South Dakota legislators are heading back into session here soon. So the discussions at home lately when the kids aren’t around, is about shared parenting and creating meaningful changes in legislation, perhaps, this year.

As the Cowboy gets more and more calls to see what people can do to get involved, or as he thinks about how he can do anything that will actually make a difference for children and families not just in our state, but anything that may have far reaching consequences, he continues to stumble across some of the other incredible advocacy happening in regard to children and families and reforming a horrendously broken system.

If you haven’t seen the following, Romeo Misses A Payment, http://theromeodocumentary.com/full-movie/ please take the time and watch. Same with #DivorceCorp, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZTOT6DKfZ8 which I wrote about the other day. And yes, I’m including the actual links here because not everyone is savvy enough to realize there’s a hyperlink there. I think these two films and the insights they allow are too important for someone to miss if they’re even remotely seeking to better understand.

If you’ve never been divorced and can’t understand what families might be going through, if you’re going through divorce and child custody discussions yourself, if you really love your kids and want to do what’s best for them versus an industry that enjoys making money off of the hurt and problems you decide to create for yourself versus resolve, if you’re a legislator and you sincerely want to educate yourself about where things are going so wrong (or if you’d prefer to continue to think you’re justified in listening to lobbyists from the State Bar Associations who only stand to gain from your apathy and inaction/you don’t want to change a very broken system with your vote because you’re prefer to remain ignorant to the actual problems current state law creates versus solves/take a phone call during the debate because you don’t know enough to intelligently participate/go to the bathroom to avoid actually having to cast a vote on the topic, don’t worry, we’re used to it) OR, if you are a member of the media and you want to go beyond the headlines of those ‘deadbeat dads’ who aren’t making their payments to take care of their children (Gasp, how could they! Did you ever stop to think about how someone making say .. maybe 25K/year could owe hundreds of thousands in back child support for two kids? How does THAT happen? Good story, but not as easy to turn and burn) and really get to some good stories about what’s wrong with this picture ..

PLEASE, take this brief look at how we are perpetuating the destruction of already damaged families and creating more and bigger problems in the process. Dig a little deeper. Think a little bigger. What is in the best interest of our kids? If that is the goal, it’s not what we’re currently often doing. Let’s figure out how to best resolve these issues together.