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Thanks for the post.

It comes home to me.
I am from a broken home and I swore to God I would never let that happen to my children. Unfortunately, I was only a part of the equation.
In the end we worked out our own special deal. It was difficult for a long time. Now however it is but a memory. We are all older and wiser.
The kids are grown, and nobody hates anybody.

I prosecute child support cases for the State of North Carolina freelance. I have posted on this subject before and have gotten rants and praises in return. When I read this article something that should have been obvious, but was not to me, clicked. The article discusses divorced and divorcing parents. After reading this it occurs to me that the major premise is wrong. It implies that the term "deadbeat dad" is used in relation to divorced fathers. In general, that has not been my experience. There are exceptions, but for the most part, the deadbeats are the parents of illegitimate kids. It has been my experience that kids who have the good fortune to be born to parents who at one time thought enough of each other to get married do a tolerably good job of financially supporting their kids.

Where the problem comes is with people who think enough of each other (or more probably their own eroginous (sp?) zones) to copulate, but not enough of each other or of their offspring to get married. It is these bastard parents who create almost all of the financial problems. I get damned sick of women who have 5 kids by 4 men in 7 years complaining that this guy (who also has 4 other kids by 2 or 3 other women) will not pay child support regularly.

All the while, these kids are learning what a true and loving relationship means from morons who refuse to take any responsibility for where they put their genitals or to take responsibility for what they let in their genitals.

Divorcing couples rarely are problems. When there is a problem with divorced couples my rough estimate that about 25% of the time it is the father; about 25% of the time it is the mother; and, about 50% of the time there is some blame to go around.