Man Dying of Child Support Enforcement

Mens News Daily ^ | May 30, 2003 | Roger F. Gay

[Finny]

Then pick your bride carefully, and stay married to her.

Yeeeesh!!! Hey, Chemist Cat, pay attention. In case you hadn't noticed, it isn't always up to the groom whether or not he stays married to the bride. If she wants to divorce him, for whatever reason or no reason at all, she can. Nothing to stop her. FURTHERMORE, she is GUARANTEED 1/3 to 1/2 or more of his after-tax take-home pay if she's had a kid by him. If she wants to remarry and start a new family, no problem!! If HE wants to remarry and start a new family ... pretty hard to do on a severely trimmed income.

This is IMMORAL and our society is paying the price, yet people like you remain blind to the reality of it, blaming it ALL on the men -- any woman who is a mother is an automatic saint, and any divorced father who doesn't pay hard cold cash out the nose and then some, was stupid for fathering a kid that you perceive, usually incorrectly, he didn't want. HENCE:

Time after time in this society, people hold big heavy buckets of liquid manure over their heads and pour it out on top of themselves, and then whine that gravity did it to them.

And we're ALL paying the price, in the form of drug-addicted, crime-prone, or suicidal teens boys with twisted examples of what Dads' roles are, girls with insane expectations of men, and on the whole, a deteriorating culture. With respect, I would say women/men with your kind of mindset are the ones pouring the manure on everybody's head.

My solution? Come up with a reasonable, affordable dollar amount sufficient to support a child -- say, the amount that the state pays foster parents to raise foster children. No matter the income of either parent, the amount should be the same for any kid. This would SEVERELY reduce the temptation of women to dump their husbands for any other than the most serious and justified reasons.

[wimpycat]

Roger F. Gay used to be a FReeper and post his own articles here. He lives in Sweden. He won't say why he lives in Sweden while he rails against child support laws in the U.S.

[JCG]

This is the system that Dr. Chang is fighting. It isn't about reducing welfare expenditure. The money he owed is for support of his daughter from his first marriage. She is now 20 years old (an adult) and studying pharmacy at Rutgers University.

No father should have to pay to support a 20-year-old unless he wants to. It's a damned dirty system that mandates otherwise.

America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
http://video.ire.org/10650.ram (Requires RealPlayer)

Who is Steve Emerson?

[Rebelbase]

The courts in this regard are pathetically slanted toward women in this regard. Its an abominantion to justice.

[Rebelbase]

disregard one regard.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Ain't no fault divorces wonderful.

[sweetliberty]

You know, while I agree that catastrophic injury or health problems qualify as extenuating circumstances and should be treated as such, they are the exception and not the rule. The bigger problem are these irresponsible punks that go around like Johnny Appleseed impregnating women without the slightest concern that the woman, assuming she has the child and keeps it, will have to somehow cough up the money to meet the child's needs for his or her entire childhood. While I also believe it is irresponsible of the woman to put herself in that position, the fact is that what's done is done. It takes two to make a baby, and both should be responsible for caring for it. I don't necessarily believe that it should be a government issue, but until we get back to instilling some values in kids instead of worrying about removing any reference to God from textbooks somebody has to make sure these kids are fed, clothed and educated. It isn't their fault their parents are idiots.

[cardinal4]

Just joined today,huh? And already you are looking down your nose at others?

[TheCrusader]

""Lower than manhood are these: To rut with a woman when he already has a wife, and to abandon the children of his body." --Orson Scott Card "

I agree with Card; unfortunately, child support enforcement rarely has anything to do with a man abandoning anyone. The fact is that in America about 52 percent of marriages end up in divorce, and in about 90% of these cases the wife files for divorce, and the man gets the boot. This is hardly abandonment, eh? I did a personal study of this phenomenon for a Father's Group in Massaschuetts. I spent days and days pouring over divorce files in "Family Court" in a large city to obtain statistics. Results: 90% of the divorces were filed by the wife, (no surprise there, they are the ones who lose nothing but what the want to lose, the husband. Women are almost always awarded the house, the kids, the furnishings, the bank account, and a sizeable chunk of ex-hubby's income - typically a third of his gross in my state). Conversely, the men lose their family, their home, and 2/3rds of their income, (the govt. gets 1/3, the ex gets the other). Men were awared custody of their children in only 10% of the cases I examined, and usually this was due to gross behavior by the wife, such as drug addiction or severe neglect of the children.

I'm all for supporting the children, to whatever degree possible, after a divorce. But my experience working in a Father's Group was that the men not only did not abandon their children, they had to go to extraordinary measures just to get to see them. In our State, the State Department of Revenue now collects child support from the guys, (I say 'guys' because so few women are ever ordered to pay child support they are irrelevent to any serious discussion). The Dept. of Revenue is chartered as a tax collection beurocracy of the state, how they got involved in child support payments is interesting. While I understand there are good-for-nothing bums who get women pregnant and then leave them high and dry, I have known many a professional man who was compeltely broken down, financially and emotionally, after divorce. Most men are decent human beings, and they want to be a part of their children's lives. And most men have to fight like hell to make this happen; many get discouraged at the incredible difficulty and just give up. Though most fathers try hard to keep their children in their lives, the Courts grant only the customary bi-weekly "visitation" of their children. (fyi, "visitation" was a word first used in prisons when a family member visited an inmate). The system is corrupt, unfair, and utterly biased against men. I hear about the guys who skip out on the kids, but all the divorced men I've known have had to literally go broke with attorney's fees just trying to keep their children in their lives.

[independentmind]

Then pick your bride carefully, and stay married to her.

Time after time in this society, people hold big heavy buckets of liquid manure over their heads and pour it out on top of themselves, and then whine that gravity did it to them.

Precisely.

[Focault's Pendulum]

Or do you only know how to be pious?

I would have used the word sanctimonious....but that's just me.

[chiromommy]

Joined yesterday, and I can't wait to see what else I can find to "discuss"! But I've been looking down my nose at deadbeat dads and their whine-bag supporters for a lot longer than a day...

[StatesEnemy]

Ad Hominem? I don't think soo.... it is still a simplistic response to a complicated situation.

Your anecdote of hubby and yours experience is wonderful - but doesn't mean jack$hit to a guy who may or may not see his children, and has a set price on his head - regardless of his changing circumstances.

[HiTech RedNeck]

In many of these cases, though, it isn't the man's fault at all. They married with him acting in good faith, she got a wild hair (or already had one), she walked out, she got the kids and a piece of his money, commonly far greater than the old fault-divorce alimony, and she does not even need to show she SPENDS the support on the kids. Alley cats who thought they could get away with a one night stand should pay, but in many other cases the law itself is seriously screwed.

[Little Bill]

You got that right! The only reason I got Divorced, after years of seeking resolution, was that I hauled her in on a Child support complaint, pay or go to Jail. The Judge descided rather than send her to Essex County Jail to give a sense of the court, settled, with a small advantage to me.

[TheCrusader]

"Lower than manhood are these: To rut with a woman when he already has a wife, and to abandon the children of his body." --Orson Scott Card"

Orson Scott Card is a Mormon, a religion with a rich history of bigamy. I'm wondering where he got his morals? Judging from the Titles of some of Orson Card's books, he hardly seems like a philosopher I'd whose ways I'd chose to follow. "How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" ???

[sweetliberty]

As with everything the government sees fit to involve itself in, this issue too has become very unbalanced. Of course it should be administered fairly and often isn't. I know of one such situation right now where a dad is being completely crippled by the unreasonable demands of his ex-wife. It cuts both ways. The bottom line is that there are selfish men who blow off their kids as if they are none of their concern and there are selfish women who use their kids to get what they want. Neither is balanced or fair, but as I said in my previous post, I'm afraid that until this country sets decency and morality as a high priority again and people are motivated to do something because it is the right thing to do that we are stuck with inadequate and overbearing government interference at all levels.

[HiTech RedNeck]

If you make a baby, you do whatever it takes to raise that baby, all the way through.

The law is too screwed up to accomplish this. If she walks out with the kids and she isn't a screaming crackhead or childbeater, she doesn't have to prove to the court that she's spending that child support on the kids. She can be eating porterhouse steak and caviar and driving gold Cadillac with that money, and feeding the kids old moldy peanut butter sandwiches and making them ride broken down bicycles wherever they go. Don't matter to the in-"justice" system.

[independentmind]

Right. Get rid of no fault divorce.

BTW, I've seen many claims that women now initiate anywhere from 2/3s to 90% of all divorces. If that's the case, then perhaps someone should look into exactly why so many women feel that they are unfulfilled.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Blame, in large part, the liberals who set a system up which pretended to be kinder but instead was far crueler.