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The child support system as administered does seem to be unfair. It should be evenly balanced, but it clearly isn't. If the mother makes $60,000/year and the father makes $40,000, then the mother should contribute 60% of the child's support. I alos think it;s unfair that a parent should have to continue paying support when unemployed, if through no fault of his or her own and the other parent is employed.
Rulkes are easy in practice, but then people come along and game the system.
Why do you think you hear every once in a while a judge gets shot. I have heard some really terrible lopsided support rulings. I've heard several where the judge was close friends with the woman's lawyer and they made deals out of court completely ruining the guy.
For the second time on this thread, it doesn't matter whether the laws are written gender specific, it only matters whether whether they are enforced gender specific. In my State, for example, there have been studies done on Judges that have sat on the bench for decades and ruled in favor of Mom over 99% of the time.
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Real World Divorce: Massachusetts
Massachusetts does not have a statutory presumption regarding physical custody following a trial, though lawyers told us that courts have strong biases. "The adage is that unless the woman has a hypodermic needle sticking out of her arm when she comes into the courtroom, she is getting sole physical custody and the father will be a visitor," said one attorney.
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To see if the attorneys we contacted were exaggerating and/or if the bias towards sole custody indicated by the official state form did not reflect outcomes, we hired an attorney to pull and analyze all of the cases for one judge, Maureen Monks in Middlesex County, for 2009, 2010, and 2011 (approximately 350 cases per year, though not all of them involved disputed custody). Judge Monks awarded custody via temporary order to the mother in nearly all of the cases examined except for one case where the mother was a drug addict and another where the mother was in a mental hospital (and as soon as the mother was released from the mental hospital, Judge Monks awarded custody of the children back to her). During the three-year study period no father was successful in going to trial and obtaining a 50/50 shared physical custody situation from Judge Monks in the cases that our attorney-analyst examined. Our attorney-analyst for the May 2011 study concluded that one plaintiff mother was "objectively unfit" due to alcoholism; Judge Monks awarded her sole physical custody of three children. The record of Judge Monks is consistent with March 2014 U.S. Census Current Population Survey data suggesting that over 90 percent of custody lawsuits in Massachusetts are won by women (Census data doesn't track the lawsuits themselves, but shared parenting is uncommon in Massachusetts and the Census found that 97 percent of the Massachusetts residents collecting child support are women). This is consistent with our May 2011 analysis, which found that roughly 91 percent of the "primary parent" winners were women and only 7.5 percent of children were assigned to shared parenting.
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Everything I can find out there says "the parent paying support." If women aren't going to jail or losing their license due to lack of paying support it's because they are either paying or no one is turning them in (and I think it's the latter. I know of at least one women who is supposed to pay support and doesn't. He ex husband just doesn't report her).
First of all, nearly 40% of all births in this country come from single parents. Mom gets automatic default custody in every single one of those situations and Dad gets 0 custody by default (although he does have to pay child support). Second, 50% of all marriages end in divorce, and Mom gets custody of the vast majority of those, too.
There is no 'turning Mom in' when Mom has custody. Mom can even quit her job, move to a trailer park, and go to the State for benefits. Not only does no one in authority care if that happens, they will actually go after Dad to recoup those monies. Mom doesn't lose her license if she doesn't financially support her children. Mom doesn't go to jail. Nothing whatsoever happens to Mom and no one cares that Mom doesn't financially support her children, which is the point of this whole thread.
As far as the outlier cases where Dad has custody and Mom pays child support, in many cases they will not throw Mom in jail for failing to pay. My local court is one of those places. To be clear:
Dad doesn't pay court ordered child support, Dad goes to jail.
Mom doesn't pay court ordered child support, nothing happens to her.
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Dad can also quit his job and get no pay and not have to pay support. Of course, you have to go back to court and file a motion to modify support. If someone doesn't bother to do that, I don't know what to say. I really don't know why someone wouldn't protect themselves like that.
No, no, no. Dad cannot quit his job and not have to pay child support. Dad can quit his job and file for a child support modification in court, where he will be laughed out of court if he quits his job.
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From everything I've read due to this thread is true, I think a lot of men can fix their situations if they were just informed and followed procedures (reporting mothers who don't contribute, filing for modifications when their income changes, etc). I think far too often men in these situations don't put up a fight for their rights. I noticed that in my divorce support group ears ago, I notice that with my boyfriend (who is also divorced), and articles I've been reading about custody, child support, etc also seem to back that up. Complaining won't help, knowing your rights and action will.
Unlike the large numbers of men and women who are outraged by the injustice of the family courts, the modern day Marie Antoinette looks at the great pain and injustice fathers are experiencing at the hands of the family courts and channels the famous line in one of two forms:
Let them ask for custody.
Let them pay child support.
In reality these two separate statements represent the same underlying sentiment. Those being crushed by an unjust system must have somehow had it coming.
One last thing to add. All of this is state specific. I am thinking about my state which is fairly progressive when it comes to these things. If there are problems with your state,
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it's up to you to fix them. I can't help you because your lawmakers don't care what I think or do. They care about their own constituents
No, it's not up to me to fix anything. I have no political power and neither does any Dad in our modern society. There is absolutely nothing that any of us can do to change things, and that's a problem.
If Mom has custody, the courts are probably presuming that she already is providing support (shelter, and also electricity, gas, water, if the child is living with her) and food (since again, the court presumes Mom is going to feed the kid.) Therefore, food and shelter count as support.
Whether 25-40% of Dad's income is fair, however, depends on a variety of factors. Your question may be simple, but it's too much of a blanket statement to be useful in every situation.
This is a very important point. It is the argument that we have seen made on this thread by many different people. But it's not true. Because even if Mom doesn't provide any of these things, there is no opportunity for Dad to rebut this 'presumption'.
The court does not care whether Mom financially supports her kids...even if she doesn't even pay 1 penny!
There is no remedy whatsoever for Dad when Mom does not financially support her kids.
Meanwhile, the long arm of the law will promptly throw Dad in jail if he doesn't pay. See the problem?
Yep, us poor white men cannot ever catch a break in this society, eh?
Why did you bring race into the discussion?
This is especially concerning when you consider that minority men are inordinately oppressed as compared to Caucasian men.
Do you have an issue with racism, Hooligan? Do you have a prejudice that you are trying to project onto this forum?
Sure seems like you might have some issues that need to be addressed.
It must be an anniversary of some kind of break up, or where someone was scorn because of those horrible, horrible women. Or, just a revival of the He-Man Woman Haters Club.
This is an ad hominem attack. It should have no place on this forum.
Just thinking out loud....hmmm....
i wonder why my posts on this subject are often deleted or censored, yet posts like this always seem to stand.
Pretty strange.
No doubt that there is a lot of apparent or blatant misogyny in many aspects of this country. However, even though misogyny has a longer history, I think it is stupid to overlook the fact that there is a sizable amount of misandry in this country as well. If we go by feminist logic of a situation, law, or policy that favors men over women as being "sexist", then that same label applies when there is a situation, law, or policy that favors women over men.
I believe it varies by state, but that is the flip-side of unwed fathers being able to walk away without any obligations. This is why we have so many unwed, single, low-income mothers. Dads can walk away.
What country are you from? Unwed fathers are not allowed by the system to walk away even if a woman is ok with him walking away. All she needs is to apply for public benefits. Child support Gestapo style system is the place where justice and common sense go to die. Males are the prime target. Low income single mothers prefer arseholish fathers oozing raw masculinity but having little assets to their name. It is the only subset of men women will protect from the system, take no money from and forgive all the debts, a generous deposit of sperm from a guy like that is more than enough. Daddy gobbernment will pay for child rearing. But if a generic work mule of a man that does not ooze raw masculinity will father a child out of wedlock, a woman with the help of gobbernment will shake him down for sizable chunk of money 100% and much more. Thus speaking pure biology there is ongoing negative sexual selection gobbernment enables.
Even if we take all your claims at face value that doesn't equal male oppression. If you don't like the child custody/support laws then change them.
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