I just received a mailing from a psychologist advertising his “custody evaluation” business. His new associate will do a “flat fee basic” evaluation for $5,000. The extensive evaluation runs to $9,000 and includes allegations of sexual abuse, domestic violence, mental issues. If the parents get along well, but disagree on some of the child’s “best interests,” he will do a “fast track” evaluation in one day for $2,000. Or if you did not like the first evaluation you had from someone else, he will give you a second opinion, cost not stated.

Add the costs of the lawyers at $450 an hour each to shepherd you through this process, then represent you in court and cross-examine each of you and a psychologist or two–all this so your children can grow up, become independent and leave home without their college money, which went to the psychologists and lawyers.

Parents also suffer “separation anxiety” in a divorce. Children might worry that if one parent moves out, will the other leave also? This is before they know that the moving parent will continue to be in their life, maybe even more than they were before.

But parents now are no longer part of “The Joneses.” They may suffer a loss of identity as a member of a family, a marital system and as such, a part of the community. Now each is just a mother or a father. And so they fear the loss of the child-parenting identity.

No wonder parents can get so obsessive about having control over the children, so obsessed with what the other parent is doing “wrong.” They lose sight of their parental jobs as being to raise the child to go off, leave them, and become independent from them.