From yesterday’s Rocky Mountain News:
Dylan Davis, now 36, remembers the rumors.
His friends would tell him they believed his twin children were not his. They would tell him his wife had cheated on him while he was away on a ship doing his duty for the U.S. Navy around the time of the Gulf War.
The couple had married in 1992. The twins, a boy and a girl, were born two years later. He confronted his wife about the rumors six months later, but she vehemently denied the charge and accused him of not trusting her.
Over time the marriage continued to sour and the couple divorced in 2000. He was ordered to pay $1,045 a month in child support.
Then he took a DNA test. He wasn’t the father.
That’s when he learned firsthand about a Colorado law requiring men to continue to pay child support for children over the age of 5 even if it is proved they are not the biological father.
“I felt I had been duped and . . . lied to, and the state didn’t care,” he said.
A bill that would undo that law and allow a man to get out of paying child support if he can prove the child is not his is expected to be voted on today by the Senate Judiciary Committee [note: it passed, 4-3, with one Democrat joining with Republicans].
[…]
Davis, who works for a start-up company and lives in a downtown Denver apartment, still pays $663 a month in child support, but he has no contact with the children, who live out of state.
He was able to reduce the amount of support after he was laid off from his job as a software engineer at Sun Microsystems. However, he owes his ex-wife $32,000 in back payments after having fallen behind schedule.
His ex-wife declined to comment for this story.
Georgia, Florida, Maryland and Ohio have laws that protect men who prove they are not biological fathers, he said.
A similar effort in Colorado two years ago failed to garner the necessary support. But Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, the bill’s sponsor this year, said the vote was close.
“I think it’s a matter of simple fairness,” Mitchell said. “It’s important that a child receive adequate support, but not based on an injustice.”
[…]
But not everyone endorses the proposed change.
Arnie Goldstein, associate director of the Excelsior Youth Center in Aurora, sees the devastation caused when fathers remove themselves from their children’s lives—regardless of the blood tie.
“Whoever raises the kid is the father,” he said.
J Howard, among others here, have done a wonderful job of raising the profile of gender-specific legal problems—though in doing so, they have been subjected to the (completely ironic) taunts that generally accompany such complaints from “men’s rights” activists, which can be reduced to some formulation of the following: oh just shut up and be a man, would you?
There is much to discuss here, and I think that Arnie Goldstein’s points are certainly valid ones: the absence of fathers in the home can indeed have a devastating social impact (unless, of course, you are “Murphy Brown,” in which case you are celebrated for your independence—though interestingly, very few activist feminists rush to point out that you are a woman of wealth and white privilege), and, regardless of blood ties, the function of “father” (I’m helping Mr Goldstein out a bit here) is performed by the man raising the child.
Unfortunately, neither of those points has much to do with the question at hand, and such red herrings, prominent as they’ve become in the battle over financial responsibilities relating to children of divorce / out of wedlock births, serve only to “problematize” an issue that, from a civil rights perspective (as opposed to a public policy perspective), should hardly be tricky at all.
If a man is duped into performing the function of father, he should be no more held accountable than any other victim of fraud.
Of course, with emotionally-charged situations that involve children, it is difficult, admittedly, to look at such situations with complete dispassion. And yet we have to—because that is what the Constitution demands.
But beyond that, I have long suspected that it is in fact the government’s intrusion into these matters—the forceable extraction of money from those who have been defrauded—that creates resistance to offering financial support in the first place. An analogy here—and one that can be drawn, at times, along partisan lines—is the debate over how to raise funds for programs to help the needy. For many liberal-progressives, only mandated taxation can fill such a void; whereas for many conservatives and libertarians, a lessening of the tax burden correlates to a corresponding increase in the amount of charitable donations given—which has the benefit of allowing the giver to feel like it is his choice to contribute (the contribution being of his own free will consequently stimulating feelings of civic pride, which act as a motivation for repeating the behavior).
In effect, the thesis I’m offering here is this: it is my belief that the problem of financial support for children of “duped dads” would likely be significantly mitigated were such clearly gender-specific laws altered to reject the claims those who have committed a fraud have, legally, over those who have in fact been defrauded. Or to put it another way, when faced with familial responsibility rather than court-ordered financial support and the ignominy that goes with it—now the second time the duped dad feels he has been victimized, and from which judgment he quite naturally might recoil—I suspect most of the men who have functioned as fathers would willingly pay child support for children they have raised as their own, contingent, of course, upon other factors, including visitation and partial custodial rights.
And for those fathers who don’t wish to pony up for having been defrauded, the state has several choices: either go after the actual father, much as they might in any paternity suit; or else pick up the tab with the tax revenue already in hand.
True, some of those new stadiums might have to wait. But then, at least such an inconvenience might force lawmakers to take a closer look at the problems of single-parent homes rather than trying to pass the problems on to those who are not (biologically) responsible under the guise of “best interests of the child.”
Because let’s face it: the best interests of the child don’t include a disillusioned, bitter “father” who is reluctant to provide financial support for a child who is not his, and from whom he is often, by court order, estranged.
Just a thesis, though. I welcome your thoughts and feedback, even if it means you must STORM THE GATES OF THE PATRIARCHY!
That is FUBAR.
Guy I work with has been on the hook for child support since his daughter was 4. He got divorced in New Jersey and apparently he’s going to remain on the hook for child support until she graduates from college (Age limit of 25 I think it was). No visitation rights, the ex remarried etc… There are some tilted laws out there.
I am with you on this Jeff. I myself am a step father to two wonderful children. I provide plenty of financial support for them willingly. But I often get upset with the lack of involvement by the actual father. He sits at home all day playing online games while making no income because almost all of it would be garnished to FOTC. He is quite behind on his support and has been since well before I married my wife (mother of said children). Although they have more of a father in me than they would otherwise, It would also be nice to have their father involved as well. whether it is in person, or purely monitarily.
In michigan, you can go to jail for back child support. Yet my wife refuses to turn him in. I feel, that if you have children, then it is your responsibility to see to their welfare. If not, then the hell with ya. I feel if he isnt willing to pony up the money (support) to these children, then he should pay the consequences. If he doesnt like it, then he should have been a man in the first place, or at least used some sort of birth control.
That said, it is complicated at best.
Wait a minute, a woman can claim I’m the father of her child, and even when I prove I’m not, I’m still responsible for paying child support for SOMEONE ELSE’S CHILD?!?!
Really?
How the hell does that work?
What if I were leaving the woman and her pregnancy was the only thing keeping me around? I felt an obligation to raise a child I thought was mine and once it’s determined that I’m not the father, I’m still on the hook for raising this child?!?!
Does this mean single guys should just run every time someone they sleep with gets pregnant? “I didn’t want to be a dad and the kid’s not mine, so I don’t have to pay.”
I think the guy in your article ought to sue the state.
Cuckoo.
He can’t Afs. This happens all the time.
Then there’s plan B. See if Mommy can remember who she had the adulterous affair with, find that guy and let him pay.
Here’s a lovely little story about a Louisiana judge who was just removed from the bench. It seems he had been banging his secretary for some time, refused to recuse himself from her divorce, and signed an order forcing her newly ex-husband to pay child support for a child the judge himself had fathered.
Or, how about a sperm donor forced to pay child support and a sperm donor denied visitation/custody?
Who says you can’t have it both ways? Or, any way you want it?
Please note that Colorado is potentially one of only a few states that could rectify what I see as an injustice (but what many, many, many others do not).
Interestingly, heavily Democratic MD—my home state—is among those. Curious, that.
Of course if the ‘duped’ father has proof he isnt the father, he should get that money back. But that is in my twisted worldview.
Doesn’t this speak to a higher problem of faith and loyalty? Meaning, they wouldn’t have this problem had she not wandered from the farm. Aka family values.
So, while I dream of a responsible society I have to agree with the premise of protections for those wronged. Justice is justice. Yes, I am aware that the child is the victim in all this.
As you mentioned, she should have the ability to seek child support from the actual father in this case. Assuming she can figure out whom that is.
As a taxpayer, I resent being held financially accountable for the irresponsiblities and moral floundering of others. You can pay for your own poor choices in life, thank you.
With interest.
Ya think? Check this story about a guy who paid $20K plus for a child who never existed, despite his convincing protestations to the fact, ie: his zero sperm count via vasectomy.
On the bright side, the “mother” was recently sentenced to 16 months in prison. For defrauding the father? No, silly. Of course not. For defrauding the government by taking a tax deduction for the kid.
You can screw some hapless schlub over, but do not fuck with Uncle Sam.
My god, do you/we realize what you’ve said here? What an amazing era we live in when bald-faced gender discrimination is instituted by what amounts to a fiat by a majority special interest.
And “feminism” exists to do what?
Not surprisingly, the best interests of the child don’t include a disillusioned, bitter father who is reluctant to provide financial support for a child who is his, and from whom he is often, by court order, estranged, if not persecuted by that gender-specific policy. This is not an alien topic for hundreds of thousands of real fathers and a not insignificant number of mothers split along roughly that 85/15 ratio of fathers to mothers disenfranchised by “uncooperative” former mates in league with the divorce and child custody industries.
Making nuclear war around your kids is now conventional wisdom because it pays heaps, albeit as much to the legal establishment and its various hangers-on as to the “winning” parent.
But more to your points, Jeff, the system is actually a divorce and custody industry, one based upon no-fault divorce and various conflicts of a citizen’s constitutional interest and rights. It’s legislated to be so and by precisely those who stand to benefit from it.
The so-called “silver bullet”:
-Allege irreconcilable differences, or better yet, domestic violence;
-Have the “offending” parent removed by law;
-Use new de facto primary/secondary custodial status to move the court;
-Enjoy new legal primary/secondary rights, complete with financial windfal.
A host of legislated tools assist this strategy, among them the Democrat’s Violence Against Women Act, the better part of the welfare system, a nationalized “child support” system of justice, and various legislated levers, among them the federal government kicking back to states what had until recently been as much as $.66 for each dollar of state-generated child support and other legislation making it impossible to address most forms of these sorts of financial frauds related to custody and support. Search Title IV-D, research the DHHS, and look up Bradley Amendment.
In other words, as a parent you may generally not seek recourse for any of the above, and you have no ability within the law to avoid what amounts to the loss of a host of primary constitutional rights, among them due process, presumption of innocence, property rights, not being jailed for insolvency, privacy rights, and the big one, a couple hundred years of SC precedents making parenting, naturally, just about as important and unalienable a right as any.
Repeat as appropriate for the non-father, the defrauded guy who never sired or parented the kid in the first place—mom can, in effect, just fabricate you as daddy and if you fail to respond with a couple of tons of effective defense, you’re on the hook forever. DNA evidence be damned—yes, proving you’re not dad doesn’t count unless your state specifically granted you the right to seek amends by special law.
Then imagine the plight of the soldier, who having served for a couple years, comes home to find no trace of mom and the kids … but is hauled off for “child support” arrears.
It’s no wonder that an Indiana father is organizing suits against every county in the US for highly unconstitutional behavior by the entire system of government dedicated to destroying rights and relationships.
The source of all of this, as your own legislators will tell you just as sure as mine have me, in writing, is a cabal of “women’s lobbies”, trial lawyers, and speaking from my experience, judges themselves. Never underestimate the link between bench and bar.
It’s all, by now, an industry. It depends on stealth of night and popular misconceptions—for example, the Left loves it because it all hates the traditional family, but the Right loves it because it hammers drive-by dads, typically black. Without any appreciable libertarian interest or weight behind a reform, it stands.
What blows my mind (or did) is that the righteous reformers of traditional race and gender discrimination have no evident problem with the simple reversal of their once-hallowed principles now that the sights are set on men (and of men, a disproportionately large percentage of black men.) Not a peep of protest from the feminists or the race champions as their own flavor of socialism ruins others by the same intolerance and ignorance they themselves ostensibly fought for half a century.
I don’t know of one state where’s that’s not the case. Despite debtor’s prison being illegal, contempt of court creates the handy exception. It is, without any doubt, all about the money.
You have to be impressed by the gains that feminists have made in the legal arena over the years. In most states a woman could cheat on her husband, have a child or children by her lover, dupe her husband into believing that they are his for a time and then when caught cheating on her husband she will by law unquestionably recieve half or more of his shit and still be able to collect child support from him for someone else’s children. She can also easily remove them from his life with no recourse for him to do anything about it.
Imagine if you were the guy, first you find out your wife has been banging her boss and had a couple children by him (on and off for your entire marraige). Then she divorces you to go live with him (after his wife divorces him) and gets over half your shit. During the child custody portion of the divorce proceedings SHE introduces that the children aren’t yours (ages 6 and 8) which is confirmed by DNA testing. You lose any and all rights to visitation etc and she is granted full custody. Then, in seperate preceedings, she sues you for child support even though she is actually living with the childrens biological father (her ex-boss) and wins. You are now living in a small one bedroom apartment, financially crippled by the high child support payments and lawyer bills and she is living with her boss and your ex-children across town in a nice house in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in town.
That happened to my buddy Mark. He paid child support for the two children of a highly paid executive officer in a local company for several years (eventually his ex-wife married the guy and he was off the hook). Many years ago he confronted his ex-wife and her new husband about why they were insisting on getting the money from him when they clearly didn’t need it and his ex-wife got pissed off and told him that he owed it to her because she was married to him for 10 years of her life.
That to me is modern feminism. Women completely disconnected from any responsibility for their actions, immersed in feelings of victimhood and empowered to use the power of the state to exact financial and emotional ruin on the men in their lives.
And soon the biggest feminazi of them all will be president! ugh.
In Michigan, you can theoretically go to jail for adultery.
Which, makes me feel like hillary (when president) will sue us all, men and women alike for back child support. Because as you know, it takes a whole country to raise a child.
JHoward,
Sometimes, they don’t even bother to hide it or the motivations for it.
MBA’s Family Law Conference draws over 200 attendees
Gender specific?
Before you go saying, I know it’s not the same thing, since there’s no “fraud” involved here. Maybe now that someone outside the “patriarchy” can feel the effects of some draconian support laws they’ll be changed. Not sure that would be for the better, though.
Or, how about if they are your kids and the argument goes that you can’t take care of them because you’re a brokedick living in a shithole, and therefore you’re not fit to see them with any regularity?
Missouri is roughly the same way. A local TV station did a report about a guy caught in this exact type of situation a month or so ago. No recourse, he’s on the hook despite proving he’s not the father. Because the average politician will do anything to get his face on television, there was an assemblyman at the end of the story promising to do something about it, but as far as I know that hasn’t happened yet. It’s thoroughly outrageous; they don’t keep killers and rapists cleared by DNA evidence in jail because the system erroneously found them guilty. This shouldn’t be any different.
Patrick, that’s the flip side of this.
Brave new world, huh?
If I broke into your house and stole your stuff, to be used for the betterment of my children, then I should be allowed to keep it because my reasons were solid. This law is no different, it allows me to profit on my illegal/immoral acts, so long as some lesser third party benefits.
The thing is, men who feel trapped by this sort of arrangment may feel more inclined to strike back at the one who is the cause, in which case the state may get to pay for the children as well as the judicial/incarcaration/execution fees for the “father”. In which case, the nanny state STILL wins.
But the basic premise is that someone has to support the kid, and better the “parent” than the state.
Why is that, if the “parent” is not the parent? Why don’t we just make Bill Gates pay for everyone’s kids?
Only in this case it’s not the “parent”, it’s some guy who was duped by his lying whore of a wife. Why is his individuality trumped as a result of the immoral actions of another? Why would we allow it to be?
Ouch!! Very sensitive subject!!! After divorcing my first wife in 86, she went and filed for support in 3 counties (LA, Orange, and San Diego)
simultaneously. Illegal you say? Well according to the family Court attorneys I fought with for 5 years, apparently not. From what I understand it was my responsibility to prove that my ex-wife did not live in those above mentioned counties. To make matters worse, she disappeared for months at a time, so imagine how hard it was to locate and prove residency. California has the most one sided child support laws I think by far. To make a long story short I finally caught up with the ex and found she was living in Humboldt County Northern California. Had support reduced by $1,100.00 but I am still on the hook for $13,000 in arrears that added up during my quest. My daughter is now 21 living in Portland sadly active in protesting everything Bush. As for the arrears, my attorney is still working to have the debt erased, but the fees are adding up. As a father of 3, the court does not care if you work hard to support your current family if there is an open case, even if the facts of the case are suspicoous. That is all…..
Sounds like a job for Divorcee Barbie (specializing in family law)
The Right’s approach to these things is to emphasize personal responsibility; there ARE deadbeat dads who try to get out of responsibility for their kids. Race has zero to do with it.
But there needs to be both legal and agency-level distinctions so that not every guy in the system gets treated like a “deadbeat dad.” And not being the father should be an ironclad “out” for any support.
If they have anything like the Uniform Parentage Act, then they are the parent. Basically, there’s a presumption that any children born to the marriage are the husband’s. There may be some provision for him to challenge paternity, but it’s likely only of limited duration. Beyond that point, and you’re likely SOL.
DG, I think you may have mistaken my statement to be advocating a certain stance, it wasn’t. I was giving an example of what might be the rationale. Ideally, the person who is the real father should pay. But what is a real father (ok, parent, given Elisa B.)? That’s not as simple a question to answer as it sounds, especially legally.
“But what is a real father (ok, parent, given Elisa B.)? That’s not as simple a question to answer as it sounds, especially legally.”
What no responsibility for the paternal father? Give me a break. You father the child, you support the child. How can it not be any simpler?
So the state, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to extort child support from the one man on Earth proven not to be a parent.
Makes perfectly good sense to me.
Pablo,
I don’t think the cases you cited are similar to the one Jeff mentions. In that case these children grew up believing their dad was their dad–for five years. I’m trying to imagine explaining to a five year old, “Your DNA and my DNA don’t match. Your mother screwed me over. I won’t be your dad anymore.” Forget the money, what about the love? These kids thought they had a dad. And yes it is the woman’s fault and yes she should pay.
The feminist movement has certainly co-opted the law. Men all over are having to pay for kids without raising them or raising them and paying the woman anyway (in my good friend’s case).
But the biggest losers are the children. I’ve had many conversations with men and women who are so intent on revenge that they destroy their kids.
The solution, in my book, is to go back to at-fault divorces, make them much harder to get.
Men who give away sperm are stupid. How is it being a “nice guy” to give a single woman sperm to create a baby that you don’t want to raise? The man is inherently admitting that he is an unnecessary appendage in the child-rearing. I don’t believe this, by the way. From my past comments, you’ll note that I believe a mother AND a father are important for a child’s development. Note the lesbians whose children asked how they were made. “Who is my DAD?”
No one wants God invoked in a mechanistic legal discussion where there are simply “aggrieved parties”, but this is a moral problem, too.
There is a general disrespect for sex, marriage and creating life. Is it any wonder we’re at such an insane place legally?
OK Patrick, thanks for the clarification.
I still think I’m on solid legal ground when it comes to profiting off of what is an illegal act (in this case fraud). You don’t get to, no matter what the motivation or circumstance.
extort child support from the one man on Earth proven not to be a parent
Sometimes this turns out to be the case.
What no responsibility for the paternal father?
Many (most?) times, even if the biological father wants to he can’t (See Michael H.). Be the father that is. Of course of all this can be worked out if everyone is reasonable, but we don’t hear about those cases.
Uhm.. as far as I know, there are plenty of drive by dads that are white. So what! Race has nothing to do with being a father.
As for giving away sperm I guess I am guilty. I agree that both parents are important to upbringing of any child conceived in the union, but creating a fair and balanced legal system that won’t harm the chldren directly or indirectly during a divorce, I think is almost impossible……There will always be one parent who will be disadvantaged.
I’m not the genetic father of my children. Guess I should sue.
Of course, I knew that upfront, so maybe not.
So: I’m thinking there has to be both a sort of genetic connection and long-perpetrated fraud, to clear out the responsibility for child support. If there’s no fraud, then the responsibility stays. If there’s genetic connection and no fraud, and the guy’s not just some sperm donor, the responsibility stays. If you’re a sperm donor, anonymous or not, there should be a release from responsibility before conception.
Why does this remind me of “My Name Is Earl”?…
Partial custodial rights? Reading through these posts has brought to mind a thought I have often had: how low does a mother have to sink to involutarily lose custody? Wouldn’t raising that bar do alot to alleviate some of these problems?
Melissa,
Note this, from the piece:
As for your question, Mom screwed the kids over too. She duped them just as she duped him. If he’s unwilling, why should her be forced to pay for her deceit? True, it may not be the altruistic position to take, but should we be legislating forced psuedo-altruism? Is it unreasonable to see such kids as living symbols of your ex’s adultery? Suppose you can’t get past that?
Mostly. But when a real father gets the same treatment (and I’m one of them, for about 15 years now), how is he not losing in a big way too? The broken relationship has 2 parts: the kids and the dad. Is this a product of the “Be a man, shut up and suck it up” culture? Imagine yourself being told that you get to see your kids two weeks a year. Would you consider that a loss? Major or negligible?
Yup. Also, enforcing the traditional precepts of justice would be helpful, such as insisting on working with the facts and prosecuting perjury.
Yup.
Nope.
well, heres the dirty little secret. It all starts with the child support enforcement act of 1993. Part of Clintons welfare reform. For every dollar the state collects in child support they get a dollar from the feds. Hell , I would make any mom or dad pay whether or not they were the biological parent or not. If you want to change the system take away the incentives. Its all about the money folks.
Is this a product of the “Be a man, shut up and suck it up” culture?
No, this is a product of “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Feminists have been working as hard as they can to make fatherhood irrelevant so that they can make those evil patriarchs irrelevant and powerless, thus to establish Matriarchy, which, sorry to say, is no better than patriarchy, because half the population still loses out.
It’s yet another battle in the long, primeval war between the sexes. Face it, men and women have different interests when it comes to reproduction and different expectations when it comes to marriage. If they’re mature adults, they’ll work to reconcile the differences. If not, they’ll do their best to maintain the upper hand and further foment the war.
JAA, Chris, please read this as I thought I’d worded and intended it:
When it comes to single parenting for money, just not per capita.
The ostensible Right loves draconian custody law because it hammers drive-by dads with more of the otherwise Leftist burden of the nanny state. Typically fronted in this case, per capita, by urban black dads outside of wedlock, or so it appears for want of Republican outcry against the unconstitutional horrow of custody law, especially in urban settings where it’s intertwined with the welfare juggernaut and has become, for generations, an entire way of life.
It’s the only explanation. In fact, I think it’s the only explanation for the Detroit-conscious Michigan AG in 2004 or thereabouts creating a state program that financially encouraged kids to be alienated from their fathers. Alienation, as you may recall, is expressly forbidded in just about all divorce decrees. AG Mike Cox effectively committed some nasty, otherwise illegal deeds in the zealous hunt for billions from what many call beat-dead, deadbroke dads.
The Right’s alternative would be to allow the nanny State to foot the entire bill for huge numbers of single parent homes. That ain’t happening. The Republican congress passed welfare reform some time ago, and welfare reform appreciably changed the burden of child support—today welfare and “child support” are nearly functionally interchangable.
I didn’t insist it had to do with race except by consequence, or so I’d rather believe. Be a drive-by dad, foot the bill. Be black and therefore part of a higher per capita of drive by dad’s, and by the consequence of custody law, you’ll also foot the bill, but as race, more of it per man. I’m guessing there are appreciable numbers of “conservatives” upon whom that point is not lost but have yet to speak out for reform. Hope I’m wrong, but would tend to doubt it.
Regardless, it’s an irony for pro-black leftist socialist nanny-staters, one they’ll evidently sacrifice.
Does the guy have no contact because he doesn’t want contact or because she took them away?
If a guy doesn’t want any part of the kids (I still find this heart-breaking, and no, you can’t legislate altruism, you can only legislate action), he shouldn’t be involved in any way–financially or otherwise.
If he does want to be part of the kids lives, I would think that he would want to help the children. This is where Jeff is right about the forced payments. The legal situation makes people less inclined to be altruistic. Removing the force from the law would also modify many women’s behavior since they will have the ultimate responsibility.
The bio father must be found (of course, the woman will “forget”, her memory could be helped by no support from anywhere) and he must pay.
What nasty business.
Yeah, but she seems to need his money, no? If fathers are irrelevant, why isn’t their income?
BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!!!
Melissa,
At-fault divorces were scrapped for a reason. They almost always devolve into a series he said/she said arguments with no evidence on either side. They generate lots of money for lawyers and private investigators, but they weren’t any more “fair” than what we have today.
Melissa, it being a Colorado case, it stands to reason that she moved. Without knowing the specifics, that seems to show, at best, a disregard for continuing contact. While there may be extenuating circumstances, that much seems fairly clear.
I know I wouldn’t want to pay for kids who aren’t mine and I can’t see.
Courts tend to be like that. Stupid legislatures who increasingly tolerate judicial meddling only add to the problem.
Eric, no-fault isn’t saving us anything as the litigation has simply moved from being about fault to being about property and custody. The hours are still getting billed and the clients are still losing large protions of their estates to the process. It has also caused the divorce rate to skyrocket, damaging that many more children.
If divorce wasn’t so easy to get, perhaps people would take getting married more seriously.
Are there any laws protecting the deadbrock dads? From what I have read in California, the deadbeat or deadbrock dad has his drivers license suspended. And what does this accomplish? No way to drive to work… Makes sense huh?
Had a friend who fathered a child as a high-schooler. The kid was given up in a private adoption to a family member organized by the mother’s parents. The family that adopted the kid divorced and the child was returned to live with the grandparents. My friend graduated High School, went to a good college and then med school and became an OB-GYN. The girl finished High School, met a guy and got married at 19, she is now divorced and lives on her own. The kid still lives with the grandparents.
When my friend was going to get married and his banns were announced in the paper he was slapped with a lawsuit and found liable for 16 years of child support. He lost his house and car, his credit rating, he has even been denied jobs because of his credit rating. Oh yeah, he didn’t get married and has never been allowed to contact the child.
Last summer I heard he found out that the child wasn’t his, that may or may not be true, but he’s bankrupt and no longer working as a Dr.
Stories like his should be required to be told in every High School health class. “Put the condom on the banana…good. Now here’s John. John’s 38 and lives with his mother. He has $90,000 of Student Loan debt and owes $200,000 in child support for a child that he has never even seen. You might want to put another condom on that banana…”
Eric,
Yes they do. They are messy and mean. They are what could be called a punishment or negative inhibition, might be better a better description. People must think long and hard before doing it.
I thought that this was interesting. The blog author notes that the divorce rate is dropping. He/she? fails to mention that non-marrieds living together is increasing which is another unstable environment for children.
Pablo,
I don’t know Colorado law, but usually a person in custody/divorce battle must receive consent from the other “parent” to leave the state.
Oops forgot the link. Here it is.
That’s why there should be laws linking payment of child support with compliance to court visitation decrees.
Unless the mother can prove (not allege) the father is a threat to the kids, her child support payments should be based on how often her ex sees the kids. And if she continues to refuse visitation, she should lose custody of the kids.
At-fault divorces were scrapped for what, at best, seemed like a reason, which was to prevent them devolving into a litany of attacking arguments. As to evidence, you cannot say none was present. Nonetheless, that perception may have contributed to erroneously decreeing no fault to be the new standard.
You cannot defend a law or legal standard that victimizes one party for a vague gain in the efficiency of government. You certainly cannot defend it if that government can be convincingly shown to have co-mingled financial ways and means within itself, with special interest, and with the opposing party against the public’s general good. Even less so, obviously, when the three rely on one another to pull the fraud off.
If that standard then creates the very problem it was allegedly created to address, as with all nanny state failures, surely it needs to be scrapped.
Of course at-fault cases formerly generated lots of money for lawyers and private investigators, but they absolutely were fairer in the only sense that matters: That primary rights could be preserved and that both parties underwent the difficulty, thereby making it prohibitive to seek a frivolous divorce.
Today’s system is grossly more unfair in that it pays the hostile and/or gender-advantaged party. And pay it does. Unless you adopt a powerfully hostile stance (and statistically, unless you were born with certain biological equipment) you lose. All no-fault did was to replace one set of messy particulars with another, and the latter is without question the more correct.
It’s never been about “fair”. It’s been and continues to be about best principles and therefore, best observance of as many constitutional rights as possible.
Parents disenfranchised by the unecessary court-ordered loss of their kids see the system for what it is: Legalized no-fault-no-blame kidnapping, legalized extortion, and legalized theft. The penalty of which, should you refuse to be victimized by it, is imprisonment.
And it’s all engineered by special interest.
Absolutely. And absolutely not happening any time soon. “Feminism” saw to that. Furthermore, 50/50 custody changes the “support” equation away from the State’s financial best interest.
Ah! A subject close to my hearrt! Never die in Connecticut, and, if you are male in Connecticut, never get divorced.
My wife, who spent 5 years in a drunken stupor and now does more drugs (legally) than any junkie I have ever known, went behind my back, rented a house without a word of warning, and now takes just enough of my money that neither one of us (or our little boy) has a chance in Hell at a decent life.
Why did she do this?
Because after six and a half years of coming home at noon because she was drunk, bailing her out of jail, and visiting her in either jail or rehab, and her spending more money than I made, and then slamming me for not paying the bills, I cut her off.
The CT courts have seen fit to award this addled addict with child custody for my little boy, because, whenever either my wife or my son are unhappy with me (such as winning a game of “Sorry”), the standard response is: “Daddy’s been drinking”. Excuse me?
What bullshit. You would think that someone who spent four and a half months in jail for DWI, slit her wrists in front of her two year old son and then slathered him with blood by hugging him and saying “I love you[!!]”, and destroyed my business and reputation with her addictions would get some closer scrutiny. This woman has also hit me square on the nose while we were going 60 mph with our son in the car, and when I called the police (only because she wouldn’t stop trying to kill me in front of my son’s eyes), she took me to jail by alleging that I hit her! I have never hit anybody in my life. She has been taken away by ambulance in three different towns for abusive drunken behavior – for a total of six or seven trips. You lose count after a while.
Anyway, the answer to the question of “a little more scrutiny” on my wife’s behaviour?
BZZZZT!!! WRONG!! A simple allegation of drunken abuse on her part is enough to FUCK ME! And the court doesn’t even pretend to care whether the allegation is true (which it is absolutely NOT!). If I wanted to abuse her, I would have killed her seven years ago and been out of jail by now.
“You are a MALE, Mr. Dog, and that is enough proof for Connecticut courts that you are a piece of shit, and have nothing of consequence to add to this discussion. Your wife is a woman, and if you can’t afford tens of thousands of dollars (which we just gave to your wife) for a lawyer, you lose.”
Sorry, but in my experience, men usually get to eat shit in a divorce.
Ron Perleman
Correction: All no-fault did was to replace one set of messy particulars with another, and the latter is without question the more incorrect.
Ouch, I’m sorry to hear about that Dog. Has the situation improved any?
I found myself in a situation a few years ago of being simultaneously charged money for a child that was alleged by my ex to be mine (in fact, he is), and denied parental rights because my ex wouldn’t acknowledge that he was mine. This is the position of fathers under the law: we have only the rights that our exes are willing that we should have, but full responsibility.
Because, you know, bitter, vindictive women are the best and most honest judges of a man’s character and a child’s best interests.
The related question, of course, is whether a man ought to have any right to prevent a woman from aborting his child should he agree to take sole responsibility for the child.
There are cases where this has been done, and the man is still forced to pay child support.
Estes v. Albers and Straub v. B.M.T. by Todd
I wrote a post some time ago about some of the inequalities in reproductive and family law.
Melissa,
You’d think, right? My ex married into the Navy. He got orders, I lost my daughter. All in her best interest of course.
The guy she married was the same guy she was having the affair with that precipitated the divorce. She denied the affair to the very same court that let her move away with him, taking my daughter whom I had joint legal and physical custody of, once they got married.
Perjury? Pshaw! Mommy knows best.
Joel,
You said a mouthful there, brother.
Pablo
Feeling your pain compadre…..
Thanks, Todd. On the bright side, I’m almost at the point where I can have a relationship with my kiddo without her amoral, psychopathic mother’s consent. Lots of years gone under the bridge.
Here’s an interesting site from a 14 year old kid’s POV.
[url=”http://www.billsarena.com/” target=”_blank”]
The Internet’s Best Kid’s Divorce Site, By A Kid[/url]
It would seem to me that in the era of itty-bitty remote web cams, proof of abuse or other horrible behavior should be more easily proven.
Let’s try that link again.
The Internet’s Best Kid’s Divorce Site, By A Kid
tw: subject18
Well, not quite, but close.
I don’t know how it’s working in other states, but no-fault divorce has been a good thing in California. The leeches don’t make nearly as much money, since you pretty much just cross-index the two incomes and the custody percentage in a book to get the support payments, and the property gets split 50/50.
Sure, some people still manage to make it uglier than it has to be. But at least there’s no financial reason to make your ex look like the worlds most evil person. That, in turn, makes it easier for the parties to cooperate in raising the child.
False allegations of domestic violence and child molestation are much less common now. I’ve never been married, but I’m not sure I would be able to work with a woman who, in court, accused me of molesting my children. There’s a reason guys sometimes flip out and blow the ex away.
Eric, there’s always a reason to go back, and the leeches encourage it, that being their bread and butter. In fact, my ex’s shark tried to establish that I would only communicate through her, to which I replied “Fuck you.”
Had I conceded to such, the Order to Show Cause for me to pay for the privilege would have been just around the bend.
Never underestimate the power of a leech to suck blood.
And not just the other side’s leech. The financially worst thing your lawyer can do is to solve your case quickly, which means amicably and in your child’s oft-touted best interest.
Like that one? How about when your entire legal community is equally imcompetent / corrupt /imbued? Then the lovely “local standard of practice” prevents one of the leeches, working for you, suing the other leech, who used to work for you but screwed up the case. The reasoning goes that since everybody’s doing it, it’s your problem and not theirs. You. Dumbass.
Toss in some judges—former family law leeches themselves—and acknowledge that in order to work in their fine burg the leeches need to leech together on the hosts—you—and suddenly it’s not you dealing fairly with your own child’s so-called best interest, it’s the entire leech swarm in essence deciding when to detach and let you go off, bloodless, and die.
But that’s all a sidebar to the point Jeff’s made: If not blissfully embraced by the sheer evil of their well-designed methods, how do “feminists” sleep at night?
Why, they count not sheep, but our money.
Pablo,
I’m so sorry that happened to you and sorry that happened to your daughter, too. What a huge loss.
[1st verse [Oo-backing vocals on each line]]
Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?
Hey Joe, I said where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?
Alright. I’m goin down to shoot my old lady,
you know I caught her messin’ ‘round with another man.
Yeah,! I’m goin’ down to shoot my old lady,
you know I caught her messin’ ‘round with another man.
Huh! And that ain’t too cool.
[2nd verse [Ah. -backing vocal on each line]]
Uh, hey Joe, I heard you shot your woman down,
you shot her down.
Uh, hey Joe, I heard you shot you old lady down,
you shot her down to the ground. Yeah!
Yes, I did, I shot her,
you know I caught her messin’ ‘round,
messin’ ‘round town.
Uh, yes I did, I shot her
you know I caught my old lady messin’ ‘round town.
And I gave her the gun and I shot her!
Alright
(Ah! Hey Joe)
Shoot her one more time again, baby!
(Oo)
Yeah.
(Hey Joe!)
Ah, dig it!
(Hey)
Ah! Ah!
(Joe where you gonna go?)
Oh, alright.
[3rd verse]
Hey Joe, said now,
(Hey)
uh, where you gonna run to now, where you gonna run to?
Yeah.
(where you gonna go?)
Hey Joe, I said,
(Hey)
where you goin’ to run
to now, where you, where you gonna go?
(Joe!)
Well, dig it!
I’m goin’ way down south, way down south,
(Hey)
way down south to Mexico way! Alright!
(Joe)
I’m goin’ way down south,
(Hey, Joe)
way down where I can be free!
(where you gonna…)
Ain’t no one gonna find me babe!
(…go?)
Ain’t no hangman gonna,
(Hey, Joe)
he ain’t gonna put a rope around me!
(Joe where you gonna..)
You better belive it right now!
(…go?)
I gotta go now!
Hey, hey, hey Joe,
(Hey Joe)
you better run on down!
(where you gonna…)
Goodbye everybody. Ow!
(…go?)
Hey, hey Joe, what’d I say,
(Hey…………………..Joe)
run on down.
(where you gonna go?)
After reading this thread, it makes me realize all over again why there is little reason whatsoever to get married. That and the fact that I am married of course…
My God, you poor things! Please let me apologize on behalf of all the shitty women and their feminist crap. I have known of this stuff for some time and can only laugh at the head-shaking going on today on ‘why men won’t commit’.
I have seen one of the very scenarios described above inflicted on a friend, with the added ‘child sexual abuse’ innuendo swirled around everywhere but in court. He was devastated to say the least. Most puzzling though, was his ex-wife’s insistence on recreating her own poverty-stricken childhood for their four children.
…first, start with the lawyers.
“Please let me apologize on behalf of all the shitty women and their feminist crap.”
Cindi,
Don’t you dare apologize for them; you have nothing whatsoever to do with them. You are you and they are they. You and women like you are part of the solution, not part of the problem. In fact, it always seems to be the women in these men’s lives who get outraged and start doing something about it. Maybe it’s because they are not brainwashed into the shut-up-and-suck-it-up macho self-image, and they are not vulnerable to having their manhood taunted and belittled when they speak out.
If you are disgusted and angry enough, you may decide to do something to help. Female lawyers and female judges tend to be a little better about dealing with female spouses in court. Sometimes. Female advocates for men tend to get a little more of a hearing from female gender bigots. Sometimes. And then again, sometimes they get attacked hysterically. So know that going in. But there is something you can do.
Different situation, same problems:
I have had clients (when I was a JAG attorney) who were served with a child support action 10 years or more after the child’s birth. The client never knew of the child, and was a good person, would have wanted to be a part of the child’s life, pay his fair share, etc.
B/c the mother never bothered to tell him, the guy lost any opportunity to develop a relationship with the child, and is now being sued and garnished – not just for current support – but for 10 years of back child-support plus interest.
How is that just or fair in any world? The mother knew where the father was the entire 10 years, but for whatever reason waited 10 years to go looking for the $$.
The reason this whole area of law is twisted is the same reason that liberal “logic” never makes sense. it is all based on emotion (let’s look out “for the children”) rather than on actual logic, justice, and fairness.
– Great Banana
Banana,
If she never made any attempt to find the guy, does he have some basis to counter-sue? About the denying him the opportunitiy to know the child part.
Pablo,
I know there’s always a reason to go back, and I know it’s still ugly. All I’m saying is it’s better than it used to be.
Look, there are some women that are masters of being sympathetic figures. I know lots of guys who got divorced before no-fault, and some of them lost everything. The house, cars, all the assets. Literally, some of those guys left the marriage with the shirt on their backs and a bill for monthly support.
Maybe some of them deserved it, but not all. Male judges are no different than other men – he’s programmed to take care of the women around him. So if she’s crying and spinning a sad story (true or not), and especially if she’s attractive, the husband is gonna come out with the short end of the stick.
The statistics bear it out. Not only did legal costs go down, but in California divorced men now leave the marriage with more assets and pay less spousal support.
Eric, I’d like to see the statistics then. I’m sure that whatever improvement we might find will be more than offset by the sheer numbers now finding themselves in the system.
And that said, I’m in contact with quite a number of Californians (and I was divorced there myself) that have been royally fucked over by California courts and women who would have rightfully gotten their asses handed to them in an at fault divorce system. It was the San Diego County court that allowed my daughter to be taken out of state against my wishes, and it cost me a bundle getting to that lovely point.
No fault allows a woman to simply unplug a guy from his children’s lives and plug the new one in, except for the whole taking most of his assets and a big chunk of his income part. While there’s ‘no fault” in divorce, there is in custody, and the allegations fly fast and furious with little regard for the facts.
I suspect most of the men who have functioned as fathers would willingly pay child support for children they have raised as their own, contingent, of course, upon other factors, including visitation and partial custodial rights.
We suspect my brother’s son is not technically his. We don’t care; he, my brother, doesn’t care; we adore this child. And yes, the child’s mother, my brother’s ex-wife, is absolutely dreadful; she’s the most narcissistic, self-absorbed, manipulative, deceitful person imaginable. (I’m not exagerrating.) We owe to this child to stay involved in his life, he’ll need a shelter from his mother’s abusiveness.
And yes, the California court systems are putting the screws to my brother in terms of calculating child support and visitation rights.
The biological father who sired the kids should be the one responsible to provide for these children if anyone is. The cuckold (cheated on man) has no responsibility towards the woman or the children in this situation. Why the insistence on further victimizing the man?
Has he no right to be the father to his own children? What happens when he leaves the woman who destroyed their marriage vows to find a trustworthy woman? How is the man supposed to be able to have children of his own? How is it right for the cuckold or his new wife? Or should she just give up having children too because the selfish immoral people who are screwing over her husband have taken away the money for them to have a family?
Here is another way to go about it.
Prosecute the mother for fraud. The FRAUD was HER doing, not the alleged father’s.
We continue to blame the man when women have the option of using birth control (~20 flavors for the woman, 1 for the man) preconception, aborting, putting up for adoption, or legally willfully abandoning a child NO QUESTIONS ASKED, post conception. The post conception options ARE ONLY AVAILABLE TO THE WOMAN.
THATS RIGHT. A WOMAN CAN LEGALLY ABANDONE A CHILD, HOWEVER, A MAN CANNOT.
It is SHE, that makes every decision about having sex, and bringing a child to term – and it is SHE that knows when she is willfully deceiving her partner(s). And, when there is a chance she doesn’t know who the father might be, I’ll bet money she chooses the one with the most income.
The law should be changed.
The law should reflect the actual crime, and the law should prosecute the PERPETRATOR OF FRAUD.
If that means the woman goes to jail and loses custody of the child, GOOD! Let Justice be served.
Men have been paying through the nose for women for generations. Chivalry is not only dead, it is dangerous and costly to men.
Wake up Gentlemen. The rules have changed, and it is the feminists that have changed them.
Recognize this and defend yourselves.
Trust not, any woman. This story shows they have proven untrustworthy.