From: noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,misc.kids,alt.child-support,alt.dads-rights
Subject: Re: Remote (Taxpayer) Wallets vs. the Ovarian Nurturer
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:57:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbnewsk.1992Oct15.165723.19865
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories

This is posted for Ross Williams, williams@caesar.safb.af.mil, who is on
a finger node that gets USENET, but does not allow users to post.

In soc.men maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) writes (in response to
Alan Yasutovich):

Alan writes:

>>	If I buy a hamburger, I expect to eat it.  If I buy clothes
>>	I expect to wear them.  More specifically if I buy my kid a
>>	toy, I expect to watch them play with it.

>Alan, you talk about your kids as if they were just some other
>commodity that you expect to get value out of. It doesn't work that
>way.

Valerie, you obviously have no *real* idea what it's like to pay (in my
case) $8500/year in "child" support and get little to no feedback on
where it all goes.  My son wears the same clothes every summer, the
only additions being that which I or MY family bought him for b'day
Xmas or hell-of-it gifts.  Damn straight we want to see our kids
playing with toys/wearing the clothes which we are directly paying
for.

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>>	But out of sight is out of mind.

>Is it really? ...etc

Valerie, let me introduce you to Bitter Sarcasm.  Valerie, this is
Bitter Sarcasm; Bitter? meet Valerie.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

>>	How would you feel if a judge told you that from now on
>>	every week when you got paid you should actively take
>>	x $$$$  (some reasonable sum of money) and put it in the
>>	trash.  

> This attitude is really awful. Throwing it in the trash?
>That's how you talk about money to support your children?
>I often didn't have the money I spent...

Valerie, this is Bitter Sarcasm's cousin, Biting Satire; Biting? meet
Valerie.  

Actually, Val, my complaint with Alan's assertion is his
parenthetical:  "reasonable sum of money".  Child support orders for
middle class male wage earners are notoriously UNreasonable, in that
they have little relationship to the actual costs of raising a child
(see alt.child-support for a thread along these lines).

I see you also are ignoring (or possibly you haven't heard of--although
if you have read a newspaper since 1950 I can't see how you could have
MISSED) the news that fathers with "joint custody"[sic] are 90-plus% in
compliance with child support orders, are 20-30x LESS likely to
complain about the $$ involved, etc.  Leaving aside for the moment that
"joint custody"[sic] is, for all practical purposes, a load of swill,
there is a psychological imperative at work here.  You make someone
FEEL as if he has the rights associated with the responsibilities you
are foisting upon him, (even if those rights are non-existant or just
extremely diluted) he is more likely to voluntarily submit to the
responsibilities handed him.

Now, you ask, why do I insist on [sic]-ing the phrase "joint custody"?
Because it ain't joint.  Not in any real sense of the word.  What
fathers have been complaining about for nearly twenty years is that
when they are assigned child support and allowed visitation, that their
position of FATHER has been removed.  A visitor in a child's life isn't
a FATHER; he is more a travelling Uncle, with a crisp dollar bill for
his favorite niece or nephew, a strange tale and gifts.  And fathers
who grew up under the '60's version of masculism want to be *real*
fathers, and this system doesn't allow that.

If I were to be a *real* father to my son, I would be consulted about
my son's afternoon activities, his bedtime, whether he eats his
vegetables, Little League, etc.  I would be consulted when his mother
wants to spend $400 (of the "child support" _I_ provide) on a boom box,
how much of my son's "child support" goes into a bank for college,
etc.

Am I?  Non, madamoiselle.  I tried to get his mother to see it this
way, psychological implications of removing the father, and all.  But
I'm afraid that her lawyer knows the system quite well.  See, the
father is, in the prevailing view of the system, just a wallet.  Any
attempt by dad to insinuate himself into the day-to-day upbringing of
his children is viewed by most judges (and the one handling my case
specifically) as HARRASSMENT of the custodial parent.

So even if mom is a nice lady and takes it upon herself to allow a
truly JOINT custody of the children with dad, any time she disagrees
with him, all she needs to do is run back to the judge, who will
support her, regardless of the decision she is making.

What recourse does a father have at times like this?  See /dev/null.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

>>	*Then* try to have a family of your own (again)

>You HAVE a family of your own. Why should you just forget they exist

You have met Bitter Sarcasm, so I won't introduce you again, but I 
shall remind you that divorced men frequently do not have a family
IN WHICH THEY ARE ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE.  What is "visitation"? you ask?
Just that: VISITation; not PARTICIPATion.  Big difference, kiddo.  You 
would do well to learn the difference.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

>>	*Then* see how your perspective on all those bills sours your
>>	stomach!

>Bills always sour my stomach.

Thank God you're normal.  Now why is it you think divorced fathers
canNOT be?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

>>	And you have the gaul to complain about a free ride?  By rights

> It's gall. Gaul is what Julius conquered.
>
>Sorry. I'm an editor.

I'm sorry you're an editor, too.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

>Anyway, [lots o' stuff about frankly good advice given to a male (?)
>acquaintance about braces for his daughter and to stop fighting
>about it with his ex.]

This, Val, is anecdotal evidence of exactly what I was talking about.
Why was this man fighting with his ex?  Could it be...

...his ex was making unilateral decisions about someone he felt HE had
parental rights to?  Hmm?

...his ex was insinuating by virtue of her unilateral decision-making
ability that any opinions expressed by dad were voidable? that
therefore DAD was voidable?  Hmm?

...the implicit attitude that dad was nothing more than a pocket? a
wallet? a sugar-daddy?  Hmm?

Yes, Val, what you gave was very good, sound, slightly Zen advice.
"What if they held a war and nobody came?"  Your ex can't win the fight
if you don't fight with her.  Good.  Congrats.

BUT.  What we're dealing with is not a bunch of Buddhist priests, who
will grab onto a zen truth when it comes wafting their way.  Rather,
normal, everyday men and women, with psyches and FEELINGS.  My GOD,
Val, can't you understand the very simple implications involved in
telling divorced men day after day after day that THEY are irrelevant,
but their MONEY ISN'T?

Even if YOU think that no one is telling divorced men that they are
irrelevant, does that mean that divorced men don't think this??  Did
this line of reasoning work when it was WOMEN who were feeling
invalidated by hiring/promotion/pay scale systems they viewed as
"unfair"?  NO??  Then why should it be considered valid now?

Besides which, Val, zen truths work only for saving points toward
Karma.  In the here-and-now zen is a waste of time.  By not arguing and
paying for the braces, your friend DEFAULTED the argument to his ex.
She got what she wanted ($$ for her, -$$ for him); he got what he
expected (left out of the decision-loop).  It's very difficult to be
zen at times like that.

I face the same thing every Christmas (or New Year, alternately), when
my son's mother fails EVERY TIME to pack his winter coat.  I know he
has one; I bought it for him.  I remind her to send it; it's cold in St
Louis.  He always unpacks and it's never there.  I cannot bear to see
him looking at the snow through the window, so I buy him a brand new
coat every year, on top of the presents I always get for him, ON TOP of
the $8500/year I give to his mother for just this very thing, none of
which, by the way, she can part with for his plane ticket.  And every
year, he wants to take his new coat back to Florida with him, because
it's new and it's his.

I let him.  I'm saving up karma.  I'm also pissed.  But then, I'm a zen
existentialist.  Figure THAT one out.

Oh, and the editor thing?  Valerie, meet Bad Pun.  Bad? meet Valerie. 

-rw
williams@caesar.safb.af.mil
Newsgroups: soc.men