“It’s gonna be a tough next 18 years.”
Those were the words my friend’s daughter was forced to hear in a recent divorce proceeding. Not spoken in sorrow. Not said with regret. Said almost as a promise.
He was referring to their little girl — still young enough to need bedtime stories and reassurance — and making it clear that, for the next eighteen years, difficulty would be the plan.
I don’t know the private details of why their marriage is ending. And I won’t pretend to. But I have written before about my own experiences navigating Family and Supreme Court in New York — courtrooms where ego too often eclipses empathy, where process becomes more important than people, and where justice can feel secondary to personality.
I’ve stood before judges like John Sweeny, whose bench practice, in my view, reeked of conceit and arrogance. I’ve watched Support Magistrates like Rachelle Kaufman operate with a confidence that seemed inversely proportional to wisdom — a reminder that in New York’s judicial system, arrogance paired with stubborn certainty can carry you far.
Anyone who has been through that system understands how quickly conflict becomes institutionalized. Once you step into it, the machinery feeds on hostility. Lawyers posture. Motions fly. Calendars fill. And somewhere in the middle of it all sits a child who never asked for any of this.
Here’s what I do know.
A child is not leverage.
She is not a possession to be divided, not a pawn to be maneuvered, not a weapon to be aimed at the other parent.
She is a little girl.
She did not ask for divorce papers.
She did not ask for lawyers.
She did not ask for hearings.
She did not ask to become the centerpiece of a war.
What she needs is far simpler — and far harder.
She needs to feel equally loved and safe in both homes.
She needs to see her parents treat each other with dignity, even if the marriage failed.
She needs to witness cooperation instead of combat.
She needs to see grace extended when it’s least deserved.
She needs to learn that even when something breaks, adults can rebuild something new that is stable and healthy.
When one parent says, “It’s going to be a tough next 18 years,” what the child hears — even if she can’t articulate it — is: I am going to live inside conflict.
That’s not strength.
That’s not justice.
That’s not protection.
That’s ego.
The courtroom will not heal what pride keeps open. Judges can sign orders. Magistrates can set schedules. But no one in a black robe can manufacture maturity.
Eighteen years can either be a sentence… or a responsibility.
Grace costs nothing. Litigation costs everything.
I truly wish more people going through divorce understood this.
Children do not need parents who win.
They need parents who grow up.
And the insanity stops the moment one of them decides to.
The Valley Viewpoint 