Modeling

Steve Duin writes a column for our local newspaper. He's been there for forever. Sometimes I read him. Yesterday's column was about family court:

It is, one lawyer said, "the Jerry Springer docket," the endless parade of family catastrophes -- marriage dissolutions, restraining orders, elder abuse, custody hearings -- that Springer would milk for brawls and ratings with the misfits willing to trade their dignity for that televised moment on stage.

I think this sentence explains a lot:

The guys battling restraining orders without a lawyer, their kids in tow because they can't afford day care, boxed in by a legal system that is ruled by the sort of discipline no one ever modeled for them.

He gets a description of people who show up here from an attorney:

"They're disproportionately poor," Diamond said. "They don't have a good sense of what parenting ought to look like because their own situation growing up was lousy. They're not fully in control of their emotions, and they lack communication skills: They're not able to identify a problem and discuss it without those emotions taking over.

"And most of the time they're young. Doesn't every 19-year-old have those issues? They aren't ready to have children."