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.