Posted on 05/26/2002 2:17:07 PM PDT by RogerFGay
A Knight Defending Fatherhood
May 26, 2002
By Roger F. Gay
You can tell this is an election year because politicians, bureaucrats, and TV "talking heads" are bashing fathers. In the mid 1970s Congress decided to get the federal government involved in domestic relations law. Ever since, the war against dads has driven gender politics, expansion of the welfare system, and increased spending. By the early 1990s it seemed commonly accepted that battering women and abandoning wives and children to welfare was a character flaw genetically fixed by every Y-chromosome.
Enter Stephen Baskerville -- a knight defending fatherhood. Baskerville might not be what many people imagine as "one of those fathers' rights guys." A political scientist at Howard University, Dr. Baskerville's files are filled with scholarly articles with lots of citations to other scholarly articles, a growing number of which he has written. In his appearances on television and radio however, as well as in the articles he has written for the general public, one might occasionally sense a certain irritation with mis-educated public remarks about fathers.
In an article in this month's Liberty Magazine entitled "The Myth of Deadbeat Dads," Baskerville offers to educate the rich and famous. He reports that TV host Bill O'Reilly recently declared that "There is an epidemic of child abandonment in America, mainly by fathers." "Sen. Evan Bayh has attacked 'irresponsible' fathers in several speeches. Campaigning for president, Al Gore promised harsher measures against 'deadbeat dads,' including sending more to jail. The Clinton administration implemented numerous child-support 'crackdowns,' including the ominously named Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act." In response, Republicans "want to send the strongest possible message that parents cannot walk away from their children."
"Special interest groups demonized fathers," says Baskerville. "They called them 'deadbeat dads' and criminalized them. The result is a system that traces newly hired employees, shifts the burden of proof to the accused, and throws fathers in jail for losing their jobs." He is not alone in that opinion. His article sports 46 citations from a mixture of sources, including books and academic journals, the popular press, and even relevant Web sites.
"The system of collecting child support is no longer one of requiring men to take responsibility for their offspring, as most people believe. The combination of 'no fault' divorce and the new enforcement law has created a system that pays mothers to divorce their husbands and remove children from fathers."
Baskerville presents a convincing argument, well supported by research and other commentary. Quoting an article entitled "The Strange Politics of Child Support"; "By allowing a faithless wife to keep her children and a sizable portion of her former spouse's income, current child-support laws have combined with no fault jurisprudence to convert wedlock into a snare for many guiltless men." (Bryce Christensen, Society, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Nov.-Dec. 2001, p. 65)).
Baskerville adds, "This 'snare' can easily amount to a prison sentence without trial."
His work and commentary have captured the attention of the fathers rights movement. Dave Usher has been a leading activist since 1987 and served for nine years on the exectutive boards of the two largest fathers rights groups in America. He knows that political opinion has been influenced by false information and how difficult it has been to report serious problems with policies that effect fathers. Too few "researchers" who have witten about fathers and fatherhood actually did any research. "We need a few dozen more Baskervilles," he says. "He is a solid researcher."
Although there are many wrongs yet to be righted, the fathers rights movement does not face the extreme prejudice that it once did. Hundreds of organizations and conferences, loads of scholarship, and countless Web sites have sprung up over the past few years focused on issues of concern to fathers. Dr. Baskerville organized one of the first fatherhood conferences three years ago at Howard University. Conferences on fathers issues and fatherhood have been organized and supported by the Ford Foundation, the U.S. Department of Labor, the state of California, and other well established institutions.
Ironically, the Democratic Party -- the party that started the war against fathers in the mid 1970s is out to capture the male vote. Before they finalize their strategy someone should conduct a poll to see how many males age 25-50 want to be their own worst political enemies. With fatherhood knights like Stephen Baskerville around, father-bashing will not be as easy to get away with as it used to be.
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Roger F. Gay is the leader and lead researcher of Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology, an R&D project focusing on the science, engineering, and application of child support guidelines.
It was even worse than that. Most (meaning 999 out 1000) work places didn't provide health insurance. There was no need; doctor and hospital costs were so low that a family could afford to pay for them out their own pockets. But, then, the government was even less involved in the health care than it was in marraige. 
Roger: "I've had significant contact with fathers' rights organizations over the years. Your characterization of them is blatantly untrue."
Oh yeah? Then why don't they overwhelmingly support presumptive joint physical custody? Do you support it?
I thought the chronology was pretty clear, at the time of the divorce no one in the family lived in AZ, later we moved here.
There was no federal child support enforcement bureacracy back in them olden days, but there was child support enforcement. Judges could do all sorts of things to get the money and throw people in jail for "contempt of court" (not doing what they were ordered) if appropriate.
Not in CA. In CA all they would do is send a letter and then ONLY if you provided them with the address of the deadbeat. But since we weren't in CA the CA courts didn't want to work with us, we had to work with an AZ judge and get him to work with a CA judge and by the time that happened dear old dad had moved leaving no forwarding address, sorry no letter.
One of the things I do know about the current enforcement system is that the damaging effects are mostly carried out against the innocent.
You'll have to explain how a person can decide to no longer pay child support for their own kids and still be innocent.
It's all about money you see, not justice. It's not about money for children -- fer kryin' out loud, it's not really for "child support."
It is about the money. The money these people are supposed to be giving for the rearing of their children.
It's about the money that states get from the federal government for running child support enforcement programs. It's about money that judges and district attorneys and private collection businesses get from higher "collections."
Of course if the father actually paid their child support in the first place there wouldn't be this cottage industry.
It's about all that dough lawyers get from angry fathers trying to get the amount set to something reasonable. It's not about child support.
Yeah my dad spend a lot of money on lawyers to get his child support reduced by $25, and my mom spent a lot to keep it at the level he had agreed to in the first place. Probably if you do the math both sides spent more on lawyers than it was worth. But people in divorces feel this need to win all the time and the math frequently doesn't enter in to it.
The way all those other people maximized their profit wasn't by going after $100 that somebody doesn't have, or going after some low or low-middle income guy who's giving it everything he's got to beat the system. That strategy costs a lot of money and returns very little. Besides, if the mother and children really need money they can get it from the welfare system.
I see so it's OK for the fed gov to get involved, just not in a way that hassles you. The mothers can go on welfare, but actually expect someone to get their deadbeat ex to actually pay his child support is going too far.
They arbitrarily increased the amount of awards and "collected" primarily from middle and upper income dads who pay regularly anyway for primarily middle and upper income mothers. The take increases because everything that's paid, the vast majority paid without any problem whatsoever, is classified as "collections" and everybody gets a cut.
You'll need to provide some real world example here. This makes no sense, how can they nail someone for non-payment if they've been paying?
Aside from the fact that the arbitrarily high awards were generally destroying lives, it just got worse for anyone who lost their job or even those who worked fewer overtime hours one year than the year before. "There's no excuse for not paying child support," the politicians would say, and watched the inappropriately high debt pile up knowing that the father couldn't do anything about it; but it increased profits.
Here's an area where we're in agreement, which I've said multiple time on this thread. It's interesting how I'm willing to admit that some dads are forced into a bad situation by insane courts but you have yet to admit that there are actual deadbeat dads. Come on, give it a shot, it's not that hard. Out here in the real world, away from your precious research, some people are no good and don't miraculously become good just because they got some woman pregnant.
I know that the compliance rate (i.e. the percent of what is ordered that is paid each year) has not risen since the federal government got involved in enforcement. In fact, it fell after 1996 even during a period when the economy was strong. I know that for the most part the historical record of payment of child support by fathers was quite high, and strongly correlated with employment and income.
But it's not 100%. Until it's 100% there's a problem in this country.
So you see, if I had to use my statistical knowledge to come to some conclusion about your father (this procedure is scientifically unacceptable), I'd say that either he did pay and you didn't hear about it or he couldn't. Even if I'm wrong about that, I'm confident that I'm right about this; do away with FEDERAL involvement in child support enforcement (especially federal funding with funny conditions attached) and the world will be a better place.
Thanks for showing what an ass you are. If my father was paying then why is it I've never seen him since the end of 1980? Part of the agreement was visitation. And I have serious doubts that he couldn't pay for 6 1/2 years. The guy was in a high paying environment after all (computer programmer, big company, did outings to the Rose Bowl, as I said dear old dad had season tickets to both the Angels and the Rams and was working on Lakers tickets last I saw him, couldn't pay isn't very likely), unless he was dead but another part of the settlement said he was supposed to have a $10,000 life insurance policy with me as the payee so if he died I would have gotten some money there. As for things being better without federal involvement I don't think so. One of the big problems we faced was trying to work across state lines, AZ didn't have jurisdiction on dad and CA didn't ave jurisdiction on us, so we had to get the AZ courts to work with the CA courts. The nice part about federal involvement is you avoid that mess. Maybe the fed should handle it differently than they do, but given what a nightmare the situation was before removing the fed would clearly NOT make things better.
The other thing I might mention, just in case your mother was receiving welfare, is that child support payments would have gone to the government and not your mother. He could have been paying but your mother wouldn't have known.
We wound up receiving welfare when he stopped paying, but it was less than his child support payments ($90/ month vs his $125), and we got off welfare in about 18 months. And again you're comparing now to then, then AZ wouldn't touch this kind of stuff, one of the big hurdles we had was just proving that he wasn't paying anymore.
There's this huge gap in scientific studies that collect data by survey between what mothers say fathers pay and what fathers say fathers pay that seemed to be a bit of a mystery for a while -- until I realized that much of the difference is the child support that fathers pay to the government that mothers don't know about -- it's not paid to them and they don't get info from the gov on that.
But by the time the government has stepped in dear old dad has already failed to pay. Probably what he's paying to the government includes arears. As for our situation I saw the checks while he was paying, there'd sometimes be notes in there, and that's where the travel arangements came from. I know he paid $125, until he decided to stop.
There are deadbeat dads, not all of the wishing in the world will end that. Until the fed stepped in enforcing child support was nearly impossible, if both parents were in the same state and that state had some good laws it got easier but outside of that forget it. While the fed's solution is probably not the best, pretending there isn't and never was a problem is no better.
Point me to one organization active in lobbying for RPJPC.
Re: O Brother Were Art Thou ..... great movie.
It looks as if our enemy has figured it out as well.
I think you're number might be a little low but even so given the divorce rate in this country 1/2% represents a lot of people.
I'm sorry that you haven't seen him in such a long time.
Don't be, given what a jag off he was when I knew I'm better off without him.
One more thing you might find interesting; back in the olden days many fathers stayed away because the common wisdom of the day for divorced parents was that conflict between the parents was too hard on the children, while common wisdom for married couples was to stay together for the sake of the children. Go figer.
Conflict between the parents is hard on the children, kids can figure out that they're making mom cry it takes a while for them to realize they were used to do such. Again the timing in my situation says that wasn't the case, there were 9 years inbetween the divorce and when he cut off all contact. And people should NEVER stay together "for the kids", my wife's parent did that, as much of a train wreck as I was in early adulthood she made me look down right stable. Kids pickup on that too. If parents can't stand each other anymore they should split up, just don't use the kids as a weapon on each other; realize that the marriage broke up because your both idiots and there is no winning in the divorce game.
It's beginning to sound a bit like your father was not a wealthy man with a stable job. But once again, I don't discuss personal situations with strangers on the internet, so I'm not asking.
Wealthy? Depends on your view at that time he was the richest person I knew. Stable company he had. He moved a lot but he always worked in the same place (never learned the name, back doors you know) but I remember it was huge, seemed about the size of LAX (someplace I went through a lot in those days). Remember this was the early 1980s the whole situation was much different, palimony had just barely come into existence. Many of the states just didn't want to get involved in this stuff.
Your assumption is that the government and the bureacracy and the private collectors are "going after" people who don't pay. They might do a bit of that now and again, and do send threatening notes to people when they have their addresses, etc. But they make the big bucks from people who do pay. They make life difficult to impossible for all non-custodial fathers, including those who do pay. They "nail" people who pay. That's how the industry works. They make money from money flowing through the system. The most profitable thing to do is to "go after" those with money and no history of payment problems -- fathers who would pay whether the enforcement system exists or not; so they set up the system to "collect" from those guys without having to go to much effort to "collect." Then they dramatically increased the amount ordered in order to increase their profits.
How? How is the system getting aimed at people with no history of payment problems? I'm not delusional enough to think innocent people don't get nailed in this country, but you present this as the only thing the enforcement system does.
Well, ah. It's never been 100% of course and it never will be.
That doesn't mean something can't be done. Come up with a better system to enforce child support payments. The way it was stunk on ice. The way it is very well might also stink on ice, but at least it's a different smell. If we go back to a situation where men can walk away from their family with no fear of any repercussions we are a sad nation. As I said one of the big problems with the old system was that even if one of the parents involved lived in one of the few states that was willing to work this issue if they didn't both live in the same state there was a psychotic level of paperwork trying to navigate both state systems.
Come up with a solution. All I see is denial of a root problem and complaints about the current solution to the problem. It would be better to aknowledge that there are deadbeat dads and come up with a way to make them pay. Any other form of debt in this country can be forced out of you if you walk away, we can't have a system where it's OK to walk away from the debt to your children but the electric company can still go after you. Any nation like that, which is how we used to be, doesn't deserve to live.
Based on your number. You say it's 1/2 of 1%. OK we know that the divorce rate in this country is around 50% which equates to a couple million divorces in this country every year, even if only half of them involve child support of some kind you're still getting a situation where you're getting at least 5000 new deadbeat dads every year (that's based on 2 million total divorces per year which is surely a small number). Assuming all of them only owe as much as my father did ($125/ month) that $625,000 per month and $7.5 million per year. That ain't chump change and it's all based on number probably much smaller than reality.
Sometimes it's hard to explain something simple in a clear way, but I know that the problem is more than a decade of propaganda piled up to make people believe things that aren't true. If you're looking for something that makes sense in - how should I say it -- a normal way, you're not going to get it. Here's the most basic thing you should focus on completely until you're sure you've got it. If you get this, then we'll have some chance of moving on. Profits are made in proportion to "collections." ALL PAYMENTS are counted as "collections." Make sure you understand that last part: ALL PAYMENTS. It doesn't matter if they're late or on time. It doesn't matterif there was ever a payment problem or not; literally ALL PAYMENTS are counted as "collections."
You're still evading the question. How are these laws being sicked on people that they shouldn't be? It's a very simple direct question. You say people with good payment history are getting busted, all I want to know is how. What's the loophole that greedy ex-wives/government officials/whoever the hell else are using to attack men that these laws were not supposed to attack. The last I heard when everything was going normally all child support payments were going from spouse to spouse no government agency involved. Did that change? If not then how are ex-wives sicking the government on men that pare paying on time? It's a simple question give me a simple answer, even an annectotal one, I realize those aren't scientific proof but I want an example. Just because it's profitable does not prove that the system is being abused, it proves that it can be but there are a lot of possible things in this world that aren't happening.
... your final comments are simply rude and not repeated in this post ...
Asking you to propose a solution to this problem you insist exists but refuse to provide any proof of is rude?! I'm no graduate of Ms Manners but that doesn't strike me as rude.
I think your number is low because it feels low, but I gave it to you because even at that low a percentage it's still clearly a problem.
OK, your second paragraph cleared something up for me. Things have changed dramatically. Child support -- all of it -- is now regulated under welfare law: All of it.
OK now that is definitely no good. The government should only ever get involved if there's a problem, there's only two things government is good at: problem solving and problem making. If they don't have one to solve they'll make one.
Not just what we used to call "welfare cases," all cases. In every case in which child support is awarded (all cases involving children regardless of income etc), a rigid formula, politically determined by the state, under federal regulation is used to determine the amount to be awarded; and then the system owns you thereafter.
In some ways a formula might be a good idea, in others it's no good. Having some cracker head judge who only just met these people and is hoping to never see them again pull some random number out of his posterior wasn't a good system. I remember that from the government offices, women comparing how much the deadbeat wasn't paying them, and those numbers varied wildly and with no seeming logic. Generally the simpler formulas are the best, X% of gross per kid is probably the best bet. Something where those that make more pay more, but not in a punitive way.
The formulae used in the states set award levels arbitrarily high and give only a small token reduction if any at all for visitation time or even in cases of joint custody where parents have nearly equal time with their children.
Don't know if visitation time should count, it's not like real parenting happens then, joint custody should never involve child support. To me child support is paying for the priviledge of not actually having to raise your own kids, basically paying your ex-wife to be a nanny. If you've got joint custody you're raising the kid.
skipping a bunch of F'd up stuff I'd already heard about and agreed was a definite problem with the system.
The federal funding scheme rewarded states based on the amount they "collect," and allowed all money paid through the system to be classified as "collection." Therefore, the states favored arbitrarily high award levels and making it impossible to get reductions even for good reason. They also preferred to enroll good payors in the system to maximize (so-called) "collections."
Sounds like a bad mix of federal involvement and states' rights. If the feds are gonna play in the field then they have to play all the way, clearly here they're just getting their toes wet and leaving the rest up to the states. That's always bad.
If you read the following article, and the Court decision in Georgia, you might have a much better idea what I'm talking about.
I read that, but it was unclear to me how the whole picture was constructed. It showed there were some definite problems but I didn't glean the high level of federal involvement. It's clear that there's a problem, there always is when the feds involved. But we need to not over correct the problem. The initial problem was deadbeat dads refusing to pay their child support and their ex-wives being completely powerless to do anything about it. Since then the situation has been over corrected and the solution is a problem in it's own right.
To me there's 3 problems:
1 - there are deadbeat dads, guys that just don't feel like paying their child support and have no good reason or excuse.
2 - an ex-wife has no recourse on her own (even still now with the federal involvement, since it's all the fed's now) to enforce a child support settlement, every other creditor in the country has more ability to get money out of you than your ex-wife (hypothetical "you"s here), that's messed up.
3 - in standard fashion the fed has gotten over involved and instead of being a useful mutual layer for child support enforcement regardless of the states involved is being nutty and making up dorky rules as they go.
To me if we gave exes the same powers and abilities as corporations in collecting bad spousal debt (child support and alimony, might as well throw that in there too) that would solve the basic problem. Any solution that pretends there's no such thing as deadbeat dads won't work, then we'll just repeat the cycle, we'll be back in the situation we were in during tyhe 70s and 80s. The current solution is too far but we can't lose sight of the fact that it's a bad attempt to solve a real problem.
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