From: xenon@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.dads-rights,soc.men
Subject: re: War on Fathers (was: StipU whatever
Date: 11 Nov 92 13:13:03 -0500
Summary: Welcome to the age of the disposable father
Keywords: child support custody fathers deadbeat
Distribution: world
Organization: Carnegie Mellon Computer Club

 
"rini" (mec6@quads.uchicago.edu) writes:
 
> xenon@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu writes:
>
> >What is going on in the divorce courts of America is nothing less than a
> >war against fathers and fatherhood, perpetrated by an unholy alliance of
> >self-righteous social workers, man-haters, and judges wallowing in the
> >egotistical fantasy of themselves as noble saviours of oh-so-grateful
> >women.  What they are creating is a nation of children without fathers,
> >and an ever-growing body of impoverished, disempowered, rootless and
> >angry men.
>
> Well, let's not misrepresent the data on this.
>
> Let's take family income at time t.  Say a divorce happens at time t.
> How does that effect the income of men and women?  What is the ratio
> of income in subsequent years to the income before the divorce?
>
>                      Years after time t
>                     1        3         5
>                  -------------------------
> women             .81      .97      1.01
> men               .84      .99      1.03
> (no divorce)     1.17     1.17      1.28
>
> As you can see, women are economically hit harder by divorce than men are.
> (They would both be better off if they could stay together.)
>
> Also note that in 1987, a whopping 6.2% of divorced women were supposed
> to recieve alimony payments.
 
It would be hard to imagine a more misleading set of statistics.
 
Guidelines for child support awards are based on the theory that the
children should not have to suffer a decline in their lifestyle just
because their parents get divorced... and of course the lifestyle of the
children is essentially the same as the lifestyle of the parent that has
*custody* of the children.  That almost always turns out to be the mother.
So a substantial portion of "child support" is de facto "alimony", even
though it is never called by that name.  In fact it is *better* than
alimony because it continues even if the mother remarries, until the
children are at least 18 and often longer.
 
A typical award for child support is 17% of the father's GROSS income
per child.  So, if the family starts out with two children, the mother
is awarded 34% of the father's income.  The figures now come out like
this:
 
                      Years after time t
                     1        3         5
                  -------------------------
 women            1.10     1.31      1.36
 men               .55      .65       .68
 (no divorce)     1.17     1.17      1.28
 
 
Is it any wonder that most divorce actions today are initiated by women?
And that's not even considering the fact that the "custodial parent"
usually gets the family home, if any, and the tax deduction for the
children.  At the lower end of the economic scale there are also things
like AFDC payments and food stamps available to the woman, which are
seldom if ever given to single men.
 
The relative amount of money *collected* per child has remained
stable for years because increasingly exhorbitant awards have driven
many fathers underground who cannot afford to pay... the majority
of so-called "deadbeat dads" fall into that category.  But now, unlike
1987, laws are in preparation to make non-payment of child support a
federal crime, and to impliment universal collection by garnishment of
wages and by using the IRS to make sure that no divorced father can
escape the net.
 
Approximately 50% of all marriages end in divorce, and custody of the
children almost invariably is awarded to the mother.  Even if only 50%
of those divorces resulted in child support awards, the number of men
affected would be in excess of twenty million... hardly a small social
problem.
 
Finally, even if the distribution of financial burdens *was* equitable,
the fact remains that millions of men are being forcibly evicted from
their children's lives, with very little recourse.  The "New Fathers" of
today become the check-mailing exiles of tomorrow.  Try to imagine what
it is like to be involved in the care and raising of a child... talking
with them over breakfast, taking them to school or to the park,
birthdays, christmas, the whole nine yards... and suddenly, you are
told, "get lost, you're irrelevant, just keep sending the money and
maybe if you're lucky you'll get to see your kids for a few hours a
week".  Try to imagine the pain, the sorrow, the anger.  Society does
not care... maybe because there is nothing so seductive as that glow of
self-satisfaction that comes from assigning an entire class of people to
a position of moral inferiority and then being beastly to them.   "Nail
those brutal, evil, porsche-driving, philandering, dead-beat dads!
Screw them to the wall!"  It's a caricature of you as a target, a
cartoon monster created to justify your punishment.  "Take THAT,
deadbeat dad... God, what a buzz!"
 
So how does it feel on the receiving end, brother?  What do you do about
it?   If you're reasonably articulate, college-educated, computer-
literate, maybe you'll just channel it into angry postings to usenet
newsgroups, or maybe you even try to organize some kind of political
action.  But if you're just an average guy?  Watch for answer to that
one on the evening news...
 
- xenon
 
 
Newsgroups: alt.dads-rights