After logging countless hours in family court over custody of her seven children, Kail Lowry is sharing her takeaway from the exhausting and expensive experience, which she claims consumed “all of [her] twenties.”
As Teen Mom fans know, Kail shares 16-year-old Elliott with ex Jo Rivera, 12-year-old Lincoln with ex-husband Javi Marroquin, sons Lux and Creed with Chris Lopez, and son Rio and twins Verse and Valley with former fiancé Elijah Scott.
Earlier this month on her Patreon, the former Teen Mom 2 star accused one of her baby daddies of abusing the court system, less than a month after revealing that she’s spent more than $1 million dollars duking it out with her children’s fathers in court over the years. The mom-of-many recently dropped another video on the topic, this one aimed to help other parents who may be working through their own custody battles, which included her tips on developing a parenting plan, steps to take before retaining an attorney and more.
While Kail told listeners they should not take her words as legal advice, she noted that she has spent a considerable amount of time in the courtroom.
“I have spent all of my twenties in court,” Kail claimed. “From the time I turned 20 to the time I turned 30, I was in and out of family court.”
Though the 33-year-old has never been one to shy away from publicly airing her grievances about any of her children’s fathers, and has even been accused by fans of abusing the court system by filing frivolous court cases against her baby daddies, Kail insisted that battling an ex in custody court is better than staying in a relationship you no longer wish to be in.
“I think a big part of this is choosing your hard,” Kail said. “If you are in a relationship, a situation, a marriage where you are thinking about leaving but you’re scared to death of leaving, you have to think about what is the lesser of two evils.
“Going through child custody in the court system or on your own is incredibly hard, it’s taxing financially and mentally, but staying in that relationship that you’re in is also just as hard,” she continued. “So, which hard to you want to choose? Do you want the better outcome for your children? Because I can probably assure you that staying in a really toxic relationship with children is gonna hurt more for your kids than leaving and, unfortunately, spending a lot of money on attorneys.”
In between detailing some of the challenges she’s faced while battling her exes for custody over the years, Kail spoke favorably of the concept of working with the other co-parent to establish a plan outside of court.
“I cannot stress to you guys enough how important it would be for you to work with your co-parent and try to find a plan that works for you guys outside of court and [where] everyone will at least be happy,” she said. “You guys can do it on your own. You can find somebody who is a neutral party and you can come up with your own agreement and you can have it signed and notarized at a notary, and you can file it with the court that way.”
Despite spending many hours and a hefty amount of money in custody court, Kail revealed that she still finds the process stressful and, at times, even debilitating.
“ … it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve done this, every single time I’m anxiety ridden and cannot work that week,” she said. “ … I don’t know what to do with myself on a lot of days. Or when I’m spiraling and thinking about 100 things at once, I still have custody and court in the back of my mind.”
Kail also addressed the “high-conflict scenarios” that often arise in these situations, claiming that a phone call or email pertaining to one of her children’s custody cases can derail her workday and even lead to an argument with the other parent.
“Now I’m going back and forth and shots are being fired and we are hitting each other below the belt for what?” Kail said. “So, that’s all avoidable if you can just get on the same page as your co-parent.”
While Kail made recommendations on how communication can be done in a “high-conflict co-parenting situation”– including an email only approach or through a parenting app– she admitted that “neither of those things” has “helped [her] in any way.” She did, however, pass along a helpful piece advice that she previously received from an attorney on what not to do.
“ … do not send your co-parent a text message or a voicemail that you do not feel comfortable sitting on a witness stand in court and reading out loud for everyone in that courtroom,” Kail said. “I cannot tell you how many times that I have said horrible things to my co-parent and horrible things have been said to me and we have to read them in court.
“It’s embarrassing, it’s disgusting and it ends up in court transcripts,” she continued. “And your kids can access that at some point.”
(Photos: Instagram; MTV)
8 Responses
Always acting like a know-it-all after the fact instead of listening to peeps before-the-fact
without even having read the article (yet!) ~ i can CONFIDENTLY say kail 🥬 is the LAST person from whom anyone should take custody and/or co-parenting advice.
the delusion is out of hand with this egotistical dumba*s. and the thirst 🥤 is REAL.
I have a tip, too: DON’T HAVE MULTIPLE BABY DADDIES
Absolutely hysterical. It only takes one brain cell to know never to take advice from kail that has anything to do with other human beings. She can give advice on money stuff, podcast stuff, business type things. It ends there.
She has issues with every father, and has a toxic relationship with every one of them. She needs to sit down and zip it. Like sure, you don’t see eye to eye with Jo but to go online and trash him is so tacky and gross of her.
And stop having kids with men until she is SURE they are father material.
I just noticed that the smart ones only had one kid with her while the stupid ones had multiples with her.
Taking co-parenting advice from her is like taking weight loss advice from a person that’s had seven gastric bypass surgeries.