Dead Beat Dads
Carol Roach
I know this article will be controversial and the emotions run high on both sides, however it is the topic I wish to address at this time. The term deadbeat dad is the common name given to men that fail to pay child support after a divorce. The term the American Court system uses for non custodial neglect of child care payments is "not in complianceor criminally non-compliant."
No one can deny that once a couple divorces that there will be financial hardships placed upon the custodial parent who is left to be mother and father of the children. It seems that many men think that when they divorce the wife, they divorce the children as well. For this reason many countries including the UK, Australia, the USA, and Canada have enacted child support payment laws. The rules are not limited to men being the non-custodial deadbeat dad because there are deadbeat moms as well.
What is not the same is that each country has chosen to deal with the legalities in different ways. For example, I divorced when my son was only 3 years old. I was a single parent from that time until he became an adult. I did not receive one penny of child support though I was the custodial parent. The reasons were that my husband did not have a job and even if he did, since he went back to his home country Barbados, the Quebec government could not claim any money from him.
My lawyer at the time said that there wasn't an extradition treaty between Barbados and Canada, and I could not get support legally enforced. He put in the divorce settlement that I would reserve the right to collect at anytime and explained to me that should my husband come back and get a job, the order would come into effect at the moment onward. Unfortunately that never happened, my ex never came back to Montreal, and because of his illness (schizophrenia) he was never able to work again.
I do not hold this against him, he was sick, still is, and living off the mercy of his family. They too were struggling just to make ends meet. I know my ex; if he did not become ill we probably would not have been divorced, and even if we did, he would not renege on his duties as a father. He loved our son more than his own life.
However, we are talking about a man who today has a son of 31 years old and still thinks he has a little boy of about 6 years old. He does not fully comprehend that he is in fact a grandfather of a 12-year-old young man who is older than the age he thinks his father is.
I cannot in good conscience call my ex a deadbeat dad, he is a very sick man incapable of taking care of himself let alone another human being. Was I happy struggling as a single parent without any help? Of course not, but at the same time my ex husband needed help as well.
The Quebec government is more lenient in cases such as these where the non-custodial parent is unable to pay child support, while the USA takes a much harder stance. It is hard to summarize their policy as they have different state laws as well federal laws in place. Basically every non-custodial parent with an income in the USA is expected to pay child support and stiff penalties including jail time will be imposed upon the offenders.
Although that is great for the custodial parent ensuring the children will get what is rightfully due to them, and I for one would stand by that truism, what happens to the non-custodial parent such as my ex who really cannot afford to pay?
Now I am a Canadian and not an American and I certainly do not have a degree in Family law, but I do see that the laws have gone so far to one side that they are ignoring the other side of the coin altogether. There has to be some kind of compromise where both parties can be treated fairly. For years the lobby groups such as Father's rights movements have been fighting for the right to see their children after divorce, and changing the existing laws that generally favor the Mother in most cases.
A friend of mine told me that her husband did not have a job and when he went up before the judge, for child support concerning his children from a first marriage, he was told to go and collect bottles, anything to pay his obligations to his children. Tell me in all seriousness how can collecting bottles support the amount needed for child support? Many men in default right now do not have big incomes; they are guys who are down on their luck and can hardly survive.
In New York State:
"About 70 percent of the debt is owed by men who earn $10,000 a year or less, or have no recorded wage earnings at all, according to the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement. Less than 4 percent is owed by men with incomes of more than $40,000.
And the poorer men are getting caught in a vicious circle. Their debts have become obstacles to getting licenses for jobs to help them produce wages to pay down the debts"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1348697/posts
There must be a difference made between someone who can pay but just won't, and one who would like to pay but just can't. I came across this article while I was doing some research for this article
Depending on the circumstances, a modification may be temporary or permanent. Examples of the types of changes that frequently support temporary modification orders are:
· a child's medical emergency
· the payer's temporary inability to pay (for instance, because of illness or an additional financial burden such as a medical emergency or job loss), or
· temporary economic or medical hardship on the part of the recipient parent.
A permanent modification may be awarded under one of the following circumstances:
· either parent receives additional income from remarriage
· changes in the child support laws
· job change of either parent
· cost of living increase
· disability of either parent, or
· needs of the child.
A permanent modification of a child support order will remain in effect until support is no longer required or the order is modified at a later time -- again, because of changed circumstances.
However many judges such as the one who ruled over my friend's husband's case did not care to review these situations and basically said you will pay at all cost.
If you are a non-custodial parent and you do need help to meet your obligations, do your homework, find out the agencies that can help you, get a lawyer that is familiar with the resources that are out there for you. Find out if you qualify for support from the welfare to assist you in paying your child support payments. Check out other social assistance that may be available to you.
To jumpstart your search, I stumbled across this wonderful about.com article that sheds some light on the situation. http://singleparents.about.com/od/financialhelp/f/can_not_pay.htm
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Comments: 65
However, most of the negligent fathers and/or mothers have made a racket out of dodging their responsibilities to pay child support to the other parent. Granted times are a bit tough, but there is always a job somewhere; then too, there's the spite factor.
Too many times, I have heard people say they don't want to work at a fast food restaurant (yet they have no money). They are more concerned about their image of working at a fast food restaurant; when they should be concerned about helping their children.
Non-custodial parents who are willfully negligent in paying child support sometimes force their families to seek government assistance, but these same non-custodial parents don't want the government to interfere with their privacy. What other means can the government use to find solutions without violating privacy to observe the behavior of a deadbeat parent?
What I am talking about is not an exception but a growing concern as you know jobs are hard to find and people are losing the ones they have right and left.
Good point Carol!
We will find out this Thursday what exactly is going to happen cause that's when her 20 day extention on the custody case is done. Please keep me and my children in your thoughts and hope that all goes well. But we WILL be bringing up that neither her or DFS put down on the support order that she ALREADY gets $237 a month in cs from another childs dad. Interesting huh.
Joe, I know not all dads are deabeat dads. Yes, circumstances are different for everyone. This is surely not a one sided problem, this is a 3 sided problem. Me, my husband and the whore that is taking everything away from my children and I when we are not the ones that made the problem. Her and my husband are the ones that made it but its me and my children that are paying for it. Literatly.
like not every mother is this world should get the mother award of the year.
In many cases, it's not the court that is to blame for trying to bankrupt the non-custodial parent. It's the custodial parent - who may or may not even need the money.
were are not talking about anyone in this article who is a deadbeat dads, there are lots of them and there are lots of articles written about them,
I am writing about the others that circumstances have it that they are barely making ends meet if at all.
Here, child support is based on income. Vlaiming $0 income is not acceptable. YES . . . pick up cans. If you have no job you have plenty of time. I'm owed 10s of thousands I'll never see (based on her income) and had my youngest (of three) from 1 month of age. He's 17 1/2 now. She's not been jailed, fined or arrested. Shocker, eh? And STILL I have to see "Deadbeat Dads" on the news . . . not "Deadbeat Parents"!
Regards,
Doyle I <~~~~~
I have a story for you:
My husband has 3 kids from the past. 15 years ago when he was divorced he was not able to afford a lawyer and got the shaft in the divorce. He was ordered to pay $500 a month. He could not afford it for a few years. Then when we got married in 93 he went back in the military and we had money. We got a lawyer to straighten out the child support. Not only for my husband but to make sure his kids had money. My husband loves his kids and wanted to make sure they were taken care of.
We were also looking forward to seeing the kids...when my husband had no money his ex would refuse to let him him see the kids.
After he started paying weekly directly to his ex she would occasionaly let him see the kids...maybe twice a month.
Then less and less. Then one night her and her husband showed up on our front porch with the kids in the car. She was ranting and raving that they needed more money(this was the day after I hand delivered $300 the day before while my husband was on military training) ALSO we paid half their dentist bill which was $700 becasue the kids never brushed their teeth.
Any-hoo the ex was shrieking at us on the porch and when my husband turned around to walk away from her she pushed my husband down the stairs. She then said she would leave the kids with us if he did't give her more money. We of course told her to leave the kids. She of course did not.
Her husband then attacked my husband and they both ended up going through a glass window on our front door.
The cops came and basically said everyone would be arrested or no one at all! Even though they came to our house!! I was so pissed!
That was the last time my husband saw his kids until years later, when his daughter was grown already. They of course blame their father for not being there. But there was nothing we could do back then...now there is a law that prevent the ex from keeping the kids away.
And on top of it all my husband is still paying off child support even thought is youngest is 23. The state added interest on top of interest to those first few years he missed and they are making him pay back welfare for when his ex was on aid. It never ends. We still owe $30,000 even though we have paid $500 a month for YEARS and YEARS.
AND now the new laws allow the to put leins on bank accounts with no court order. They took $1000 from us 2 days before x-mas.
On the other hand my ex paid a total of maybe $100 in support before he passed away 5 years ago. By the time he passed away my husband had adopted my daughter so there was no social security either. oh well.
In the end NO ONE wins.
Unfortunately, it does not seem to work that way.
The constitution is supposed to prevent slavery and servitude and court ordered custody arrangements and support in any amount is just that especially when the cases aren't decided on true merits often plagued with perjury and forgery. Behind many "dead beat dads" one will often find a malicious mom.
The latest craze in this country is to kidnap children from safe loving homes impose an illegal "psychological evaluation" to give a boiler plate "Not otherwise specified" diagnoses and put the child into foster care and adoption with people who have long histories of mental illnesses combined with joblessness and homelessness. A large majority can't afford to live on the disability income they receive for their "mental illness" for which many have symptoms characterized by very impulsive money management and compulsiveness in addition to substance abuse, emotional neglect and physical aggression.
Big money. Hundreds of millions depleted from soc. sec every year to abuse children and their families and fill all the special interest groups', attorneys, judges and states coffers.
Furthermore just as a woman has a "right" to give up an "unwanted child" with no obligations, and there are many, a man should have that same "right".