then, that Lisa didn't seem to take a very large chunk of Watson's assets. Still, in the beginning at least, she had primary custody of the kids, which normally increases the entitlements somewhat.
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Post by lovelylemontree on Jun 22, 2006 23:29:19 GMT -5
I wonder if Watson still had to pay child support when the custody arrangement changed to one month at each house. I know divorced couples who have an every other week arrangement and no one pays child support because they have the kids equal amounts of time.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Jun 23, 2006 1:47:56 GMT -5
^ I've wondered that too. Maybe the shared custody arrangement was just a convenient money-making scheme. It wasn't like it created much extra work on Watson's part, just dump 'em on your mother in law.
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Post by greer on Jun 23, 2006 9:15:05 GMT -5
I think that Watson is the kind of dad who wants the absolute best for his children, which may be paying Lisa child support because as Kristy and her friends are always reminding us, he IS real, live millionaire. My brother and I both stopped living in my mother's house year-round at 16 and my father continues to pay child support to this day, even though he could have stopped when we turned 18. It seems that Seth and Lisa are comfortable, if not wealthy like W., so he may not pay it but I feel like he would. He may not play alimony though because Lisa could have gotten her settlement already.
On a different topic: I feel that when both dawn and jeff left CT, Mrs. Schafer lost her child support. Do you think it adversely affected the Schafer-Spiers' finances?
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Post by sotypical42483 on Jun 23, 2006 12:07:38 GMT -5
^Nah, because I think Richard was probably doing all right for himself as a lawyer and all, and having the 2 of them working and supporting only themselves couldn't be that difficult!
Editted because I completely forgot about Mary Anne! LOL. I guess supporting themselves and MA wouldn't be that difficult!
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Post by aln1982 on Jul 4, 2006 15:14:45 GMT -5
This one has significant emotional meaning for me so I truthfully don't have too many thoughts on it because my personal feelings kept distracting me from the book. I read it by accident for the first time on the day that my dad went to have a cardiac catherization test and we learned he had to have open heart surgery. He did make it through the 5 by-passes but life as we knew it has drastically changed. I can really relate to a lot of the upheaval that the Thomas-Brewers experienced. Anyway, every time I read this book (reread again a few months ago), I can't stop thinking about my dad long enough to really "process" the book. I know that the book did produce a particularly high level of "Nannie hatred" (I am not a Nannie fan anyway). Maybe this is because she reminds me a little of my own grandma using the "guilt" tactic of "no one needs me. I'm useless so I guess I'll just go" in hopes that everyone will beg her to stay. Nannie might not have really been doing this but that was my perception. I also liked how Kristy called Watson her "father" on the phone with 911. I think this shows how she really feels about him. I really like their relationship and am always glad when the books talked about it.
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Post by greer on Jul 4, 2006 15:39:16 GMT -5
^In regards to Kristy/Watson's relationship, I thought it was touching whenever Kristy called him "Dad." Watson really stepped up for those kids, like in Kristy's Big News where we learn that Watson is going to help pay for Charlie's college education.
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macca
Sitting For The Newtons
Posts: 2,084
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Post by macca on Jul 4, 2006 23:42:27 GMT -5
aln1982 - I can certainly understand you being unable to fully process this book, what with your dad (and the rest of your family's) experience. I'm sure the plot hit very close to home. Hope things are relatively okay now.
By the way, ITA with your perception of Nannie. Her behavior seemed quite manipulative and guilt-trippy.
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Post by aln1982 on Jul 8, 2006 16:31:13 GMT -5
Thanks Macca, things are going good with my dad now after a very slow recovery (strangely problematic thanks to stupid things like drs giving wrong meds) but the whole experience has really caused changes for our family. (Many for the better). I think the book portrays this really well too and I wish they would have addressed it a bit more in some of the other book. Glad that someone agrees about Nannie. I can't stand her! I'm just glad that my grandma only lives next door and that her new thing is that she "doesn't want to bother me". We would never be able to stand having her live with us. Then again, our family doesn't have an adopted kid to pawn off.
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Post by aln1982 on Feb 28, 2007 11:16:28 GMT -5
Sorry for the double post (though my last was this summer) but I just reread this book and had to comment on how I enjoy it more each tim. think it is one of my favorite Kristy books. She seems much more tempered than in some of the books where she can be pushy. I loved the family dynamics and really felt for Karen. Nannie annoyed me just as much as ever (won't get into that again) and I really noticed the subplot - and enjoyed it - for the first time. I like the books where the girls have to deal with chaotic situations. I sometimes feel a rush from such situations and reading books about them lets me live them through the characters without the real stress
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scrounge
Sitter-In-Training
Boo and bullfrogs!
Posts: 414
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Post by scrounge on Mar 1, 2007 16:59:57 GMT -5
I read this book last night and had to go pick it up to remember what the subplot was. I didn't really care for it, because the two sitters for more than four children rule always struck me as ridiculous. Wouldn't that make the sitters more likely to talk to each other and ignore your kids? Or if they didn't like each other well enough to talk to each other, that could make for a really awkward evening. I guess not in perfect Stoneybrook though, where hyper-responsible 13 and 11 year olds would never dream of arguing over who gets to play with the cute baby and ignoring the rest of the kids, or gossiping about classmates while five kids systematically destroy the house. Random Watson musing. The big house is the house he grew up in, and his great(or whatever)-grandfather Ben had lived there as well. Yet his parents were still alive. Why would they not want to live in the ancestral home? They didn't seem to live close by either. Wouldn't they have been fairly well-established in the community? You wouldn't think with a Big House that a Real Live Millionaire could live in that they'd just moved away for a better job or something. Maybe they had to get away once Karen was born. It would make far more sense to me if they were deceased. Nannie was acting like a spoiled baby in this book and Elizabeth was stupid as well. How hard is it to say, "We really wish you wouldn't go?" I mean, Kristy gets Nannie's true feelings out of her after ten minutes of visiting her at the new apartment. Also, wouldn't Nannie have had to sign a lease? Could she really just move out after a week and a half? Overthinking of plot elements aside, I really liked this book. I liked Kristy's relationship with Watson, I liked Sam and Charlie, I liked her friends rallying around to help her out the night Watson went into the hospital. I really liked David Michael and his rooster part in the play.
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digigirl02
Junior Sitter
The P is for Princess
Posts: 698
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Post by digigirl02 on Mar 1, 2007 20:28:58 GMT -5
I enjoyed this book, I like reading about Watson's relationship w/ Kristy.
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alula
Sitter-In-Training
Posts: 406
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Post by alula on Mar 1, 2007 21:30:12 GMT -5
Was his father alive? I remember from the Little Sister books that his mother would be, because of that one where Karen is SO COOL! and has 5! grandmothers, but I thought she might be a widow, in which case I could fanwank that maybe she retired to Florida or Arizona or someplace and gave Watson the house? Didn't want to be responsible for the upkeep on the Brewer mansion, maybe?
???I'm thinking about this way too hard now.
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Post by aln1982 on Mar 2, 2007 0:35:20 GMT -5
Was also assuming Watson's Mom was somewhere like FL or AZ (somewhere warm if she's smart instead of being like me freezing in MI or in a ritzy retirement community or something. I don't remember a mention of his dad - just a 5th Grandma in that LS book, which I just read.
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