Child
Support Horror Stories
by
Charlton Hall
Staff
Writer
According
to the U. S. Census Bureau, 26.9% of non-custodial fathers are ‘Deadbeat
Dads’. But how do they arrive at
those statistics? The sole
criterion for making the ‘Deadbeat Dad’ list is that you are on the record
as not paying child support. But
should that be the sole criterion? Here
are some horror stories of fathers who are technically ‘deadbeats’, and
their actual circumstances. These
stories are told by Bruce Walker, executive coordinator at the District
Attorney’s Council in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and author of ‘Deadbeat Dads? Look Closer’, Christian Science Monitor, August 16, 1996 p.
18:
Men
who provide non-monetary support are deadbeat dads according to the
child-support system. Mothers and fathers often work out agreements for child
support that involve dad fixing the car, buying groceries, baby-sitting the
children, or getting clothes for the children. These men may be unemployed, but
they want to help their children.
Sometimes
they are concerned that monetary support doesn’t benefit the children, but the
mother’s newest boyfriend - or that it goes to buy drugs or alcohol. None of
the non-monetary support counts, even if the mother and father want it to count
and even if they agree in writing that it should count.
Child
support is ‘paid’ only when it’s paid in a bureaucratically acceptable
form. In a child support program, the jargon for other means of payment is a
‘shoe box full of receipts’ - which means a father who was paying his
support, but not through court or the program. I had thousands of these cases.
In one, the mother signed an affidavit that the dad had never paid. But when
confronted with receipts acknowledged that he had always paid support. Why would
she do that? She was on welfare; her child support became the property of the
state and federal government. If she keeps the child support, it is welfare
fraud.
Why
would concerned fathers pay child support directly to the mother? The
bookkeeping in child support offices is atrocious. The mother could be confused
with another woman or the paying father with another man.
Even
men who are raising in their homes the very children for whom child support is
sought are deadbeat dads. If a court order says that the mother has custody and
is entitled to child support, and if the mother gives the father the children
because she cannot control them or has other problems, then he is still liable
for child support.
Most
of the fathers I prosecuted said that they would raise their children with no
help from the government and with no help from mom, if given the chance.
Even
the inability to find children to support is no excuse. The mother may leave the
state with their young children and not tell the father where she is for five
years. The child-support system can, and does, go in and collect five years of
delinquent child support from this deadbeat dad. In some cases, of course, the
mother has a very good reason because of domestic abuse, but in other cases it
is the father’s allegations of child abuse by the mother which prompt her to
run.
Next
week: Child Custody and Child Support Statistics