We frequently hear about "deadbeat dads" who don't pay child support. However, the patently unfair way fathers are often treated by the family court system in this country is usually ignored because most stories on the subject focus more on vilifying men in child support disputes than pointing out how some of them may be victimized as well. But luckily, this Phyllis Schlafly column gives the sort of stories that often slip under the media's radar the attention that they deserve:

"This injustice to our reservists serving in Iraq should be remedied by Congress and state legislatures before more fathers meet the fate of Bobby Sherrill, a father of two from North Carolina, who worked for Lockheed in Kuwait before being captured and held hostage by Iraq for five terrible months. The night he returned from the Persian Gulf he was arrested for failing to pay $1,425 in child support while he was a captive.

Just last week, a Wilkes Barre, PA judge sentenced 28 to jail for failure to pay small amounts of child support, one as little as $322. One of the most common punishments for falling behind in family-court-ordered payments is to take away a father's driver's license, costing him his job, then demand that he make his child-support payments anyway, and throw him in jail when that proves impossible.

Politicians today are engaged in a spirited debate about giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens so they can get to work. But somehow the law has already decided that a divorced father, who may have fallen behind in child-support payments, should be punished by having his driver's license taken away.

The New York Times just exposed the ridiculous case of truck driver Donald Gardner who was left penniless after a 1997 car accident cost him three years of hospitalization. When he tried to return to work, he found that the state had taken away his driver's license because he owed $119,846 in child support.

The Times reported that, as of 2003, fathers allegedly owed $96 billion in child-support. However, 70 percent is owed by men who earn less than $10,000 a year or have no wage earnings at all, so we have a $3 billion government bureaucracy working to get blood out of a turnip.

The most bizarre part of the system is that child-support payments are not required to be spent on the children and are not based on any estimates of their needs or expenses. The support orders come from court-created formulas based on the income of the father, while the mother is allowed to treat the payments like any other entitlement such as welfare or alimony.

Although there are no official statistics, estimates are that more than 100,000 fathers are jailed each year for missing their child-support payments. Another perverse feature of the current system is that child-support payments have nothing to do with whether the father is allowed to see his children and there is no enforcement of his visitation rights.

Debtors' prisons were common in colonial times, but they were abolished by the new United States government, one of the great improvements we made on English law. Then we adopted bankruptcy laws to allow people a fresh start when they are overwhelmed by debt, but child-support debts are not permitted to be discharged in bankruptcy.

The federal Bradley Amendment, named for the liberal Senator Bill Bradley, takes us back to the cruel days of debtors' prisons. It requires that a child-support debt cannot be retroactively reduced or forgiven, and the states enforce this law no matter what the change in a father's income, no matter if he is sent to war or locked up in prison, no matter if he is unemployed or hospitalized or even dead, no matter if DNA proves the guy is not the father, and no matter if he is never allowed to see his children."

Nobody wants deadbeat parents to be out living it up while their kids are denied the basic necessities. However, it's obvious that the current system we have is draconian and in great need of reform...

Well, I have to agree on this one. But, I'll say this: you guys elected him

Okay seriously, there is no rhyme nor reason behind child support payments, and the loss of a drivers' license is not a good way to have payments enforced.. more likely, I'd think that of the true dead-beats out there, most can't afford to pay out because the courts are incapable of deducing simple math when alotting wage garnishings.

Anyhow..

This isn't something that I ignore either, but until legislator's are not financed with "access to Good Government" payouts by interested groups, I suggest that if you are about to have kids or get married and have kids later, you do yourself a favour and protect yourself legally by getting a pre-nuptual agreement, and when it comes to children, insist on a DNA test to conclude paternity (and in the event that you are not the father that all parental responsibilities be terminated, or undertaken voluntarily with no expectation of monetary support), and then an agreement that allows the money paid as child-support payments to be accounted for as child benefits to the nearest dollar, and any money not accounted for to reduce your next payment.

After that, you're on your own. I know from a friend, the only thing you can count on in court is your own planning ahead of time. If you don't insulate yourself legally, you're going to get kicked financially.



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

Here's a hint if you find yourself in this situation...

Move to Alaska.

They won't garnish your wages or give two-rats-asses about back owed payments. Catch? You're going to be stuck there forever


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Until you move to Canada.

Child support garnishings are not carried over either. Catch? You'll have to drink good beer, look at some hot women occasionally, and deal with paying $0.20 on the dollar exchange.

I could get used to that



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

Where's the government tp reprImand the mother who cheated on her fiance.The mother who screwed another man while her 10 month old son was asleep in the same bed.The mother who threw away 4 1/2 year relationship.The mother who allows the father to see his son everyother weekend and fights to get that taken away.The mother who claims welfare and collects a child support check every month while unemployed.

These are just my experiences.This is how my son's mother treats me and just some of the things I have to live with.I have never missed a payment or anything.I get no respect from the government.



I ain't callin u a gold digga,but you ain't messin wit a broke cracka

Life is short, kill your wife... easy enough.

Okay, I'm SO kidding.

Ecofire: I feel ya there... A friend's ex wife has been denying him access to the kids, says he's a bad influence on them because he has one beer a week. However, he pulls down $70k per year, he didn't cheat on her, he didn't leave her and the kids for some heroin addict...

She still got the kids...

Ask a fam. court judge to make a ruling based on the facts and not perceptions.


Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

The thing is I was the one who filed the paper work to get custoday and child support.I was the one providing for the family and I was the faithful one.I took her to court and the
MALE judge giggled and said "There's no way I can give you custody".The system needs to be fixed.Who iin there right mind would say that a women with no job on welfare and living with her parents is better capable of providing than a man who makes $40,000/year has had the same job for 4 years and recently bought a house?????


For the longest time she was telling the government I was paying her.When I had the cashed checks and everything saying I was.I was almost arrested b/c she claimed I hadn't paid a dime.They were gonna detain me until they could prove I was.The whole system is wrong.


I have to stop now.The thought of how much of my son's life I have missed b/c of her makes me cry.I am starting to get emotional.



I ain't callin u a gold digga,but you ain't messin wit a broke cracka

@!#$ like that really pisses me off. I bet there are women out there that only want the kids to "punish" the father and to get the cash from the child support. I think they are the ones who should be thrown in jail for using there kids.


AmazingJay

That wouldn't solve anything.

Mothers like that (not saying all are) are trying to get back at the husband (for whatever reason) and are putting the welfare and mental state of the child at risk.

eco:
If you stop posting now, I don't blame you. Love for your kids will keep you going, and I promise you that they won't miss it.

If your kids are young, don't lose sight of that. I know that some parents are stupid and punitive, but you sound pretty decent a guy (if not a little bitter, and I don't blame you at all). Either your ex will calm the hell down and start putting the kids first instead of whatever emotions she has for you, or she won't. Either way, make the time with your kids count. Your prime concern is for them, not their mother. If they can be happy with you (money doesn't equal happiness, but all the same, it's a nice thing when they can get a good outfit or back pack or something like that to go home with) and you give them your undivided attention and love, they'll remember that and bollocks whatever mom tries to drill into their heads.



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

Oh believe me I will never give up my on my son.I may have missed his first step and first words and I may miss alot more in the future but my son know's I love him and that will never change.I have spend alot of money on lawyers and I am now to the point where she can't keep him from me anymore.But this just started fairly recently.Now if she refuses I can call the poilice and have her arrested b/c I have court order visitation.


It just gets to me when I hear about how the system screwed other "good guys" like me.Granted there are many men who run from there responsibilities and don't give a @!#$ about there children.I am all for women and there children being taken care of by the government when the father abandon's them.I just hate when womentake advantage of the system and they get away with it.




I ain't callin u a gold digga,but you ain't messin wit a broke cracka