Isabella Margolis was already mourning her graduation ceremony from high school and her last season of hip-hop dance when she realized there was something else the spread of the coronavirus was taking away from her — precious weeks and months with her dad before she moves to Boston for college.
Usually she splits time 50-50 between her parents, who are separated. But with state health officials calling for extreme social distancing measures to protect from the virus, the family decided it would be safer for the time being for her to stay with her mom, whose job doesn't put her in contact with as many people.
"It does hit once in awhile, where I'm like, in a couple of months, I'm not going to see either of them," she said. "To have to lose out on those last few months with my dad is a really hard thing to come to terms with."
It's a challenge for thousands of shared-custody families across the state navigating arrangements that require children to split time between homes with executive orders that direct people to stay in one place unless absolutely necessary.
Like Margolis, some children are staying with one parent over the other to limit their exposure to the virus, particularly in situations where one parent works in health care or emergency response.
Other cases have been less amicable, where the parents fundamentally disagree about the severity of the pandemic and the need for social distancing.
The pandemic has also closed businesses and put hundreds of thousands in Minnesota suddenly out of work, limiting some parents' ability to pay child support.
Those disputes are increasingly challenging to resolve, with courtrooms mostly shut down to prevent further spread of the virus. Family lawyers in the state have been flooded with calls from confused and conflicted parents.
