Tag: child support

Child Support Enforcement

HeligKo
History of UK speed enforcement

Fathers and Families has a great post about some of the issues of child support enforcement. As I have stated before, I find it deplorable that forced child support is something that we do. I am not a big welfare society plan, but with as much as we provide social welfare, why are we doing this. Just let the women go on welfare, and let the men walk away. Good and moral men are getting smacked up the side of the head with this stuff, and real deadbeats are getting away from these punishments. The real deadbeats tend to live below society’s radar, or they are criminals of another sort and already in state custody/monitoring. Good men want a relationship with their kids, and have no problem financially supporting them. Why are we making it so hard on these men. If the expectation of child support is removed from the system, then within a generation women won’t complain about it. They will understand the new system. Check out the article, and read some of the other stuff they have there.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Good to Gone, Its Confusing

HeligKo
confused

I swear, I am about done with this. My mind needs to process all that it has absorbed before I can let it go. Its confusing when a relationship is going along, and you are getting to know someone. Things seem to be going well. You are getting more and more comfortable talking about things that come to mind. You aren’t afraid that making the other person mad will simply halt things, and its over. Then bam, I don’t want to see you anymore. What happened? What changed? Why now?

When Sarah told me she didn’t want to see me anymore, she made a comment along the lines that she thought I did things wrong, and that the way I make decisions would driver her nuts. One of the things she was referring to was my divorce process. She has been divorced for a few years, and regularly has lunch with the lawyer friend who handled her divorce. I am not doing things any of the traditional ways. I am trying to have things figured out first, and then put it on paper. We don’t have a separation agreement. We don’t have any court orders at this point. Its risky in the sense that my STBEW doesn’t give a shit about me. She could decide to take action and screw me any moment. I don’t imagine that she will choose this, because it isn’t what she wants. She wants the freedom that comes with having her own time, and that doesn’t happen if she screws me. My divorce isn’t moving as fast as Sarah would have liked. She didn’t want to talk about it, because it was my life issue to handle. She needed to talk about, because instead she stewed about it. I know she thought I was doing it wrong, and that I just needed to get it over with. Maybe she is right, but its my journey, and I want things to work out a certain way, and the only way I get close to that is by doing things my way.

The other thing, I think bothered her is the change in parenting schedules. I had offered at the beginning of the summer that I would like to go to a weekly schedule instead of partial weeks. I thought it would allow us to be more consistent when the kids are with us. Sarah was on a schedule like this. Her week started on Sunday evening. The schedule I thought was best for my kids would start on Friday evening. We would have the same weekends, but opposite weeks. This was something that would have been workable dating her. I think she felt judged when I didn’t do it like she did it. I thought it was best to have a couple days before school started to make sure that I had everything that I needed for the week, and could make arrangements to get anything the kids didn’t have before Monday. No judgement, mostly the difference in managing two kids versus managing four kids. Its just takes more preparation on my part to make sure things work. I think she was also bothered that I really didn’t consider her much in this decision. She and I were getting serious, but we weren’t in what anyone would call a long term relationship. I needed to do what was right for the kids and me and their mom, not Sarah. Sarah was a side note to this decision. Perhaps the reality that my kids were truly coming first was something should didn’t like. I know that many mothers view the fathers as something that doesn’t matter as much, and so would rather her and her kids be the priority, not mine. I don’t know. I know that having four kids will present many issues in dating anyone. I will need to be picky, and accept that there may not be someone who I will meet who can handle my lifestyle.

Sarah had mentioned multiple times that I taught her about open communication. She felt comfortable talking about anything with me, and that she wasn’t afraid of my reaction. I think this is great, and the only way that I can have a relationship. I was judged constantly by what I said in my marriage, and harshly so. I may have made some of my views to Sarah about child support and essentially libertarian principles that made her uncomfortable. If that is the case, then so be it. She wouldn’t have worked. She didn’t see the legal boogie man for men in divorce. She didn’t know many who got screwed. I think she was living in a fantasy land created by men who chose to suck it up and move on. They weren’t going to be outspoken or activists, because that would hurt their chances with other women. There is also a tendency to accept the status quo as okay, and not recognize it as being bad, or to see advances and not accept that there is a lot of room to go. The program for men hasn’t changed much. They get more time with their kids, and recently are being robbed less than they were before, but child support is still something that is essentially a fine for marrying a woman and having kids with her and failing to keep her happy and entertained for the rest of her life.

The other thing that I think came into play is a fear of deep personal relationships. Things had moved past the fun stage. We still had fun, but we were just starting to introduce each other to our world of friends. I took her to my high school reunion. She and I had dinner with good friends of hers. They were safe, because there was a good chance that they knew me, or at least kind of knew me. The husband was in my sister’s high school class. We were starting to really get to know each other. We were starting to rely on each other for emotional comfort. Female hypergamy has broken this aspect of relationships for so many women. Sarah never had that bond with her husband. She allowed her father to suplant that position in her life, and so I may have been the first man to find that soft spot in her heart. It makes me sad to think about what could have been, but if she isn’t going to grow up to a point where she can handle the raw emotions that she is feeling, then there wasn’t any real hope. She demonstrated that she could handle my raw emotions and was incredibly supportive and caring through some of those. I think that its hard for some women to accept that you can’t endear yourself to a man in that way and not start having those feelings yourself. One of the last things she said to me over the weekend before she dumped me was that she didn’t think she liked my ex at all. She had started to relate to my feelings, and as this blog tells the story, my ex is not a nice person.

I want a woman in my life to share experiences with. I want to have fun with her, and enjoy her feminity. I think its likely that I have lost my chance at that. It happened when I married my wife. It happened when I adopted three kids. I made choices that isolate me from the world that most women want a part of. My job is bigger than theirs. As a dad of four kids, I don’t have time for their bullshit. I would have liked to spend the next year exploring the world with Sarah by my side, and maybe longer. I really don’t think with my schedule anything less than a year is going to give me a window into what life could be like with a woman. I doubt that I will find a woman that wants to be that patient. I won’t lose all hope. I know there are awesome women out there. My mom is one of them. She stands by my dad as he is dying of cancer, and she doesn’t flinch. When I ask how she is doing, I get a report on my dad. She is unselfish and loving. She gives me hope, but not much because she is rare and my time is limited to find the rare one.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

The New Child Support Guidelines

HeligKo
Guidelines in downtown Ann Arbor

I have been reading through the new guidelines handed down by our state supreme court based on congresses push for more shared parenting arrangements in my state. They are the typical if your lawyer is smarter than mine, I can still screw you complex, but at the core they do seek a fairer outcome of events. The goal is clearly that father’s will not be pushed off to some living circumstance that is sub-standard to the mother’s and still be expected to provide for the kids while they are together. It is interesting the way it handles who gets child support, and is thus required to pay direct expenses for the children. The parent who has the lower child support obligation will receive child support from the other parent, and be responsible for paying direct expenses.

Why would this be? Wouldn’t shuffling less money make more sense? It would if we weren’t mired in politics. There are two things that are satisfied by this method. One, the feminists can’t complain much. Women generally are the lower income winner, so they will almost always come out being the one receiving moneys. Two, the state is paid for processing the disbursements by the federal government based on the dollars that go through their hands. The more money through, the more they get paid, so having the larger amount go makes sound economic sense if you are the government.

I really hate how the federal government has messed things up. It makes it hard for the states to make the right choices. The best thing, if we are assuming that child support is necessary, to do would be to have the couple open an account for direct expenses to be paid out of, and have each parent contribute their portion of child support to it. The whichever parent is hit with the need to pay for something, they have the funds available to do so. Its not a perfect solution, and would need some work on my part to flush out, but think about the possibilities.

So much of the advice to women, when the subject of something in lieu of child support is mentioned, is to avoid it. That is its merely a way for the ex to control you. There is probably some truth to this in many cases. The flip side is true as well. How many women take child support, and spend it however they please. They spend it as if it were their money, not money for the kids, and then tell the kids that they can’t do something, because their dad won’t pay for it and she doesn’t have money. He gets manipulated into giving even more of his fortune up for things he theoretically has already paid for. This is why I am a fan of spending plans, and working together. Each may manipulate the other some, but each parent retains some degree of control over their own funds, and can make things work for them.

The whole process is manipulation and power grabs. Most people would work better together, if it didn’t seem like such a big deal to get it right before you even start for real. My wife and I have been navigating this on our own for the last year or more. We generally have made it work. There have been problems, but we have worked it out. No one has court orders or other things to make us be fair. She is a high conflict personality and we still seem to be able to make things work. Yes I have to use my 15 years of experience with her to know when and how to ask or push for something, but that is life. I chose her for better or for worse to be my children’s mom. I would hope that I didn’t choose so badly, that I can’t figure it out without a bunch of government interference. Yes it is frustrating that her lifestyle is propped up by my income, but that is something that would happen regardless of the scenario at this point. The law is twisted based on a lot of ideas about what is best for the kids, so there isn’t much that can be done about that today.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Modern Day Debtor’s Prison

HeligKo
Philadelphia Co. Prison Debtors' Wing (demolished) from HABS

There are many things That are un-American, but few things as much as debtor’s prisons. Child support is a funny thing. It has changed over the years, and the national focus on forcing dead beat dads to pay up is on the verge of insanity. I have talked about child support a lot. This is a touchy issue for me. So much so, that I am willing to give up a larger chunk of my fortune freely to avoid having the state in my bank accounts collecting this money. My views stem from the idea that controlling people’s behavior through the courts is a bad plan. Both parties go into a sexual act knowing the risks, but the courts are trying to impose the risks of the woman onto the man. The man’s risks are smaller. He risks never seeing his child if he isn’t married to the mother. He risks STDs. She risks pregnancy and STDs. So long as the woman retains the sole right to determine what happens with the child up unto shortly after birth, the man should have no requirements forced upon him. She can abort, put up for adoption, or keep the baby. Now if she puts up for adoption, and the father knows he can be granted custody of the child in that process. Generally speaking she gives up nothing if the father keeps the baby. She won’t be asked for child support, and yet will retain some modicum of parental rights with the child. The father on the other hand will have to fight for parental rights if she keeps the child, and will be forced to pay child support whether he sees the child or not.

Child support is not bankrupt-able. It is not a debt, but a fine. I say fine, because it is a required payment for past behavior. There is no benefit that is bestowed on a father for paying child support. Legally he has no more parental rights, and may not have any relief to paying for the costs of the child out of his own pocket. He can be put in jail for failure to pay, even if he cannot reasonably afford it. That’s right. It doesn’t matter if the amount is made up by the judge based on a salary he never earned. That is a fine. Because it is treated as a debt as well, it also gets reported to the credit reporting agencies. This makes no sense to me. If I don’t pay my fines for parking tickets, I go to jail, but it doesn’t go on my credit report. Here we get both. So it is a fine and a debt. How is this so, I don’t know. The end result is we have debtor’s prisons.

Now many people reading this will think that it doesn’t matter. They got their shit together, and this won’t impact them. Lets understand that the same civil court system that handles family law also handles other law suits. A credit card company can choose to sue you for the debt you owe, and instead of getting a judgement that is bankrupt-able, they get a court imposed fine that is now something that can be used for contempt of court. BOOM, you now go to debtor’s prison for not being able to pay your credit card. Google search this, and you will see that is already happening. The use of family courts prejudice against the dead beat dad, and their liberal use of contempt of court to jail these men is carrying itself into the other areas of the courts. People are being jailed for debt under the guise of contempt of court or failure to appear. The use of procedural penalties to punish and bully people into compliance is something we should all be disturbed by. Its is something that we can become the victim of without any real process to protect us.

There is an increasing use of administrative judges that effectively dole out default judgments. They are often hand tied by the law, and are simply their as a way to bypass the jury system. This is the case when it comes to your driver’s license. In most states this is controlled by the treasury or similar department. A jury trial, even for most DUI cases would end up with people not losing their licenses, because most people recognize that the cost exceeds the crime. People could have died, but in truth most cases only involve the driver who hadn’t harmed anyone. Most juries would recommend a much lower sentence in the form of fines for first time offenders. This didn’t please the law makers under pressure from groups like MADD, so they move the decision making away from the real courts into a kangaroo court to solve the problem. There are more things moving to these type of courts over time. Family law is a good candidate for this type of move. This would lead to more problems, and would politicize your family issues more than they are now. These judges are granted many of the same tools to punish as any other court, so they can use the contempt of court and failure to appear to subject people to their rule.

Be watchful of your government. It is a beast that has the sole purpose in life of controlling other people. Left unchecked it will place its mark on every part of our daily lives. It is the warning in much of Orwell’s writing.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Child Custody: Get It Out Of The Courts

HeligKo
Plymouth Court

Child custody is the giant sledge hammer used to make men submit. It is also the single thing that people complain about causing harm to the kids. The courts are adversarial in nature, and thus they encourage both parties to make the other party look bad. As a general rule it is not good for the kids to see their parents rip each other’s characters to shreds. The psychological impact of each part of the kid being scrutinized is awful. There are several problems with the current system, if it is left to the more accepted custody arrangements. One is that the mother is presumed to be the best care taker, because she has been the primary care taker. This has been the norm in many marriages, and has been accepted as the best end result as a matter of course. The stabilizing factors that fathers bring to the household just don’t seem to be considered.

Its time to make the default legal status of custody one of shared custody. Schedules should be required to be as close to 50% time as possible. The reason for this, is it will take the negotiations to room with the parents rather than in front of a judge. If the judge is going to view these cases based on the idea that there must be something horribly wrong to justify giving one parent a preference over another, then fathers would no longer be negotiating in the shadow of the law. They would have confidence that within reason their considerations will be considered. If mothers and fathers know that the judge isn’t going to consider anything that doesn’t show a risk to the kids as a reason to modify this would work out the details on their own.

I also think that any contractual agreement entered into should not have to go to court at all for approval. Parents were free to do just about any stupid thing they wanted to when they were married. I don’t understand why this should change if they are both able to work it out. Why should the state in a free society suddenly become a larger stake holder the moment parents split up. Contracts are nullified all the time without the court being involved. Parties are able to do this in business all the time.

As for child support, as I have said before. The parent with the kids should be responsible for the kids expenses. When both parents are involved, they should share the expenses as they agree upon for school and medical expenses, or the assumption should be that each will pay half whenever there is no other agreement. There should be no compulsary transfer of funds from one parent to another, not ever.

At the core of the argument that happens in court, is which parent is better. That argument should be replaced simply with is one parent dangerous. The couple had the child together. If one is a stupid mother fucker and trains the kids to be the same, that is life. Sorry kids your mom or dad was a complete idiot and taught you how to be too. When the parents stay together that would be the case too.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

I Can Smell the Change Coming

HeligKo
Day Three: Something Smells Rotten . . .

Its in the air. I can tell by her demeanor, she is up to something. Probably not anything nefarious, but something I am having a hard time facing. She is about to file for divorce. This isn’t so bad. I don’t trust her. I can’t stay married to her. I wouldn’t consider reconciliation, because I know that we would be back where we are now in a few years, and doing it twice would wreck the kids more than I can imaging. I don’t love her anymore, because I can’t. We don’t work anymore, because the bond was broken by her. It happened some time ago, but the final rip of the tape off my hairy arm was her moving out. This I have said before. Up until that point I would consider reconciling with her. I would say I would now, but the truth is the hill she has to climb is so insurmountable, I don’t believe she can do it. So why does it bother me. There are a few things.

The first is this is the final severing of the bond I entered into for a lifetime. I have to acknowledge once and for all that she did not enter into that bond with the same expectations. I have to acknowledge that I was lied to, and somewhere deep down I knew that. I wanted so badly to be married, and I loved this woman. I wanted it to be her. I have come to terms with this multiple times. Emotionally it rears its head again and again. The basic thing I must always remember is that I have control of one person in this world, and that is me. I entered into the bonds of marriage for it to be forever, and I never saw an escape hatch. That she did not enter into marriage to forsake all others forever and ever is not my problem.

The second is the loss of control. Right now things are pretty good. Is she going to try and change the playing field through divorce, or is she going to leave things as they are. Until we have it on paper and agreed upon, I won’t know for sure. I hope that she deals with me fairly and honestly, and with honor, but how can I believe that she will until she does. The very act of divorcing me is dishonorable. Time will tell.

the third is like the second. We will at some point have to allow the judge to rule. He may or may not accept the terms that we have determined are favorable for both of us. I hate that we as adults can’t come to a decision without a third party interjecting itself into the mix. I have to say that this bothers me on so many levels. The judge is acting for the state, not as a neutral party in divorce. He is trying to ensure the state won’t incur further costs do to our actions before it is evident that will happen. This is probably not legal under our laws, but they have been granted tremendous lea way in these matters.

The fourth is a bit more esoteric. I don’t want to be the divorced guy. I have spent my life in Christian circles with happily married couples. I don’t want to be that guy. I know that guy. People feel sorry for that guy, and he is invited, so he won’t be alone. All this is great for that guy, but I don’t want to be him. I would almost rather not be alone at the bar. I am never alone at the bar for very long.

One of my daughters had a birthday on Friday. She was at her mom’s place. Thursday, I stayed over late at her house and worked on some homework with my oldest son. I saw her anger and his anger collide. I saw it with fresh eyes. I hated it. It made me sad. I was exhausted when I left. I had dinner with my daughters earlier that night. It was nice, but a poor substitute for waking up with her in the morning. I was the Watchdog at her school for her birthday. That was great, but the night before, I went home and folded laundry while getting a fire going outside. I opened up the Captain Morgain Private Stock and drank. As I drank I began to cry. I never got drunk, but I needed the liquor to loosen me up and cry. I cried because I would not see my daughter wake up to her present in the morning. I cried because my son and my wife can’t seem to get it together, and I can’t help in many direct ways. I cried because my wife wants to drug my son into submission, and will probably win that battle, at least initially. I cried for the death of my marriage.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

How Disappointing

HeligKo
Rosy #2

This weekend started out fine, but it ended quite disappointingly. There was soccer galore. The boys both played in a soccer tournament. One of them managed to beat a team they have never beaten in many outings. It was fun to see them overcome that obstacle. They were in a tough division. All the teams finished 1 and 2. The part where the weekend went south started with my youngest daughter’s coach. He decided as they were pummeled by another team that he needed to bench my daughter. Understand she is in second grade. He had her on the bench for the majority of the second half. She was embarrassed. Her feelings were hurt, and she didn’t understand what she had done wrong. I have always understood that in competitive soccer my kids may not get the most playing time if they aren’t performing, but to bench a kid when no one is performing well and the game is over before the second half even starts, and to bench the only child who figured out how to score a goal in the entire game seems harsh, especially at this age. She is the youngest on the team, and he has had two different standards on the team. The standard for her is that when she fails it is indicative of the gap of her skill to other girls. The other girls are allowed to not treat her as a team mate. They can choose not to pass the ball to her, and to run her off the ball. These are things that will not be tolerated if they were done to other girls on the team.

The next thing that was disappointing is for the three day weekend I asked her if she wanted to have a girls day, and boys day. I though the girls would stay overnight with her, and the boys with me. We could do things each would like. Well overnight became she would come get the girls in the morning, and then it became 2PM. My youngest was getting mad and I was having to find ways to explain why mom was not going to come earlier while I had no idea myself. I wish she had just said no she didn’t want to do it, because both my girls felt cheated with the abbreviated day, and so did the boys.

The good part is the boys and me got to go frisbee golfing, and the girls did get to go get their nails done with their mom. There was a soccer practice in their for my older daughter, then they had dinner. I am glad that it worked out, but I don’t understand why she doesn’t value every minute she has with kids.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

What is Fair in Divorce

HeligKo
Divorced-Car

So many of our divorce laws are based on the idea that a perpetual contract is being violated, and not that it is now null, but now it is managed by the court, because the parties involved are unable to manage it. Once kids are involved there is no such thing as a split. This is a renegotiation between adversaries who might even be hostile towards each other. The general principal of fairness that is applied in an equal partnership is that each gets half. Since the partnership is managed by the court now, the court almost reflexively tries to maintain a 50/50 partnership through divorce. Each party gets half of the stuff, or at least as close as the court can get. Each party gets half of the money. This isn’t done at the time of divorce. Support payments and maintenance are used to keep this split over a prolonged period of time. In most cases it is the man who makes these payments. He will pay out a portion of his earnings to equalize the lifestyles of the two for sometimes the rest of her life. The ideas about child support are rooted in a philosophy that the child is due a portion of the parents earnings, and that too in a shared custody situation should be split 50/50, thus the higher earning parent now must pay the other parent to equalize this. In a sole custody situation this money transfer becomes large enough that often times the ex-wife now can maintain her lifestyle completely, and the ex-husband lives in squalor. His living arrangements now prevent him from gaining more time with his kids. This all makes sense to the courts, because they truly aren’t closing a contract between two equal partners, but they are now managing that contract.

We are now in an age when marriage is not even entered into as a permanent contract. Very few people enter into marriage thinking this will be forever. I see far more men duped by the idea that marriage is forever than women. Now legally marriage may be a 50/50 partnership, but we all know in truth it is not. The husband generally puts in more hours to earn the money for the family. The wife may work, but after kids come along, she will reduce her hours, and even change jobs to a job that allows her to spend more time with the kids. This all makes sense in the partnership. The man is willing to sacrifice his time to allow his wife to spend time with his kids. In modern marriages most men come home to a wife that then quits for the day. She figures he has been out of the house and now it is his turn. He takes over completely with the kids, and may even cook the dinner, and do the housework she didn’t have time to do while taking care of the kids or napping because she was exhausted from taking care of the kids. This may sound obnoxiously sexist, but just spend some time reading Facebook, and you will see moms posting about their naps and their hard days at the park with their friends and other taxing things like making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. These women will often take off to have a social life once their husband is home, and leave him to take care of the kids alone. A true partnership would be one where when he arrived at home, they would parent together, and spend this time working together to finish what was unable to be done while he was at work.

Now splitting in divorce has become the tricky part. It shouldn’t be. Marriage is no longer permanent. This makes me sad, but it is a reality I am forced to face. I accept that the contract was 50/50, and that in the marriage the reality may not be anything of the like, so anything owned by both should be split in the most equal way possible. I would say this about retirement moneys earned by both during this time as well. What is fair payment after the divorce for support or maintenance, nothing. That’s right, nothing. The marriage is over. The contract is closed. There should be no support. A budget for the children’s necessities should be drawn up, and an account should be set up that is contributed to equally to pay for these things. In most custody, this would be medical and school expenses. Each parent can get clothes and food when they are together, and if dad can feed them steak and mom can feed them hot dogs, so be it. That is the cost she paid and passes on to her kids by the divorce. She would have steak with them if she hadn’t divorced their dad. The idea that the husband owes some amount for any amount of time after the divorce is antiquated. It should be cast off just like the idea that marriage is forever has been cast off. Those two ideas went hand in hand. It is not fair that one goes away, and the other has stayed. Anything extra for the kids can be negotiated between the parents or each parent can pay for what they care about. There is no reason for child support to do this.

Well that is my rant. I do understand that the biggest part of the inertia for change is the fact the government is trying to keep stupid people who divorce from entering the welfare roles. This should not be a part of our family law decisions. The husbands in large part are being punished in divorce, because the wives might not be financially prepared to go out on their own. Its time for fault based divorce to return to society or for legal marriage to go away. I am a fan of the government getting out of the marriage business, and marriage being left to the religious organizations or social clubs as people see fit.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Child Support Is Immoral: A quick followup

HeligKo
Slave shackles

I just want to clarify one thing for anyone reading this. I don’t support men not fathering their children, or paying for things the children need. My accusation of immorality is the against a system that demands that they owe a portion of there income to their former partner to pay for the children, and that system is going to take it by force. It has turned motherhood into a paid vocation. The only system in history where motherhood has been a viable vocation is the ones where the mother was married to the father of her children. We have replaced the husband/provider/protector role of men in society with a model that has women choosing a lover of the moment, the government is her protector, and the father(s) of her children are her providers. Women are given the children in so many cases because they were the primary provider, and men are accused of not being active enough in the children’s life when they were together. Well that doesn’t account for the fact that there isn’t a man I know who wouldn’t want to stay home and raise their kids, but responsibility takes over, and they realize someone has to provide the means for these little people to grow up. They do this willingly, and often view the time that the mother has with the children as a gift they were able to give to both the mother and the children. That is used against them in custody cases and child support issues. Men if you are brave enough to get married, then realize that she will be treated as sacrificial for your sacrifice of time with the kids, and if you are the stay at home dad you will be treated as lazy for not getting a good job, and letting her stay home and be the doting mother.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Child Support Is Immoral

HeligKo
Slave shackles

I know that in our culture, this statement is considered ridiculous. We have been fed a line for our entire lifetime about dead beat dads. I think it is time for us to reexamine this thing we call love, marriage, and child raising. The rules we are playing by are from the 1930s. They are based on a society very different than the one that we live in. Alimony and child support are based on a society where women rarely worked if they were mothers, and couldn’t earn what a man earns. They are based on a society where women rarely left left their husband providers, but the men left their families to start over with another woman. I don’t know that I actually believe that story, but it was certainly more likely than it is today. I am not going to talk about abusive relationships, and when I say abusive, I mean someone is being controlled or broken in some way. We all feel abused after going through the trials of a failed marriage. Truly abusive relationships are much more rare than we are led to believe. Now in modern culture marriages are ended with little more thought than a dating relationship, and women have the same opportunity to earn what a man earns.

The next problem is that the courts, at least here in the USA aim to provide the same standard of living for the children that they had during the marriage. They also apply a standard that the children deserve a certain portion of the parents income. The standard of “the best interest of the children” is applied.

The first problem is when two parents are not together, unless there is significant means involved, it is impossible to provide the children with the same standard of living. You suddenly have two households where there was one. Now that father’s rightfully expect to have equal time with their kids, they must have a home that is adequate to house their children.

The next problem is the idea that the children have any right to the parents income. This is the idea that is applied to justify child support. When a marriage stays intact, the only index used to measure if the child is receiving what they deserve is whether they are healthy mentally and physically, and if they aren’t then they are receiving appropriate care. Suddenly in divorce, they deserve a percentage of the income, and that income is entrusted without strings to one of the parents, usually the mother. This is insane. What if the parents normally saved 60% of the income, and now suddenly one can’t. Or what if the divorce is over the fact the husband wants to take a job that pays 50% of what he used to make, so he doesn’t have to travel anymore. Suddenly the court has control over whether he is allowed to do that without going to jail. The court says he must earn close to his total earning potential. He no longer has a choice in the matter like he did before. Sure sounds like slavery to me.

The best interest of the child drives me nuts. If the court were interested in the best interest of the child, then there would be more remidations ordered to avoid divorce by the court, and less screwing with peoples lives. Since when is it in the best interest of the child to have the court in the middle of their lives their entire childhood. The other problem with that argument is that it is completely subjective. The courts are supposed to try to make objective decisions, and they are being placed in a position that requires subjective reasoning, which they are not equipped to handle, so they try to pretend that with the right experts they are making a subjective decision. Lets not kid ourselves, none of this is about the best interest of the child. If it were, then very few parents would be allowed to raise our children. We screw them up even in a good home. That is a part of life. We learn how to overcome the shit in our lives, and we all have shit even in the best of circumstances.

All this sets the stage a little, but the truth is in the western world, money is power. Having money gives you power, but so does controlling someone else’s money. Child support being based on a percentage of the parents income is not about providing for the child. It is about transferring wealth, and that is always evil. Simply put in the modern world, when parents are sharing responsibilities for the kids, there is no reason for a wealth transfer. The logic is convoluted. Probably because it isn’t about the kids at all. If a mother or father has chosen to cut out the other parent, then they deserve no part of that person’s income, and if that person shares in any part of the parental duties, then they should pay while they are have the children in their custody for the child’s needs. If the carrot of money from the other partner is removed, there would be far fewer divorces and out of wed lock children.

Now lets look at the logic of child support turned on its head a little. If time with children is valuable for the parent, then the time that is taken away from the parent should be compensated for. The parent who has the most earning power has the most valuable time. They should be compensated for the lost time with the children at a higher rate than the parent who has a lower income. In most divorce situations that would mean a stay at home mom would be due no child support at the time of the divorce, and if she had the children 50% of the time, she would owe the father a large sum for the lost time with his children. She would have to get a job, and support herself and compensate her ex-husband for his lost time with his kids. Isn’t this how most law suits work. The person who has incurred harm is compensated to make up for the harm. Well in a split custody situation both parties have incurred harm, but one is more valuable in the market place than the other.

Men have sought divorces at roughly the same rate throughout the history that it has been tracked. They divorce today for roughly the same reasons they always have. Women rarely sought divorce before. It took some extreme circumstances to give up the security of marriage. The system has been changed enough that they don’t lose the security when they divorce. They get financial support, and the state steps in to make sure their ex-husband continues to dutifully take care of her in the name of the children. Once the risks of not being married with children were reduced women have sought divorce for rather frivolous reasons at an alarming rate. Not that the men’s reasons were less frivolous, but the rate of them choosing to divorce is and has been much lower than the women choosing to do so now.

The truth is I don’t think anyone should pay child support. If two people or one of two people choose to part ways, then the children should be considered marital assets (didn’t want to say property). They have value to both the parents. It doesn’t matter much if one is a better parent than the other, if both are adequate. Yes merely adequate, because if the bar is set any higher, it is just a foothold for the state to come take everyone’s kids and give them to parents they deem better than you. We have already established that with the parents not together, the best interest of the child isn’t really the issue. Both parents decided to have kids together, so they decided at some point the other one was going to be the kind of parent they would like to raise a kid with. The ramifications of that decision is that you are stuck raising that kid together whether you want to or not. Along with the decision to split, both parents should determine how they are going to afford to not be together. The fact our society puts so much weight on romance in marriage is ridiculous. The purpose of marriage is to raise a family. It is designed to combine the financial a time resources of two people to take care of each other’s needs and the needs of the children. Since the marriage is broken, then each party should be responsible for both the financial and time needs of their family, which is inclusive of the times you have the kids and are nearly complete, and the times when you don’t and are single.

We all know that the biggest reason for child support is to prevent divorce from putting women and children on the welfare roles. I suggest that if the financial incentives for divorce were removed, and some disincentives for divorce were in place, then you would have fewer split families, and the cost of the welfare cases that result would be less than the cost of child support enforcement costs now, and fewer dads would be estranged from their children. Of course this is supposition, but I don’t think I am too far off.

Ten-Foured,

JeD