Father's Rights (Children)

[Tempra]

I think you should take it up with the state of Virginia then. Lots of other states have caps on child support. That being said, child support isn't assigned by a robot; if someone was making $50 mil a month a judge isn't going to hand the custodial parent 25% of that just because. There's a human element involved.

I don't honestly know what you're arguing with me for; this is a state by state issue and most of the time a case-by-case issue.

I wasn't arguing with you, I was having a discussion with Seventh Pup. You commented on something I said.

Anyways, I understand it is a state by state issue, but from the few random states I looked at (VA, CA, and IN), there is a cap based on % of income. I wouldn't at all be surprised if most states take this approach, particularly because VA is among the most backwards states, legally anyways.

Anyways, I have stated my case 8-10 so far. Either you buy it or you don't. No sense wasting anymore breath.

[Brienne the Beauty]

It always astounds me that so many men on the internet are of the opinion that child support is something ant-male or misandrist. The problem as it seems to me is that they are placing themselves in the shoes of a wronged father, not the shoes of a child of a single parent.

If you were to imagine things from the point of view of a child that doesn't have enough to eat, has to wear ill-fitting clothes, and rarely sees even his custodial parent because he/she is working all hours just to feed the child, even though the non-custodial parent has money to spare, you might see things differently. This child cares little about which of his parents were in the wrong - indeed, in most bad relationships gone awry, both sides made mistakes. The child only cares that his needs are not being met.

It is a question of children's rights, not men's rights or women's rights.

Stupid anecdotes about women saving sperm and secretly impregnating themselves can only account for less than 10 cases per year, and can be treated as exceptions for a court to decide. Most child support cases involve very humdrum relationship breakdowns.

The only way to get rid of child support would be to raise taxes to ensure all children have a decent standard of living. In the USA, at least, you'd have a better chance by betting on flying pigs. It simply wouldn't happen. People would resent paying for the kids of feckless parents who know that any mistake will be taken care of by the taxpayer. At least with the child support system, most men think twice before forgetting the condoms. If there were no potential consequences to their actions, why would they?

[Snowmaiden]

But I think that a contentious issue is what the child support money is spent on. Dad might think the money should be spent on a,b,c, and Mom believes that the money should be spent on x,y,z.

Here is a true story that illustrates my point. A single mom was raising her young son all be herself. But as the kid got older she basically ignored him and spent her time having boyfriends and a good time. As a teenager, the kid decided he wanted to go live with his dad because he was always alone while in his mom's custody. The court allowed it. Mom's reaction to this? She was upset that the child support money would no longer be there to pay for her house in a nice neighborhood. She wasn't upset that her son was leaving her, just that she would no longer get a child support check. I'd met this woman a few times and she clearly struck me as definitely not the motherly type. But still, I'm disgusted that when all this happened, she only cared about the stup!d child support check and not her son.

I'm not saying all mothers are like this, but I can understand why some men would resent paying child support. They would like the money to be spent on the kid, not their ex's.

[Kalbear]

I'm not saying all mothers are like this, but I can understand why some men would resent paying child support. They would like the money to be spent on the kid, not their ex's.

Yes, and I'm sure the kid would like that too!

Similarly, you have people paying child support who want to ensure that their ex suffers as much as humanly possible and thus does every single thing they can to avoid child support; they have others do the loans for them on houses and cars so that the ex can't have a lien on the thing, they take money under the table so that they don't have their wages garnished or their tax return garnished, they outright refuse to pay child support for years on end - all because they're vindictive fuckers.

And I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that my example is a lot more prevalent than the noncustodial parent being the responsible one.

The solution to ex's spending money not on the children's primary needs is not to stop paying any money.

[Noontidal]

I'm not saying all mothers are like this, but I can understand why some men would resent paying child support. They would like the money to be spent on the kid, not their ex's.

I suspect it's significantly more than we realize. As a teenager I knew this one woman (off-topic, but she was hot (ok, it might be on topic)) whose xhusband was given full-custody of their child and it was presented as the greatest tragedy. On a weekly basis our community took up donations to help her get her child back from this being who we had painted up as this monster, and petitions to the evil judge that had let this fellow take a child away from his mother.

Oh, and she was ordered to pay child support, but refused, a decision that warrented cheering. Even though, as a degreed engineer with a good job, she could definitely afford it.

Looking back on it, and other situations including one that happened much earlier with a violent crackhead relative (whose former black lover wanted his kid away from), it seems clear that abuses such as the above or worse likely happen at a level we are unable to acknowledge.

[Padreic]

As far as I've followed the discussion the argument for the father's obligation to financially support his child is the child's right to this.

But, from the pov of the child, why does it have to be the father's money? The child simply has a right to be supported. The reason this is usually a right against the parents is that the parents are viewed as being responsible for creating a situation in which a child has to be supported. However, one is not responsible for any event one is causally involved in. Rape is the clearest case: If one of the parents' was being raped this parent is not in the least responsible for the outcome, i.e. a child that needs support. Of course, the child still has the right to be supported - but why would the raped parent be any more responsible for fulfilling this right than any other member of society?

A similar, though weaker, argument holds if the parents agree that, in case of pregnancy, one of them will not have to pay child support. Let's say the mother agrees that the father will not have to pay: This means that she agrees to take over the father's role as addresse of the child's right to be supported. Therefore, if she has the means to adequately support the child on her own she is obligated to do this. If she isn't able to support the child on her own either the father (maybe because he is still more responsible than society) or society will have to step in, but they will have to right to be compensated by the mother as soon as she in the financial position to do this.

I guess the point of this is: A child does not have the right to be supported by the parents, it has the right to be supported period. And the persons with the obligation to meet it are those that are responsible, either causally or by freely assuming responsibility.

Now, let's see if I've since last year lost my threadkill-abilities :)

[Brienne the Beauty]

A similar, though weaker, argument holds if the parents agree that, in case of pregnancy, one of them will not have to pay child support. Let's say the mother agrees that the father will not have to pay: This means that she agrees to take over the father's role as addresse of the child's right to be supported. Therefore, if she has the means to adequately support the child on her own she is obligated to do this. If she isn't able to support the child on her own either the father (maybe because he is still more responsible than society) or society will have to step in, but they will have to right to be compensated by the mother as soon as she in the financial position to do this.

So you are in support of your taxes going up to pay for some guy's night of fun? How perfectly public spirited and generous of you!

And no, the father does not have to be the one to support the child. It is the non-custodial parent that supports the child. It's more unusual for the mother to be the non-custodial parent, but when it happens, she has to pay up.

[Solmyr]

So you are in support of your taxes going up to pay for some guy's night of fun? How perfectly public spirited and generous of you!

No, he is in support that if the custodial parent can afford to support the kid on his/her own, he/she should do it. $100,000 income is more than enough to support yourself and a child and if your ex makes $250,000 why should he/she pay child support when you can clearly afford to raise the child on your own?

And no, the father does not have to be the one to support the child. It is the non-custodial parent that supports the child. It's more unusual for the mother to be the non-custodial parent, but when it happens, she has to pay up.

Many stories were shared in these 11 pages of thread and the only one that involved a mother losing custody rights ended up with the whole neighbourhood fighting for 'justice', petitioning courts and cheering when she refused to pay child support.

[Brienne the Beauty]

No, he is in support that if the custodial parent can afford to support the kid on his/her own, he/she should do it. $100,000 income is more than enough to support yourself and a child and if your ex makes $250,000 why should he/she pay child support when you can clearly afford to raise the child on your own?

How often does that happen? Most child support cases involve single parents struggling to make ends meet. I don't really care about the woes of the rich to be honest. They are fine whether they pay/get child support or not. It's the poor and making-ends-meet that child support laws are intended for. Being the single parent of a child really impacts your money-making powers for the average person. Even if a single parent could happily support him/herself on a low wage job, when you factor in child-care and the expenses of raising a child and the inability to do overtime, the single parent generally needs a little help.

Many stories were shared in these 11 pages of thread and the only one that involved a mother losing custody rights ended up with the whole neighbourhood fighting for 'justice', petitioning courts and cheering when she refused to pay child support.

That's an object lesson of how people need to change their attitude towards child support. Everyone I know who got divorced paints their ex as the bad guy. I'm starting to get pretty cynical when people tell me how demonic their ex is. In my opinion, 9 times out of 10 it takes two to make a divorce. And to the child it makes utterly zero difference who was "the bad guy". Remember, this is all about "children's rights" and painting it as "mother's rights" or "father's rights" is where we go wrong.

[mormont]

Many stories were shared in these 11 pages of thread and the only one that involved a mother losing custody rights ended up with the whole neighbourhood fighting for 'justice', petitioning courts and cheering when she refused to pay child support.

The perils of anecdote. Don't suppose that because no other such stories were told, none of us have such stories to tell.

[Jaak]

How often does that happen? Most child support cases involve single parents struggling to make ends meet. I don't really care about the woes of the rich to be honest. They are fine whether they pay/get child support or not. It's the poor and making-ends-meet that child support laws are intended for. Being the single parent of a child really impacts your money-making powers for the average person. Even if a single parent could happily support him/herself on a low wage job, when you factor in child-care and the expenses of raising a child and the inability to do overtime, the single parent generally needs a little help.

One category of people who is screwed by child support laws is women with well paid career, ticking biological clock and no Mr. Right chained to ring. While a single mother even with qualified career would take a certain financial hit and probably wage decrease (less time to spend at work), as well as limited time to spend on her child, a single mother with education and qualified job may do better than a married couple who both need to take low qualification low wage jobs to make ends meet.

[Solmyr]

That's an object lesson of how people need to change their attitude towards child support. Everyone I know who got divorced paints their ex as the bad guy. I'm starting to get pretty cynical when people tell me how demonic their ex is. In my opinion, 9 times out of 10 it takes two to make a divorce. And to the child it makes utterly zero difference who was "the bad guy". Remember, this is all about "children's rights" and painting it as "mother's rights" or "father's rights" is where we go wrong.

I am sorry, that is not at all the direction I am trying to go. The topic is about father's rights pertaining to children, not about children's rights. I used this argument to stress that if a father tries to fight the system when it comes to child support he will be labeled a cold-hearted monster, but when a mother does it, it's people tend to be much more accepting and supportive.

The perils of anecdote. Don't suppose that because no other such stories were told, none of us have such stories to tell.

Well by all means, go ahead and share them. We do not want to base our conclusions on a sample size of 1, do we?

Doesn't it strike you as odd that so many stories involve father's paying child support and we only heard one mother story so far (which is obviously not representative in your opinion). Is it really that fathers are so much worse parents that they always lose custody battles or is there another factor at play?

[Liadin]

With the apportioned allotment system, the other parent only needs to be concerned about whatever percentage goes towards incidentals. If 50 percent is subsidizing housing and 25 percent is being distributed as food stamps, then they don’t need to worry about it. I would put controls to prevent abuse from the child support-paying parent as well. They would need to demonstrate to a court or appropriate social agency, that the needs of the child are not being met.

Wait a minute. In the vast, vast majority of cases, the custodial parent is indeed providing housing and food for the child. (If not, he/she should lose custody.) If you directed child support money specifically to housing and food.... okay, those expenses were going to get paid one way or another; if not with child support, the custodial parent would have been using his/her own money, which is now freed up for other purposes. So this wouldn't at all help the situation of the mother spending child support money on fancy clothes; she'd then use the child support money to pay the rent and buy the groceries, and use her own salary to buy her clothes, with the exact same end result. As others have pointed out, money is fungible, and you don't generally need to insist that someone pay for their own housing.

I think the problem you have isn't with children not being housed and fed, but with the extra money (once basic needs are met) being spent on luxuries for the custodial parent rather than luxuries for the child. In which case maybe you should be suggesting that part of the payments could be made directly on items for the kid--clothes, or to the soccer league, or whatever--rather than to the custodial parent. Still runs into the problems of people being petty and trying to get back at each other, though.

[mormont]

Well by all means, go ahead and share them.

Nope, sorry. Not everyone is happy to share in public personal stories that involve other people's private lives. That's one of many reasons why using anecdotal data is a bad argument.

Nobody denies that the vast majority of non-custodial parents are male. But if you want an accurate picture of the balance, anecdotes told on this thread are not the best source. I'm not sure why you'd want to use them as one: it's not that hard to get actual data on this, surely?

[Liadin]

Nobody denies that the vast majority of non-custodial parents are male. But if you want an accurate picture of the balance, anecdotes told on this thread are not the best source. I'm not sure why you'd want to use them as one: it's not that hard to get actual data on this, surely?

A simple Google search came up with this (U.S. Census Bureau survey). It's looking at how much child support actually gets paid (answer: about 63%) and uses a sample size of 5,551 custodial mothers and 825 custodial fathers. Presuming then that the Census Bureau of all people would take a representative sample, then about 13% of custodial parents are fathers. I'm sure you could find other sources. That one also has some interesting data on the typical size of child support payments, etc.

[Brienne the Beauty]

I am sorry, that is not at all the direction I am trying to go. The topic is about father's rights pertaining to children, not about children's rights. I used this argument to stress that if a father tries to fight the system when it comes to child support he will be labeled a cold-hearted monster, but when a mother does it, it's people tend to be much more accepting and supportive.

This is a problem, but not one that can be solved by allowing fathers to opt out of child support. In fact, you'd get the reverse as some fathers would indeed opt out for no good reason (not everyone is morally upstanding in either gender), and we'd be back to the 19th century stereotype of cold-hearted fathers abandoning saintly women to raise children in poverty (ever seen Les Miserables?)

The problem needs to be solved by making the system more fair rather than less fair. Divorced couples where the primary carer is the man should not be looked down on in any way, and should have equal access to help and respect. That way, men will feel more a part of the system rather than victims of the system.

[Jaak]

This is a problem, but not one that can be solved by allowing fathers to opt out of child support. In fact, you'd get the reverse as some fathers would indeed opt out for no good reason (not everyone is morally upstanding in either gender), and we'd be back to the 19th century stereotype of cold-hearted fathers abandoning saintly women to raise children in poverty (ever seen Les Miserables?)

Indeed. It was actually an approach tried in 19th century (roughly the time of Victorian Poor Law).

Logically a mother is the one easily identified as having the baby, so it was made exclusive responsibility of the mother to demand wedding ring, keep her legs together till she gets it, and sue the culprit if she gets raped by force or fraud. That way, they avoided the risk of the mother demanding child support (or marriage) from a man who may not in fact have been the correct guilty party. For the poor laws before 19th century had made the fathers responsible for support of bastards.

A problem with that approach was that if no responsibility for the father was the default position - in the absence of him opting in by marriage or being successfully proven guilty of rape or fraud - then fraud got too easy. A lot of sex outside marriage did happen, under loose promises of future marriage or financial support. Such promises were credible, because most of them were, in fact, kept - there were quite a lot of children born less than nine months after wedding, and while Mrs. Grundies might frown, the common law regarded them as perfectly legitimate. But in the cases where the promise was not kept in the end, the mother was left without recourse. (Well, there was the action for "breach of promise". But I am not sure how commonly it gave adequate child support).

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Doesn't it strike you as odd that so many stories involve father's paying child support and we only heard one mother story so far (which is obviously not representative in your opinion). Is it really that fathers are so much worse parents that they always lose custody battles or is there another factor at play?

As a practicing family law attorney, there are a lot of factors at play that result in mothers, on average, being overrepresented as parents of primary residence (having "primary physical custody).

One of the most common is that dads rarely put up a fight for primary physical custody. In fact, over 95% of divorce cases settle, usually (but not always) with mom being parent of primary residence. Do protracted custody battles happen? Absolutely. But it happens much, much less often than you would think. Now you might argue that lots of dads simply "give up" physical custody believing that they don't stand a chance of actually getting it at trial. There is some truth to this, as I have had fathers represent that to me as the reason they don't want to put up a fight.

But equally if not more true in my experience is that lots of fathers simply don't want primary physical custody. Lots of them are happy with every other weekend parenting time, with some vacation in the summer and sometimes dinners once every week. Lots of times, when there is discord in the marital residence, it's dad that packs up his stuff and leaves mom and the kid(s) in the house for weeks or months until one of the parents finally gets up the nerve to file for divorce. By that time, mom has already been the primary custodian for some time (and you'd be surprised at how many fathers just don't bother to exercise much, if any, parenting time during these periods).

But when custody battles do happen, fathers do tend to lose the physical custody fight. But in my experience, they tend to lose it for reasons that are, if not "good," at least defensible. When you have two equally competent and capable potential caretakers, the Courts tend to look towards other factors to determine custody - such as which parent is better situated to take care of the child's needs on a day to day basis, and although the demographics on this issue are beginning to shift, the answer is usually the woman. This is because women still tend to be paralegals instead of lawyers, nurses instead of doctors, etc.

They tend to have jobs that require fewer hours, more regular hours, and a greater likelihood that they can be home at night to take care of the kids and put them to bed. They are more likely to be teachers, who will have the same hours as their children, and summers off to boot. Mothers are also more likely to have been the primary caretakers of the children during the marriage, often not even working at all. Even when stay at home mothers are forced back into the workforce because they are being imputed income for the purposes of child support and alimony, they are expected to earn less than their husbands - for good reason, as they usually have less education, fewer skills, and fewer opportunities. That means they can survive at less demanding jobs.

As the demographics are shifting in the workforce, however, you see more and more women out earning their husbands, at more demanding jobs. You also see more people, and therefore more men, working from home, where they are ideally situated to take care of children. These men, when they put up a fight for physical custody, are the ones who are more and more likely get it.

In my experience, Courts are also now much more open to joint parenting arrangements, where parents share parenting time with the children that, if not 50-50, is 60-40 or 70-30. Even if a 50-50 custodial arrangement though, dad may STILL be paying mom child support, if he's earning significantly more than she is.

[Solmyr]

I agree with everything you've said, Nestor.

Obviously the father's lack of desire to have the primary physical custody would influence the statistics greatly. If we're striving towards equality, it's important to make sure the other two variables: (a) when fathers give up before trial because they stand no chance of winning the custody and (B) when fathers fight and lose more often than not, because of demographic factors; are addressed.

[turinturambar]

If there were already an "opt-out" law on the books, then I'd say he has the right to refuse responsibility as the girl in question will have known there was a real risk of lack of financial support from an unwilling fertilizer. But, seeing as how there appears to not be any such law in effect at the time, he knowingly exposed himself to the risk when he had unprotected sex with her.

Yes, but laws are often changed by challenging the existing system currently in place. This would be a nice place to set some precedent.

But that's because the stakes for a woman (having something growing inside her, having to give birth, etc.) are much higher than those for a man (just having to pay money).

See, I don't really agree with this...at least not in every case. 9 months of feeling like crap and several hours of intense pain. That sucks, but on top of her choosingto put herself through this, she's also going to be awarded custody and watch her child grow, something she chose...something she wanted. Often times, men who owe child support have to pay out an amount every month that basically makes it difficult for them to have any kind of living at all. Living for 18 years in borderline poverty conditions is hardly an easier road than 9 months of pregnancy. And in the man's case there is no trade-off. He's getting no benefit from his suffering, as he does not want a child... it would be kind of like buying a house you can't afford and making mortgage payments for 18 years while somebody else lives in it, at the same time you're living in a roach infested trailer.

The man could has avoided all this by shelling out for a condom. He contributed half the DNA, he made the choice to have unprotected sex as much as the woman and as such is equally responsible.

Well, the pill is more reliable than a condom, and condoms break as well. If she lied about being on the pill, imo that's no different than bringing a girl home and telling her you put a condom on(taking the abortion option out of the argument for a second). Should she have to be forced to pay for his lie? What about condom snatchers? They do exist, where women desperate to get pregnant have actually taken the used condoms out of trashcans and self-implanted them.

And anyway, the fairness issue should not be about an "opt out" clause being compared to the right to abortion. It should be about adoption. Women who don't want a kid have the right to give the kid up for adoption, unless the male wants to be the primary caretaker, and in such a case she does not have to pay child support. IMO the man should be able to give his half of the DNA up for adoption, with the woman having the option of deciding to be the caretaker.

I'm the type of person who would take care of this responsibility by myself, but fair is fair and the option should be out there imo. There's a reason why the term "deadbeat dad" gets thrown around so often, while you never hear "deadbeat mom". "Deadbeat moms" have the option of aborting or adoption.