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Short Stuff: Divorcing Your Parents · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and we're just a couple of ros. Maybe
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: we're doing a couple of bras hanging out doing our thing,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: talking about cool stuff, and that makes the short stuff
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: because it's a short version of that. That's right, We're
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: gonna talk about divorcing your parents today. Shout out to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: a bunch of law firms and law schools for this one. Right, Yeah,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Blacks Law Dictionary love to know, uh, Cornell Law School
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: in the Virga Law Firm. That's right, because when you're
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: talking about divorcing your parents, uh, well, first of all,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: we can't not mention your reconcilable differences because we'll just
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: get too much mail. Have you ever seen it? Did?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I did not see that? This was the movie from
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  Speaker 1: with the precocious young Drew Barrymore divorcing her parents, and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I think one of them was Ryan O'Neill, Right, who
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: was the other Shelley Long? Oh of course? Yeah? So
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: um that would that mean that she was fresh off
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: of the terrible mistake of leaving cheers or about to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: be eighty four? I feel like that's in during Cheers?
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  Speaker 1: Does does seem like that, doesn't it. Yeah, I think
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  Speaker 1: so so. Um yeah, and a little Drew Barren Bart
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: divorces her parents and and it seems like, Okay, does
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: that actually happen. Yeah, it totally does happen. They don't
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  Speaker 1: call it divorcing your parents, but it's actually, um, it's
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: a legal proceeding called, um, the emancipation of a minor.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I think kids on the playground probably call it divorcing
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  Speaker 1: your parents. Yeah, that's what i'd call it. Todd divorced
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: his parents. Did you hear that? Yeah, I would totally
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: say that. Uh. Yeah. But legal emancipation, that is the
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  Speaker 1: the legal term when a child basically steps forward and
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: says I am not well. It depends on what state
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  Speaker 1: you're in as far as what we call being the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: age of legal majority. Uh. And each state has their
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  Speaker 1: own age for that um. But spending on where you are,
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  Speaker 1: it could be eighteen years old that you're a legal
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  Speaker 1: adult and you are on your own as far as
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  Speaker 1: being legally major. Uh. California's is as very low as
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: far as when you can emancipate. Uh. Most states is
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  Speaker 1: about sixteen, But in California because of the movie industry,
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  Speaker 1: because It's a very common thing in the movie industry
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  Speaker 1: to get emancipated from your parents. Not because even for
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: the fact that you want to leave them necessarily, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: it just makes things a lot easier sometimes, um for
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: your career. Yeah, because legally, until you reach the age
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  Speaker 1: of majority, your parents basically own you. You have like
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: much fewer legal rights than you do as an eighteen
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  Speaker 1: year old on um. But in return, your parents are
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  Speaker 1: supposed to hold up there under the bargain. They have
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  Speaker 1: legal obligations and responsibilities to care for you, to clothe you,
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  Speaker 1: to make sure you go to school, to make sure
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  Speaker 1: that your are your health has taken care of your
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  Speaker 1: medical um uh, medical treatments are seen to and so
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: like if the parents break that contract, kids can say, my,
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  Speaker 1: my parents not not doing a very good job with this.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to have anything to do with them.
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  Speaker 1: I want to basically take care of myself. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: eighteen yet, so I want to become emancipated and basically
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  Speaker 1: speed up that time to legal majority. Yeah. And like
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  Speaker 1: I said, in the film industry, like a lot of
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  Speaker 1: times a parent will will be behind this and they'll
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  Speaker 1: still live at home even but it just makes certain
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  Speaker 1: aspects of running their career in their life a little
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: bit easier if they're emancipated. But sometimes, you know, there
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  Speaker 1: there are actors and and we'll get into the you know,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: sad cases of why else a kid might do this.
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  Speaker 1: But in some cases there are kid actors that like
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: aren't necessarily from l a and their parents live in
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  Speaker 1: you know, Oklahoma, and the kid goes off and lives
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  Speaker 1: on their own in an apartment when they're fifteen years old. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think it also protects the child's earnings too, because
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  Speaker 1: your parents can basically spend the money that you're earning
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  Speaker 1: if you're under the legal age of majority. So I
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  Speaker 1: think that's also a big reason why it happens in
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  Speaker 1: Hollywood among child actors most of all. Yeah, and if
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  Speaker 1: you are emancipated as a kid um you can do
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  Speaker 1: most of the things you Obviously if you can't drive,
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  Speaker 1: if you're not legal driving age, or drink or vote
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  Speaker 1: or things like that doesn't change anything like that. But
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  Speaker 1: you can sign a contract on your own without like
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  Speaker 1: a parent having to co sign. You can work and
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  Speaker 1: keep that money, like you said, you can, you can
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  Speaker 1: get that apartment if you want to. You can sue somebody,
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  Speaker 1: you can get sued by somebody. You can pick out
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: what school you want to go to. UM. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of rights are granted to you. Kind of the decisions
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  Speaker 1: like you said that an adult would make, you can
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  Speaker 1: now make. Right. UM, there are some things that you
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  Speaker 1: can't do. You're not allowed to drop out of school
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  Speaker 1: unless you're actively pursuing a g E. D Um. That's
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  Speaker 1: a big one. I didn't see what the penalties are
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  Speaker 1: of that, Like, I don't know how they would keep
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: you from doing that, but supposedly that's part of the bargain. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And then also, if you're not of the age of
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  Speaker 1: consent to be married, you can't marry without your parents consent,
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  Speaker 1: even if you're already emancipated, unless in a bunch of states,
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  Speaker 1: if you're already pregnant in you're a minor or, you
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: already have a child in your a minor, you can
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  Speaker 1: marry without parental consent. That's right. Uh, why don't we
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: take a break and we'll talk aside from being in
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the film industry, some other reasons why you might want
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to divorce your parents, and then how you might want
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to go about that. All right, So we mentioned movie
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: star kids. Sometimes that's a very common thing in California
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  Speaker 1: to emancipate from your folks. Um. The sad other half
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  Speaker 1: of this is you're a kid in a very bad
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  Speaker 1: home life, in a bad situation, who's has parents that
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: aren't taking care of you like they should or possibly
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: abusing you. And this is when a kid can step
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  Speaker 1: forward and these are This is a whole different thing
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: when you go to the court and say hey, I uh,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: because in California, you know, it's so common. It's a
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: very open and shut process. It's very speedy, and it's
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: not a big deal. But if you go in there
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  Speaker 1: and say, hey, I want to emancipate for my parents
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  Speaker 1: because I don't get the care I deserve or being abused,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: then it becomes almost like a trial. Yeah. So, um,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: if that's the circumstance that you're seeking emancipation for, um, yeah,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: it is. It's a legal proceeding where both sides get
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: to offer evidence and argue their case. Your parents have
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: to be notified of these proceedings so that they can
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: show up and contest it and be like, no, we
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: want to be able to keep stealing his newspaper money.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Um or for whatever reason they want to contest it.
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  Speaker 1: So it is very much like a legal proceeding. But
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: here's there's a lot of weird catches to this, and
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  Speaker 1: this is why this is so fascinating to me, is
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  Speaker 1: in a lot of states, and maybe even all states,
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  Speaker 1: if you are under the age of legal majority, you
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: cannot seek relief from a court on your own. The
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: court basically doesn't recognize you as somebody who can, like
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: like you said earlier, sue people or be suit in court,
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  Speaker 1: so they have to assign specific people to you, not
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: even lawyers necessarily. But they're called guardian ad items and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: they're basically advocates for the kid, working for the kid's
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  Speaker 1: best interests in these cases. Right, So that are they
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  Speaker 1: the ones that technically have to file this uh motion? Yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: so yeah, I think in some states the kid can,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: but I think in most cases that guardian ad item
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  Speaker 1: has to or you can. You know, if you already
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  Speaker 1: have a bunch of use paper money so you saved up,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: you can hire your own lawyer to do this too,
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  Speaker 1: And I guess technically a parent could do so, but
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  Speaker 1: if you're trying to divorce your parents, that's kind of counterintuitive.
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  Speaker 1: Unless it's a situation where it's mutual well or there's well,
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  Speaker 1: for sure, they'd be super said. But if there was
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  Speaker 1: like a one really bad parent and the other parent
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  Speaker 1: thought maybe the only way out was to to approve
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  Speaker 1: emancipation or whatever could be, that'd be a messy legal
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  Speaker 1: case right there. It really would because when you go
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: to um, go in front of the judge, there's a
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: lot of things that they're they're considering here, right, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: They first of all, they're like, why do you want
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: to be emancipated? And just to say like my parents
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  Speaker 1: suck l O L is not going to work. Like
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  Speaker 1: there's some legal reasons that you have to have, Like
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the judge would say, they all suck. I'm sorry, right, like, um,
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  Speaker 1: neglect or abuse or abandonment, all that kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 1: UM or you know, I I have a career and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I need to be able to enter contracts my own
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  Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. And based on the set of legal reasons,
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  Speaker 1: the thing will proceed forward. And the court's going to
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  Speaker 1: take a bunch of different stuff into consideration, like, um,
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  Speaker 1: what your age is, how mature you are? Um? What
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: what what your health is? Like? Uh so, because I mean,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: if you have like a if you need to support,
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  Speaker 1: say like with mental health, They're probably not going to
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  Speaker 1: emancipate you unless you can prove that you're going to
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  Speaker 1: be able to take care of this on your own. Um,
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  Speaker 1: they're gonna look at your parents and how your parents
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: have behaved to right, sure, Um, I wonder how much
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: of this, Like when does law enforcement get involved if
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: it's like cases of abuse, Like, surely that comes into
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: play too, right, I don't know. I would think that,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: especially if you're under the age of even possibly emancipating yourself,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: that you're just you just become a ward of the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: state in those cases. It's so sad. Uh, they're gonna
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: look obviously just if you can support yourself. Um, if
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: you like the maturity thing that comes into play into
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: play there, like can you go out and find a
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: job and get an apartment on your own? Like is
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: this even possible? Or you know, I guess there are
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: plenty situations where you go live with another family member
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: or a friend or something like that. It's not like
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: you have to go out and get a mortgage or
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: something like that. No, But I mean imagine being a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: sixteen year old and you're like I'm out on my
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: own now, and I've got to work and pay for
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: an apartment and go to school because again, remember you
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: can't drop out of high school. But there's another twist
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: all this, there's another caveat Chuck. A lot of states
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: have labor laws, child labor laws, So you might become
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: emancipated or go to become emancipated and find out you
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: can't be because you can't legally support yourself. Yeah, and
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: that's um. In the cases of the child actors, it's
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: not like that's the way they can skirt like um
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, they can just all the
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  Speaker 1: labor laws is of an adult applies to them. That's
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: not true at all. They still have the child labor
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: laws that they have to all. Uh. They still have
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to have schooling, even if it's a fancy schmancy tutor.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: It's like driving you towards the g E d um.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: But you know, you have to as a kid, like,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: you have to have some means of supporting yourself and
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: also consider that you're you're still a kid that's gonna
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: want to do kids stuff, and like, there's just so much.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: It's just devastating to think that this might be a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: kid's only way out just to forego essentially a childhood
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to emancipate themselves. Yeah, the whole thing is super interesting,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: like on the surface, but yeah, if you dig into
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it like you did, it becomes super depressing all of
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: a sudden, choosing this topic. Sorry about that, Um, you
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: got anything else? I got nothing else? All right, Well
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I'm bummed out and Chuck's got nothing else, so short
• 11:52
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