From: lang@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (F. L. Lang, NASA/GSFC, (301)286-4424)
Subject: Follow-up to "Who Pays for Children?"
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: NASA/GSFC-Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 13:14:00 GMT

Dear Netters:

This is a follow-up to a post I made about three weeks ago.  That post had an
op-ed from the Washington Post; this post contains a follow-up letter to the
editor that appeared in in today's Post, Saturday, August 22, 1992. Please
excuse any typos; they are mine.  ;-) 

Though my site does not get alt.child-support, I will attempt to post there,
and ask that some kind soul to put it there if it does not make it.  Thanks in
advance. 

To provide some counter-examples (from an admittedly statistically
insignificant sample) to the statistics cited in the letter below, let me
provide the numbers in my estranged wife's home and my home.  In her home, her
housemate / first cousin is behind in his support for his first child by his
first wife (so she tells me).  His third wife (she admits) is behind in her
support for their son.   My wife is behind (one year, voluntary impoverishment,
to be proved this Tuesday at a contempt hearing) in support for our two sons
(we agreed to Joint Legal Custody, I have primary physical custody; she sees
them virtually daily throughout the year).  The cousin's third wife has not
seen her son for over two years (she tells me), and so does not have de facto
Joint Custody (shared parenting), no matter what their court order might say. 
I do not know the level of contact between the cousin and his first child,
though the cousin lives here in Maryland :-< and the child (now, I belive an
adult) lives in Iowa.  Another case I will cite is that of my sister; her
children are now all adults and she is finally collecting back child support
from her ex, to whom she provided all the contact he and their children wanted.

Draw your own conclusions.

                                                   Rick

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*        Rick Lang         *             \input flame_ignore.tex             *
* lang@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov *          \input standard_disclaimer.tex         *
*     Custodial Parent     *  What do you get when you multiply six by nine? *
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                   A MORE HUMANE APPROACH TO CHILD SUPPORT

Contrary to your editorial "Who Pays for Children?" [op-ed, July 27], which 
said only about a quarter of mothers with a child support order get full 
payment, the Census Bureau says half of the mothers with a child support order 
get full payment, and another 25 percent of mothers with a child support order 
get partial payment.

This means that 75 percent of mothers with a support order get full or part
payment.  And these figures are the result of self-reporting by mothers, who,
if they receive welfare, have a definite self-interest in underreporting
"outside income" such as child support. 

The Urban Institute has shown that when fathers are polled, they report paying 
from 10 percent to 40 percent more than mothers report receiving.

And in 1991 the Census Bureau, reacting ot complaints of inadequate data,
showed for the first time the correlation among joint custody (shared
parenting), visitation and support. 

The Census Bureau found that fathers with joint custody paid 90.2 percent of 
their support, and fathers with neither joint custody nor visitation paid only 
44.5 percent of their support.  About 55 percent of fathers had a visitation 
order, about 7 percent had joint custody, and about 38 percent had neither 
joint custody nor visitation.

The facts, then, are more complex than the prevailing myths would have us 
believe.  The United States has been tightening the noose around support 
payments for 10 years, with liens, interception of tax returns, wage 
withholding and jail.  Yet we act as though nothing has been done.

If none of the tough, multibillion-dollar procedures has worked, perhaps it is 
time we tried something else - something more humane, cheaper and natural - 
such as treating parents of divorce like parents, not like absentee cash 
registers, with nothing to contribute to their children's lives but transfer of 
money from one household to another.

As stated in the influential Family and Conciliation Courts Review, January 
1992, "In California, we have experienced a spate of legislative initiatives, 
all well meaning, to increase child support levels, collections, penalties, and 
sanctions.  These are worthwhile goals ... yet they may obtain the opposite of 
what is intended."

What many advocates recommend now are cheaper, family-friendly alternatives, 
such as stronger efforts at family formation and family preservation, but if 
families break up, parenting classes for separating parents, mediation, 
conciliation, jobs, braking mechanisms for divorce and stronger remedies for 
access/visitation interference.

                                                             - David L. Levy

The writer is president of the Children Rights Council.

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