If you are like many Americans, you have been tuning in to the Winter Olympics coverage and rooting for the athletes wearing red, white and blue.
Part of the reason it is so easy to get behind the U.S. athletes is because of the touching back-stories that are often shared. Like all Americans, many of the Olympic athletes have dealt with inspiring and difficult events during their lives.
Downhill skier Bode Miller seems to have had more than his share of difficulties. In addition to losing his brother suddenly last year and missing an entire season because of a knee injury, Miller has also been fighting for custody of his young son who was born a year ago.
According to reports, Miller learned that a former girlfriend was pregnant in 2012, months before marrying his current wife. The former girlfriend then decided to move from California, where Miller was living, to New York to attend school.
The custody case took an interesting turn when a New York judge reprimanded the woman for moving across the country from the baby’s father. Women’s rights advocates got involved with the case, and it appears that a temporary custody arrangement was reached in December.
Typically when one parent wants to move with a child far away from the other parent, that parent has to get the court’s permission. A judge considers many factors in a move-away case before deciding whether the move would be in the child’s best interest.
However, the issue gets much more complicated if the move takes place before paternity has been established and before the child is born. That’s because unmarried fathers typically do not have the chance to establish paternity until after the child is born.
In addition to demonstrating how Olympic athletes go through many of the same struggles as average Americans, Bode Miller’s story also shows how complicated and emotional child custody cases can get.
Source: Daily Mail, “‘It’s not up to you’: What Bode Miller told his now-wife Morgan when she initially spurned his advances,” Lydia Warren, Feb. 12, 2014