Britney Spears Through The Family Law Lens

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I think every person who's had some type of generational trauma can say that they've either A, can see in hindsight how they may have repeated it, or B, that you have to stop the cycle and it's not easy. It's an important part because we're talking about this in the context of family law, but ultimately you do see and you hear from your clients that how this has trickled down.

I've seen it in my own personal life, with my own family's generational trauma and seeing how, it continues and I like to think that I've changed my kid's future and I think I have, but it has to be a deliberate.

Decision to undo the damage in the years and years of things that you've seen. 

I thought, I marry this great person and I became an attorney and I never was dependent on anybody because I grew up where my mom left a very unhealthy relationship and didn't have an education and didn't have much money and we were very poor for very long.

And I, Remember thinking, I don't want to have that, so I did all the right things. I have a nice home. We never have to worry about food or electricity I [00:01:00] built them a pool. Cause I remember when I was in third grade and a girl in my class had us over and I was like this is what I want.

I'm going to build this life. And I did, 

I was called a lot of names growing up and that's something I had to unlearn. And it was a very deliberate decision for many years that my instinct at times would be to yell at my kids and call them a name because that's what happened to me. Have there been moments?

Sure. The biggest thing I think I've done in those situations, which funny enough, one of them was getting very frustrated when they wouldn't eat chickpeas during COVID. I made chickpeas for dinner.

And I was like, mommy dearest about not eating the chickpeas. And he talks about it still. 

But the important part was that I said I was wrong. I'm sorry. I definitely lost my patience.

So while I did lose my patience, I never called him a name. Not that losing my patience is excusable, but to me, I was like, okay, how did I improve that situation?

Mental health is so important and I think the greatest thing is that there's a lot less stigma. My kids I was driving one of them home from soccer with their friend in the car last week and she said I [00:02:00] have to go to therapy.

I dropped her off at her therapist's office and drove her friend home and it wasn't even flinched and I actually know that other child was in therapy. But it's so great that they talk about it very freely and going to therapy and there's zero embarrassment, it's just normal, so that's so good. I built my kids, my dream life. And guess what? They still have problems and they still need therapy and you cannot do anything to stop that because they're humans and they're going to have their life experience. 

My oldest son also goes to therapy and he used to announce to his class, I have therapy tonight.

In his mind, that wasn't even anything to be embarrassed about

And it's not!

And to him, it was the same as saying I'm going to get my physical today, like how we might tell our friends. When we decided to put him in therapy. It was his grandparent's generation that was most shocked by it.

What do you mean you're putting him in therapy? Why do you think he needs that? As if it was saying, there's something really wrong with him. And it's shameful to have to admit defeat and go to therapy or something like that. It was just a very weird mentality. 

The prior generations are a little further behind, but but yeah, so [00:03:00] normalizing therapy is

As much as we vilify social media and it's the future downfall of our society in my opinion, some good things that have come from it is realizing lots of people feel the way you're feeling. You're not alone. Struggling with kids, everything's not perfect all the time.

It's okay to lose your patience every now and then. That's normal. You shouldn't beat yourself up over it. 

My thing is know better, do better. Once you know better, your job is to do better. And

you wanted to do better. I think that's also a difference. I think some people maybe don't, or they've never really self reflected to really even understand that they need to do better.

I remember when I went to college,

I

I was watching other families and other people and I was like, what's normal? That's a question I still have to ask myself when it comes to interactions with my extended family.

Is that normal? And more often than not, the answer is no. But I didn't know that it wasn't normal.

know what you experienced.

I remember my boyfriend from college into law school, his family was very normal and it was very nice and very [00:04:00] welcoming. And when I met Steve, I wasn't. I definitely did things that I don't do now, but I had to learn, and I didn't want to repeat that. And it was much more deliberate, where I don't know if other people have that, doesn't mean that I'm better, it just was a, it was something that I knew I wanted to do, it was to break that cycle.

And I do think I broke that cycle. 

Alright, so let's talk about her kids and her custody. Britney grew up in rural Louisiana. She talks about eating squirrel because they didn't have food and the year her single came out, they had just declared bankruptcy and had their car repossessed. So poor.

And Her dad had tried doing businesses, he's an alcoholic, failed businesses, and they pushed her these auditions and her mom tries to say she wasn't doing it for her to become famous. But it sounds like they were making investments in her hoping that it would pay off down the line and she would become their little cash cow.

And I don't imagine that they expected it to be what it was because who could really imagine that? But I think they were thinking she could support us. And she could give us a comfortable [00:05:00] lifestyle and so she was pushed into that. And I think she genuinely enjoyed it, but she just wanted a normal life.

So she was with Justin Timberlake.

They were together for four years and now it's come out that she got pregnant at 19 with his baby.

He asked her to have an abortion and she agreed and, she did choose to do it. I think she was a little upset about it and she might regret it a little bit, that's how things shook out. But then he vilified her in the media. Launched his whole single career off of this narrative that she cheated on him and he's this wronged man 

so that was very traumatic to her too. Only a couple years later, she marries Kevin Federline,

who was her backup dancer,

who was her backup dancer. He was married at the time, with a pregnant wife. It's not good. And and you're just like, what was she thinking? She just wasn't making good choices.

Whether it was a mental health issue, whether

desperate for love.

and I think, yes.

2 cents.

A hundred percent. She said she fell in love with Kevin because he would just hold her in the pool. Cause he would just hold her. And I think that just shows how isolated she really was from Other people and [00:06:00] I think she had friends , but it was all part of this machine.

It was all business. It would be like, you're only allowed to ever hang out with your coworkers all of the time. And it was only about making money all of the time. That would be icky. So she gets pregnant, like right away. Has the first baby and then gets pregnant again three months later.

So she had two babies in two years. , in the meantime, Kevin wants to become a rapper.

I remember that. I do remember

fed the rapper and she. It clearly went through very severe postpartum depression, and it seems like the hormones from the babies, Kevin sounds like , he was being terrible, he was going and recording music, she's home with the kids by herself, and then allegedly she was told he was going to file for divorce, so you should file for divorce first so that you're not embarrassed when he does it.

So she does, , and I don't know if this is a California thing or if you ever see this, , that because she filed, she had to pay his legal fees.

So in Pennsylvania, people ask, is there a detriment to being the filing party, like being the plaintiff versus the defendant?

The only difference is you have to pay the filing fee, [00:07:00] okay? Both sides can ask for the other side to pay.

counsel fees

It's not common. Support in the form of APL in Pennsylvania is to keep people on par in litigation and during the separation. But the only time we really see attorney fees come into play is when people have bad behavior.

So I use the example like, discovery violations and won't turn things over. And just being obdurate and vexatious for no reason, I can't speak to California. California is also a community property state which is a lot different than Pennsylvania where it's equitable distribution as opposed to equal division as I understand it.

But anybody can ask for council fees and anybody can get it. It's usually based on bad behavior. Support in the form of, like I said, APL is by the under earning spouse, which. Kevin, I'm gonna guess his KFED wrapping was not gonna be as lucrative as hers.

So she files and they both want full custody. So they jump into this custody battle. And it's a shame because. Even if you look at interviews from her when she's 17, 18, all she ever wanted was a [00:08:00] family. I just want to be a mom someday.

And she's from the South and, I think that's just, it's a very rural southern thing. Get married young, be a young mom. She wasn't going to be going to school. It wasn't like she had to wait until she established herself in some sort of career. 

I've been listening to podcasts all weekend about her and people were talking about how a lot of people in this. Entertainment industry want kids because it almost gives them an excuse to not have to do things. And it gives them a little they have control over their children, where they don't have control over a lot of the rest of their life.

Which I could see she wanted to slow down, they weren't letting her slow down, or she just couldn't say no, she did so much in such a short amount of time. But, probably thinking if I have kids and I have a husband and I have a family I have that.

And I can, take a break and be like, I'm raising my family. It's a good excuse to be taking a break and all that. So it

like she was trying to recreate her own childhood over again in a more, I would say healthy way in that she wanted to give the children what she didn't have, but she didn't have the tools to do that number one.

And then, hell, I can understand that. I, [00:09:00] my new term at home is Jomo, joy of missing out as opposed to FOMO. And maybe that just is because I get up at five in the morning and by eight o'clock at night, I don't want to be doing anything, but I don't know if I use my kids as an excuse, but it does help to have a hundred things going on and I'm not a celebrity.

So I can understand that thought process, not to have kids for that reason. But.

If I didn't have kids, I could see how things might feel a little more chaotic. There's just not as much structure to your life.

You're more free. If you really want to have a family like she did, she wanted to be a mom. She just didn't have that sense of stability and she didn't even talk about building a house in L. A. She wanted a cozy house for her kids. I doubt it was very cozy because it was probably like 40, 000, yeah.

She had this vision of being with her husband and her kids and and it's a shame because she just didn't have the right support . 

It sounds like Britney was trying to build a house, without any foundation.

So she's trying to build this great, wonderful house on quicksand.

Because that foundation, which is your childhood and your upbringing and the stability that you're given and the love that you're [00:10:00] given, is your foundation. And she didn't have that. So she didn't have that from what she's saying as a child, and it was not a great parenting situation.

So she was never able to build that foundation in which she can build that cozy house because you need that foundation.

So when I say poor Britney, poor Britney, she didn't have the foundation and. Without a doubt from the little bits that I've seen and heard she had the best of intentions. She's not an ill intended person.

I gave this advice to somebody last week and we'll get into Britney Spears custody, but it goes, give somebody some grace. You got to give people grace and it's not just about generational trauma, if you're being that hard on somebody else and on the person on the other side, husband, wife, ex boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, would you allow someone to be that hard to your kid, to your best friend?

No, give them some grace

She was a person

who made mistakes who wanted the best, but had a pressure on her that nobody probably could survive, especially with the foundation that she didn't have. Somebody in mental health 10 [00:11:00] years ago told me this and it really made sense to me.

Because I always think about households where one sibling turns out so much different than the other sibling and like how does that happen? How do two people have such a distinct reaction to the same environment? And what they explained to me was your mental health is almost like a glass table, so you don't know how thick it is.

And you don't know how strong it is. So I always picture the 1980s glass table, right? Because I definitely had those growing up. Some of them are really thick, and you could throw marbles, and you could throw toys, and they would not chip. And that's somebody's mental health, right? It's just stronger, and they can handle more of the beatings, if you will.

And I don't necessarily mean... physical, just the life happens. And then there's some people who it's like, a sheet of ice that it's very thin and what one person can survive and get those things thrown at them, the other one can't. And that made a lot of sense to me because, you can see a lot of households where two people turn out so different and it's that, almost resiliency, maybe one of the siblings in that [00:12:00] household didn't had a thicker glass table.

And so even if Britney had the thickest glass table in the history of mental health. The amount of pressure that she was under and the lack of support that she had from her family, in fact, it sounds like the opposite. It's almost, what did you expect? Again, give her some grace. Yeah,

At the time, people didn't have the full perspective she didn't say much about it, but People compare her to maybe Taylor Swift and how she seems so much in a mentally better place.

And of course you never really know. I'm sure she has her moments too, but she had a very supportive family.

It's the difference of foundation.

I remember hearing Billy Joel trusted the wrong people, and I feel like at one point he was, basically down to nothing.

When you're that famous, you're going to have a small amount of people that you can trust because you're looking at everybody else out there you think is going to want a part of you because of your money. And that's an understandable thought process, so they trust the people on the inside.

That doesn't mean the people on the inside aren't going to take advantage of you either. 

I think she was very paranoid, and they didn't help with the paranoia. She would get death threats all the time, as celebrities do, and they wouldn't [00:13:00] tell her.

They would just put her in lockdown and not tell her why. So you would start to get paranoid. You knew things were going on, but no one would tell you what it

what it also sounds like they weren't treating her as a human. So she has these two babies.

has the two babies, severe postpartum depression, whether it's treated or untreated, I don't know, but seemed untreated from what came out in the media.

They go 50 50 custody. Her youngest was maybe six weeks old when this all, little, and so now she's giving up her two kids half the time when they're that little you probably remember she was driving with the one kid on her lap.

Do you remember that? That was what set it off as she's not a fit mother because she was driving the baby on her lap, but the context of that was that there were a million paparazzi around her. She was just trying to get them in the car you shouldn't put a baby on your lap, but, and...

But also, you've never been chased by 70 paparazzi with a baby and trying to be like, oh my god I don't want something to happen to my baby.

You brought up her having an abortion, or that's what she says happened to her when she was 19, I think you said.

Everybody has their opinion. But [00:14:00] until you're in that person's shoes. Then how can you judge, right? Starting with what we just talked about, her driving with the kid on the car, if that's all true, she's trying to get away from the paparazzi and she's just like trying to create her cocoon, yeah, of course you shouldn't drive with your kids on your lap, that goes without saying, but again, None of us can understand that, I mean my kids get annoyed when I'm at the grocery store and I see people that I know and I talk for more than five minutes because that, that interferes with their lives, right?

That's the most I can understand how being known in any way affects my life. And then back to having an abortion, again, I'm not getting into politics but I am pro choice. Part of the reason I'm pro choice is you just never know. I don't know a single woman in this world who's been like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

I'm going to go have an abortion. That's nobody's thought process. You got to give the person grace to know if you're not in that situation, they have to be able to decide what's right for them. Now it sounds like Brittany. from what I heard. Probably maybe would have had the child if Justin was supportive, but you know what?

You can't Monday morning quarterback. The decision was made. She made her decision and ultimately, it sounds like it lied with [00:15:00] her and again, give her the grace. She made a decision. It's not something that she sounds like she was, thrilled about making.

So all of these decisions that, poor free Brittany here has made sounds like without guidance, without help, without real support, without foundation, and she's doing her best. Now, again, if I'm a custody lawyer, I'm having a field day, which is where you're probably going.

a field day, which is where you're her lap. She just starts to spiral shaves her head

in public.

public. Days after that, she hit the paparazzi car with an umbrella she was coming back from Kevin's house cause she went to go see the kids and he wouldn't let her in the house.

So all this stuff's going on in the background and then you're seeing her. As a distraught mother who's going through some sort of postpartum breakdown.

is legit. Postpartum is no joke. And

She has discussed also being diagnosed with bipolar probably even before this.

Oh, she does have bipolar?

She has mentioned that she's been medicated for bipolar, yes. And it sounds like she has a mental health history in her family, so that's not surprising. Probably exacerbated [00:16:00] by... the lifestyle she was forced to live, which sounds so stressful. So she loses custody of her kids.

100 percent she lost custody?

She had supervised visits and Kevin's representatives came to pick up the babies.

And I think they might've been two and one at this time. And she gave the one and then she just had this feeling she was never going to see her kids again and wouldn't give the other one back and locked herself in the bathroom with it. Now she claims she was told Kevin said she could keep them a little longer. But then people called the police and she got 51 15 for that.

What was that? 302 in

I guess so. Yeah,

involuntarily committed?

They took her in an ambulance to the hospital. And she lost custody at that point. 

That's what should happen. I have all the sympathy in the world for Brittany. I do. And I don't know Kevin Federline obviously, but it sounds like he had some bad intention, but perhaps he was doing it for the right reason.

To protect the kids. But in Pennsylvania if I'm giving this fact pattern, you can have a bajillion dollars. Or [00:17:00] you can have. Nothing.

It doesn't matter to me. The same facts and the same law applies. And that is that if someone has a mental health issue, and I should say one that's not managed or treated, right? Because having a mental health issue it's not the end of the world by any means.

It's somewhat normal. It sounds like the right thing happened. Supervision is one of the first typically courts don't take custody fully. There's very extreme situations. They happen, but they're very infrequent.

But the, one of the most conservative, but necessary is supervision at times. But in a situation where you're in supervised custody and you're not going to turn the kid over and regardless of your Britney Spears, you're going to lose custody because you don't know what could have happened behind that door.

, people have come in and we're sitting across the table in a consult and they'll lower their head and say I take.

Fill in the blank. Zoloft, Prozac. Maybe it's bipolar. It doesn't matter. They'll say very shamefully, despite what we just started with and how common our kids are with mental health. And I'm like, okay, good. And they look at me like I'm nuts. And I'm like that shows that you're treating it and that you're taking care of it.

Even if you're not completely at your [00:18:00] best, it's again. know better, do better. If they know they're struggling and they ask for help, that's all you can ask for with people. No one expects you to be perfect. And no one expects you to not go through struggles, meaning, in the court system, maybe the other side you are with might think that, but that's going to fall on deaf ears.

But yeah good for Brittany to say, I have bipolar and I'm treating. But at the time she probably wasn't having any of those.

There's more to this story. Sam Lefty was his name. He calls himself a manager. She said he was like a friend who got her groceries sometimes. I don't it's a shady story. Her mom claims he was crushing medicine, putting it in her food.

Jesus Christ.

And that he was in cahoots with the paparazzi. So he was drugging her to look bad.

And then he would get kickbacks from the paparazzi for these photos where she looked crazy. But she was so out of it she didn't even understand what was going on.

There's definitely more to it that's clearly not very typical.

just like every case there's two sides to every story and usually somewhere in the middle is the truth, her perception is her reality, right? So in any discussion two [00:19:00] people have their perception that is their reality doesn't mean that they're wrong It means that's the reality and that's the court system.

We're trying to figure out we're Close enough to real reality is right

But objectively, like you said, she clearly should not have had her children in that environment if she's being fed, crushed up drugs, supervised or not she has to give her children back when it's her time.

They're just objectively, you can understand why the family stepped in and put her under this conservatorship and it was originally temporary and then, that's a whole other discussion about the conservatorship 

this is about as much as I can say those types of, restrictions on a person.

Are typically meant to be the least restrictive alternative, right? So again, I know very little, and I know just enough from what my husband does with like elderly, right?

He just had a case recently where the hospital was trying to get a guardianship over this woman who was in her nineties and living on her own. . And it's not exactly Brittany, but I can understand it parallels. So this woman was like 90 years old. She didn't want to be in a home.

She could take care of herself, but look, she had fallen. She's 90 something. And [00:20:00] she has a person that takes care of her. And so she was living her life and it might not be how you and I would want it to happen. But she was making that choice. So the hospital was like, I'm not discharging you. You need a guardianship.

And the woman was like the hell I do. And when I talked to Steve about it and he won and they did not They did not get to keep her and she was discharged like they should, what we, what Steve and I talked about before his court hearing was like, who were they to decide? If she wants to fall and that's how she dies horribly, like horrible to me, I wouldn't want to fall and die.

But that's her choice. If she is competent, if she's mentally there

they're obviously assuming she is competent enough to make that decision.

they were assuming she wasn't, but she was, and it was like, not even a question. I was actually horrified . I was viscerally offended because again, I joked to my kids, mommy squats.

So I can pee at 85, right? I don't want to be in a home. That would not be what I. would want. And so if I choose to stay in my home who are you to tell me I'm not?

I think people, even if they're well intended, miss the step hold on, , does this person know what he or she is doing? And if they do who is the government to [00:21:00] make that decision?

It goes back to, our country started because of government interference. The courts are the government. It's a branch of the government. Who are they to interfere? And when they do interfere, especially with fundamental rights like parenting, it should be the least restrictive alternative.

I would imagine your right to make decisions about yourself is obviously also a fundamental right. 

And she lost the right to have more children. Because she A,

was given the IUD or something like

her an IUD. She asked to have it out and they said no.

then she recently got pregnant, didn't she?

Yeah. Then she had a miscarriage. Yeah, because now she's 40. Two.

40,

So she, and this started like 26. So basically through her prime childbearing years, and she wanted more kids, whether you agree with her having more kids, I'm sure objectively you'd say maybe that was for the best that she didn't, but that's not,

It's not our

or no.

And there's plenty of people out there, celebrities or not, that have kids that you're like, Ooh, they

Yeah, but again, who are we to

That's their right to have a child. And I have lots of questions [00:22:00] about why the court allowed this to go on because it seems just so shady. But in terms of custody.

So have you ever dealt with custody with someone under a guardianship?

Not with them under a guardianship, but absolutely when they've been 302'd. And sometimes kept after, so the 302 hold is only for a short period of time. And then there's the process in which someone can be held longer. The custody restrictions are usually short, in a normal situation, someone has a mental health issue, such as needing to be 302'd, in Pennsylvania, 302'd, and then when they are released, they're typically going to be supervised.

And it's interesting because I see a lot of attorneys, and I did this when I was a young family law attorney, I would jump right ahead to take legal custody too. If they're out of their own commitment, are they unable to make decisions for their child? , that was my thought originally, but I've changed that thought process significantly in that yes, when you're potentially in that mental health facility, 

if you can't make your own decisions, you shouldn't be making some for your children. But then, barring extreme, extreme situations, [00:23:00] the court should allow the people to participate in the most basic right, which is decision making for their kids. And that's supported by the court.

It's not just my opinion.

Shared legal custody means that you have to jointly come to that decision, whether it is with regards to medical education, legal, et cetera. If you don't agree and you had an impasse, then that's a different discussion. And then generally you have to go to court to make that decision or have the court make that decision.

But again, it's pretty infrequent. The only time I can think of. Recently that I've gone to court and litigated a legal custody issue was over the COVID vaccine, whether one parent wanted to give the vaccine, one didn't . So when the person gets out of a mental health facility or look at a drug rehab Alcohol rehab, what have you, there are restrictions typically, but they are usually short lived.

And I have seen a lot of people struggle with the progress supervision, then perhaps then there's no supervision and then it progresses and doesn't always progress to 50 50 necessarily, but there's typically a progression. And I have a client in particular who I know struggled [00:24:00] very hard with that progression and struggled thinking that this is okay for the kids, and I said, look, you're going to have to let.

him or her in either situation. Prove themselves either way, and Judge Gavin, who was a judge that I was in front of in criminal court, had always said to defendants, I'm going to give you enough rope to hang yourself. It's a horrible analogy, but that's what he would say. And his whole point was, I'm not going to send you to prison for as long as the DA wants, and I was the DA at the time, so I didn't like it.

But if you come out and you screw up, then you've done it to yourself. And I learned a lot from that because I think that applies a lot in family court, give people enough to prove themselves. And I say to people look, if they progress and then they're doing great then you gave your child a healthier parent, not perfect, but healthier.

And if they fail and you've given them that chance then they've proven it to themselves and you weren't the bad guy. And then the next question is, what if something happens to the kids? And I get that. , I can't protect everybody. And by I, the courts, but kids are resilient and you're [00:25:00] going to stay on top of it.

And thus far, even Brittany's kids, they might not be. Perfect. From the video I just saw.

are teenage boys.

Yeah,

but again, it's giving that person the grace. I have not had a conservatorship or that type of restriction, but it's really much more common than people believe.

How many people in our small community have had these significant mental health issues that they see on TV and... It happens to the best of the people out there.

Your analogy with the judge, it makes me think about how they didn't let her get her own attorney. If they were right in what they were doing, then it shouldn't have mattered who her attorney was.

Let her have her own attorney. Let her attorney argue for her that she chose.

And if it still comes out that she needs this guardianship, then at least they can say it's her attorney.

Oh, 100%.

That's just wild to me.

it is. Even in our office of seven lawyers, one person requests a continuance.

The court has said no, other attorneys there can handle it. I'm sorry. That client gets to choose. Who represents

a fundamental American right?

[00:26:00] I can't speak to whether it's fundamental in the constitution per se. It's common sense, right? 

I get the court's point there's other people who can stand in our place, and when we can, we do. This just happened two weeks ago. An attorney in my office was in trial and needed a continuance on something that was in front of a conciliator.

So on the importance, it was at the lower level. It was below a judge. Requested a continuance and the judge said no, you have other lawyers there and it was a complex case that frankly another attorney here had to get up to speed, spend hours and hours and cost that client a lot of money to get caught up to speed because the other attorney had to get caught up while the other one's in trial.

Are you kidding? Let that person

and then if they lose,

Was it because I didn't have my original attorney? 'cause we had to catch this other one up?

Or was it. legitimate 

The Brittany case is like, look, fax one cases like lawyers 

The first couple of days of law school, I remember them coming in and saying, whatever they say and said something like, how many of you think lawyers win cases and say 75 percent of the hands went up 

the reality is it's always the facts like. Us dumb law [00:27:00] students have learned our job as lawyers is to get the right facts out there, but we can't change the outcome. The facts are the facts. So yeah, she should have chosen her own lawyer because the facts are still the facts.

And the judge may have still done the same thing, but at least without the tainting of it being not at her own choice. 

And then they were recording all her conversations. With her attorney. Just crazy. So she gets in the conservatorship, it seems okay in the beginning, maybe for the first year. She's not on these crazy drugs anymore, whatever she was doing, they have her working, she should probably have been on a break from working, and they use her kids as motivation for her to do everything. If you don't do this, then you're not going to get to see your kids this weekend.

If you don't do this, then you don't get to take your kids on vacation. So you know, being this person who only ever wanted to be a mom, now she's at the mercy of both the dad and now her dad. who can use this over her head and say, no, you can't have your kids this weekend and she can't do anything about it.

And then what happened was, over time she started getting less and less custody. I don't know if it was because of her work schedule or, the kids are getting older and maybe it [00:28:00] was her work schedule. But then it was before she got out of the conservatorship.

So maybe it was like 2018, 2019, her dad breaks down a door. and shakes one of her sons. And so Kevin gets a restraining order against the dad and says he's not allowed to see the kids anymore. So then she couldn't see the kids anymore. Oh jeez. Because she's part of this conservatorship. So basically her and her dad are tied together in this weird legal way.

And the children are, again, the consequence. They're the ones who are... going to suffer the most because right, wrong, or indifferent, that's still their mother and it should be their decision under the appropriate safeguards to know her, 

There's pictures of her with her kids. I don't know what their relationship was like. But people around her all say she would have done anything for her kids, like whether they know that or they feel that there's been some public fighting now with them. Now they're older and one of them went on Instagram and did an Instagram live and

how old are [00:29:00] the kids now? 18

17.

K Fed moved them to Hawaii, she, but she approved the relocation, so she didn't stand in the way. So you know, I think she does want what's best for them. I think she does have a perspective of no.

of her ability, right?

I showed Julie what, there were a couple videos, there was, and she watched one of them where the kids recorded her yelling at them in the car. And, and this is something very relatable because we do see things like this on social media. This is something that's not celebrity specific, except that it got shared to millions of people, where we've talked before about parents recording each other, or if kids are recording their parents yelling at them, and then putting it out on social media, or making it public.

She looks crazy in the video, but like we've talked about

doesn't. I mean I only watched her small about.

It sounds like she took the son's phone away, he was mad, they were fighting about and they're fighting about roller skating, but what you've talked about before is you don't know the context of the fight, you don't know what happened leading up to this recording. So again, you're [00:30:00] creating an audience, right? So the kid who was recording.

Could have been poking the

And I'm sure the other kid was sitting in the next to him. So he saw that it was being recorded. They want to go and show their dad. Look what mom did to us.

And then how much of that was Kevin going, you need to get your mom on video doing the following. And of the short video that you showed me, she called the kids like crazy or something. I don't know. Okay. So again, that's not good.

it's not good. It's, it, she does not look good in the video, which is why it was

but the part that's interesting to me is, so she's calling them names, which that is harmful and it has happens in a lot of households and hopefully a lot of people can. Break that cycle. But then the part is that she's talking about like how to give them a consequence and that her consequence was taking the phone. That's a normal consequence.

She's trying to make her kids better people.

And so it's funny, I used this yesterday and I saw this. I think it was Meghan Markle. So [00:31:00] I'm not claiming this to be my analogy, but I told you I love a good analogy. So I used it with my son on Xbox, right? So days like yesterday here in Eastern Pennsylvania, it was rainy and blah, right? And so it's a Sunday too.

So what do we want to do? We want to sit on our butts, right? But he was in the what we call the Xbox room, which is just like the TV room But he's on the X and I was like, no, like we're done and he I'm like, we're taking the Xbox I was like if you want to watch football with us, it's different because you're at least engaging with us so he Push back and I finally said because I saw this analogy and I'm using this for Brittany is like Look when they built cars and hundred plus years ago they didn't have seatbelts.

They didn't have airbags they didn't have car seats. They didn't have any of that and what happened people got in car accidents and died. So what do we do? We made them safer. And now we make them safer. So I use the same thing on phones and I said that to my son.

I'm just learning how to keep you safe. I'm like, this is like me giving you an airbag. And honestly, it like clicked for him.

Because he was like, oh, my mom is doing it to keep me safe. She's not doing it to be mean. And [00:32:00] what Brittany's trying to do is trying to keep her kids safe, but she's not explaining to them. She's looking at the punitive versus explanation type of an approach. And I personally don't.

punitively

punish my kids because frankly they're harder on themselves than I'll ever be number one and number two You know, there's usually natural consequences, right or this situation I'll at least explain it and then he got it doesn't mean he liked it 

We can't keep up with what the kids are getting exposed to. We can't keep up with the device.

It's so stressful. And so it's a really hard time to be parenting. And then you look at Brittany. So now her kids are older than she was when she came out with baby one more time. She didn't have cell phones and really, nothing to compare to what her kids are going through. She didn't even really have friends or peers or a home 

She doesn't have examples to even really pull from.

That's the foundation and she's never been given the ability to pause and to work on herself for whatever reason, whether it's because she was forced to go out on the Vegas strip and do whatever she was doing or what have you, but she definitely did not have that foundation. And so back to family law [00:33:00] on that is, when kids are in the middle 

it's putting a crack in their foundation. You wouldn't buy a house with a crack in that foundation and it doesn't mean every household that's split is like that, but think about when you are in a situation 

It's is that worth the foundation that your kids are growing on? Talking positively about the other side, even if it kills you, just do it. It creates that stronger foundation. And I just did it last week for the second time. 15 years or whatever.

I said to the client, 'cause the person is saying, we don't even talk about the oth, the other side in the house. I'm like, that's just as bad as saying negative. They know that other person is their parent. I was like, find something nice to say. It's that foundation. I don't say these things because.

I think that you should, I say them because I see it, the foundation, poor Brittany did not have a foundation and right, wrong, or indifferent, perhaps, KFED is trying to give them a foundation, albeit sounds to a lot of people's detriment, but it goes to that foundation.

And if you can. Stop that generational trauma, recognize what generational [00:34:00] trauma you have and how you can stop it. And you don't even have to know you recognize it. You don't have to go, I have generational trauma. You can go, is that normal? No, it's not normal.

And is that the normal? I want my kids to have,

How'd your client take it?

I don't know if she did it, but she took it well. I think, look, no one's telling her that, right?

So like therapists or people are self reporting and that's a problem in and of itself. And so even if she's a therapist, like that therapist is listening to her side and being that therapist is not thinking about how it affects the. the court system. And I think the difference I have is not only do I think of how it's going to affect the court system because I think it's a positive for you to be able, because it is, it's a factor in custody about coming in and this isn't how the factor is worded, but if I come into court and you can testify that these are the things you do to encourage that relationship with the other parent, which is actually the factor that's going to go to your benefit.

But I can also see how it affected me as a kid and how I can see when I say nice things about Steve. You can see how it affects my kids and that I will never say anything negative about them. Ever. Do I think negative [00:35:00] things? Sure. Sorry, Steve, you said you liked it the one time I said it, you were right.

Guess what? Do I think negative things? Sure. 

Was getting a little bit of an ego about how he was getting portrayed on the nicest

but I will always say your dad is the nicest guy and he is. He is. But anyway, my point is that, yeah, people need to hear, and again, these are my opinions, but these are gathered from decades of experience.

And life, and,

No one's paying me here. So I'm telling you what you need to hear. And when you're my paying client, I still tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. That's just how I am.

It's almost impressive that Britney was trying to punish her son by taking their phone away.

That's a very normal reaction for a parent of a teenager to do, so she is trying to be a good mom in her own way. I think in the past they had been pretty, at least publicly, pretty civil. But, doing something like that and putting it out there for everybody, it is. It's like showing her at her worst, making everyone think she's this crazy, terrible mom.

Why?

I don't know what he's doing for a living now. I don't think he made it as a rapper. But I'm sure he has to pay child, she has to pay child

does [00:36:00] not work, and she made sure to bring that up, and she pays him 40, 000 a month. Which is a lot of money, even for her, I think. 

Will end, presumably, when her kids are...

so now she's down to only one. 

So he, not saying he did, that's an

an

incentive for him, to some extent, to keep that agenda going. And the people that are being forgotten.

often

It's just, it's

I hope the kids, we don't know much about them. They're not really in the public eye, but I hope they turn out okay.

okay.

I've,

we'll see.

And again, it could be that whole glass table, right? One may more than the other because they've had that more resiliency or they've had the ability to pause and go, is that normal? Everybody, I think, can acknowledge that the Brittany story is not normal, but I You know, taking out the Brittany name, is it normal for my mom to fill in the blank?

And if the answer is no the issue is that, how do you change it? And then did she know better? And if she knew better, and as long as she's trying better, that's a different [00:37:00] discussion, right?

what is her effort? What is her mentality with it? And the kids do have step siblings, stepmother.

Oh, he did get remarried? Yeah, and

he had kids from prior marriages, and that's almost sadder to think about. She's by herself and lonely, and they have this whole other, whole life with their dad and step siblings and step mothers and all of that. It's just sad.

Extended family can be great, and that could have helped their foundation if it's a healthier relationship. And in a perfect world, Brittany would be grateful, if, not saying she isn't, but she would be grateful for that normalcy. But, It's very sad and it, people, oh, wouldn't it be nice to be, Taylor Swift or, whatever.

money would might maybe

yeah, but again, money doesn't buy happiness.

It doesn't, and that's a, and like you were saying, the foundation, she had all the money in the world to build whatever foundation she wanted, and she still couldn't because she didn't have that emotional foundation.

have that she wasn't given the tools. And she, and more importantly, maybe she wasn't given the time to pause and hesitate and go, oh, okay Mickey Mouse Club was great.

And she went through what she did with Justin Timberlake and I, maybe I want to pause and live through [00:38:00] things. But instead, she was continued to force to put on a show like, like a circus

have her whole personal life chronicled in the tabloids, being skewed to, whatever anyone wanted to believe, regardless of what was really going on. Anyone can get a bad picture and look like they're on drugs. You could be like blinking, right? And it's oh my gosh, but it's it could have just been like a, just a bad picture.

So how much do you see custody being affected by? Things posted on social media like moms going, I feel like it's always the mom, but let's just say a mom's going out to the bar or goes on vacation with her friends and there's lots of drinks or there's videos of them partying and they're not with their kids.

Their kids are safe. Their kids are with babysitters or they're with their other parent. Do you see that get skewed or do you find that the judges, cause I do feel like , the courts actually did look at the paparazzi pictures. And use that, as proof that she was mentally unstable.

Look wrong, or indifferent, social media is out there and it's our community.

And actually I was in court on Friday and one of the things the judge said, because the person who [00:39:00] I was against had put something out on social media, and the judge said that's your community. You're putting it out there, right? But so I actually was just interviewed on a, in an article for the same question and I think I've seen it in both support and custody.

And so in custody, I've seen it. And the case I'm thinking of, the mom was out drinking and, it's a double standard to some extent, but mom was out drinking and posting stupid sayings about being drunk at five, five afternoon or at 10 AM or something, whatever.

and that's just not.

And they were used against her and she did not get significant time with her kid and had to build back up, it's used against you. I mean it goes back to anything you say can and will be used against you. Anything you post can and will be used against you. There's a reason I don't post.

Like I legitimately don't. I can think of twice in the past two years that I have. One was when Ahmaud Armery's

conviction

The killers were convicted and I wrote something like, justice. And I think when Biden was elected I was also very grateful that Trump was not our president again. So those are the two times.

Anyway, so yeah, social media is [00:40:00] used against you. It is. So if you don't like it, then don't post anything. So that's

Trump was that mom was choosing to post where, there wasn't a magazine

like your friends posting you. I'm sure there's a lot of parenting fails I can have, but one of the parenting wins I have is I heard one of my daughters say both to each other and then to a friend, Hey, can I post this? Asking their permission. Can I post this picture or whatever it was and that was like, Oh good, like you're respecting each other's boundaries, but I've also seen it in support where someone has received a pay increase or a raise or promotion and they haven't reported it to the other side, and then you can therefore infer a raise, but they haven't reported that and you have an obligation under a support order to report it to both the other side and domestic relations. And then we were able to go back and say, Oh six years ago when you got a pay raise, you should have told the other side.

And now I can hold it against them and get the other person the back support which is an exception to going backwards and support. But anyway, yeah, it's used against you. 

The more you see people post, and the more that they're out there, the more they're

Especially in relationships, friendships, and [00:41:00] romantic relationships, because you shouldn't have to be proving it to random people.

Acquaintances.

As social media has become more common and more an indication of a lot of things, I'm like, Nope, . I don't even look at my own.

TikTok

I read her TikTok comments, sorry, sorry to everyone who's writing them.

them. Whoever's mean, I haven't read

one, she hasn't seen them.

at some point we will have the, my favorite, which is, could you imagine being married to her? Yeah, I don't read them. Cause I also know, and I said that to my kids, I'm like, look, I'm 44 and I am confident enough in myself, but I'm also aware of myself enough to know that if I read whatever it has said about me, I

anyone, and that goes back to Britney, anyone being criticized about every little thing every day, it would hurt yourself a seam.

But it's hard. It's hard to not look. It's hard to close your eyes and it's hard to. know where you can handle it and where you can't. And I'm a little tiny dot and she's Britney

. I think it shows you have a lot of self restraint for not looking.

I think I know myself well enough to know that it would bother

And you're a [00:42:00] tough person.

I'm tough, but I don't wanna know. And again even if I can say logically, it wouldn't affect me. It would, I'm human. I'm gonna hear it and it's gonna affect me.

And I've told Julie, it's like 50 50.

50 percent are also really nice. But that it's always gonna be the 50 percent of the not nice that you're gonna say, this is what everyone thinks. It's just, that's a human

It could be 99 nice and one not, and then you're like why it's easier to believe the bad than it is the good. So even if it was mostly good, I still wouldn't want to read it because

Nobody wants to hear things they're doing wrong when they're trying their best or just trying to be themselves or

But then why put yourself out there?

You're being vulnerable by doing that.

And I can answer why I do it is because, look.

look

I feel like I fell into this job, but I feel like what I do is to help and I really do want to help. And I think that some of the things that I can do as a lawyer are a lot different than what I can say, both from my experience in the courtroom and personally, and ultimately if I can help one person, then that's going to be why.

And I don't think a lot of people are talking about some [00:43:00] of the things that need to be talked about. So here I am. 

Maybe we should send the podcast to Brittany, maybe she'll

you should, go ahead, send it to her. I can't work in California.

I'll life coach her. There you go.

Just collaborate.

Alright, this is fun. I think we could talk about other celebrities And then in the near

Yeah, I liked it. It was fun. If you're listening to this and you like our podcast, please write a review for us on iTunes if you find it helpful. We would appreciate that . You can also email us at lawyerjulie55 at gmail. com if there's anything you want to let us know or if you have any questions.

Or topics you want me to talk about, happy to do 

we would be happy to do that. And yes, subscribe. Write a review. Comment, all that fun stuff. Follow Julie on at LawyerJulie on TikTok if you don't already.

This is why she's my social media person.

We've been given the green light to post on the website too.

I the

be on my firm website coming soon.

It's potshoemaker. com. And you can learn a little bit more about Julie's firm there as well. If you're in Pennsylvania and Chester County and looking for

a in Pennsylvania, in Chester County, and We [00:44:00] do, Delco Chester County. Some people do Berks. And we are looking at another attorney who might do Philly.

They have quite a few attorneys in the office, so they're busy,

We are busy.

But, they're here.

We're here. Good problem to have.

No problem at

All right, Em, I'll see you at the Halloween

all. Yeah, it is a good

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