There’s a thread in IMHO titled ‘Deadbeat Dads’. The poster who originated it does appear like she is having a serious dilemma with her ex husband, but I’m not here to comment on her situation one way or the other. What has set me off is the title of the thread. She could have called it something else to describe what she needed to say, but no, the popular buzzword ‘Deadbeat Dads’ was chosen and this just fucking pisses me off.
Why ? Because this term bandied about all over the place, and all it serves to do is portray the man as the complete asshole in any and all divorced with children stories. You’ve seen it, the ‘Deadbeat Dad’ top ten list in the newspapers, and hell, the local TV news team will set up a task force to expose the ‘Deadbeat Dad’ and try to make themselves feel good about what they’ve done.
In a few of these cases they may have had a point. Situations do exist where a man clearly walked out on his family because he was an idiot. What is missing here, and what has me doing a pit post is the complete lack of anything describing the other side of the story. Is there such a thing as a ‘Deadbeat Mom’ ? I ain’t heard of it.
Where are the exposés of the wife who after many years of marriage and children decided that she’s ‘just not in love anymore’, takes up with someone else, gets the kids, house, and car in the divorce, then has the nerve to be pissed because the ex isn’t financially supporting this bullshit. There is no coverage of these stories, because it just ain’t politically correct. This flat out fucking sucks.
I have a friend who is in the situation of having to send ex wife almost a grand a month to support her, her boyfriend who can’t hold a job, and the kids in what used to be his home. If he doesn’t make the payment he becomes a ‘Deadbeat Dad’. Just try to tell me how fucking right that is. My situation isn’t quite that bad but still 2 years after the divorce my ex still has the ability to destroy my credit and generally fuck around with anything listed in the divorce decree, which screws me, but if I fail to live up to my end of the decree I become a ‘Deadbeat Dad’.
There are legions of free agencies out there to help the woman if the man screws up, but if it’s the other way around, the man can be looking at least a grand in legal fees just to get started.
In the divorce culture that has been created, which I do believe started at the roots of some psycho feminism movement, the man is always in the wrong. Just go to court over a divorce and you’ll see what I mean.
Fuck it,
I’m out.
Kip
You’re right, Kip. In part. Yes, mothers tend to get the benefit of the doubt more than fathers. Yes, mothers are more likely to gain custody than fathers (although that’s changing, thank ghod).
But . . . if a mother is granted custody, and if the father is ordered to pay support, and if that father does not pay support in a timely manner or at all, then what else to call him but a deadbeat?
Uhm…
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=55890
Thanks for that though, next time my niece is crying because her Dad’s a drunk bum i’ll be sure to tell her it’s ok, some people’s mom’s are mean too. That should make a shitload of a lot of sence to a 4 year old.
What the fuck are you accomplishing with this fool? Maybe start a thread about dead beat mothers to give the other side of the story your self? Fuck you, i’ve got a jackass for a father my self and it’s fools like you defending him that brought us to court last fall.
Poor you.
Sorry. i shouldn’t post when i’m pissed off.
There ARE cases of Deadbeat moms. And I find them a zillion times more disgusting and horrid than men who desert their kids.
You dont hear much about them, because there isnt many. And women mostly get custody because they always have. That doesnt make it right, but that IS how it IS.
My cousin Troy has a son with his ex, he wants custody because she is a flake who totally neglects the baby - but he cant get it. Why? He isnt fit ro raise a child - she isnt either, but she gets him because she is the mom. YES! It SUCKS!
I dont use the term ‘deadbeat’ casually( I prefer ‘absentee parent’). I wouldnt use it for a man who is late a few times, or cant pay his support. Not if they still see the kid. Support and Custody are two entirely different things. A man who supports his kid emotionally is NOT a deadbeat.
A deadbeat is one who is utterly worthless. Who splits, fleeing his responsibilities financially, and denying his children a father.
Mojo, you arent a deadbeat. In my book, you are a fucking saint. I cant argue with anything you said. Its a sexist world. It used to be a woman couldnt leave her husband no matter what the circumstances, and if she did, she lost her kids. That was horribly wrong!!
But you are right - this is no better.
Upham, bud! In no way was my post a defence to your niece’s dad! That was not the point I was making at all.
Please reread. I hope I didn’t come off that incoherantly.
Alright, I posted in the other thread with one side of my life. Would you like to hear the other?
My husband has a daughter that we pay for, and see every chance we get. The four parents get along wonderfully.
Now, I know you are wondering what my point is here.
Well, my husbands support was set while he was in the service. $302 a month at the 3rd of the month. Now, he is out and working a regular job. We are two weeks late since he is a roofer and had two weeks off in the winter. They take that out of unemployment so the payment gets made either way.
We get a statement saying that now they are going to increase his payments from work since he is two weeks late until we catch up. Nevermind that unemployment just caught it up, or that we have been paying an extra $5 a week over the year so this wouldn’t happen.
Meanwhile my sons father can make a payment once every 90 days and they do nothing since he met the deadline.
So in essence, my husbands ex will get extra from work, a check from unemployment, and probably our state income tax.
Sorry, nothing we can do for you folks, that is just the way it goes. It’s not our fault we weren’t keeping up on our records.
And as for deadbeat moms, yes there are many. They actually have pictures of them too in our local Child Support Recovery.
It is very shitty and wrong that the system is slanted towards women. Like I said I am living both ends of the spectrum here. Paying support and recieving.
They actually told my husband that he could not look into his case since it had nothing to do with him. His reply was “No wonder you sit behind three inches of bullet resistant glass”. Yeah, honey I am sure that didn’t help our case. But I don’t blame him a bit.
I somewhat agree with the OP in that yes there the fathers that do pay payments and may make one or two late ones in a year. Those shouldn’t get the term deadbeat dad applied to them. On the other hand like my dad who ran out on my mom sister and I leaving my mother with about $3000 in unpaid bills is a complete fucking waste of space. He’s worked every day since he left in October and has yet to pay a dime in child support. So fare he owes well over $6000 that he’ll never catch up on just because he simply doesn’t give a fuck. My sister cannot go to school my mom may loss her job and all that’ll happen to that asshole is he’ll get a slap on the wrist by going to jail for a few days then he’ll get out and the whole cycle will start over again. In this situation yes he is a deadbeat dad. You have to think about it though I mean like I said if they try then they are trying but if they just don’t care they should have much harsher penalties for them.
I agree that the term “deadbeat dad” is misleading and insulting in that it’s gender specific. There are deadbeat parents, more’s the pity, but it sure isn’t limited to men by any means. I suspect it’s partly a media thing: the alliteration is just catchy enough to make a nice sound byte. Along w/ all the sterotypes etc. mentioned before; don’t mean to dismiss 'em. Trying to keep this somewhat short and readable.
Anecdotes abound, but I know a few women with the maternal instincts of spiders who nonetheless have custody and all the automatic sympathy and support that goes with it. It’s wrong. One, a professional victim, warped her daughter into total dependency. The day the daugher turned 21 and all avenues of support were cut off, she jettisioned the girl like dirty laundry. It’s obscene.
Of course I know a few men who brag about “getting around” even basic child support, too. (One is flat-out RICH. I can hardly bear being in the same room with him.) I’m trying to help a great, 13-yr.old buddy come to terms realizing his dad can afford expensive new cars but gets angry that a rapidly-growing boy needs new clothes frequently.
I quite honestly don’t know what the answers might be, or how best to go about making changes. I want laws equalized but not necessarily made easier. No matter what, the children are the ones in need of protection. But family laws are so tricky. If they’re too punitive they can work to estrange parents from kids even more, e.g. parent hits financial difficulty, can’t pay, the law serves as a wedge to widen the gap. On the other hand, too many deadbeats of both genders exploit loopholes and leave kids w/o basic support.
This isn’t a STATEMENT; it’s muddling-through-the-problem.
Veb
Mojo It’s good man, sorry. Like i said i shouldn’t post when i’m pissed off cause i usually end up saying something like that.
Deadbeat Parents PERIOD piss me off hardcore (looked after an 11 year old who’s mother had left him on the side of the road at the age of 8) once, and other cases like his. It’ll sour you on some things.
Anyway man, no hard feelings.
Although I grew up the son of what was truly a “Deadbeat Dad” by anybody’s definition so far on this thread, I still agree with the OP. For some reason sexism doesn’t exist when it favors women.
Now what we need is one of those feminists so prevalent in other forums to get on here and announce that our entire society “is designed to give power to men and hold women down.” Yeah, right. I, for one, think we men have sat idly by and taken this crap for far too long. I have nothing against women like kellibelli, who admit there are injustices in the system that can and are abused by either gender. But I refuse to be made to feel party to some kind of vague “injustice” perpetrated by my gender as a whole.
I applaud you Mojo Jojo for confronting this shit head-on and telling it like it is. More men need to do that. As kellibelli said, “it IS how it IS,” but it won’t be forever if we don’t stand for it.
::waves politely::
If it helps–probably won’t; no reason that it should–an unapologetic feminist DID respond: me. Look, feminism is no more proof against idioicy and excess than any point of view. I still hold to the belief that celebation of differences is wonderful but imposed limitations based on gender are wrong. It means it equal responsibility as well as equal horizons. Basic fairness and accountability for all–that’s all.
I won’t and can’t get huffy over people who resent feminism. It’s been warped, contorted and mangled into some pretty disgusting shapes by some of its most vocal “proponents”. But the simple principle still holds: men and women are indivisibly human. Sexism–no matter which way it’s applied–degrades and belittles half the damned human race.
Then again I’m an “old feminist” who insists the main principle is the right and obligation for women to fight and heard–fairly–on any injustice.
Veb
If I didn’t quote you or mention you by name, than so far I don’t include you in the category of feminists who piss me off. Your posts show that you are NOT one of the people I’m talking about. Unapologetic feminism doesn’t bother me-it’s people who try to gain legal advantages for women at male expense under the guise of “feminism” that raise my ire. Being heard fairly is not objectionable at all. Besides, how could I possibly get angry at somebody who waves so politely? 
I think what many radical feminists fail to realize is that they are hurting their own cause-distancing ordinary women and embittering many men who might have been allies under different circumstances. This thread is exhibit A.
My dad is a deadbeat. Mom divorced him because he would go out for cigarettes and be gone weeks and then call home in a drunken stupor asking her to pick up and move to whatever state he woke up in.
He had three children he was responsible for. By the time the last one hit 18 years of age, he was over 80 grand behind in child support, and that doesn’t cover what he was behind in alimony. Mom worked her fingers to the bone to provide for kids, making sure they had what they needed.
Next to the definition of ‘deadbeat’ in the dictionary, there should be a picture of my father.
Sexism does exsist in the system we’ve even had a poster here mention that “deadbeat moms” are worse than deadbeat dads. Why I don’t know? Perhaps it’s because for so many years society allowed a man to walk away from one family and start another without very many consequences. Even if a judge did award child support there was little or no way to enforce it. But let a woman abandon her children, she was a bitch, a slut, a no good whore. Please do not tell me that we are all so progressive here as to actually think that the woman does not hold more responsibility for child rearing than the man. You know that maternal instinct shit and all. Absolutely it is true, BOTH parents are responsible for the financial, physical, emotional, etc. upbringing of the child. But for the most part society still clings to the belief that this burden should be borne more heavily by the woman.
Let’s take a little poll just here in SDMB. How many of you here grew up with a “deadbeat mom”? How many a “deadbeat dad”?
Sorry but I’ve gotta put my name in the dad column.
Needs2know
deadbeat dad checking in.
After I left my ex (she was very abusive) she decided to spend the rest of her life gaining revenge on me.
One of her tactics was to take me back to court for more child support. I was already paying three times what the last judgement called for, but apparently, it wasn’t enough.
Soooo… off to court we go. I needed legal aid because I couldn’t afford an actual real lawyer, but she makes allegations that I’m making all kinds of money and my legal aid gets yanked. I get to represent myself.
Long story short - my support payments were set at about 4x my entire income. Cunt ex has been on welfare for almost a decade now. (with my son in gov subsidized daycare since day 1) So who’s the deadbeat?
I’m so far behind it’s gone beyond not being funny and is back at being, in all actuality, quite fucking hilarious.
So I’m with you Mojo and I’m going to go check that thread in IMHO. I’ll probably end up back in here with a bitch or two.
Needs said:
[QUOTE]
Please do not tell me that we are all so progressive here as to actually think that the woman does not hold more responsibility for child rearing than the man. You know that maternal instinct shit and all. Absolutely it is true, BOTH parents are responsible for the financial, physical, emotional, etc. upbringing of the child. But for the most part society still clings to the belief that this burden should be borne more heavily by the woman.[/QUOTE}
Response: Mothers and fathers play important, albeit separate, roles to child care. The mother is equipped with breasts for which to feed the child. Biologically, she is equipped to nourish her children. The maternal instinct is very real, is it not?
The bond for the father should be just as strong. However, I think you can reason that, since a mother was built to nourish, the responsibility of men is to provide security and bring home the bacon . Saying this, I must disclose that we bottle-feed our little one, and I feed her every night and share the responsibility on the weekend. It’s possible that these roles can be shared by each partner.
If you aren’t there for your children, however, you’re not playing any role. I hate selfish people, who break up their families by cheating or deciding I’m no longer in love now. You’ve got kids, then you’ve got responsibilities you need to tend to. Think of your child first.
FTR, I have no deadbeat mom or dad (they were far from perfect, but they were there, if you needed them or not). However, my biological father left my mom when he found out she was pregnant. They weren’t married. What a man. I’m glad I don’t know him. My mom married a guy who wasn’t father of the year, but he was a provider, and he was always there. I can truly say I’m lucky, reading all these posts.
I posted in the other thread also…my son’s dad is (was) an absentee, deadbeat, bad example of a human being. He lived in utter poverty because he was too lazy to work, but made his last wife work and hand over all the money to him to feed his drug habit, and belittled her constantly, and beat the mothers of his children. I mean, deadbeat is too kind for him. He’s dead now, and I don’t think anyone really misses him.
The fallout from the way this guy conducted himself is heartbreaking. The last wife is in and out of jail for everything from drug trafficking to (brace yourselves) burying an ax in her abusive boyfriend’s face. She only dates guys who are in and out of jail themselves, lost custody of her son, and hasn’t made any effort whatsoever to get him back or even contribute to his support (her sister has legal custody of him).
The ex’s first wife did it right. She persuaded him to give up parental rights and her new husband adopted his daughters. They dropped by the hospital to say goodbye when he was dying, but they addressed him by his name rather than “dad.” And rightly so.
I agree that not all deadbeats are men, but the vast majority are! The harm this does to everyone is devastating.
I’m in no way defending deadbeat dads, but c’mon. A woman this fucked up can hardly just blame her ex for it.
Here I go, following up on my OP….
I was half expecting to get flamed for it because I wrote it in such a pissed off mood. I’m feeling much better know, thankyewverymuch ! I appreciate all of the responses so far (except for yours Upham!
) and I wished to add a few more thoughts.
The Deadbeat Dad stereotype must die! I should use this as my sig. My belief in this is the reason for me posting on the subject of divorce to the board whose purpose is to fight ignorance.
Deadbeat Dads do exist, make no mistake, a few people reading this have experienced the hell of this as a child, and my heart goes out to you. What ire’s me is that many people believe the Deadbeat Dad scenario is the norm, which in my opinion is an unfounded belief based in nothing more than prejudice. In saying this I admit, I cannot provide any statistical facts that most of the divorced dads are not deadbeats, but I defy anyone to come up with hard evidence to say that most of the dads are deadbeats, because it can not possibly exist. Sure, one could come up with ‘out of X number of divorces, X amount of dads aren’t making their payments’, but that comes nowhere close to telling the true story.
For one, why is it expected, that in any divorce, dad makes payments? Mom is just, if not more so, capable of destroying the family, and in my life experience this has been the norm. So why does dad wind up paying for a situation that he didn’t bargain for. Let me put this scenario to you, dad has just been put through the shredder, being betrayed by the person he cared for the most in the whole world, is faced with the reality that he will no longer be able to interact with his children as a true parent, and is being slammed by a court system that demands he live as a pauper supporting his wife, her new love interest, and his children in what used to be his home. This happens folks! A LOT ! Again I’m just speaking of my life experiences here but this scenario has been closer to the norm. Let’s compound this scenario by having the mom in this scenario drill it in to her children’s heads what a low life, loser ass, sorry sumbitch that their dad is. And ya know what’s evil? This dad is now a deadbeat. This is not a justification, but perhaps a reason that dads bail out and you never see them again, simple self preservation.
Divorce can be the most mind scrambling, screwed up, out of control experiences in any ones life. I read on the net somewhere that it rates second to the death of a loved one in the most stressful life experiences a person can have. I’ve dealt with both and I dispute that. Divorce is #1, and it’s not an experience I recommend for anyone, ever.
Just as a side note, my situation is not as bad as the scenario I described here. In fact, I should count myself lucky. It cost me damn near everything I had, but in spite of all the bullshit I managed a shared parenting agreement. In practice, I actually spend more time with my daughter than my ex wife does, due to her hobby of periodically getting the shit beat out of her by the new boyfriend. This is definitely a shitty situation for my baby but one does what one has to do.
Enough for now, thanks for all of your input.
G’nite, I’m out.
Kip