Deadbeat Dads and daughters

[EsotericEnigma]

I don’t have a personal stake in this topic, having no children of my own. I do have a couple things to say though, as an aside to the OP’s personal situation.

Any system which provides no checks or balances on how legally forced money is used is broken. Plain and simple. That has nothing to do with deadbeat dads or irresponsible mothers. Broken.

There are hundreds upon thousands of stories of mothers who fight and win child support to care for their child(ren). What we don’t hear too much are the stories of women going after rich men and purposefully trying to get pregnant to ensure a higher quality of living for themselves without working. There are stories of women using their child support for irresponsible things like gambling, drugs, or just plain old recreational stuff. Where’s the outrage about any of this?

Here’s how I think, bulleted for those with a shorter attention span.

٠Child support should be paid in instances where the mother needs it and the father has abandoned the relationship. It should be legally forced. There should be a check to ensure the money is spent properly.

٠Child support shouldn’t be forced if the mother has dissllowed all contact from the father. Child support should not be retroactive to birth if the mother demands it a significant amount of time later.

٠The system should be updated regularly to ensure that a father isn’t paying too much or too little, depending on new circumstances.

٠If the mother remarries and enters into a stable and successful relationship and can afford to support the child to a reasonable standard, child support shouldn’t be legally forced. If the father attempts to be in the child’s life, he should be forced to pay.

I’m not sure any of this is necessarily shocking, nor do I think it’s unreasonable. Are there arguments to this sort of stuff?

This isn’t a perfect system and too often it’s abused to hurt one side or the other. Any system that allows this to happen is a broken system, period. I understand that’s an extreme example and that it’s a rare case, but that doesn’t make it any less atrocious and horrific. This system IS being abused, and it IS broken, and it NEEDS fixing.

[Kalhoun]

@cosmosdan

Thanks for this perspective. My daughter lives many states and many miles away from her ex now. He calls occasionally and once in a blue moon sends money. Doesn’t usually remember birthday or Christmas. He talked for months about an airline ticket that never materialized. My daughter is willing to let him see his daughter but he whines, “gee there’s nothing interesting to do there” meaning that seeing his own daughter isn’t enough motivation. I do think she’s concerned about what visitation rights he might have and enforce if she got child support. Personally I think he would threaten but ultimately do nothing because he’s just too fucking selfish to actually want any responsibility for a child.
The most recent time I asked her about this she told me she knew he would try and make her life miserable if she filed for support. He did that when she still lived in tha same state as him. I told her to stop putting up with his shit and file a restraining order. She never would. I think he had emotionally browbeat her to the point where she was afraid to make him angry. But jeez, it’s been 4 years now and shes a couple of thousand miles away. What can he do? If she doesn’t want to she doesn’t have to ever talk to that fucker again. It blows my mind that she may feel obligated to listen to his shit because he fathered her child.

Oh, and he has a decent job and makes more money than her. He might decide to go underground and work under the table if she went after him but I don’t fucking care. Take the steps you need to take and see what happens. My granddaughter deserves it.

I’m very concerned about her emotional health because she not only tolerated the abusive father of her daughter but now she is accepting another deadbeat Dad as a boyfriend and making excuses for his behavior and enabling his complete lack of being a responsible adult male. Sigh!!
When I go to visit in a few weeks I’ll have a heart to heart talk with her and her boyfriend but ultimately there’s nothing I can do but try and encourage her and continue to give her emotional support.

I know {and you certainly know} that being a single mom must seem like an insurmountable mountain of problems at times. I suspect she feels totally trapped with no way to climb out of her situation. I think she’s scared of dealing with so much responsibility alone and is excusing this new boyfriends bad behavior to fend off that fear. She has freinds and family that are willing to help if she just musters a little determination and direction. Dam… she’s an adult now, but she’s still my little girl. … what’s a Dad to do. We’ll see what this visit brings I guess.
btw, It’s nice to read your input on something not quite so adversarial.

Heh-heh…it’s almost like I have a real life, right?

One thing I was very conscious of was letting my kid decide for himself if his dad was an asshole. Regardless of how irresponsible or bad or whatever, this guy is still the father. Calling him “bad” or “garbage” or what have you…is essentially calling the kid the same thing (in the child’s eyes). They are a part of that person and the connection is often made in their young minds that they can’t be any good if half their genetic make-up isn’t any good.

Let him be the asshole he is. The truth will make itself apparent eventually. The act of living (mostly) separately from Kid Kalhoun’s dad, in my opinion, created a psychological disconnect that was more valuable than any pittance he would have given us in child support.

Your daughter may take a while to see the light, but she will. I advise against saying anything to the boyfriend. She’s with him because she feels some sort of love/loyalty/whatever for him. This will not bode well for you; I can almost guarantee it. If you want to say something to your daughter, choose your words carefully. She’s an adult and regardless of your love for her and the granddaughter, this is none of your business. It’s hard to watch…I know. But you don’t want to risk your relationship with her. If you need to vent, well…that’s what we’re here for!

[Kalhoun]

@Mosier

I’m not even blaming him for having that reaction, either. We’re all conditioned to think of child support as a way to punish someone, but when it gets suggested that MAYBE we ought to think of some different criteria to validate child support laws there’s no end to the people who want to call me a heartless jackass.

I’ve never considered child support as a punishment and I don’t think most people do, either. I think of it as a prerequisite of good parenting. Nothing more, nothing less. How could a man look his children in the eye after not bothering to provide adequately for their non-emotional needs?

Exactly what would that different criteria be? Seriously…I’d like some examples of how you’d like to see the child support system play out.

[Kalhoun]

@EsotericEnigma

There are hundreds upon thousands of stories of mothers who fight and win child support to care for their child(ren). What we don’t hear too much are the stories of women going after rich men and purposefully trying to get pregnant to ensure a higher quality of living for themselves without working. There are stories of women using their child support for irresponsible things like gambling, drugs, or just plain old recreational stuff. Where’s the outrage about any of this?

None of these stories are the norm. These are reprehensible women, for sure. But you can’t equate those numbers with the number of men who abandon their children. I think these women are discussed publicly in proportion to their numbers, but they’re insignificant compared to the number of men who don’t contribute.

Here’s how I think, bulleted for those with a shorter attention span.

٠Child support should be paid in instances where the mother needs it and the father has abandoned the relationship. It should be legally forced. There should be a check to ensure the money is spent properly.

I disagree. It should be paid whether she needs it or not. It’s simple: you are responsible for part of the financial support of your children. Do you think Reese Witherspoon isn’t entitled to child support from her soon-to-be ex? She doesn’t need it. The father abandoning the relationship is immaterial.

٠Child support shouldn’t be forced if the mother has dissllowed all contact from the father. Child support should not be retroactive to birth if the mother demands it a significant amount of time later.

Disagree again. There may be good reason that the mother doesn’t want the father to be around the children. That doesn’t mean the children don’t need or deserve the money. Now, if the mother is going against court-ordered visitation, the father needs to take her to court. That’s a separate issue from whether or not the children deserve to be supported. You’re targeting the wrong people in your argument.

٠The system should be updated regularly to ensure that a father isn’t paying too much or too little, depending on new circumstances.

Either party is allowed to go to court to discuss adjustments to child support. This rule has been in place forever.

٠If the mother remarries and enters into a stable and successful relationship and can afford to support the child to a reasonable standard, child support shouldn’t be legally forced. If the father attempts to be in the child’s life, he should be forced to pay.

If the new man adopts the children, they are his legal responsibility. This cannot be done without the father’s consent (except if the father has lost parental rights already). Until they are legally not his children, he has to pay. Period.

I’m not sure any of this is necessarily shocking, nor do I think it’s unreasonable. Are there arguments to this sort of stuff?

This isn’t a perfect system and too often it’s abused to hurt one side or the other. Any system that allows this to happen is a broken system, period. I understand that’s an extreme example and that it’s a rare case, but that doesn’t make it any less atrocious and horrific. This system IS being abused, and it IS broken, and it NEEDS fixing.

I think you need to re-think your plan here. It’s putting the children on the back burner at every turn.

[Kalhoun]

There are, indeed some injustices in the child support system. For instance, we had a real heartbreaking thread by a poster whose child cut him out of her life, yet the courts forced him to provide an IVY LEAGUE education rather than just a “good” education at a state school. He was living in near-poverty, as I recall, so that he could meet his obligation. There’s something wrong with that picture.

I wonder how that turned out…

[MissTake]

WRT the comments about pursuing child support when then noncustodial parent is not a good human - all states have something akin to “Good Cause”. If a parent feels that pursuing child support could cause harm to either the parent or the child, s/he files Good Cause and the agency stops attempting to pursue support. In most cases there has to be proof of possible problems - restraining orders, supporting affidavits, that kind of thing. It’s not uncommon.

As to the ability to easily collect support through an employer - this requires a few things. The noncustodial parent would need to contact the agency to state where s/he is employed. Sounds pretty simple. In fact, all court orders here require people to contact us when anything changes. Do you think clients do? The states have whats called New Hire Reporting - if the employer has more than a certain number of employees they are required to report all new hires to the state within a certain amount of time. Great if the noncustodial parent works at 3M or Target. Not great if s/he works at Fred’s House O’Meat. Add to that, many noncustodial parents who are reluctant to pay quit once they realize we’ve found them.

Oh, and add timeframes allowed statutorily for withholding, it’s easily 45 - 60 days before the agency sees any payments once we do actually find out a noncustodial parents is working and we issue the income withholding order. Not exactly speedy. I won’t even get in to the employers who do not want to income withhold.

And with regards to the call that custodial parents need to show proof of where the child support is going… yanno, I’ve heard that so many times. It’s NOT possible. Every court in the country is backed up (FWIW, cases I’m filing now have hearings in NOVEMBER). Thanks to BushieBoy, funding for agencies all across the nation is being cut drastically. Some states have privatized collections, but then the costs of running those agencies comes out of the parents’ pockets. Shoot, as a state agency we’re now collecting a 1% fee on every payment that comes through. We have to otherwise we wouldn’t exist. It sucks, and we didn’t want to do it, but when we already have caseload of over 350 and knowing that if we have to cut employees it would rise to well over 600 cases per worker - well service would really go down the toilet.

Sorry, bit of a tangent there. What I’m trying to say is that to have the county agency or the courts review the WalMart receipt showing that the custodial parent bought Johnny Johnson’s Baby Shampoo rather than the cheaper Suave and DAMMIT shampoo is shampoo and YOU use Suave and it’s good enough for you so it should be good enough for little Johnny - there would have to be thousands of court officers hired, courtrooms built, county attorneys hired, child support worker hired… it’s just not possible. And a tad draconian.

[Malthus]

Seems to me that there are generally two things wrong with the system.

1. The system appears to force the custodial parent (usually moms) to jump through time-consuming bureaucratic hoops to collect their child’s rightful support. Many simply can’t spare the time away from other pressing responsibilities - working single moms simply cannot take a day off every month to apply for enforcement. So the deadbeat wins through inertia.

2. The system creates a moral hazard at the other end. The money is supposed to be child support. However, it is often very difficult to determine whether it actually goes towards the child. This is a legitimate concern; while the non-custodial parent has a moral responsibility to support their child, they certainly have none to (say) support their child’s parent’s gambling habit. On the other hand, few working parents have the time to construct an elaborate budget, seperating out what goes to the child’s expenses and what goes to theirs.

To my mind, a solution would be to create some presumptions.

1. Presume that no child support payment is voluntary; set up a system of automatic garnishment of wages or the like. Have a judicial application process by which the non-custodial parent payor can apply to have the order lifted, citing relevant evidence, on notice to the custodial parent.

2. Presume that the money will be spent in the best interest of the child; however, have an application process by which the non-custodial parent can apply, citing relevant evidence, on notice to the custodial parent, to have the money paid into a trust fund for only cetain specified expenses.

In this way, the difficulty of collection is somewhat removed from the non-custodial parent and the possibility of moral hazard is somewhat addressed.

[stretch]

@MissTake

WRT the comments about pursuing child support when then noncustodial parent is not a good human - all states have something akin to “Good Cause”. If a parent feels that pursuing child support could cause harm to either the parent or the child, s/he files Good Cause and the agency stops attempting to pursue support. In most cases there has to be proof of possible problems - restraining orders, supporting affidavits, that kind of thing. It’s not uncommon.

As to the ability to easily collect support through an employer - this requires a few things. The noncustodial parent would need to contact the agency to state where s/he is employed. Sounds pretty simple. In fact, all court orders here require people to contact us when anything changes. Do you think clients do? The states have whats called New Hire Reporting - if the employer has more than a certain number of employees they are required to report all new hires to the state within a certain amount of time. Great if the noncustodial parent works at 3M or Target. Not great if s/he works at Fred’s House O’Meat. Add to that, many noncustodial parents who are reluctant to pay quit once they realize we’ve found them.

Oh, and add timeframes allowed statutorily for withholding, it’s easily 45 - 60 days before the agency sees any payments once we do actually find out a noncustodial parents is working and we issue the income withholding order. Not exactly speedy. I won’t even get in to the employers who do not want to income withhold.

And with regards to the call that custodial parents need to show proof of where the child support is going… yanno, I’ve heard that so many times. It’s NOT possible. Every court in the country is backed up (FWIW, cases I’m filing now have hearings in NOVEMBER). Thanks to BushieBoy, funding for agencies all across the nation is being cut drastically. Some states have privatized collections, but then the costs of running those agencies comes out of the parents’ pockets. Shoot, as a state agency we’re now collecting a 1% fee on every payment that comes through. We have to otherwise we wouldn’t exist. It sucks, and we didn’t want to do it, but when we already have caseload of over 350 and knowing that if we have to cut employees it would rise to well over 600 cases per worker - well service would really go down the toilet.

Sorry, bit of a tangent there. What I’m trying to say is that to have the county agency or the courts review the WalMart receipt showing that the custodial parent bought Johnny Johnson’s Baby Shampoo rather than the cheaper Suave and DAMMIT shampoo is shampoo and YOU use Suave and it’s good enough for you so it should be good enough for little Johnny - there would have to be thousands of court officers hired, courtrooms built, county attorneys hired, child support worker hired… it’s just not possible. And a tad draconian.

I want to applaud your posts in this thread. And say 350 cases? You’re so lucky! mr.stretch quit working WA support enforcement 2 years ago and at that time he had 670 cases. During most of the time he worked there he was in the top three collectors for his office, both in actual dollars and in percentage of paying non-custodial parents (NCP). The secret to his sucess? Treating the NCP as a human being and working with that person to the extent possible. He’d have people come up to the counter mad as hell, but walking out the door thanking him for all his help. A few months ago he got a call telling him he’d collected another $15k; something he started before he left finally got resolved and went under his stats. The office was joking that mr.stretch was still one of the highest collectors and he isn’t even working anymore.

[MissTake]

@stretch

I want to applaud your posts in this thread. And say 350 cases? You’re so lucky! mr.stretch quit working WA support enforcement 2 years ago and at that time he had 670 cases. During most of the time he worked there he was in the top three collectors for his office, both in actual dollars and in percentage of paying non-custodial parents (NCP). The secret to his sucess? Treating the NCP as a human being and working with that person to the extent possible. He’d have people come up to the counter mad as hell, but walking out the door thanking him for all his help. A few months ago he got a call telling him he’d collected another $15k; something he started before he left finally got resolved and went under his stats. The office was joking that mr.stretch was still one of the highest collectors and he isn’t even working anymore.

Thanks. My caseload is entirely where the person who was ordered to pay support has not done so (willingly or unwillingly) in over 4 months. There are 27 of us who have “nonpaying” cases. The case managers with “paying cases” average over 500 cases each. Disclaimer: these are only cases where support has been set either through paternity orders or divorce decrees. I have NO cases where there is not an order. I also do not have back support only cases. Those workers average over 1000 cases each. Pretty sad to try and collect support when the kid on the case is your same age.

Ideally, I don’t want a caseload at all. I want all my guys and gals to either pay what has already been ordered, or to obtain a workable order and start paying. I too try to look at my job as a social service, not as a collection agency. I do walk clients through the court system. I do make “deals” to coerce payment. I will spend considerable time trying to explain how we work. Sometimes it’s futile. There is too much anger between the parties and support is spite.

I’ve also had some boon payments - and while wonderful, I would MUCH rather have my clients pay in a full and timely manner. It’s not uncommon to tell clients that we greatly appreciate them paying every third month (to stave off license suspension), their kids probably would like food every month. Electricity every month.

I understand that everyone knows of a case gone bad. Heck, my daughter’s godfather lost his house due to child support. I hear DAILY “Why should I pay? She’s just gonna buy bonbons and sit on her ass”. It’s not a perfect system. No one who works in it would claim it to be. Every congressional session some chowderhead comes up with a brilliant idea how to make us more efficient / lovable / profitable. Laws change. We change. Public hates (cuz it’s not as if “normal” people have any say in it). Next session, realizing they screwed up, or some lawmaker has a brother of a cousin three times removed who KNOWS someone who used child support to build a fountain in the living with HIS support and has a bug up his ass about it they change the laws again.

It’s NOT the agency. It’s the courts. It’s your representatives. It’s the federal government. Not Joe Schmoe (or MissTake) answering the phones, meeting with you, trying to work you through the system that you should take your vitriol out on.

[elbows]

Dead beat dads and daughters.

Hmm. Well I didn’t read your OP to open a discussion of how awful it is when Dad’s don’t pay. Or a discussion of how I have been a good paying Dad, have a righteous reason, blah, blah.

We get it. You’re not one of those, and we all agree those who won’t pay are retched imbeciles.

But back to what real ‘deadbeats’ are. Guys that don’t see their kids. Or consider having them in the house while they work or watch tv to be raising them.

Daughters missing fathers in their lives (even though they may be physically present) impact them in disasterous ways. Witness all the women who cannot resist terrible partners, one after another. Abusive, bullies, assholes etc. You’re right to think their is a connection, I believe.

If a daughter doesn’t have a father in her life (‘in’ as in, connected, interactive, interested) she never experiences what that one on one love and adoration from a man feels like. Girls need to know they are worth that, it becomes very important as they mature. If the father loves and emotes that love, interacts with and respects his daughter she will almost always demand the same from her partners, poor teenage bad boy choices notwithstanding.

But for a teenage girl who has never experienced the heat of that one on one love and devotion/adoration from a man, her first experience with it hits her brain like crack. It’s a feeling she has never known or felt anything like. There is literally nothing she won’t tolerate to keep that light shining on her, even if only for intermittent moments between chaos and dysfunction.

Add into the mix that many single Mom’s are understandably seeking partners, dating etc. And doing what women do to attract male attention. Pretty easily the daughter gets the idea that it’s an important component of being a woman, the power to attract a man. It’s develops undue importance in the not yet fully developed mind of a teenager.

Also add in that she was traumatized by her mother not have the father anymore - for whatever reason. She is trying to walk the walk, as a child she may have unknowingly promised herself, on some level that when she gets a man she won’t let him get away - no matter what.

Of course my take on the discussion you were interested in could be all wrong, apologies.

We return you to, 'Well I pay my part!"

[Kalhoun]

@elbows

If a daughter doesn’t have a father in her life (‘in’ as in, connected, interactive, interested) she never experiences what that one on one love and adoration from a man feels like. Girls need to know they are worth that, it becomes very important as they mature. If the father loves and emotes that love, interacts with and respects his daughter she will almost always demand the same from her partners, poor teenage bad boy choices notwithstanding.

But for a teenage girl who has never experienced the heat of that one on one love and devotion/adoration from a man, her first experience with it hits her brain like crack. It’s a feeling she has never known or felt anything like. There is literally nothing she won’t tolerate to keep that light shining on her, even if only for intermittent moments between chaos and dysfunction.

Okay…your wording is creeping me out here. You are talking about a healthy father/daughter relationship with words like “adoration” and “heat” and “one on one love and devotion/adoration” and that’s simply not the kind of fatherly attention that makes a woman pick the right partner. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that a daughter who receives that kind of attention will pick the wrong guy every time. If she’s capable of a normal relationship at all.

Eeeew.

[OneCentStamp]

@elbows

But back to what real ‘deadbeats’ are. Guys that don’t see their kids. Or consider having them in the house while they work or watch tv to be raising them.

I agree that this is an equally important part of a parent’s duty to their children.

[cosmosdan]

@Mosier

We’re reading the same thread. I’ve seen too many “stick it to him! loser deadbeats!” replies to count.

I don’t think you have. Nobody is asking for fathers to be punished mercilessly. we’re asking for fathers to live up, voluntarily, to their moral obligations. No one has to be sued and pursued for CS if they cooperate. I think we’re talking more about guys who by their own choice seek to avoid their responsibility. There are formulas in place to determine how must CS a man must pay based on his income vs hers. They are not intended to be punitive but rather tough but fair. I noticed that while you rail against the system and irresponsible mothers you haven’t acknowledged that there are plenty of men out there who run and hide and do everything they can to not pay for their own child.

The mothers aren’t getting a dime from the fathers. That can’t be debated, and I’ll definitely accept it as truth. What nobody seems to be asking is “why not?” A simple court order, a phone call, and a few faxed documents to a guy’s place of employment ends up with automatic deductions from his paychecks. A guy can not be legally employed without paying child support, if a court orders him to. So why isn’t the mom getting anything?

If you think it’s really that simple you are deluding yourself. Some of these deadbeats run and hide and jump from job to job or work under the table. Why should a woman even have to pursue them. “well, heck she never asked” is a pretty fucking lame excuse. If you know it’s your kid you pay voluntarily.

I don’t think that squandering moms equal deadbeat dads leaving their children destitute. There’s so much more emotional baggage in the statement “he’s not taking care of his own blood!” than there is in “she’s wasting my money!”, so we take note of the former so much more readily. A better comparison would be “how many moms actually use child support to give their children a better life” compared to “how many moms squander child support”.

Who gets to judge that? Kids eat and need a roof over their head and clothes. Sometimes medical bills occur. You knew that right? If all the money does is help pay for the basics that’s enough. whether she can afford it without that CS is irrelevant. You owe. If you want to try and assure yoour child benifits from the money in some way have at it. I did. It feels awful to hear your child say she doesn’t have what she needs and you see Mom out partying with her friends. There are steps you can take and things you can do. It still isn’t an excuse to not pay your share.

The next part will have to wait.

[RickJay]

@Queen Tonya

The agencies are going after them already, what more can I do other than waste a lot of my time, energy and money doing the exact same thing? If they’re deadbeats without legal (not under the table) jobs, there’s nothing there to get, whether it’s me personally trying to do the getting or the government.

That’s true and your frustration is understandable. It’s important, however, that parents who do this (while most are men, there are women, too) be harassed and punished to the maximum possible extent. The government, or whatever civil agents are employed to pursue CS, should never let up, and if necessary deadbeats should be imprisoned. Furthermore, adult children should be allowed to sue for unpaid support plus interest.

While in your particular case it may have reached the point where, for you, it’s just “well, to hell with this,” it’s to society’s collective benefit that deadbeats be pursued and punished. Rampant abandonment is a huge, huge cost to society; it hurts you a lot in particular, but it hurts EVERYONE on the whole; everyone pays for this.

One of the reasons we HAVE so many deadbeats around is that they can get away with it, because the level of enforcement is inconsistent and spotty, and often doesn’t happen if the custody parent doesn’t have the time or money to fight it out. If deadbeats were more rigorously pursued we’d have fewer kids in poverty, probably have fewer unwanted kids period, and in the long run we’d see a lot less of this shit going on.

Is this a “Stick it to him! Loser deadbeat!” post? Well, maybe, but I’m also mindful of the fact that the family legal system (in Canada and the USA, anyway) has other areas that need fixing; I’m also quite aware that there’s more to being a father than ponying up money. Furthermore, I’m personally a little puzzled as to why any system would require a parent to pay for anything past the kid turning 18, as seems to be the case in some cases. Those issues matter, too, of course.

Personally, I cannot understand why a parent would voluntarily choose not to be with their children, and to love them and take care of them and spend as much time as they can with them; someone who would have kids and then not want to take care of them must have some sort of mental defect or something. So my opinion’s colored by that.

[nevermore]

@Oregon sunshine

The way we resolved it was the mom and dad of our kid got back together. Of course, ours is a unique situation; everyone we talk to says they’ve never heard of another example where parents who are apart for so many years reunite to finish raising (together) the teen-aged kid Dad had never seen.

It’s been 2 years now since we got back together, and an absolute hoot. Both parties, however, had to give up their bitternesses, righteous indignation, and feelings of victimization/resentment, and learn to forgive and trust. Maybe that’s why it’s a rare situation. YMMV.

how nuts. this is exactly what’s going on with my half-sister that I just met. 18 years with no dad, and suddenly our dad is shacking up with her mom again. I wouldn’t call them exactly “together”, but he’s certainly an active presence in her life now, where he wasn’t before.

I have to say it’s a little weird and a little overwhelming, but I adore my new half-sister, so I ain’t complaining.

[SnakesCatLady]

@RickJay

>snip<

Personally, I cannot understand why a parent would voluntarily choose not to be with their children, and to love them and take care of them and spend as much time as they can with them; someone who would have kids and then not want to take care of them must have some sort of mental defect or something. So my opinion’s colored by that.

I have never understood that, either, and I am one of those children. My parents divorced when I was 5, and when my father’s bid to get custody of me failed he wrote me off. He married again and had two sons. I am 46 years old; I have seen my father once since I was 5 and that was when I was 8 and visiting his mother. He didn’t even bother to let me know when his mother died, I had to find out by having my mail returned. I don’t know if he is alive or dead. My mother told he that he told a mutual friend he “couldn’t be a part time father”. Well, isn’t that special; it’s all about him. Never mind that his daughter might have needed him. He also never paid one cent in child support, and while my mother did have a good job she worked two jobs for much of my life so I could go to a private high school.

Do you have any idea of the questions that go through a child’s mind when they are old enough to realize that all their friends have Dads and they don’t? “What is wrong with me that my Dad doesn’t love me?” My mother was wonderful; she made sure that I understood that the problem was with my father, not with me. She also never tried to make my father out as the bad guy in the divorce; she made sure I always understood that she was the one who wanted out. Divorce notwithstanding, there is no excuse for not supporting your children.

I could go off onto one of my favorite tangents - about women who hook up with men who don’t pay child support and proceed to have children with them, but that’s a subject for another thread.

[RickJay]

@SnakesCatLady

Do you have any idea of the questions that go through a child’s mind when they are old enough to realize that all their friends have Dads and they don’t?

To be honest, I thankfully don’t know. But I can sure guess it hurts like hell.

My daughter will never have those questions go through her head.

[cosmosdan]

@Mosier

]None of this is even important, anyway. Everyone seems to be angry at me for suggesting that child support is used more punitively than otherwise. A good example is Cosmodian here
who seems so happy that the system stuck it to this guy. Child support seems to have ruined his life, which validates Cosmo’s opinion that he’s a bad guy. Not a word about how important that money was for the kid’s future, or how it improved his quality of life, though.

Well okay…since I vented a bit in the pit I think I can respond without the expletives but feel free to imagine them because they are in my head.

1. Make some effort to get my screen name right

Even after reading my brief description of the situation you still refer to what happened as the system sticking it to this guy. Does it occur to you *at all * that what happened to him was the direct result of his own selfish choices. He knew he had a son and for 12 long years never acknowledged it in any way. That includes the four years before his mother and I married. Never offered to help in any way or even inquired if any help might be needed or appreciated. He had a good business and was making good money with three trucks on the road with his name on the side. He lived in a significantly nicer home than his son did but still never offered one fucking dime, or acknowledged this child in any way. Evidently when he remarried he never bothered to be truthful with his new wife about his son who lived in the same town and that he didn’t help support. {I wonder why}
Then when he is finally asked to pay up he continues to lie and deny paternity and then get his lawyer to do everything in his power to avoid paying. {that included lying} He could have chosen to be honest and responsible. He decided not to. Still for some reason you see it as the system screwing this guy instead of him getting the consequences of his own reprehensible actions. IMO that’s just pathetic.
ftr record, his mother and I provided the necessities for his son but often couldn’t afford many extras. We were getting by. The reason I insisted she finally go after him was because while I was voluntarily paying the child support I should for my other daughter I was telling his son that we couldn’t afford things like new Reebok’s or money for a school trip.
Honestly, if you really don’t get it then you have some serious blinders on.

I’m not even blaming him for having that reaction, either. We’re all conditioned to think of child support as a way to punish someone, but when it gets suggested that MAYBE we ought to think of some different criteria to validate child support laws there’s no end to the people who want to call me a heartless jackass.

I think clueless and insensitive were the words I chose. I still think so. If you can read the accounts in this thread from moms and case workers and still hold your same opinion you are willfully stubborn and ignorant of the facts of real life. There are some serious problems with the system and it will never be perfect, but your attitude is seriously misguided IMO.

[Kalhoun]

@SnakesCatLady

I could go off onto one of my favorite tangents - about women who hook up with men who don’t pay child support and proceed to have children with them, but that’s a subject for another thread.

I’m that girl…sort of. He talked about the girls all the time, and told me he saw them now and again. I never met them (he said their mother didn’t want that). I begged him to give her money, but I guess he never did. Then I was pregnant and she had some kind of hard-on about the fact that I had the son she always wanted. Whatever…by the time my boy was a year old, he had given up parental rights to the girls. I never knew that until a couple years ago.

[cosmosdan]

@Kalhoun

Heh-heh…it’s almost like I have a real life, right?

Ha, never doubted it. Our discussions up to now have been in an area that we don’t agree on. It’s nice to discover a less “what if” part of life that we seem to agree on. It covers the kind of pragmatic details that turns a font and screen name into a real person. Me likey.

One thing I was very conscious of was letting my kid decide for himself if his dad was an asshole. Regardless of how irresponsible or bad or whatever, this guy is still the father. Calling him “bad” or “garbage” or what have you…is essentially calling the kid the same thing (in the child’s eyes). They are a part of that person and the connection is often made in their young minds that they can’t be any good if half their genetic make-up isn’t any good.

Sigh…if only more people saw that. I confess my guilt when I let anger and resentment for my ex hurt my kids. I didn’t rant or put her down. I just said nothing. They still felt everything that was going on. When I realized that I talked to her about it and we agreed that we had to put our differences behind us. I still remember my wee beautiful daughter throwing her arms around me when we told them we wouldn’t be mean to each other anymore and that even though we couldn’t live together we both still loved them.

Let him be the asshole he is. The truth will make itself apparent eventually. The act of living (mostly) separately from Kid Kalhoun’s dad, in my opinion, created a psychological disconnect that was more valuable than any pittance he would have given us in child support.

My stepson was hurt again when his bio dad had “no contact” written into his CS agreement. Then when he graduated high school, absentee dad got in touch with him and finally wanted some relationship. I admit I was hurt when I heard my stepson refer to thsi absent father as Dad. Still, I understood his need and desire to make the connection and explore the relationship. In every meaningful way, he is my son and I am Dad and grandfather to his kids. It’s enough.

I’m not sure how to relate that to my wonderful granddaughter or when. She knows Dad never visits and rarely calls. She knows when her birthday or Christmas rolls around and she doesn’t hear from him.

Your daughter may take a while to see the light, but she will. I advise against saying anything to the boyfriend. She’s with him because she feels some sort of love/loyalty/whatever for him. This will not bode well for you; I can almost guarantee it. If you want to say something to your daughter, choose your words carefully. She’s an adult and regardless of your love for her and the granddaughter, this is none of your business. It’s hard to watch…I know. But you don’t want to risk your relationship with her. If you need to vent, well…that’s what we’re here for!

I don’t want to just vent. I want to find some way of respecting her being an adult with the right to make her own decisions and still tell her honestly how I feel. Him too actually. I don’t want to just criticize him. He will have a hard time respecting himself and growing up as a person if he doesn’t face up to his responsibilities. Ultimatly my daughter won’t either. She needs to find the emotional courage to insist he get his act together.

Around my house we used to joke. “Sometimes you have to love somebody enough to kick them in the ass” It was a joke but we knew what it meant. If I didn’t find a way to do that for her and him {while still expressing the love} I’d feel like I wasn’t fulfilling my duties as a father or as a concerned human.