A very mild rant about child support

The BBQ Pit
1

Disclaimer****
I am a 23 year old woman with no childen whatso ever. I really don’t know anything about how child support works, So feel free to correct me if I am off.

I have two male friends that pay child support. I know that there is the stereotype of the “deadbeat dad” out there, but with these two it is not the case. I feel for both of them because of things that has happened to them with the child support system.

Friend number one, well I guess technically h e is not a friend, but rather a brother in law. He has two children that he pays child support for. We live in Illinois, and they( the children) live in Iowa. At somepoint they (The child support people, I have no clue what they are called) began taking out his whole check, way above the ammount that he was ordered to pay. He was getting full time paychecks that said void because all the money was going to child support. He was not behind or anything. When He contacted whoever he contacted with the state of illinois, they said talk to the state of Iowa. When he talked to the state of Iowa they said they could take 50% of his check, but if there was a problem, He needed to talk to the state of Illinois. This went on so long he got a second full time job. He was afraid if he quit the job where he was getting voided checks, that he would be in trouble and end up owing alot of back child support. But for the month that he was without a second job- he had no money that came in. Bills didn’t get paid. He and his wife talked to everyone to try and get it fixed, and eventually 5 or 6 months later it did get fixed. I have no clue what happened to the money that was “overpaid” to the mother of his children. I know it went to a good place, for his children, but still it was a mess. Even after he got a lawyer, it was a runaround before they could get it fixed.

My second friend also has two children. His exwife told him point blank that his money was making her carpayment. When he goes to pick up his kids, they are always a mess, because she is never around. The woman is working on her 6th child. She only gets child support for two of them. She is constantly blocking his visitation. She is taking him back to court for more child support, because she thinks he makes more than what he is telling her. She calls him all the time to threaten him with not seeing his children if he doesn’t give her more money. He is supposed to see them this weekend. She said he had better bring her 60 dollars or else she is not letting them go. This is in direct violation of the custody agreement. I think my friend should call the police and get them to enforce the agreement, everytime she blocks his visitation. He said he doesn’t want his children to have to go through all the game playing. If he had more money to give, I know he would give it to them, after he pays his bills and rent and food, he has next to nil. Doesn’t the system care about this? His ex wife gets food stamps, and section 8, and works a full time job. I am not saying that she is rich, I know she can’t be with soon to be 6 children. I don’t think that child support money should be used on anything other than things for the child. I know that the car is used for transportation, but gee, She traded in her van and got a car the seats four people. four! when she has 5 kids! Its a new little sporty thing thats he throws in my friends face everytime they talk to eachother. She thinks its funny that his money is paying for her car.

To me this is seriously fucked up on both accounts. I know not every situation is like this, and I am glad there is some kind of system in place.However, To me, the system seems to be geared towards the mother no matter what is going on. Thats just not cool. If I knew of a fathers rights group I would direct them too it. I don’t know alot about child support, or non custodial parents rights or any of that. So I could be way off base on my opinion. But when I hear about things like this it makes me very angry.:mad:

Sorry about the mildness of this rant, it might be too mild for the pit, if it is sorry about putting it here but it seemed like the most appropriate place

2

When it gets this bad I fully support changing your name and moving out of the country.

3

First off the guy that pays child support does not get to decide how it is spent. Yah maybe it goes to paying the car payment. Ok. So when was the last time you took 2 kids; let alone 5 kids to the Dr.'s office on a bus? A grocery trip via bus takes most of an afternoon. Try that with todlers. The fact of the matter might be that the van gave up running and the money she had didn’t extend to another van. Further more she may say thats the money that goes to the car payment, but there is still money that feeds the kids and pays day care and buys the diapers. The courts do not require that people turn in the household budget or reciepts, to get approval from an ex-spouse. Quite frankly, one side of the argument very seldom has all the truth.

If he truely believes she is not providing properly for his children and she is violating the custody agreement he can take it back to court. If he does not want the responsibility of the kids full time then my sympathy is exactly nil, but he can get the court to enforse the agreement as written.

The states do mess up the collection of child support. I have a friend who is owed something like 40,000 dollars in back child support. It was collected from her ex husband. He doesn’t owe it. Illinois agrees he payed it, but for some reason they cant seem to give her the money. In the mean time she has been scraping by in near poverty raising three great kids, but at one point they lived in her car. I don’t think it happens often but when money has to go to lawyers to fix this stuff it doesn’t go to the kids.

4

Yeah, and be sure to take the kids with you. Who cares if your face winds up on one of those “HAVE YOU SEEN ME?” fliers. Milk cartons lie, all the time. [Note: this statement is offered as opinion and argument only, and under NO circumstances should be taken as endorsement to break the law.]

And forget about asking the courts for custody, if you’re a guy. Especially California. CA courts take kids from professional fathers and give them to crack addict mothers all the time. I’ve seen it happen.

5

Interestingly I read a very informative article regarding this in the June 2003 Men’s Health. It described similar atrocities, and sadly, there is no sufficient solution in place yet - I guess a few really can mess this up for the many.

I would say that in your friend-#2’s case, tape some of those conversations…

My condolences

6

Hi. Victim here too.

Well, not a victim, I’m not that whiny. It was my penis that contributed to things.

My story is long and sordid. I have two kids, twins (a boy and a girl), that I didn’t even know existed until they were 4 years old. At the time their mom was married living with another guy who thought the kids was his. When she finally got around to telling me what was what, the state saddled me with $30,000 of back support that I never knew I should have been paying. I’m still paying on it 7 years later.

Meanwhile, their mother has died. My kids have their maternal grandparents as legal guardians (have since birth actually – it’s a long story, trust me, it was necessary).

Since then we worked out a deal where the grandparents would accept half of the court ordered support, since they were financially better off than I was, which was nice of them. We told DHS about the deal and they said, “ok, we’ll halt the payments.” However, they didn’t stop attaching my check for $125 a week. So I was in no position to make my support payments to the people who needed it.

It get’s better. After I moved to California, we were back on the state mandated payment plan. The only problem was, California was collecting the money and sending it to Maine. But since I was no longer a Maine resident, they had no record of me, so they just kept the friggin’ money. I didn’t find out about this for quite some time.

Also, in the middle of all that at a time when I had been unemployed, was recently separated from my then-wife, was sleeping on a couch, and had managed to save up enough money to move into an apartment in a bad neighborhood in Oakland … CA DHS decided to drain my bank account of $1700, every cent to my name. I never got it back and it never went to my kids.

And believe me my back story is even more convoluted than all of this … all about DHS threatening me with making me liable for my daughter’s medical bills (millions – she has spina bifida) … state aid which had been going to their mother when she was married and shouldn’t have been collecting … collecting when she didn’t have custody of the kids … it’s a friggin’ nightmare.

Johnny Cochran couldn’t dig me out of this hole.

Non-custodial dads get the shaft and as long as their are deadbeat dads out there to make us look bad as a whole, we always will.

7

As to the ‘the child support pays my car payment’…this strikes me as a little bit inflamatory, on the part of the woman. It sounds like something she says to piss off her ex. It’s entirely possible that it does go towards a car payment, but please enlighten me as to how this is bad?

I receive child support on my oldest two. The check I get every two weeks goes into our checking account. All sorts of things get paid out of this checking account, including both my car payments. The checking account also pays for school lunches, the payments on oldest son’s trombone, new shoes for kids who just can’t seem to keep a decent pair looking good for more than three months, school field trip funds, PTA membership, GROCERIES to feed them and Utilities (but also me, my husband, and youngest-since we do all eat together and live in the same house).

At no point, in any dicvorce agreement I have ever heard of, has anyone specified that child support monies be kept in a separate account* and used only for the children specified (the groceries I buy with it get labelled and are for them only?). Child support is just that support to maintain a child and the child’s household. Support includes having a car, electricity, health insurance, other utilities, groceries, and the myriad other things that get nickeled and dimed out of you if you have a school age child. Just becuase someone else in the household also benefits from having a car and food does not mean that the person paying the support is getting taken for a ride.

FaerieBeth

*it’s entirely possible these specifications have been made (especially in settlements involving estates or truly LARGE sums of money), but I have never seen it in the run-of-the-mill Joe average divorce.

Oh, and a quick side note upon preview, if DHS drains your account or the state keeps your money…how is that the woman’s fault? Sure, she was ordered by the court to receive child support, but it’s not like she calls up DHS and tells them to do that shit. Sometimes, the woman doesn’t even GET the money (didn’t you say the STATE was KEEPING it at one point, Jack?), and when she investigates to see why she hasn’t gotten it, DHS will give her only part of it. I think some guys are having trouble with the government agencies, and not their ex-wives. This does not make child support BAD, this makes poorly run government agencies BAD.

8

Faerie, you might want to re-read one more time.

It isn’t. I never said it was.

I blame no one but the incredible bureaucratic nightmare that is the DHS.

Every time I talk to my case worker, they are completely ignorant of the case and I have to explain things all over again.

9

Fair enough, Jack. The original tone in the OP in scenario #2 was leaning towards a ‘bad woman’ assertion*. I was mistaken in thinking you were in agreement with that assessment. My apologies for putting words in your mouth, but I hope you will agree that the ‘evil ex-wife who docks money from my check’ sentiment is out there.

You have my sympathies in trying to deal with such a nighmare, and I hope your troubles with DHS come to an end. They are IMO the most useless, poorly run agency known to man.
*and she is wrong for trying to block court ordered visitation.

10

No apologies necessary. We’re on the same page. And thanks.

11

I’m pretty pro-feminism (radical feminism, in fact) and definitely pro-child (children’s liberation, even) but I’m very happy I got a vasectomy at 24 and never reproduced. The only way I’d consider parenting is if I had sole custody. The situation described above (plus the tangentially mentioned tendency for males to have less chance of receiving equal custody, although some sources contradict that and I wouldn’t know) is not women’s fault – there are certainly plenty of men who have contributed mightily to the situation – but it is nevertheless a situation that sucks for men.

I don’t know what the solution is, but we sure ain’t got it in place now.

12

You had a vasectomy at 24? Without hijacking this thread to Cuba (too much)…Why? Wouldn’t a condom have been less…um…“final” for young man? How old are you now?

13

I’m wondering if you all realize that child support isn’t only paid by men. I paid it for 15 years and lemmee tell you it wasn’t very much fun when one state took your money and it never got to the kid in a different state. I was finally able to stop paying CS this year because he turned 18 but I still have 2 years of back CS to pay because even tho he’s of age I still owe the money. Now I’m paying it directly to him instead of the ex tho so I KNOW where it’s going.

14

I’m 44, and “final” was the objective. Condoms are horrid things, I’d rather just not have sex than have sex using a condom. Aside from which fact, my, umm, sexual tendency is such that when things are tripping along nicely my mind doesn’t run towards utilitarian activities like putting on a device of some sort.

If there had been extremely reliable male pills I probably would have tried them. Nevertheless my attitude at the time was that I did not want to reproduce for a half-dozen reasons, many of which were not likely to change in my lifetime.

15

A thought for men who are having vasectomies done: Consider banking some sperm, especially if you have not had children.

I do not mean to denigrate anyone’s choice to not have kids. But there are a significant number of men who later regret having the surgery, especially if they had it done prior to fathering children. And reversal procedures are often unsuccessful.

Just something to consider for guys who are contemplating getting sterilized. Nothing more. If you don’t want to store sperm, don’t do it. But at least give it a thought prior to the surgery.

16

I imagine that for someone who never wants to have kids and gets a vasectomy, banking sperm is just as much an unnecessary expense that doesn’t need to be a financial drain as baking a bunch of eggs is for me.

I know you didn’t mean to denigrate anyone’s choice, but you and all other doctors need to, at some point, stop bringing up the ‘people change their minds’ concept.

It’s as if nobody ever considers that all those decisions were already made, as if all of a sudden their input will make a difference.

I know I’m butting in here where it’s really not my business, but that ‘consider storing some sperm/eggs because your mind might change’ thing is something those in the medical profession need to abandon. I hear that from a doctor, and that doctor is no longer my doctor.

17

I’m a woman, and imho? I think the child support “industry” has gotten WAY out of hand.

IMO? There should be a “flat rate” determined regarding the amount needed to assist in a child’s basic needs.

This rate can be adjusted downward for the non-custodial parents who make lower wages and perhaps somewhat upward for special needs children as long as it’s not creating undue hardship for the non-custodial parent.

But the idea that a man should have to pay 50% of his wages (no matter what those wages may be) is ludicrous.

So his kids got their own phones, tvs, indoor pools etc before the divorce. Now that he’s divorced they “need” these things still?

Give us a break, NO one “needs” to be guaranteed unmitigated luxury. Not even kids. Not even if thats “the lifestyle to which they’d grown accustomed”.

This concept that some arbitrary 50% must be paid by the non-custodial parent (usally the man) even if he ends up living in a cardboard box living on catfood, is discrimination imo.

A friend of mine is in this position, the woman is a brain dead lazy slug. She has a certificate which would allow her to make about 5 more dollars an hour than she currently does, but she’s “afraid to drive in from Eagle River to Anchorage” so she works at a day care center instead.

The man, despite the fact that he HAS no such training or potential to earn more, was determined by the courts to be the one with the potential to earn the most (since he currently makes more than she does).

Not only is he paying child support, but the courts are trying to make him pay alimony to her for the rest of her life.

Their reasoning? She’s too helpless to be able to “take care of herself”. Other than being a stupid SLUG of a woman, there’s nothing physically wrong with her.

This faction of family law needs some serious revamping (imo).

18

So a physician is supposed to assume that the patient has thought of all possible alternatives, repercussions, and options? That the patient has no knowledge gaps at all in these matters?

Well, I can cite dozens of cases where people came back and sued the doc providing the service, because “he didn’t tell me I could have done that!”

A physician’s job is to enable the patient to make informed choices. If that means giving them information they don’t want to hear, so be it.

[/hijack]

19

Doctors don’t just give information to people (IME, especially women) who want to get sterilized.

They do their damnedest to talk you out of it. I’m pretty fucking sick of the way the medical profession treats an adult who wants an elective procedure like sterilization when they wouldn’t go through the same huge effort to convince someone not to get breast implants.

20

Well, first of all, it is not possible to give a flat rate for what it costs to bring up a kid.

I could argue all KINDS of things are necessary to bring up a kid, and just because YOU don’t need them to bring up YOURS doesn’t mean I don’t need them… you get the picture?

Furthermore, some places are more expensive to live than others. Are the courts going to start mandating where you can live? “No, you should raise your children down in Cheapsborough, where you will pay less in rent. Yes, it means commuting to work, but our team of crack accountants have figured out that you’ll save money in the long run…”

I’m kind of curious, though, about all these places where the state just takes your money and keeps it.

My wife went through this with her first husband. He, by the way, is a textbook deadbeat dad, except that instead of making zillions and squirrelling it away, he’d just quit his job and go live with any relative who’d take him when paying child support got too onerous.

This led to some stiff situations for my wife and daughter. The government did pay them, in the form of food stamps and suchlike, for quite some time, but it was made clear that this was NOT “welfare,” because my wife did not qualify, even as a single mom working an hourly-wage job. This is Texas, you see, where generations of politicians have made careers out of vilifying the poor.

The upshot was this: every cent in food stamps and assistance my wife ever got was charged to a sort of account kept by the state. Her ex-husband is now responsible for paying off that account. Altogether, he owes some $30,000, I think, partly to my wife, and partly to the state. The state gets their cut first, of course.

Does EVERY state work it this way? Or what the hell? I mean, I understand the idea of “administrative costs,” but certainly, the welfare of the children in question takes precedence over paying off a buncha civil servants, yes?