If you ever want to be depressed, try sitting in any family court room where child support is being ordered.
Now before any of you get all riled up and up in arms, listen for a sec. Me and my wife watched as father after father was called up and asked to pay the piper. Some of these father's owed as much as $150,000, yes one-hundred and fifty thousand in arrears, on top of that 10% interest. One father pleaded with the judge to lower his payment because he was only making barely $1500 a month. Judge replied, "you know the interest payment alone is well over $700 dollars and you're asking for a payment of $200, granted." Another guy $95,000 in arrears, making $7.50 an hour, a lady ordered to pay almost $600 as she pleaded about how she was going to pay rent. And wait, lets not forget the unemployed, who the judge slapped a minimum wage child support order on them, which if not paid, will end up over $100k after interest and years of unemployment.
I ask you whats wrong with this picture? This is no way an attempt to justify not taking care of children financially by fathers or mothers, but what it is, is an attempt to shed light on some of these draconian measures strapped on the non custodial parents. These guys mentioned above will NEVER, ever, pay their child support off. They will NEVER be able to find gainful employment, or buy a home, or try to go to school in an effort to gain better employment, and credit will be forever screwed. They will for the rest of their lives, be imprisoned by this system. By the way, how does it make sense at all to cash strap an unemployed person with a child support order, knowing full well that he or she will fall into arrears and end up owing thousands of dollars that will never be paid off. And how is it that the law requires a man to look for a job, and ask if he is physically able to work, meanwhile the mother is not asked these same questions or forced to find employment.
This system has been around since the 1980s and to my knowledge there has been no attempt at overhauling it. This system keeps men and some women at poverty levels because of what the system told them to pay. How can they even enjoy their kids when they don't have the money to take and do anything with them. Sorry but its only so long before the kids get tired of going to the park. What father does not want to take his daughter out on a date, or take her shopping, or perhaps take his son to the batting cages, or even take them both on a family trip. This is just the tip of the iceberg folks, lets not even get into the racial disparities regarding this topic. I feel like the system needs to change and some level of accountability needs to be inserted and the payments should not be based on income, but rather the children's needs. If a dad is making $50k a year and is paying x amount in child support, but gets a raise to $90k and is hauled back into court for more support, has the needs of the child changed, NO, but his support will. I ask, on what planet does it take $3, $4, or even, $5 thousand dollars to raise kids? I submit that this system is set up to just perpetuate poverty. Something needs to be done......
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