Posted on 09/14/2008 10:22:41 AM PDT by RogerFGay
"The child support system is asking very poor people -- the fathers -- to support other very poor people --the mother and child. This has not worked and will not work, because the money just doesn’t exist.
"By pursuing these fathers with an iron fist collection policy, we turn these fathers into fugitives. This takes away the only thing the very poor father has to offer his child: his love and guidance." .... cont.
(Excerpt) Read more at mensnewsdaily.com ...
I guess if I take one lesson away from this thread it is “don’t get married.”
No, they really only help with the moms that were never married to the dads. If you are divorced, they expect you to work it through the court.
One of the things my extremely crazy ex has done - after 15 years - is ask for a “paternity test”. I think it may be because she has tried to convince my daughter that is she refuses to go live with her that she’ll be placed in the state’s foster care system. I think this will just help convince these agency staff people that she’s nucking futs. I sent them notice that the request/order was “arbitrary and capricious”.
Wow. That’s night and day different than the one in my state.
In a marriage if the husband lost his job through no fault of his own the family would cope while the husband looked for a new one. With child support if you lose your job you still have to be paying and the interest rates are worse than credit card rates. If you get a job that pays less than the former job you still have to pay the same because you are capable of making more than what your present job makes.
Men are forced to pay insurance and day care in addition to child support, I would have no problem with this if fathers in intact families were required to do the same.
BTW, I know most of this because I read a legal board and most of the mothers spend all their time trying to find ways to get rid of the fathers in their children’s lives while still maintaining optimum child support. They want their new boyfriends to be Daddy until they get another new daddy next month.
I personally know of one case where the child support was based on the mother waiting tables part time at minimum wage, no tips were considered and then when the wife got a really good job they’ve hem hawed around about changing the child support to reflect the state requirements, this while she actually owes him 6K in court ordered costs and no-one cares if she pays him. And all the while the mom fills the children full of lies about their father and then wonders why the poor kids are messed up and need to be in counseling that Dad should be required to pay for.
I know a woman who was a single mom with two kids. Good looking? You bet. She smoothed talked this guy into marrying her and adopting her kids.
He already owned a three bedroom home but she convinced him they needed a four bedroom one @400K. He could afford it after all he owned his own business.
Do you know why she had him adopt her kids? So that when she divorced him two years later he was liable for the cost of raising her kids!
Today she has her boyfriends and the 400K home with his monthly checks coming in feeding her and the kids.
In Florida the tables used to go ato around 260K and then it was a fixed percentage...low....for each child over the established table limit
fathers should always stay involved regardless
I don’t know what your original court order says but until it is changed it is still in effect. I don’t care what Child Support does but you need to find the form, in most states in can be found online and file it with the courts. You can’t believe some of the things that can happen if you don’t.
This is why I support default joint custody of children in divorce. In order to get out of it you have to supply evidence of WHY you shouldn’t be allowed to have joint custody or why your spouse shouldn’t.
The problems with the system notwithstanding. BOTH parents have an obligation to their children, period. Not just monetary, real time input.
That needs to be the default assumption in marriage, after divorce, or when there was no marriage at all.
Kids are hurting from our assumptions that dads need only supply money. And a lot of people, including many dads, buy into that assumption.
Yep, and restraining orders seem to be the preferred method. By the time you get to court for custody, the status quo is that the children live with mother and haven’t seen their father in months and if Dad is lucky, he’ll get every other weekend and alternating holidays even if he had been the primary parent during the marriage.
Also, if the mother brow beats the father into paying child support without a court order and he pays when they finally get to court he will have to pay for those months anyway because since it wasn’t court ordered it is considered a gift. I think that is horrible because you get punished for doing the right thing.
I can see why father’s would have so much bitterness. They get screwed any way they can be. Judges view them as potential child abusers while the mother’s, even the ones who have serial lovers that they bring home from bars, get a pass.
I wouldn’t say that but it can be an obstacle course if something changes. I’ve been married 37 yrs and I’d recommend it to anyone. Marriage isn’t easy but it is worth it.
I don’t know whether the child support agency is exactly going along with it in that sense. It may be that if she requests it, they have to order it. I don’t know. All I know is that I had grounds to appeal the order on the basis of it “capricious and arbitrary”. Everything this woman is doing is irrationally self-destructive and pointlessly venal. All child support payments are current up to literally tomorrow - and always have been - yet she brings in this agency which would take up to a month to process the next payment? A paternity test for someone who has never even had the slightest doubt that he is the child’s father? The mother has a wide reputation for bizarre and abusive behaviour - with the local school board, the police, Childrens’ Services. My daughter literally refuses to speak to her at this point. She’s been abused and humiliated by her so much. The mother did me a favor by involving these enforcement people, though, because I never would have believed that my daughter’s choice to live with Dad would end the payments to the mother. But that is exactly what they’re telling me and I just need to show that she is, in fact, living with me. To punish my daughter once, she called the police on her and told them that she “didn’t feel safe” with her there which she knew meant the cops had no choice but to lock my daughter in “juvie” overnight (she didn’t know she could have asked to call Dad). I showed up another time she’d called the cops on my daughter. The mother tried to get me beaten down and cuffed by yelling “HE HAS A GUN!” Cop asked me if I had a gun. I said, “Sure, it’s under the front seat”. They checked my carry permit and saw that here was a person who’d passed all the background checks while they got a mother standing in the street screaming. It actually gave me a boost with the cops. Two days later, she called in a “kidnapping” because my daughter was with me and wouldn’t go back to her. It was the same cops who took the call. They called me on the phone to ask if I was a kidnapper. I said, “no” and they told me to have a nice weekend. After over 10 years of this kind of crap, I’m hoping she’s finally dug her hole deep enough. For my daughter’s well-being and security and for a little peace for myself.
That’s good advice and I will follow up on it certainly. My first order of business is to ascertain that Child Support Enforcement will not act against me. That should happen in the next few days.
I know a woman who did basically the same thing, she even sucked up to the MIL and joined the church her MIL belonged to and then divorced and tried to get half of the husband’s fathers holdings. It was disgusting.
It’s all from the same root cause - the federal pork being paid to keep child support “collections” high. Even that misuse of the word “collections” is irritating. Most of it is money paid by people who can afford to pay and do so regularly. It’s a huge amount of money, much of it going to private companies, for nothing. When a guy gets behind, eventually paying when he’s able - giving a huge amount of federal money to states to abuse fathers and companies to run computer programs and databases doesn’t change the situation.
Actually, that just changed. Many states are now charging them $25/year for their services.
Yes, you would.
But that would not protect you from obscene collection amounts. Most states are unilateral divorce states - only one party has to want the divorce.
Here is one over the top example of how bad our liberal, corrupt courts are: Martello v. Martello
The total award of interim spousal support to Laurie $5,741 is approximately 64 percent of Ned's monthly gross income which the trial court found to be $9,000. (9) Thus, after satisfying his monthly obligations for interim spousal support in the amount of $5,741 and child support in the total amount of $2,372.17 per month as ordered by the court, Ned would be left with $886.83 (10) of his gross monthly income to use toward his own expenses. Considering the facts of this case and the trial court's finding that Ned's monthly gross income was $9,000 we conclude the trial court abused its discretion in setting Laurie's award of interim spousal support. Given Laurie's needs, Ned's ability to pay and Laurie's entitlement to an amount in keeping with the standard of living enjoyed by the spouses during the marriage, we conclude that the most the trial court could have reasonably awarded in direct payment to Laurie in interim spousal support is $2,300 per month through the date of the rendition of the divorce. The judgment will be amended accordingly.
(8) Notably, LSA-C.C. art. 112(B) (1997) provided that the sum awarded under LSA-C.C. art. 112(A) for final spousal support shall not exceed one third of the obligor s net income. No similar provision is provided with respect to an award of interim spousal support.
(9) As owner of the vehicle that Laurie had been driving the clinic had been paying the monthly note in the amount of $630 for this vehicle as well as the monthly insurance premium of $143 associated with that vehicle. With the reduction of these amounts the remaining portion of interim spousal support would be approximately 55 percent of Ned's gross income.
(10) After reduction for amounts paid by the clinic Ned would have $1,659.83 of his gross monthly income remaining.
You will notice that this fine appeals court NEGLECTED to account for this man's FEDERAL INCOME TAX; STATE INCOME TAX; and FICA. Those amounts would increase the bill by $2,500/month or so.
So in essence, the judge attempted to murder this man or turn him into a fugitive.
Don't believe me? Here is a link to the appeals court decision! Read the appeals court decision for yourself.
{Oh, and the dad was given 40% time with his children !!!
http://www.la-fcca.org/Opinions/PUB2007%5C2007-03/2006CU0594Mar2007.Pub.10.pdf
No, it is probably because going to court COST THAT MUCH.
The judge would probably also pull an 'in globo' ruling out his ass, meaning that support amount continues inabated until the last child leaves.
The reason it is so bad, is there are plenty of legislators with power on the receiving end of the child support order.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.