Help Secure Primary Custody and Child Support for Penny

The short version: the father of my child has sold his home and is moving to another city 2 hours away. He will not give me primary custody or child support despite me having been the “primary” parent for many years with no financial help. It's already a challenge to make ends meet on my combined income as a fine artist, illustrator, and adjunct illustration professor, but most especially in the last 2 years. I was a full time artist until 2022, when generative AI companies trained on over 50 of my paintings, violated my name as a popular style prompt, and is now displacing me as a working artist. While I’m already embattled in a high profile class-action lawsuit against these exploitative companies, I also need to hire a lawyer to ensure I am able to adequately provide for my child’s needs as her primary parent. Consequently, I’m entering a custody and child support legal battle and am unable to take on additional debt to afford the fees, so I am asking for financial help to make this possible. Thank you for your consideration, along with any shares, words of encouragement, or donations.

The Whole Story:

Asking for help is difficult, especially if you have spent most of your life afraid to ask for it. All the times I should have reached out to someone I trusted to help me out of a precarious - or even dangerous - situation, I stayed quiet and compliant out of fear. Fear of being a burden, fear of being undeserving of help, fear of being judged, and even fear for my life have kept me in cycles of abuse, starting with my family and, eventually, within a religious cult and the subsequent marriage to a man I barely knew.

We married in 2010. I was 23 and he was 22. Since we were both Jehovah's Witnesses, we were allowed few opportunities to really get to know each other, and we were married just a year after we began long-distance dating. So, It wasn’t until our first few weeks of marriage when he showed me who he really was. Thanks to untreated CPTSD from my own childhood, I made myself small and compliant out of fear for my survival.

Eventually, in 2014, my daughter Penny was born. Just days after her birth, I recognized that I would be raising this child on my own, unless I specifically asked for help. Fear kept me from doing this in the years prior, and now I was too exhausted to even try. I had post-partum depression. When I no longer wanted to be alive, not even for my 3 month old baby, I finally asked for help. He gaslit me and ridiculed me. It wasn’t until I broke down in front of my PCP that I admitted I was suicidal and needed help.

A year later, I began waking up to my reality: I was living in fear. It wasn’t just for me, though, it was fear for my child’s wellbeing. Her father had increasing episodes of rage, paranoia, and hallucinations that scared me enough that I began planning my escape from our home with our daughter. I had even looked up domestic abuse shelters and saved phone numbers.

I wasn’t just waking up to the danger at home, however. My new role as a mother opened my eyes to the dangers within the cult that faced a child growing up within it. I could see two futures: one where I stayed, raised our child as a Jehovah’s Witness, and maintained the appearance of happiness. The other meant leaving everything, and everyone in order to break free and start over with my child.

The turning point was in June 2016, when I discovered I was pregnant again. I was devastated, because I knew this meant staying. Jehovah’s Witnesses condemn abortion - I would surely be excommunicated, or disfellowshipped, if I made this choice. I instantly saw a future where I couldn’t be the mother these two children needed. I had already eroded so much from the inside, I knew that I wouldn’t survive.

The choice became clear: get the abortion, leave the cult, and safely exit this marriage.

I saw my way out when, during a fight, he said we should just get a divorce. I agreed immediately. The weeks after are a blur, but I was ready and my mind was made up. By September, I moved out and we agreed to split custody. In May 2017, our divorce was finalized. I had allowed him to talk me out of seeking child support since we both made roughly the same income. We had a consultation with a lawyer once. I trusted his word that we’d adjust things over time. I deeply, deeply regret this.

Over the following years, he saw his daughter less and less. Because I couldn’t afford childcare and have no family available to help, I agreed to let his parents help us both out when our schedules clashed. I was uneasy about this, since his parents are still Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I had no other options. Eventually, Penny had three bedrooms.

By 2019, I was acting as the primary parent. I gave up fighting him over the inconsistency in his co-parenting our daughter, as he’d become too difficult to communicate with over anything other than our schedules. It was easier to keep things copacetic for our child’s sake than push for the equal time we had initially agreed to.

In March 2020, I inarguably became Penny’s primary parent. I managed her education from home for a year and a half, kept her learning and growing, and even nursed her through covid, twice. My income suffered greatly, not just due to the pandemic, but because our daughter was 6 years old and required a lot of attention. During these couple of years, I relied on my then-partner tremendously to help me make ends meet.

By 2022, I had Penny 70% of the time. Penny was able to confirm that she hardly saw her dad and that she spent most of her time at her grandparent’s home if she wasn’t with me. I learned later that, around this time, her grandparents were supporting their son financially as well as watching his daughter most of the time she was meant to be spending with him.

In late 2022, my partner and I separated and I moved into my own apartment, a single mother again. Without the support my partner provided for the previous couple years and no family to help me financially, I had to rely on my ex-in-laws even more. Our relationship was tenuous at best for many years, as current JW’s are instructed not to speak to - or even acknowledge - an “apostate,” or someone who left the Jehovah’s Witnesses and speaks out against it. I had no other choice but to accept the help I could get in order to travel and work to earn an income.

My income further dwindled in 2022, as generative AI companies consumed ⅓ of my entire portfolio, violated my name as a style prompt tens of thousands of times, and my ability to make a living as a full time artist for 10 years came to an end. The combined effect of the pandemic, generative AI, being a single mom, chronic illness, and inflation have all made it incredibly difficult to make a living as an artist any longer.

In June 2023, after 9 months of daily job searching, I started working as an adjunct art professor at a local art college. It has been providing a stable income, albeit part-time. Between this, and my varied income from my work as an illustrator and selling my art at markets and comic cons, I’m scraping by, but JUST barely.

In early 2024, my ex-husband notified me that he was planning to move 2 hours away to Chattanooga for his mental health and for supposedly better work opportunities. This was surprising, so I inquired about discussing how our parenting plan will change. I assumed this meant I would take primary custody of Penny since I’m already providing a stable and consistent home and manage Penny’s educational, emotional, mental, and physical health needs. I also assumed this would mean I would receive child support, because my expenses incurred by having Penny the majority of the time were already difficult to cover, and this move would only increase them.

Things began to get contentious when I shared the terms I would like our new parenting agreement to cover. It became clear that he expects to be able to move away and leave me and his parents to figure it out while he starts a new life.

In late July and after selling his house, my ex served me a notice of his intent to move and start mediation. He has retained a lawyer, and now I must do the same. I will be petitioning for primary custody and child support. I do not think it’s in the best interests of my child to split her time between two cities when one of those parents hasn’t provided his end of our original agreement for at least 6 years, and I have been acting as her primary parent for just as long.

Eight years ago, I would’ve let fear overcome me and allow him to make this move without any accountability for the circumstances he’s chosen to put upon me, his parents, and his own daughter.

Right now, I am choosing to not be ruled by fear and to fight for what Penny deserves, and the support I need from her father to adequately care for her.

I love my daughter more than life itself, so I must ask for help. Just to retain my lawyer (who has come strongly recommended by several friends who have been through similar), I need to raise $5k, plus additional fees for filing. I must also consider taxes, so the initial amount I’m hoping to raise is $6,500. I don’t have long to do this in order to start with my best foot forward.

I see a future where I have primary custody and I am enabled by child support to raise my daughter in the safe, secure, and consistent environment that she deserves. I can’t do this without a legal fight since he won’t meet me on this.

What he’s doing for his own health and happiness by moving to a new city is commendable, however it is deeply unfair to leave us in this position.

I am breaking the cycle of fear and asking for help so that my daughter’s remaining years of childhood are more stable and supported than they would otherwise be if I didn’t fight for her. Thank you so much for any assistance, I’m deeply grateful for anything at all.