Most of the readers will probably find it hard to believe that the context of this article was written by a single divorce mother of two sons. Nevertheless, it was.
First, I was married at the tender age of seventeen and had my first child at the age of nineteen. My husband was a good provider, throughout our eight years of marriage. However, he never understood the meaning of the word faithful. I do not fault him for this because he was only nineteen when we wedded and I believe he was just too young.
I had one thing going in my favor at the end of our marriage. I had been working throughout our entire 8 years of marriage, only taking the allotted six weeks maternity leave offered to me when I gave birth twice. At the time I was an Administrative Assistant to the Chief Financial Officer of a large metropolitan hospital. I made a decent salary and because I worked for a hospital, I had an extensive benefit package. My husband continued to supply support, when business was good. He was a Self-Employed Electrician and a very good one at that. Then he got re-married approximately three years after the divorce. His new wife had two children from a previous marriage. Eventually they had two children together. At first the child support checks amounts were less and then I started receiving them less frequently until I started receiving nothing.
By this time, I was re-married and my husband made a good salary. It was hard to prove and pinpoint my ex-husband’s salary because he was self-employed. So I never did bother to take him to court because I did not see the point anymore.
But then my eyes were awaked to the other side of the child support issue through my eldest son feelings of helplessness. He and his son’s mother gave birth to my beautiful grandson in 2006. My son was only working a Security Guard job with no benefits and he knew he would need something better. He was laid off from the Security job and decided to take a training course that lasted for 90 days without pay. The important thing is if you were one of the few selected to be hired, you would no longer have a job you would have a life-time career. So he decided it was worth the risk.
It was to my son’s understanding that his son’s mother, who went to school to become a License Beautician during her pregnancy. It was understood that she would not start work until Joey, my grandson, was at least six months old. It is going on 2 years and Joey is now in day care all day, from 8am to 5pm. She still has not attempted to find employment, as of yet.
My son was one of the men chosen and was hire on a permanent status to work in a high security section of a large airport. Since 9/11, they check had his background, families background checked, fingerprint sent to the FBI, etc. He passed all their tests and was hired. However, he was punished severely by the child support system for trying to better himself.
When he started receiving a paycheck every two weeks and was depositing them into his checking account because of the odd hours he works and felt the need to have a car. He was only trying to save up to $2,500 to buy himself something decent to use for transportation. Well that didn’t last long. The long arm of the Child Support System, were able to reach into his account and take out the entire amount he had saved. They left him with a zero balance. He was only out of work for ninety days for training and they wanted that back pay for those checks that were missed while he was in training. He would never would of had a problem with paying extra child support payment to cover the back payments he was behind in. That opportunity was never offer to him. Instead they reached into his account and emptied it.
I have a cousin who was married and had five children with his wife. His wife left him for another man and she had very good employment. The only thing she wanted from her husband is to help her with the children’s college education.
Eventually he met a woman who was about fifteen years his junior. He somehow, impregnated her, it was unplanned. This woman not only had one son with him, she also, became pregnant by him again. My cousin, at the time, had a very good career and owned his own home. After the second child was born she decided she wanted to move to another State. Before her and the children left, they stood before a judge where a judgment was issued and the amount that my cousin was ordered to pay was $1,500 per month, per child, which he felt was excessive. However, this is what he was ordered to pay and this is what he paid.
What I did not understand is the fact that he already had three children in college and one on the way. He has a high mortgage payment to be paid on the first of every month along with a hefty property tax. It did not seem to me that any of these issues were taken into account because if they were, I feel the amount he was ordered to pay would have been substantially less. At the time of the children births, his income was much more than it is today. But something would change this forever.
My cousin was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer about a year ago. This forced his company, with whom he has spent the last twenty seven years working, force him into early retirement. His early retirement lowered his annual income a great deal. When his new financial situation was made clear in court; this had little, if any affect at all, on the judge. He lowered his monthly child support payments, but not by nearly enough. The judge’s excuse was that between his Disability Checks and Pension Checks, he felt it did not warrant a big enough decrease in his child support payments. I felt this was very wrong. He has five children with his ex-wife and two children with his ex-girlfriend. He feels a great deal a responsibility towards his five eldest, to see them though college. This is costing him a pretty penny and has also made him take out a second mortgage on his home.
I feel the same way towards my son who was in training to secure a better career to be able to support his son on a better level. There should be some type of scale used with the issuing of child support amounts. I believe there are many circumstances that should be taken into account and this could be the reason there are so many dead beat dads today. Many feel they will never catch up to the amount of the back pay, so why even try?
I am not advocating not paying child support, do not misunderstand that, however I am advocating a law being pass that will allow judges more leeway and a certain chart of responsibilities that need to be taken into account. If the father of children had a previous family before the one they have now, than what is paid out to this family should be also taken into account. Right now, the only thing used is the father of the child is his annual income at the time. This is just not enough. Many more things need to be taken into account.
I especially felt it is wrong for Child Support Services to be allowed to reach into someone’s bank account and completely clean it out. He was unable to make payments, at the time, because he was in a work training program trying to better his career choices. I do not feel he should have been penalized for this and he should have been given a chance to pay it on his own and not have it confiscated, as if he was some type of criminal trying to hide his assets.
