Posted on 10/20/2002 2:50:24 PM PDT by RogerFGay
How to end the war against divorced dads
Donna Laframboise
National Post
Over the past three days, the National Post has examined the myth of the "deadbeat dad." We've shown how divorced fathers doing everything in their power to live up to their financial obligations are treated disgracefully by the authorities.
How can a system so badly flawed be fixed? How can we stop the misconceived war against divorced dads that is driving good men toward bankruptcy, despair and suicide?
(Excerpt) Read more at fact.on.ca ...
the other ignored fact is that children of mothers who are living with their boyfriends are at high risk BECAUSE of the boyfriends...who are MALE....
males with no attachment to kids are the most dangerous people to have in a household....
Perhaps we should have a law that parents can not have boyfriends/girlfriends in the same house as their children???? ...
same for both sexes....no girlfriends and no boyfriends....
then again, wouldn't it be simplier to just marry well and stay married....so much easier, folks
This is how the program is justified. However, most child support orders are established where the state would not otherwise provide public assistance. The orders, as they are currently established, have absolutely nothing to do with reimbursement, or avoidance of this cost to the state. It should have everything to do with the cost to the state, as that is their compelling interest to interfere with the private relationship between a parent and child.
A father has an obligation to support a child he has abandoned, but when the child is taken from him without fault on his part, he is under no obligation to support the other parent or reimburse the state. If the state must provide support money to a child when it is removed from the father's custody without fault, the state cannot impose an obligation as well. They should have left the child in the father's care.
The termination of parental rights is predicated on fault. When men figure this out, and assert their natural right to guardianship, mother custody will be rare, and a family will once again be secure in marriage. This is how a patriarchal society makes fathers and two parent families possible. Something the feminist would rather you didn't understand.
So the problem is not single parent households at all.
The problem is single parent households where the single parent in question is incompetent to provide for children (shelter, safety, food, and spirituality).
It is our national policy of facilitating incompetent single parenthood that is the problem.Under no circumstances should the state, using parens patriae as justification, place a child in the care and custody of an adult who cannot make a living sufficient to support self and child(ren).
We never, never, never allowed this prior to the past thirty years. It has been a horrible mistake, and should be reversed immediately.
All of the other pathological consequences you have been discussing flow from this cosmically bad policy.
The girlfriends aren't dangerous. In fact, they are usually helpful to the father.
The problem isn't intimate partenrs, anyway.
The problem is incompetency to protect your child(ren). A man who would permit a psychopath to move in with his children has demonstrated incompetency to protect them (this is, of course, quite unusual if it in fact ever occurs).
OTOH, abuse of children by their mother's boyfriends is so very common that it accounts in large part for the fact that a child in the custody of a single mother is many times more likely to be raped or murdered than a child in the custody of two parents, or its father.
Single motherhood should be prohibited.
There is no longer any incentive for a man to look for a chaste bride. He is not looking for one at the local bar. Hence, the old "double standard" women are going to have to live with. It is the woman who is ultimately responsible for her chastity(marriagability).
With no-fault divorce and mother custody (mostly), only the father is held to his promise to support his family. It is too well known society no longer enforces the wife's promise to be faithful. Father custody provides that enforcement mechanism, along with the states willingness to enforce adultery laws, and with civil actions for alienation of affection and criminal conversation.
I think most men still would like to have a family of their own, but until the state supports a stable marriage, its too risky. All that leaves for men is good times at the bar.
Two new cash cows won't help them(demos) in their rehabilitation either, because Republicans have been jealous of them ever since. It would be a competitive thing.
Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke
AFDC was to support single mom households to allow dependent children to stay with her. Dependency was caused by the father's death, imprisonment, or abandonment. It was then assumed she could not work and support a child at the same time. Times have changed. A father is expected to be a provider, hence, no government assistance programs for him.
Parens patrae powers enable the state to take charge of abused, neglected, dependent children(dependent on the state for their support). Until the father is shown to be unfit, the state has no power to interfere. The state can't award custody to someone other than the father without taking custody from him (his by right). This is no insignificant interference with his natural right, requiring some sort of parental termination hearing, not like weighing "best interest criteria", reserved for placement of children who are already wards of the state.
If the father has abandoned them, and could have supported them, he should pay. If mom won't marry the man, she should surrender custody to the father or encumber her own family with the debt. The father has no obligation where he is denied custody.
But single mother households, as a class, are clearly incompetent to care for dependent children, even with AFDC. There was no justification for facilitating SMH then, and there is certainly none now, given what we have learned from this failed experiment.
If single father households had the same track record as SMHs do, they would be illegal.
I certainly am not happy that we have to spend even that sum to make sure that fathers support their children. But you haven't given any proof that they would pay if there was not an enforcement mechanism.
Even the joint-custody approach which you endorse and I agree with, will only affect married parents. There still needs to be some mechanism for dealing with unmarried fathers.
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