Friday, September 03, 2004

Abolish child support

I think that the child support laws are all wrong. The law is based on the premise that fathers should spend 50% or so of their after-tax income to support their kids. Most men are indeed willing to work like dogs to support their families, as long as there really is a family unit to support. They are not willing to pay money for the purpose of destroying the family.

When combined with no-fault divorce, child support laws imply that a wife can walk away from a marriage for any reason, and take her husband's income with her.

There is no requirement under the law that child support actually be spent on the children. It is a big, fat, financial incentive for wives to walk out of marriages. The vast majority of divorces are initiated by women, and they are often guided by a selfish desire to take their husband's monetary support, without having to provide any emotional support in return.

7 comments:

anon said...

Statistically, fewer that 2% of children are lifted out of poverty by child support - poor mothers tend to have kids with poor fathers. And the lost tax income is incalculable - it behoves NRPs to work under the table and minimise income to reduce what is taken from them. So the taxpayer loses out far more than they might save is reduced benefits.

And it adds emotion to an already acrimonious split. It makes fatherhood seem like a chore and a privilege rather than fun and natural.

The reason why it won't be abolished is not due to its injustice. Democracy and justice are quite different things. Democracy led to witches being burned at the stake. It is the baying of the mob. The reason why child support is here to stay is political. Relationships are important to women. If they have child support, the power, even in a healthy relationship is theirs because the threat point is in their favour. For example: Who's going to pick up the dry cleaning today? Man asks woman to. She refuses and screams "unless you contribute your bit and pick up the cry cleaning, I'll take the kids away and make you pay for the privilege". Man backs down. Relationship continues. It influences even supposedly healthy relationships. It is pervasive. If things are to change, men need to get involved as a group in politics more closely. We're not wired for that because there is an advantage to the male who breaks rank, and "sympathises' with the woman's cause. He'll be lauded by women, who may well have sex with him. We're wired to break rank in those circumstances.

anon said...

Amen, anon. I couldn't have written that more succinctly.

Child support is political. It is unjust. It demonstrates a fundamental flaw in democracy - mob rule.

We believe that women should not be coerced into motherhood - it's not good for women, children or anyone (except the unborn foetus). A world where fathers choose to father their children would be a better world. The grace of fatherhood used to be that it is a voluntary state. My mother had to be my mother, she was physically bound to me. I loved her because she nurtured me and cared for me: I loved her for that, but she had to. But my father loved me because he chose to. That he chose to father me, and was not physically bound to me made our bond more special.
But it appears that wasn't so. He didn't actually have any choice so the courts would say. They would make him be a father whether he liked it or not. Now I understand the law in a way I didn't as a child, and didn't care for much of my earlier adult life. I was once a child myself, although my dad has long since passed away. I feel that the law undermined part of what made my dad special. I resent the law almost as much for that as for what it is doing to me now. It degrades fatherhood.

Lucky Joestar said...

Since termination of pregnancy should entirely be a mother’s decision, the father, who has absolutely no right to decide whether or not a child will be born, should be relieved of all responsibility to a child that is born if he doesn’t want to be a father.

Anonymous said...

That's an interesting comment Lucky

Anonymous said...

You want to talk about unjust, I got everyone beat on this one; My husbands ex girlfriend filed a bogus restraining order against him when his daughter was 1yr old, then filed for child support in the state of Illinois, then skipped town to California never putting an order in the California courts. In 2008 Illinois abated the Child Support order not to mention, in 2005 his ex asked for a step parent adoption, we agreed and paid for it, and she never did go through with the adoption, and since my husband and his daughter, and ex no longer lived in Illinois the order was abated and terminated, yet with no court order in CA, IL, or the state we live in currently they still drag us in to court for an order that doesn't exist, yet we still have to pay child support, so if you do the math, my husband was kept from his daughter since 2001, we are now in 2014, his daughter doesn't know him because the mother made sure she wouldn't so, in a nutshell 1:bogus restraining order with no police report, 2: filed for child support then left the state (all in the same year),3:Step-parent adoption (never happened),4:Abated child support order,5:No Child Support order in 3 states (still have to pay on something that doesn't exist),6: No relationship with the child who is now 14yrs old,7: No attorney will or can do anything about it, and even if they would, I wouldn't be able to afford the legal fees. Child Support is theft and extortion plus interest is charged on delinquent child support payments as if the child was a credit card. We know nothing on this child other than she lives in CA. and is 14yrs old. Fathers Rights clearly states that if you pay child support on a child, you are to know where the child lives, who takes care of the child, where the child goes to school, custodial parents can lose custody of that child if they bad mouth the non-custodial parent or if the custodial parent interferes with a relationship with the child and the non-custodial parent.

Anonymous said...

My question is how does one determine what the "just and appropriate award" required by the Family Support Act is in a given case in order to have a reference standard to compare the presumptive child support award to in order to confirm or rebut it when "based on the premise" describes a goal and a statement of purpose, but is not a legal or statutory definition of child support.

I've asked my family court judge this question, and she told me that I need a law degree and/or an economics degree to properly understand how child support guidelines are created and used.

This is the same family court judge that was upset when I informed her that 42 US Code 654 (21)(A)capped the amount of interest that a state can charge on child support arrears at 6-percent.

Unknown said...

Slavery a blatant contradicion of Constitution 10 13 14 amendment..gov can fuck off when it come to our family's..