This is a post by Renae Smith, NFI's Special Assistant to the President.
As the nation’s leading fatherhood organization, we often receive promotional materials for books about fatherhood. It’s great to see more people writing about fatherhood, sharing inspirational stories from their own experiences, and adding to the cultural conversation about this important issue.
We recently received a postcard for a book titled, Boy, Drop That Child Support: How to Keep Your Baby Mama from Draining Your Pockets Dry written by family law attorney Cathy Middleton. The book claims to teach men legal strategies to protect their paychecks from “greedy baby mamas who want to use your money to support their lifestyle instead of their children.”
In one statement, Ms. Middleton has managed to misrepresent the vast majority of moms and dads, and has sent a destructive message about what children need from their parents.
A couple of things kind of irked me about this. First of all, Ms. Middleton seems to think that financial provision is the only responsibility of a father, and one that should be shirked and minimized. What about a father’s responsibility to nurture his children, care for their emotional needs, and be a role model to them? Children don’t get those things from child support checks.
Ms. Middleton also seems to think that moms are selfish people who live lavishly while depriving their children of necessities. What mother spends money on designer clothing and spa treatments when her children have no food or clothes? What dad sits around trying to think of ways to make sure his children don’t have access to his money to provide for their needs? Besides, supporting her “lifestyle” is supporting the children.
Ms. Middleton has written another book called Girl, Get That Child Support: The Baby Mama's Guide to Tracking Down a Deadbeat, Finding His Cash and Making Him Pay Every Dollar He Owes You. The book’s synopsis compares single moms’ situations to someone who gets stuck with the bill at a 5-star restaurant, “only this bill likes to eat, grow bigger every day and stick around for at least eighteen years.” Is that all children are? A big financial burden?
Our society has become increasingly child-centric in recent years, maybe too much. But Ms. Middleton missed that bandwagon. She’s taken the child out of “child support” and in the process, she makes both dads and moms look greedy, selfish, and focused on nothing but getting and keeping as much money as they can.
Maybe she has one thing right; boys drop child support. Men provide for their children. And the most important provision isn’t their money; it’s their time and love.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Taking the Child Out of Child Support
19 comments:
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What I find appalling is her attempt to keep the bitter fighting going between the mother and father. When parents fight about anything including child support generally lawyers get involved and get to fill their pockets with money. So, in fact the only ones who benefit from the bickering between divorced parents are the lawyers.
ReplyDeletehaving been a single mom and having my haveing a son who pays child support. I can speak out on this. In my situation, the father never paid child support for my sons, until one was 18 and the other was 14, then he paid child support somewhat til the 14 yr old was 18.very little when he did pay. I supported my sons alone the majority of their years with occasional help from parents.I did not seek child support to get my ex's money. I wanted nothing to do with him. He was a drunk and well if he had money it would have been a miracle in itself.I just wanted help to have money to keep my car running when it broke down, or for field trips when the schools asked for money. or school clothes for the kids. or maybe even help with some doctor bill. but i got nothing. however some moms i am sure has insurance and makes good money and uses the system to use medicade for the kids which i can't say i blame them. If thats only way you can get medical help. Like my son for instance has child support took out of his check each week. but the mom works too and lives with her parents and pays them no rent what so ever. and she gets her granmother and her mom to babysit for the kids while she works. yet she gets child support for the kids. what does she use it for? I have no clue since she doesn't pay rent. and she gets food stamps. and she pays no babysitter. and yet when the kids are sick she uses medicaid, then calls my son their dad and ask him to help buy the meds. I just don't understand it all. it is a complicated thing. I guess each individual case is different. but i do believe some women abuse the system. and the dads do to by trying to skip out on helping.
ReplyDeleteI most agree the lawyers that keep you witha like of monies and funds.
ReplyDeleteOften women can be greedy and do view child support as income, especially when going through divorce and custody hearings. Mothers are allowed to use child support money however they wish; not needing to be at all accountable for how it is spent. In turn, a Father is required to hand money over to the mother with no assurance of the support being spent on the child. I think this is more the reason fathers are not paying, they are forced to pay someone they likely have hard feelings toward, and that person is not accountable. It is a one way street.
ReplyDeleteA father may see his child without an item he feels important, if he asks the mother to purchase it with child support money she can tell him "No!", and further more suggest he buy it for the child. For these reason alone, and putting aside I have seen many mothers that do put themself before their child, I would try to minimize how much child support I paid, not because I want my child to go without, but because I would prefer to decide how I spend the money on my child. Mothers should be accountable for every penny.
I am also discouraged by the fact most of this article assumes primary residency with the Mother.
It seems to me with the language she is using that she is deliberately targeting a specific group of men. That said there is a degree to which men get slammed by divorces and the like in ways that women are not, but that problem and the problem of child support can easily be fixed with mandatory paternity testing and better discernment with women's mate choice. Baby is born, do the test, and the father can't dodge taking care of his child if it is really his. Unfortunately I think the kind of male willing to try and dodge child support payments if he thinks it is his kid, has no interest at all in the emotional well-being of the child. Ultimately kids where the parents are both involved and put the kids first turn out better.
ReplyDeleteIn many cases I think the woman needs to take responsibility for choosing a man who will support his kids instead of players. Part of the problem I believe is that women reward caddish behavior with sex, instead of forcing men to marry and stick around. If women were more discerning in their mate choices I believe men would respond to the market force at work, and be better fathers. Ultimately women need to create incentive for men to act like fathers, and reward the ones that do. That combined with mandatory paternity testing would ensure society could land on males who tried to shirk responsibility with both feet.
The prevailing attitude for the current generation and many past dating at least as far
ReplyDeleteback as mymothers generation (she was born in 1939)or further is that the women OWN the children as opposed to the gift from God to both parents.With the aide of federal legislation states are stakeholders because they benefit financially.The Judges that work the state and all too often contravene the fathers constitutional rights to their children and the same as regards the childrens rights to both parents hides behind the purported "parens
parentaie' while in fact showing little or no impartiality at all.Fathers can and do give emotional,and social support as well as support to the mothers in the form of releif when they take on the full responsibility for their children.Children demonstarte all the same needs when they are with the father as at any other time.
As a divorced father, and specifically as one who was formerly married to a woman who admits that she uses the child support money she receives from me to buy more iPods, dresses and manicures, but not to pay for our children's activities and needs, I think that the person who wrote this article completely missed the point of these books. They aren't directed at a majority of people who actually do what they are supposed to. They are directed at the minority of people who are determined to game the system at the expense of their children.
ReplyDeleteOf course this lawyer/author is just trying to make money on both sides of the isle. That way heads she wins and tails you lose. This is what lawyers do. But she may be on to something for those millions of dads who are deliberately prevented (whether by the mom or the courts) from being with their kids. Millions of more kids would get to be with their dads if the government enforced father/child access with an equal zeal they enforce monetary issues. If their were no more taxation without representation then everyone would be pushing for representation. Giving dad equal representation with his kids would probably save taxpayers in the long run by preventing all the costs of father absence down the road (the drop outs, drug abuse, suicides, gangs, prisons, degradation of society, etc.).
ReplyDeleteI both agree and disagree with the blog and comments. First, the child has already been taken out of child support. Any system designed for the "best interest of the child" would try to establish equality of both parents. As of now, a father is a "obligor" who has "visitation" rights and the mother has "custody". Let's first start by removing the negative terminology so a child knows both parents are equally involved.
ReplyDeleteAs to Ms. Middleton working both sides, well, heck, she is only doing what the government child support system created. Using her entrepreneurial spirit in an adversarial system. Isn't the court system adversarial by nature? Anyway, issues with "the system" are too numerous to mention in this small space.
Getting back to the child. Let's make the system about them again. Child support is alimony in disguise. We do not need a fatherhood initiative. We need a "Change the system" initiative.
I got one for you all. I believe the Government and Child Support have flaws in the system that needs to be addressed. A father has received a phone call from his child's mother she has physical custody of the child, but says she needs the father to take the child because she needs to work on her life. Meanwhile dad has to pay $750 monthly in Support for the child that now lives with him. He files a modification; the agreement is he still has to pay the mother $250 a month for the child that now lives with the father because support in the arrears. The father does not press the court for support from the mother because the court has given the mother the power to take the child back if the support stops. The father does not request the support to avoid an emotional tug of war with the child, mean while Child Support sends notice to suspend the fathers license, which is a CDL class A because of late payments to the mother for a child that is not living with her. Also the mother has complained saying she is re-thinking the idea of the child living with the father because her support from government funding has been revoked. The whole system is shady as fathers this is the type of conflicts that keeps some of us from growing as productive fathers.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the line, " Besides, supporting her “lifestyle” is supporting the children. "
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly disagree. Child support is not alimony. It is very unfortunate that our system promotes exactly this activity, which has nothing to do with children.
I AM A GRANDMOTHER THAT WANTS TO SEE MY GRAND CHILD BUT THE MOTHER WOULDNOT LET ME SEE HER FOR A DAY LIKE WE USE TO,EVEN SHE WOULD SPEND THE NIGHT WITH ME , MY SON PAYS CHILD SUPPORT TO THE MOM BUT NOW SHE WILL NOT LET US SEE HER WE NEED HELP, BUT HAVE NO MONEY TO PAY SOME TO HELP US TO GET TO SEE HER, I NEED HELP ,GRAND MOTHER BRIDGET
ReplyDeleteI was listening to Miss Middleton on the radio this morning and she is right good or bad we all have legal rights. As she stated fathers are always looked on as second class in the courts eyes. My X is one that thinks our kids are an extra income. I have to fight all the time because she want the kids to get more money but here is the injustice. I have them 50% of the time and still have to pay 86% which includes $400+ a month support. All she has to do is keep a minimum wage job and live off me and her men. Im stuck trying to pay all the bills from the marriage and give her money... for what? She had me dragged in because she file for food stamps and medicaide. I have insurance and am forced to pay 86% of those bills... So I have them half the time, I am paying 86 to her 14 and if I cant make the payment I deserve to have my life ruined? That is where this book comes in...
ReplyDeleteI am a father of two and fighting for custody for the last 4 years.I was married for 11 years and decided that it was time for the divorce due to the volatile relationship the mother and I had. I never thought the mother who worked for the same county courts for 11 years would actually separate me and the children. The mother threatened if I divorced her she would make my life a living hell. Well my point is that I am a product of divorced parents in the 70's and I would liked to have a relationship with my father but that was not the case. I wish this court system had better plans in place to protect parents from vindictive, selfish parents like the one my children are growing up with. I am not giving up the fight and plan to make waves in this court system in the now and near future. I want plans to protect parents from this type of neglect and punishment that ultimately the children suffer from. This is for the past, present, and future children. I thank God for my children they are a priviledge to have in my life. I have an opportunity and obligation to these children to show them how much they are loved by their father. Best wishes to all of you.
ReplyDeleteI need help in my area in Pittsburgh, PA. I fell like I’m in a nightmare that I can’t wake up from. I’m trying to be a good father to my 20 month old son and the courts have done nothing to help me. My ex is using very fowl tactics to keep my son from me because she and her dad are being very vindictive. PLEASE any anyone that could HELP! I’m am low income I am a student working on an associate’s degree. Father in need of HELP!!! Pittsburgh, PA flynn5005@gmail.com, (724)351-2273. Shawn Flynn Sr.
ReplyDeletePlease Help! I'm a GREAT father who needs help in Pittsburgh, PA. Shawn Flynn Sr. (724)351-2273, flynn5005@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteIt all boils down to a faulty court system. Depending on the judge, many custody/child support settlements are not in the best interest of the child. I am a single mother of a child who has medical issues and I receive only $50 A MONTH in child support. The judge gave me primary legal and physical custody but scheduled lots of visits for the dad. I have to spend over $100 in gasoline just driving my child to see the deadbeat. I pay ALL of her bills, care, clothing etc. He honestly believes that if he (his mom) bought the child an outfit to wear only during his visit at his parents house that it means he is "providing" for her. So some people have a "warped" view of what it really costs to support a child. I'm one of those moms that will sacrifice for her child. I sought child support because there was none, then I got so little. The system just isn't a "fair" system.
ReplyDeleteok im a father of 5 and live both sides of the issue yes the courts are one sided and the states and federal govt makes money off of child support thats why the dept of revenue oversees it and not family law. people have relationships that fail theres no control of that ,the courts shouldnt say one kid is more deserving then another.There are bad mothers who r leaches and fathers who need to grow up. I pay c.s. on 2 kids one mother makes 2x my income and admits she only did it for spite ,i was supporting my child without the courts involment the 2nd is a worthless baby maker 6 kids 3 taken from her and her sole source of income is child support non of the fathers are allowed to see the children.
ReplyDeleteI believe that your blog comments make negative assumptions about the author's intentions. First, while you feel her book manages the "vast majority of moms and dads", her book was not directed towards the majority. It was specifically directed towards a specific demographic (hence the slang in the title). Secondly, while financial provisions are not the most important thing when it comes to raising a child, for many women who are dealing with absentee fathers or "baby daddys" it is their only option. I think her book makes the correct assumptions.....that people are selfish by nature. Many men are concerned about keeping as much money in their pockets as they can (by any means necessary). And many women are more concerned about getting a check (first) in exchange for letting the fathers spend any time with their own children.
ReplyDelete