So do we pay their medical bills
the same way?

I'm trying.
We haven't figured. That out yet.

We still have.

And I think we still muddle through this

every time.

Yeah, every time.

That's bad

because our kids our kids are like,
Do I ask Dad? Yes.

Emergency room visit. Because.

And it's funny
because the kids always ask.

My adult kids,
they say, Is that deductible?

Yeah. Yeah.

Can you tell me if the deductible. Right.

Yeah.

Hello, this is Darren.

And this is Paige.

And this is where Lemonade.

Where we talk about what happens
when life through you, lemons.

You make some lemonade.

Maybe some weeks. It's lemons.

Yeah, some weeks it's just lemons.

Yeah.

On today's episode.

We are going to talk about
co-parenting money and adult children.

Sounds interesting.

Okay, We're we're at a stage

in our lives
where of the ten kids that we have,

we have one child left.

All the rest are adults. Yep.

We have two kids at home, but one is 18
and one is 17.

And he will be graduating in a month
and a half.

Yeah.

So I know
Paige is going to have a rough time.

We're not getting a dog to fill the void.

Not yet.

No, not yet.

So. So with with a lot of changes

in our lives, we we, we've run
into a couple of situations where,

hey, co-parenting and money
and then adult children to pay for things

like weddings or college
or even trips home to visit us.

All these things are are things
we have to deal with

that most families
don't have to deal with.

When you've got co-parenting going on
and things like that.

So it can get a little tricky.

It can.

And, you know,
do you do you still work with your ex on

these things when your kids turn 18,
or do you put the kids in the middle

and go, well, I'm done paying for things,

so maybe talk to your mom
or talk to your dad about that.

You know what I mean?

It's a it can be a tricky thing.

It can.

So you the research department of
where is eliminate, which is paid?

There's not a whole lot of information.

Usually I find several articles on what
I want to talk about for our podcast.

And there was not several articles.

In fact, the only article you found was
a was a law.

It was really a marketing thing.

It was like call one 800 lawyer
and we'll help you with these.

And then it talked about
why you would want to call them.

And you know,
and it talked a little bit about

you know, in their in their state.

I don't remember what state this was in.

You know, what
what happens when a kid turns 18.

So the only thing I could find was like,
read it

articles of people
that were talking about it.

But I didn't find any written published

articles on this topic.

So what spurred would spurred you
to come up with this topic?

Was it something on Facebook
or was it our own experience?

What was it? A Both.

Both.

We've had our own experience,
which we will get into in a minute.

And then I looked on our

Facebook Blended Families
group and people were talking about this

and how do we handle this
when the kid turns 18

and they still need things
and they still might need, you know,

financial support or, you know, how do you
how are you dealing with this? So.

So so it is a little different
in each state.

But most states have a child
is still under

the parenting agreement, which means child
support is paid and split

costs

on extracurriculars, whatever
the court order is.

But most of it is when they're 18

and they graduate from college
or a high school or 19 years old.

So yeah, you have to.

So we had one case where Julianne was 17
when she graduated from high school,

so we still had to pay

for her extracurriculars for a couple
more months until she turned 18.

Right.

But in the case of many of our other kids,

they actually turned 18
well before they graduated.

But they were still part
of the parenting agreement

until they graduate from high school.

Yep, that is true.

So when that happens to your kids, when
your child graduates from high school.

It's a party.

Is that it? That's it. You're done.

You're done.

That's it.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, it's an interesting thing, so.

Well, you this is something that maybe
when you get divorced,

when your kids are little,

you do not think

about putting anything about this
in your divorce decree,

about what happens
when your child turns 18.

We we actually did in mine,

we actually set up a

it was called an educational trust
for the kids

because we knew they were we

we had the benefit of one of our kids
was already 17 when we got divorced.

So we knew, hey,

I got to pay for school or missions or,
you know, weddings,

whatever the case may be.

So we actually set up a trust
and put money into that trust every month

that later on got dissolved,

which turned out to be good and bad.

Right? Right.

Because if the trust was still there,
then there's no questions.

When they're adults,
the money's already been set aside.

But in your case,
everything in the trust was

from your income, from your.

Well, because my ex didn't
have an income. Right.

But I'm just saying, you know,

that changes over time.

Right. Yeah, that's true.

So I was kind of glad
when it was dissolved because,

you know,
then it was more of an equal balance.

But now every time
there's an event like a wedding,

you know, I'm

not communicating with my ex
how much money I'm putting on.

Right.

Our kids get put in the middle.

Yeah, they do.

Instead of saying, Hey,

there's a certain amount of money
allocated for weddings from the trust, so.

Right.

It's it's a double edged,
you know, there's benefits and.

And. Right.

So do you think it would be beneficial
to put something

specific in the divorce decree
for when your kids turn 18?

I think so.
Do you think that's a good idea?

I think so.

It would alleviate some of the awkwardness
that happens sometimes.

Yeah.

Because
like I said, when your kids are little,

you don't think about, okay, so your kid
turns 18, your kid goes to college.

First of all, you have to decide
who's paying for college is a kid.

Pain is the mom pain?
Is that pain, Evil pain. Right.

Who's doing that then?

How about health insurance?

Is the person
still paying for health insurance?

What about when your kid goes
to the doctor?

We will talk about this
and have a huge bill.

Are you splitting that?

So, yeah,
let's talk about health insurance,

because this one, this one's
an interesting one because of Obamacare.

Now kids can stay on their parents
insurance until they're 26 years old.

Correct.

Now, because I have to carry insurance
for the kids that are in the house,

all the kids that are adults
have just stayed on my insurance.

That was in the court decree

for the for the parenting agreement

that I had to provide
health insurance for the kids.

But when they turned adult,
it didn't cost me any more

to continue keeping them on my insurance.

Right.

So they just did.

Yeah, but what that means
is that's until they're 26.

So if they do get a big bill

and we haven't met our deductible yet,
who's going to pay for that?

Who's going to pay for that?

So, yeah, these are all
these are all questions that I like

I said, when you're getting divorced

and you have little kids,
you don't think about any of these things,

but it's going to come
and you got to figure it out.

Well, but they're adults now.

So because our child turned 18,
they now have to pay

for their medical insurance
and their medical bills.

And. No, but what about when they're 25?

Well, that's different.

That's At what age is it different?

Well, we have always kind of had a for us,

like we pay for the kids
cell phone, even through college.

We've paid for them.

When for us, it was when you get married,
if you're if you're

responsible enough to get married,
you can pay your own phone bill.

Or when you graduate from college.

Or when you graduate from college,
that's kind of been our boundary, right?

Like we'll pay for your cell phone

and we pay, you know, obviously
they're on our medical insurance.

So do we pay their medical bills
the same way?

I'm trying.
But we haven't figured. That out yet.

We still have.

I think we still muddle through this

every time.

Yeah, every time. That's bad

because our

kids our kids are like, Do I ask Dad? Yes.

Emergency room visit because
and it's funny because the kids always ask

my adult kids, they say, Is it deductible?

Yeah. Yeah.

Can you tell me if the deductible.

Right. Yeah.

So yeah, it's it's interesting.

Okay. So, so.

That's something we, we probably should
have established with the kids up front.

Right. Look, will pay.

I'll pay for your insurance, but I'm not
paying for your medical bills or am intel.

But then is that a decent.

Does that dis what's the right word?

Demotivate them from finishing college.

We say.

I don't think so,
but let's talk about that for a second.

Okay.

So something that happened with
us so with us recently is

our daughter who's in college.

She was coming home at Christmas
and your ex

said,
can you please pay for half of her flight?

Right.

And so this was a this was an interesting
one for us because we were like,

normally we would be like, sure,
no problem.

But the flight had already been booked.

We didn't have any input.

You could have used points like,
you know, all those things.

We were like, do you know? I mean, like.

So yeah, there was almost like this
assumption, Well, you have to pay

half, right?

And I think it was just
because I don't think it was anything.

It wasn't malicious. Malicious?

No, It was just like, well,
this is what we do.

We split these things
and then we were sitting there going,

Well, you know, if, if I if we're going

to be asked to pay for things
which we don't have a problem with that,

do we
get some input on that type of thing.

Do we get an input on
how much the flight is?

I could use.

Points
or or when the flight comes in. Right.

So we get it. Do we get any say?

And then another thing that happened
very shortly after that when we were still

trying to decide if we were going
to, you know, reimburse

your ex,

that that same daughter went to.

She she had an emergency.

She had an emergency. She went to the
she went to the E.R..

And of course, at the beginning
of the year, when the deductible

is zero, Right.

Where we haven't
got any part of the deductible. Yes.

So she went to the E.R.

and it was I think the total bill ended up
being 500 and something dollars.

And so then we were like, okay, so

do we now
ask your ex to pay for half of that?

Do we just you know what I mean?

Like, we were
we were sitting here in this.

Conundrum.

Conundrum of and I think we've
probably been in this conundrum before,

but it's been
because there was a such a big.

Age, there's a six year gap.

We have forgotten what we were
what we did.

Well, early part of me
on the on the health insurance side,

we always meet our deductible
with as many people as we have on there.

Yeah,

but that's not going to be the case
coming up soon, right, Because.

the less people we have. On it,
we have on it.

So in the past it's like, well,
we're going to meet the deductible anyway.

We might as well just pay it because
we're going to hit the deductible, right?

So right stuff.

But that's not going to be the case
moving forward.

Right?

Because so we kind of
we kind of just made the decision that,

well, if we'll pay the medical bill
and even our daughter was like,

she didn't want to ask us
if we were paying.

So she called and she was like,
So I got a notice

that this is overdue,
so I need to pay that right.

Our kids are so they're so funny.

They won't just come out and say,
Can you pay this?

Or are you or are you paying this?

You know, just are you going to pay this
or do I need to pay this?

So we told her, we'll take care of it.

She's 18.

Of course we'll take care of it.

So I think we decided that.

If we decided on a case by case
basis, case.

By case, I guess I don't know.

But we decided
that we were not going to reimburse her ex

for the plane flight
because we're still paying

for medical insurance
and the medical bills.

So we thought that was fair.

I don't know.

It's funny because nothing's written down.

No, because this is outside
the realm of the parenting group.

Yeah. So that's a good question.

I don't want to have anything
written down. Right.

Because that becomes some kind of legal
I don't know

if that was a legal contract,
but there's expectations there.

Right?

So this one's.

And dental, we still pay for dental
for kids with college kids.

We pay for their phones.

So well, not. To a certain point.

Then they
they have to start reimbursing us.

They can see, you know, I'm saying
in college, we pay for their phones.

Yeah, yeah, we pay for their phones,
we pay for their dental,

but yes, like we said,
when you get married

or you graduate college,

you got to start.

But we're not paying for college.

We do not pay for college.

We pay for one year of college.

Right after our kids
get back from their mission.

We pay for
for a year of tuition for college.

Yeah. So this is this one's a tough one.

I wonder how the kids feel, because before
all this stuff has been taken care of

for them, because it's

been part of the parenting agreement
right now, there's a lot of foggy

D things in the middle, and now they're
in the middle trying to navigate this.

So I wonder how that is for them.

I mean, our kids don't even pay
for their own gas, which some of you may

just be gasping right
now, thinking our kids are entitled.

They are.

They are entitled.

But the reason why,
especially for your kids, is

we pay for we have the car,
we pay for the repairs, we pay

for the registration, and then your ex
pays that pays for their gas.

Right.

And that was that's an agreement
that we have with.

Right. With my spouse in agreement
And yeah.

So now like I can't remember what we did
with our other we're not I mean I'm

not I'm really not paying for their gas
when they come home and use our cars.

I read an agreement about that. Yeah.

So this is an interesting one
because I don't think any of our kids

have come home
after their first year for that summer.

Most of them after their first year
of college, they went off on a mission.

I'm trying to think so.

We have a daughter coming home
this summer and she's going to be working.

Yeah.

And we don't have a car
for her to use by herself.

She has to share with her brothers. Yeah.

So that out.

They got to figure that out.

Yeah. She's not,
she's not plan on the car.

She's plan B on
the car. Yeah. Right. Right.

So this,

this summer is going to be
an interesting summer

when it comes to figuring out who's paying
for gas, who's paying for that.

And yeah, there's a point where I have to
say, well, you know, you're an adult,

you're making you're using the car to go
make money.

You should be paying for your own gas.

Yeah. I'm not going to make you pay
for insurance.

No, of course not.

Because they're. Using. One of our cars.

And I mean, that's up to her If she wants
to talk to her mom about paying gas.

Right. Like,
but we're not paying for our gas.

But yeah, so that's an interest. So yeah.

And things like that, like,
you know, if they need if they're.

So what if she comes home.

Okay, She's 18, almost 19.

She turned 19 next week
and says my computer broke.

I need a new computer. that's too bad.

So she would have to buy her own computer.

I'll help her. I'll help her select one.

But she's got to buy her own computer.
She's got plenty of money to do that.

Yeah, that's true. So?

So if our kids have their own,
if they have a good enough

little pot in the bank.

Well, and then the other side is

if they don't have enough money,
then I'm like, dumb.

Why don't you have enough money?

You should have, you should have.

You can use one of our computers,
but not a laptop.

You can use one of the computers
in the kitchen or.

Okay, so like
if our kids that are in high school,

we give them a right when they're
whatever age we give them a phone.

14 I think we give
our kids a cell phone right.

And if

it says if it's a really terrible phone,

maybe we eventually upgrade them
to something slightly better,

but nothing more
than a couple of hundred dollars.

I think it's
I don't understand when kids, teenagers,

are walking around with 1500 dollars
phones.

I don't understand that.

But most of the time
we don't buy him a phone.

They just use our old phones. Yes.

And that's why I was saying, like Sam,
his phone broke.

He got into a hot tub with his phone

and we said, okay, well, here's

our old phones that you can choose from
or you can go buy.

Your. Own, your own.

And he chose to go buy his own.

I mean, it's not a great phone at all,

but that's what. He chose.

And that's what we would still do.

Like David right now,
he also has a phone that is broken

because he dropped it or something. How?

And we were like,
Well, here are your options.

You can.

He chose to just stick
with what he has. Yes.

But he does he it's it's I think
he's at the point of no return right now

because it's not even charging. So he

I think he wants your old phone about now
because he doesn't want to buy one.

And we were like that's fine.

Choose from the plethora of old phones
we have here.

So maybe that's
what we do with our adult children too.

If, if they need something,
we're like, Well, this is what we have.

This is what we're offering.
If it's not, you know what.

You have, It's not what you want.

Then go take care of it
yourself. Yes, yes.

And we don't like to buy our kids
computers, especially if they're

going to go on a mission, because

when that will get them a computer,
when they get back from their mission.

Yeah. Things change so quick. Yeah.

And that's always kind of a present.

We've got the kids
when they get back from their mission,

we do buy them a new computer

anyway, so.

Yeah, but car insurance,
I mean, we we still pay

all the car insurance

well.

And we pay car insurance before and,
and then

we got reimbursed sometimes or No,
we never did not Car insurance.

No, never.
No. No. I think that was injured.

I think that was in your divorce decree

that you would take care of the cars,
right? No.

it's not. It's not. We just did.

We just did. Okay.

Okay. Well, that's interesting.

Yeah. So, yeah, we we.

So this is a tough one for for adults.

And you know what? Frankly, I think

our society today has been catering

to these young adults too much

because look at how many people

their kids are in college
and they still pay for everything.

So I can't imagine how it is
with the co-parenting

when you get that, because you have
no there's no legal responsibility.

Right.

Once they're 18 and graduated
from high school or 19, that's yeah.

Ah, you don't have to pay for anything.
Right.

And like I said, I think that at times
that puts the kids in the middle

because they know that that legal
responsibility is gone, is gone.

And now they're like.

Well, this can this can also

mothers have things like kids
playing their parents against each other.

Hey, I need $400 for this thing at school.

And then they go to the other parent
and ask for the same 400.

Yeah.

Well, good for them if they figure that.

All right.

You know, I'm going to I'm going to visit

Mom more than dad
because Mom's actually paying for things.

That might happen.

Well, it yeah, absolutely might happen.

It might happen.

But yeah, it's very interesting.

But we have to be very careful
about putting kids in the middle,

because sometimes you make decisions about

are you making the decision
because best for the child or are you

making that decision because you're trying
to still stick it to your ex?

Do you I mean, be careful.

These are don't I know.

But I'm just saying I think you can still
get in the middle of that.

Your and do you know what I mean of that
still like.

Well just because they turn 18.

Yeah you know flip of a switch
even though legally Right.

That was interesting
so when I was told me they have a

a nephew that is Down's syndrome.

So when he turns 18, he's an adult.

So the parents had to go to court to,

to actually, you know, get rid of his.

I know what's the right word.
He can't take care of himself.

So he had. Guardianship.

So yeah, guardianship.

So his parents had to do that
when he was 18.

Otherwise they had no say in what to me,
that's, you know, interesting.

Just on your birthday, all of a sudden

your parents have no guardianship
over you at all anymore.

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of crazy.

So and then there's the issue of, like,

David is is our last one at home.

Right?

He he's going to be
is he's going to be a senior next year.

So we, we have you have always come up
with the schedule Right.

And then your ex approves it and and
you know you you know we change things.

As they. Negotiate

and we were talking to our college
daughter who's coming home.

And you had mentioned her.

You were like, yeah, I only have to do
one more summer scheduled this summer

because then next summer David will be 18,
he'll be graduated.

And she was like,
Why aren't you going to do a schedule?

And you're like, No, don't have to.

And she goes,
That's just that's that stress.

I think that stresses them out
because if there's a schedule,

then they're not hurting anyone's
feelings.

They're just going to follow the schedule.

And well.

In our adult children

that are already out,
they take advantage of that schedule

that we have with the younger kids that
are under the parenting agreement still,

because they just follow it.

They just do whatever
the hell not. It's not as

strict as you know. No.

But the older they get, the less
they follow it.

But they

I think they still appreciate that
we had it

and so that they could follow
It makes things a lot easier.

Like, okay, we'll be with you Monday
and Tuesday and then we'll be with mom,

you know, Wednesday and Thursday
like that.

Just it makes things a little easier.

So this is going to be very interesting
next year.

Yeah, she said, she says,
well she goes, if it were me

she was, I would make up a schedule.

I mean like just like, here's
the schedule that I'm going to.

So we'll see.

We'll see what she does this summer

because she doesn't have to adhere
to the schedule that we come up.

She doesn't I think she plans
to mostly follow it, but but be a little.

Flex, you. Know, flexible.

Yeah, I think that that's what she's.

So this is an interesting transition
for us.

It really is.

It really is.

I'm excited about the transition.

I think I've more excited than you are.

Yeah.

When we were just walking today
and I said in five months,

half the time we're going to be.

Empty.

Nest, empty nesters,
which I know a lot of blended families.

You've been doing that for years and years
while we've always had Sam full time.

So we've always
we've always had somebody here.

So it's going to be new for us to be.

And I'm just like.

And then nine months later.

David Yeah, or a year later, a year.

Later, yeah.

David David's going to be gone.

Will be full time empty nesters.

Yeah, well,
our grandkids were coming to visit.

That's right.

And as you can see,
if what you need to take away from

this episode
is we really don't have things worked out.

No. As we

have told you in many of our episodes,
we are not experts now.

We are. Living free.

We are just sharing our experiences
as we're going through it.

And as you can tell,
even though we have done this whole

adult thing, how many times
we're still like, What should we do?

How do we handle this?

Like. Well,
sometimes it depends on the kid.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Sometimes it does.

So yeah.

So we are just
still trying to figure it out.

Still trying to figure it out.

All right.

Or lemonade.

More of the week has to do with a once
in a lifetime experience, At least for me.

This is something
I've always wanted to experience.

Yes. So, Darren, was he really wanted

to go see the total eclipse now?

I was hesitant, Yeah, because

we got back the week of the total eclipse
or the week before, I guess.

Anyway,
we got back from Europe on a Tuesday night

and you wanted to

then leave on Saturday
morning at 5:30 a.m.

to leave again
to go to Texas to see the eclipse.

And I was just like,

boy. Well, I just want you to experience
seeing a stack of rocks

at Stonehenge and then seeing a big rock
move in front of the sun.

That's all I wanted.

You know,

exhilarating.

Seeing the stack of rocks at Stonehenge.

Exhilarating.

Well, what about the big rock
in front of the sun?

That was cool.

That was.
That was actually very. That was.

It was awesome.

But I am I am glad that we decided
to do it because it was so it was funny.

We get there and, you know, luckily

the total eclipse was in Austin,
where our grandbaby is and our.

Daughter, son and daughter. In law.

And then we had another daughter
and her husband coming

because they wanted to see the eclipse.

So we were going to be visiting
with them for the weekend.

But the morning of the eclipse.

It was cloudy. Complete cloud cover.

And we're sitting there going
and our son in law said,

we're not going to get to see it.

And I you know, I was just like,
you know what?

It's still been a great weekend.

We have been able

to spend this weekend with her
grandbaby is just about the cutest thing

on the planet. He's so cute.

Now check out our website.

You can see pictures.

he's adorable.

And we got to spend time with our kids.

And so it was great.

And then like 30 minutes
before the total eclipse,

the clouds part completely.

Yeah. I was.

Pretty angry until about 10 minutes
after the eclipse

clouds back like,

It was

it was much more moving than I thought
it was going to be.

It was. It was it was really cool.

I mean, it got dark,
The birds stopped chirping.

It was cool.

It was super cool. So cool.

But even if we would have not have seen
the eclipse,

we still got to spend time
with our family, play with that keyboard.

If you like today's episode.

Give us five stars on iTunes, Spotify,
Google.

And head to Facebook and like us.

And check out our blog
at wheresthelemonade.org.

Where you can leave
questions and comments.

Add. But most of all.

Go out
and make some lemonade. You betcha, baby.