Shattered Men- The Other Half of DV

Let's do the math for a case very close to the Shattered Men family.
I am sure there are many more right here that have not spoken up.

I was talking to one of our members yesterday that is doing his best
to pay his bills. He told me that his income last year was a little
less then $12,000. He has been ordered to pay $191 per WEEK in child
support.


Ok...here it is. $12,000 divided by 52 is $230.76. If we take
$191.00 from this, we have $39.76 to live on...to pay for shelter,
food, transportation and everything else...BUT...this is before
deductions too so there actually is far less then $39.76 to do all
of this. In fact, there is a chance this person owns more support
then he actually gets.

Why do these problems occur? Much of it is because our "family
courts" are not family friendly. They have boughten into the
feminist lie that is always the man's fault so often child support
is set to punish the father.

To compound this, if a parent gets behind in child support he (and
sometimes she) will have punitive actions taken that will guarantee
that they will never be able to pay back support.

Lets look at some of these:

1: Penalties are assessed to back support. Odd is it not that if
they can not pay what is owed...they make sure you own even more so
the amount is even more.

2: Drivers and professional licenses are revoked thus making it
impossible to work to pay off the debt.

3: Your car may be "booted" further preventing any chance of paying

4: The support level is so high that one essentially becomes
homeless thus preventing gainful employment. It is next to
impossible to get a job if one is homeless.

5: Harassment and public embarrassment will assure that if you did
have a job, you will not have it long.

6: If you do not have money to pay child support, about the only
remedy is to HIRE a lawyer for several thousand dollars to fight
it.. LOL...this is a catch 22...if you can hire a lawyer...wouldn't
you pay the support?

7: Wage assignments which is often the first step but employers do
not want to get involved so often they find ways to terminate
employment.

Since the creation of the federal Office of Child Support
Enforcement in 1975, government workers and lobbyists for private
child support collection companies have been relentless in their
efforts to misinform the public about child support payments and
collections

Also, more money IS being collected since this act...but less is
getting to the children.

Before the federal program was operational, about 70 percent of the
amount of child support that was ordered was paid directly by non-
custodial parents to custodial parents. An additional amount was
paid to the government as reimbursement for welfare entitlements.
According to research, divorced fathers (somewhat different for
never-married fathers who are more often involved in welfare
reimbursement and known to be different from non-custodial mothers)
paid 90 percent of what was due, and fully-employed non-custodial
fathers paid closer to 100 percent of what was due. Since the
creation of the federal child support enforcement program which
forces higher payments through expensive government payment systems,
the figure previously at 70 percent has dropped to 67 percent. The
primary reason for non-payment is that non-custodial parents are not
able to pay as much as they have been ordered to pay. And some of
the money that is currently paid gets lost in the new system.

http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/g/gay/2004/gay042404.htm

The governments answer? Expand the number of people employed in
child collection efforts. Of course, this will do no good unless the
people who owe support are the ones hired so that they will have a
paycheck to be able to pay support.

I have also heard of reports that there are many who DO pay...but
are told they did not. In Indianapolis Indiana, one child support
collection employee put $91,000 dollars of child support money in
her own pocket. I have not been able to find out how many fathers
were jailed for non payment when they did pay but it was in her
pocket.

Another consideration that is often overlooked...is the governments
helping those in need.

FACT: If a parent is owed child support she (and very rarely he) can
go to the county prosecutor and have the NCP taken to court without
expense to her. (I say rarely he because out of the small percentage
of men who are owed child support, few are able to get the DA to
file a court action (see below)

FACT: If a NCP parent has been given court order visitation rights,
he is often not ALLOWED to see his children. There is NO recourse
for him except to go back to court at his expense and get another
court order that will not be worth the paper it is written on.

I contend that when the courts and society enforces the right for
the NCP parent to see their children as much as they enforce the
support orders, then we will be making progress.
Better yet... if we had Equal parenting in most situations most of
this would not exist.

Please look at the following...and then see the extent of the
problem Be sure to read my plea at the bottom.


The State of Fatherhood

37.9% of fathers have no access/visitation rights. (Source: p.6,
col.II, para. 6, lines 4 & 5, Census Bureau P-60, #173, Sept 1991.)

"40% of mothers reported that they had interfered with the non-
custodial father's visitation on at least one occasion, to punish
the ex-spouse." (Source: p. 449, col. II, lines 3-6, (citing Fulton)

Frequency of visitation by Divorced Fathers; Differences in Reports
by Fathers and Mothers. Sanford Braver et al, Am. J. of
Orthopsychiatry, 1991.) "Overall, approximately 50% of mothers "see
no value in the father`s continued contact with his children...."
(Source: Surviving the Breakup, Joan Kelly & Judith Wallerstein, p.
125)

Only 11% of mothers value their husband's input when it comes to
handling problems with their kids. Teachers & doctors rated 45%, and
close friends & relatives rated %16.(Source: EDK Associates survey
of 500 women for Redbook Magazine. Redbook, November 1994, p. 36)

"The former spouse (mother) was the greatest obstacle to having more
frequent contact with the children." (Source: Increasing our
understanding of fathers who have infrequent contact with their
children, James Dudley, Family Relations, Vol. 4, p. 281, July
1991.)

"A clear majority (70%) of fathers felt that they had too little
time with=their children." (Source: Visitation and the Noncustodial
Father, Mary Ann Kock & Carol Lowery, Journal of Divorce, Vol. 8,
No. 2, p. 54)

"Very few of the children were satisfied with the amount of contact
with their fathers, after divorce." (Source: Visitation and the
Noncustodial Father, Koch & Lowery, Journal of Divorce and
Remarriage, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 50)

"Feelings of anger towards their former spouses hindered effective
involvement on the part of fathers; angry mothers would sometimes
sabotage father's efforts to visit their children." (Source: Ahrons
and Miller, Am. Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. 63. p. 442, July
`93.)

"Mothers may prevent visits to retaliate against fathers for
problems in their marital or post-marital relationship." (Source:
Seltzer, Shaeffer & Charing, Journal of Marriage & the Family, Vol.
51, p. 1015, November 1989.)

In a study: "Visitational Interference - A National Study" by Ms. J
Annette Vanini, M.S.W. and Edward Nichols, M.S.W., it was found that
77% of non-custodial fathers are NOT able to "visit" their children,
as ordered by the court, as a result of "visitation interference"
perpetuated by the custodial parent. In other words, non-compliance
with court ordered visitation is three times the problem of non-
compliance with court ordered child support and impacts the children
of divorce even more. Originally published Sept. 1992

Child Support

Information from multiple sources show that only 10% of all
noncustodial fathers fit the "deadbeat dad" category: 90% of the
fathers with joint custody paid the support due. Fathers with
visitation rights pay 79.1%; and 44.5% of those with NO visitation
rights still financially support their children. (Source: Census
Bureau report. Series P-23, No. 173).

Additionally, of those not paying support, 66% are not doing so
because they lack the financial resources to pay (Source: GAO
report:GAO/HRD-92-39 FS).

The following is sourced from: Technical Analysis Paper No. 42, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Income Security
Policy, Oct. 1991, Authors: Meyer and Garansky.

Custodial mothers who receive a support award: 79.6%

Custodial fathers who receive a support award: 29.9%

Non-custodial mothers who totally default on support: 46.9%

Non-custodial fathers who totally default on support: 26.9%