From: noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Remote (Taxpayer) Wallets vs. the Ovarian Nurturer
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 04:42:20 GMT

In article <73740036@hpsad.sad.hp.com> sam@hpsad.sad.hp.com (Vicky Hansen) writes:
>In soc.women, bobk@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick) writes:
>
>>in your own right against men. Some of us guys aren't model citizens. But
>>as with many things, the negative gets all the attention and the majority
>>good things get forgotten.
>
>I realize that some men are fabulous.  However, according to Newsweek (I think
>around May), only 25% of men pay their mandated child support every month.
>"Majority" may not be an accurate description of the good guys.

No Vicky, you (and the Newsweek article) are very, very, very WRONG!
Newsweek didn't even say what you said.  Newsweek stated that 40% of
single mothers don't have a child support order.  Why not?  Well,
because they were given a choice - take biological dad's child support,
when he only grosses $800 per month - legally, or take the $1200 net
per month from the government for AFDC.  She can insure that she
receives AFDC by claiming that she does not know who the father is.

Newsweek and the journalists who just love putting their slant on
reality, counted the 40% of fathers that aren't even named as
biological fathers as deadbeats.  But they are in violation of
nothing.  They were not "mandated" to pay a dime.  Many don't even know
they are fathers, and many who do know do support their children,
informally, by spending money on them and lurking in the shadows while
mom draws AFDC and the government never knows.  And don't believe for a
second that this isn't the reality.  Because it is.  I know from
first-hand experience.  I dated a woman for 9 months who was doing
exactly that.  According to AFDC she didn't know who the dad was, yet
every pay day, Freddie always dropped of some money for his son - who
looked just like him.  Funny, I was helping her out too.  Hummmm.....

You think mothers who went through legitimate divorces with attorneys
and judges don't get support orders?  They sure do, if they get
custody, which only happens a mere 85% of the time.  

Oh, and you think that only men that HAVE the money to make all their
child support payments, all the time, on-time, are good guys.  What
about the ones that fall on hard times and get behind, who have never,
ever been behind except for these circumstances?  Are they bad guys,
because their business ventures fail, because their companies fold,
because their assembly lines shut down, because they get laid-off?

Is the measure of a man, not only the size of his wallet, but the
consistent size of his wallet?

Do you know what Vicky - according to Franklin County Child Support
Enforcement Agency, any man who ever gets behind on a child support
payment - a single payment - is a deadbeat.  All fathers that miss a
due date - even by a single day - are reported in a computer database
as being behind on their child support.  My employer, a small
contracting agency, was bought out by a bigger contracting agency last
year.  In adding me and mine to the new financial system of the new
company, it took a few days to get me into the new system.  I had to
wait several days past a pay day for a check.  Also, Franklin County
CSEA had to wait several days for my CS check.  They sent out the check
two weeks late to my ex2b, and they sent me two nasty letters, letters
that said I was a deadbeat parent, letters that siad they were going to
sick their lawyers on me if I didn't cough up the money immediately.  I
had no control over any of this stuff, and in the end, Franklin County
CSEA kind of apologized.  Not really an apology, more like, "Well, in
the five years I've worked here, you're the first man that ever had a
legitimate complaint, but you were still late."  Yes, I am a deadbeat.
Well, at least according to them, I am.

You know what, the $200 I spent on my children this last weekend,
because it didn't go through CSEA, it doesn't count.  The clothes I
bought them, they don't count.  Do you know that if I am late again one
payment this year that I am a deadbeat again for 1992?

Oh, and because I was given a child care deduction for daycare up front,
thus lowering my child support payments by about $100 per month, my ex
considers me a deadbeat.  It pisses her off that I only pay 50% of the
daycare as child support when I pay 81% of the rest of the obligation
for my children.  Of course, she got to claim the WHOLE daycare expense
on her taxes.  She made $15k last year, yet got a healthy return.

One of my close friends, because he started his own company several
years ago, but it failed, and, as a result, he got almost $2500 behind
in child support, he's a deadbeat, and will be considered a deadbeat
until he gets caught up.  He might be caught up now, I haven't talked CS
with him for about 5 months.  But, if his business venture had
succeeded, he could be making over $200k per year within just a few
years and he would have been able to give his child so much more,  Yet,
because he took a risk, and he lost, he's just another dad who doesn't
care about his child.  Except, funny thing, that's not the perception
his son has of him at all.  His son loves him as much as a son could
love a father.

But, there are better rebuttals to your time-worn, male-bashing
generalities.  For example:

========================================================================

A More Humane Approach to Child Support

By David L. Levy, president of the Children Rights Council

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
under-reporting "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 to 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 the 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.

Source: Washington Post, August 22, 1992

========================================================================

>>Aaron only spoke of paid support. But stop and think about the 'NCP'
>>needing to pay for a home suitable for the kids to 'visit' in. I have 
>>my kids for 120 days of each year. Since I have 3 kids (four with my
>>step-daughter) and each are old enough, that means a house with rooms
>>for each. Five bedrooms isn't cheap. I know it, my ex knows it. Don't
>>you?

That's OK, Bob.  Folks like Vicky here think I owe my ex a place in
which to live.  But they claim that it is not really my ex's home, it
is the children's home.  Well, I pay for a home that my children can
live in, that I want my children to live in.  But that one doesn't
count.  It lacks ovaries.  And I don't want them to live with me all
year round.  I want them to live with me - oh, some weird, crazy,
illogical precentage of the time like, let's say, 50%.  You see, I
think both parents are important.  I want my children to have a very
significant relationship with their mother.  I want her to be a good
parent.  What makes me such a boob, is I want the same for me too.
Yeah, I'm one of those selfish dads who wants his children to be happy
and well-cared for - and wants to see them too.

>There are a lot of children in this world who do not have their own
>bedrooms.  I am glad you are able to afford that for part time kids but
>if is hardly required.  Also, 1/3 : 2/3 would be a version of joint custody.  
>NCP means 0-20% of the time according to my sources.

I personally know that Bob has a tough time supporting his children and
providing a home for them.  We've discussed this.  Bob is a very
intelligent man, but that doesn't mean his world is peachy keen.  From
the other men that I know that are NCPs, Bob might be an exceptional
parent, but he is not so far outside the norm.  I know many men who
care very deeply for their children and I know some men who got
sole custody.  One man, whose office is right behind mine, just got
custody of his daughter 7 years after his divorce was final.  You want
to know why?  Because his daughter wanted to live with him.  Not
because the courts would ever have given her to him.

And your sources on "NCPness" and "joint custody" are imprecise too.
Ohio is NOT a joint custody state, but is a Shared Parenting state.
There's a big difference.  Joint Custody, as a legal concept, meant
that both parents would be physical custodians of the children, with
the default splits between the parents of between 33% and 50%.  Most
men, who actively campaigned for joint custody legislation, wanted the
50% split - especially if both parents lived in the same school
district - or close enough to commute.  Few states passed legislation
that was so generous to men.  And in those states, women's groups have
actively campaigned to repeal that legislation, or castrate it back to
the old standard sole physical custody under the guise of some other
"equal" sounding name.  Thus, Shared Parenting.  Shared Parenting means
that mom gets the children the old standard amount of time - roughly
75%-80% of the year, while dad gets to see them every other weekend and one
night a week.  Dad might even get an extended visit during the summer
- anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks, with most extended visits being around
four weeks.

I had a referee keep asking me the following question when I discussed
the logical, moral, and intellectual reasons why a 50/50 split should be
the default Shared Parenting award when the parents still live close to
one another.  He kept asking me....

	"What's so fair about 50/50?  Why those numbers?  Tell me why
	that's fair."

Well, it's simple, Referee Thurmond Anderson - it's because I studied
math, you dick.  It's the ONLY fair division.

Vicky, I take exception to your attitude that 1/3 : 2/3 sounds like
joint custody to you.  I know of few men who get such a split, most get
much less.  And when they do get it, it's because they spend thousands
and thousands of dollars trying to convince the courts that they can
handle it.  Why do they have to do that?  Why doesn't she?

What is it about a woman's physiology that makes her better at doing the
following:

Morning:

	Wake up, get out of bed, put on coffee, go to bathroom, take
	shower, get children up, get children started getting cleaned
	up, start breakfast, serve breafast, make sure children are
	ready to go to school, get children off to school, go to work.

Afternoon/Evening:

	Get off work, pick up children at daycare/latchkey center, take
	children home, take children to/go to after school activities,
	fix dinner/order out/eat out, help children with homework, if
	any, unwind with children/watch TV, get children off to bed, go
	to bed.

Weekends:

	One weekend:

	See morning schedule.  Hang out with kids, clean house, do
	laundry, do lunch, go to some activity, have fun, return home,
	fix dinner, hang out with kids/watch TV, put kids in bed, go to
	bed.

	Other weekend:

	See morning schedule.  Wait for NCP to pick up children or take
	children to NCP, say goodbye.  Hang out.  Do something for
	yourself.  Greet children at end of weekend, put them to bed.

You see, the courts, the laws, and most women believe that there is a
biological reason why WOMEN are better at all the above than men.  I
just want to know which part of her physiology makes her a default
better parent.  Is it the ovaries?  Because, if you want to know the
truth, ovaries are gonads.  I have gonads.  They're called testicles.
They function differently, and kind of in opposition to ovaries.  Both
are miraculous and complex to say the least.  Together the two opposing
sets of gonads make miracles happen.  Why are your's better than mine
for parenting?

Finally, I want to do some further refutation of your statements and
approach to discussing this issue.  Two more articles.

Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
TR@CBNEA.ATT.COM

========================================================================

It's Time for `Equity' in Child Custody Cases

By Armin A. Brott, a writer in Berkeley, CA

Sure, we've all heard about the rich guys, driving their fancy cars,
living in their fancy mansions while their ex-wives and kids eat dog
food.

There's no question some men don't pay child support, just as there are
some poor women who drive brand new Cadillacs to pick up their welfare
checks. There's also no question that men who don't pay what they owe -
if they are financially able - are behaving immorally and should be
treated accordingly.

But let's take a look at the facts. From 1980 to 1990, the proportion
of children under 18 living with only one parent doubled - from 12
percent to 25 percent. Among blacks, the numbers rose from 29 percent
to 52 percent. Eighty-seven percent of single parents are women, a
third of whom have incomes below the poverty level and collect
government assistance (AFDC).

Robert Rector, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation in Washington,
D.C., says that the government offers a single mother assistance of
over $13,000 [net] per year. The only conditions are that she can't
work and [can't] live with the children's father. Rector calls this
kind of assistance "the incentive program from hell" and credits it
with destroying America's poor families.

The simple truth is that over 66 percent of the women who don't get the
child support payments they have coming, say their former husbands
simply don't have the money. As a matter of fact, over 20 percent of
the men who owe child support are living below the poverty line
themselves.

Another interesting fact is the correlation between the amount of time
a divorced father is allowed to spend with his children and his
propensity to pay support.

Over 90 percent of men with joint custody pay everything they owe. Over
79 percent of men with visitation privileges pay in full and on time.
Adjusted for the 66 percent who are experiencing financial
difficulties, compliance is well over 90 percent in both categories. It
is only when men are denied both visitation and custody - as almost 40
percent of all divorced fathers are - that the payment rate drops to 46
percent.

What are the solutions? First, the AFDC system has to be changed so it
doesn't force men out of the house and encourage single motherhood.
Second, joint physical custody must become the standard adopted by
family law judges, and finally, a man's legal rights to visit his
children must be enforced.  Several major studies have shown that
between 20 and 50 percent of custodial women actively sabotage their
former husbands' attempts to legally visit their children.

These are not women who are retaliating for not getting child support
payments; these are women who - as both parties often are in a divorce
- are trying to hurt their former spouses.

To put this into perspective, the National Council for Children's
Rights estimates that 6.6 million children have their visitation with
their non-custodial parents denied or interfered with by the custodial
parents. Meanwhile, the same judges who so readily enforce a man's
financial obligations, are very reluctant to jail a woman for denying
her former husband his legal visitation rights.

The result of these changes? Billions of dollars in child support
enforcement and AFDC payments will be saved and a weakened family
structure will be strengthened.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, August 31, 1992

========================================================================

The Interrelationship among Child Support, Custody and Visitation

By Aubrey Ford, Jr.

Visitation, like support, is a right of the child and parent. Not only
is visitation important to the emotional development of the child, but
protecting and enforcing visitation rights encourages the non-custodial
parent to meet a support obligation.

The father's right to visitation was established by the U.S.  Supreme
Court in Stanley v. Illinois, 405 US 645 (1972). The ruling said that a
man who "sired and raised" his children and participated in their
"companionship, care, custody and management" has a constitutionally
protected private liberty interest in his children.

Some courts have denied the alleged father's request for visitation,
because he showed insufficient interest in his child by infrequent
visitation and the lack of meaningful relationship.  They have also
denied visitation when a parent's life-style or mental or physical
health is deemed to be contrary to the best interests of the child.

Traditionally, contempt of court is the remedy most commonly used to
enforce violations of visitation orders, both for visitation
interference and the failure of the non-custodial parent to return a
child at the end of a visitation period. Financial penalties are also
used to encourage visitation compliance, but they should be imposed
only when they will not present a financial hardship to the child.

Sometimes, out of frustration with available remedies, courts have
resorted to modifying or terminating the support obligation in an
attempt to coerce the custodial parent to comply with a visitation
order. The primary reason for rejecting this remedy is the adverse
effect it has on the continuing needs of the child.

When the court makes payment of support conditional upon
noninterference with visitation rights, it imposes a financial penalty
on the child because of the wrongs of the parent.  Further, if use of
this remedy reduces or excuses accrued arrearages, it is in direct
conflict with the Bradley Amendment of the Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act, which bans retroactive modification of arrearages.

There is a growing trend to use mediation to resolve visitation and
custody disputes. Several demonstration grants have been funded under
the 1988 Family Support Act to explore the effectiveness of mediation
and other techniques for alleviating litigation and support payment
problems connected to child access and visitation disputes.

Another possible means of eliminating visitation disputes and
encouraging the regular payment of support is court-sanctioned
voluntary joint custody. This remedy may enhance payment of support
because it allows each parent to observe and monitor the use of
payments. It encourages parents, also, to adopt a more cooperative
approach to raising and supporting their children.

Studies that have examined joint custody have concluded that the
financial status of women and children is enhanced following divorce,
and that joint custody helps alleviate the financial distress of
traditional sole custody. In one study, sole custody mothers reported
receiving 63 percent of what they were owed, while mothers with joint
custody received 81-95 percent [according to the 1990 Census, 90.2
percent]. 

Source: Child Support Report, August 1992

========================================================================

You want fathers to pay their child support?  Let them see their kids.
It's plain and simple and it doesn't hurt anyone.  Besides, moms can use
that time away from the kids to work on bettering themselves and closing
up that huge wage gap between men and women.

All men are pigs!  (Just trying to express both sides of this issue.)

I know it is not so black and white, I know some men are scum and some
women are scum.  But they are in the minority for both sexes.  Yet the
courts still take a position that one parent should have the children
the vast majority of the time and they DO give reasons for that
belief.  Their most profound reason is that it is in the "best
interests of the children."  But they can't clarify why this is so.
The reason they can't clarify why it is so, is because they are
prejudiced in their belief that placing the children of divorce
primarily with one parent is the way to go, and that means they don't
have any good, logical and intelligent reasons.  "Prejudice" means
making up your mind before you know the facts.  They believe that women
are biologically more nurturing than men, and that the children need
that kind of nurturing.  Well, women are not MORE nurturing than men.
People of both sexes care and love and express those feelings.  It is
just that, in general, men and women express themselves differently.
But none of the actions or behaviors that are an expression of love and
concern for the children are unique to either sex.  People of both
sexes are capable of compassion, sorrow and anger.

But women, like the judges, believe, in general, that women are better
default parents.  I don't.  And I have a reason for why I don't jump on
the bandwagon.  Because, and this is important, when given the
opportunity to be acting parents who have to be totally responsible for
the welfare of the children, people of both sexes respond to that task
equally well.  Men who are sole custodians are equally good parents as
women who are sole custodians.  Men who have joint custody with 50/50
splits are equally good parents.

Men are not given the opportunity to prove they are good parents,
because most of them are out fighting to provide for the family's
financial obligations.   Many women have the opportunity to spend more
time with the children.  Then, when a divorce occurs, judges say, "Well,
because she has spent more time with the children, she gets to spend
mroe time with the children."  Often, men are not even given the option
of spending more time with the children.  Mothers take maternal leave,
then decide they don't want to go back to work - because the children
need her, and because someone has to pay the bills, the man has to stay
at work.  And then he ends up spending less time with the children.  He
doesn't have the opportunity to bond as strongly to the children.  He
would, if he did have that opportunity.  So, because a judge can see
that one parent has spent more time with the children, he maintains that
status quo and makes that arrangement permanent.  But why does spending
more time with the children make someone a better parent?

It doesn't.  The parent who had the opportunity to actually be a parent
to the children is not necessarily the better parent.

This may sound over simplistic, but I believe that men and women have
equal potential to parent children.  Therefore, I believe both should
be given the opportunity to realize that potential when there is a
divorce.  And, just because one has more experience at the job of
parenting, that doesn't mean that person should be the default parent.

Have you ever heard of a new-hire turning out to be a shining star - and
bypassing their peers?

I have to laugh when I read all the articles written by women that talk
about how women are biologically and preternaturally better default
parents - how they bond so closely with their children, how they care
for them so deeply and how men are just not capable of such compassion
and concern.  Where's the beef?

I guess, in these discussions, we tend to hear from the most vocal, the
folks who have been through the mill, on both sides.  But I want to
focus on all those that fall within 3 standard deviations of the mean -
as people go, and think about how we think about those folks, how we
should handle the vast majority of divorces.  I guess I'm just weird
for thinking we should handle them - even-handedly - fairly.  I see
women being single parents to 85% of the children that live with a
single parent and I just have to think there's something wrong with
this picture.  In general, fathers have been thrown out of the picture,
by the courts, and by their ex-wives, and, I believe, the vast majority
of them did not want that to happen.  Disparity breeds contempt,
contempt breeds malice, pain and unnecessary suffering.  And, in the
end, I think that it is the children that suffer.
Newsgroups: alt.dads-rights,alt.child-support,soc.men,soc.women,misc.kids