From: noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Subject: The Times, They Are a Changin' (Was Re: neigh-sayers)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 06:36:09 GMT

In article <4475@unisql.UUCP> wrat@unisql.UUCP (wharfie) writes:
>In article <1993Jan6.093642.6439@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>>and that Lisa was being foolish by trying to keep her home so that her 
>>daughter wouldn't lose her pony.  They also kept bringing up and BRINGING
>
>	Hell, I wish somebody'd buy me a damn horse.  I can even clean the
>stall myself, not like some spoiled rich 10 year old...  Too bad my parents
>never got divorced...
>									wr

Well, my parents recently divorced (1990), and I was too old at the
time to be the big benefactor.  No, in fact, when I was living with
them as a youngin', only my father worked and he didn't make a fortune,
and for a while there were five of us boys, so, well, let's just say
that I had to buy my own school clothes from the time I was 13 on.  

But, not so, my youngest brother.  Nope.  When the last of us (him) was
in school, my Mom went back to work (after 20 years out of the job
market), and the three oldest sons weren't living at home anymore--in
fact, were all self-sufficient.  So, here were my parents, both making
more money than they had ever had before, but working real hard to do so
(in fact, my Mom worked probably 70 hours a week--she was always a
workaholic, we just didn't seem to notice when it was housework).  My
dad is a long-haul truck driver.  My brother hardly ever saw my parents.

But you know how things were, way back then.... in the '80s.  It wasn't
the quantity of the time that parents spent with their children, it was
the quality.  And, boy, my parents must have felt awfully guilty.  I
guess they thought they had to buy my brother's love.  If they didn't,
they did a bad job of not showing it.  $150 tennis shoes, basketball
camps, computer camps, computers, the most expensive calculator, $300
leather jackets, radio-controlled airplanes, dune-buggies, helicopters,
all the brand-name clothes, a swimming pool, synthesizers, typewriters,
stuff, stuff and more stuff.

So, although, at first, my brother wanted to live with my mom after the
divorce, and my dad paid my mother child support, my dad remarried a
woman who makes as much as he does and started to accrue some
things--he bought a new house, a Trans Am, a conversion van, a swimming
pool, a new pickup truck--and all of a sudden the pastures were
suddenly greener where my Dad was living.  So, three months ago, my
brother decided to move in with Dad.  It wasn't a decision of "equity"
for my brother.  He moved where the money was.

So what fruits did my parents' "attention" to my brother bear?  My
brother, who turns down his Christmas present car, because it is a
Nissan Sentra and he wanted an Eagle Talon, who needs three new $200
suits in one week, because none of his old suits fit him and he has
three events in one week and there is NO WAY he can wear the same suit
twice in ONE WEEK, who insists that my dad spend $300 on a ring for his
girl-friend (who wrote my brother a letter telling him she thought he
was a spoiled child before he could give it to her), who has a tennis
shoe collection that is mor expensive than my entire wardrobe.

Yes, I've seen what great kids these divorce things can turn
out--"quality" kids, who will wear, drive, eat, sleep in, talk about
nothing but the best.

I was talking to a man who is in his 50s a few days ago and I was
telling him what I miser I am with the heat in the winter--sleeping
with multiple blankets, just to keep my electric bill down, but how I
now have to give my ex-wife $1238 per month in child support.  I told
him I suffer because I know that until recently, people didn't have
electric heat and carpeting and a car for everyone in the family, and
really, despite the suffering, I don't have it that bad.  He told me
that when he was a kid, he lived in a house with no running water,
electricty was only for lights and appliances.  They had a wood-burning
stove and a fireplace and they had to carry water in from the well.
And, of course, they went "out."  He said in the winter, the water in
the bucket would freeze inside the house.  That from a man who grew up
in the late '40s and early '50s.

And now, we just assume that everyone should have a nice house and
ponies and $150 tennis shoes with pumps in 'em.  And our divorce courts
do nothing to dispel this belief.  No, the divorce courts tell me my
kids should have a computer and more toys than they could ever play
with, and a nice house and a really good daycare center, and hey, I'm
just the guy to provide those things.  But, I can't provide them in my
house.  No, I get to live in a one-bedroom apartment and sleep with the
heat turned almost off.  I have to give this money to their mother and
hope that she does spend it on my children.  

But when I get to see them, all they want to do is get more toys.  The
ones they got yesterday are old hat, now.  The thrill of a toy is not
playing with it, it is getting it.

SO what do I see my sons becoming?  Well, if they live with their Mom
most of the time, as the court thinks is best (well, after she made the
most heinous of allegations and they were gonna give her pretty much
what she wanted anyway, unless she could suck away enough of my income
to keep me from fighting the expensive battle to just get what should
be the default custody award and I had money and don't you see that she
had to or that evil monster Dad would have got joint physical custody
and she had to have that child support money to live on), they will
grow up thinking that THEY are worthy of $1238 a month from dear ol'
what's his name, and, of course, Mom's share of the total child support
commitment too.  And they will EXPECT to get THEIR money every month.
And the court tells me, hey, don't think of the quantity of the time
you get to see your kids, it's the quality.  Oh, and the money.  So, go
ye forth Disneyland, er, uh, Uncle, er, uh Dad, and work HARD.  Your
children need the money.  After all,  Reebok is coming out with a new
line this spring (seems they've put little springs in the soles, and
they are see-through, and they glow in the dark, and every pair is
autographed by Hulk Hogan AND Reggie Lewis) and everybody who's anybody
has 'em already and ....

Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
TR@CBNEA.ATT.COM 
Newsgroups: soc.men