Friday, May 25, 2012

Are Dead Beat Parents Really Dead Beats?

In the media, we often see all kinds of complaints about dead beat parents who abandon their children, leaving them impoverished and dependents of the state.  I have heard so many people say how "Dead Beat Parents" should be punished and should be jailed, or castrated or some other horrible form of torture of punishment. These opinions are based on the UNUSUAL story in the media (not the normal parent who is being punished for being absent from the home) where this guy is going around spreading his seed in every womb he possibly can. He has like 30 children, works a minimum wage job which he pays 40% of his earnings to child support. What the public does not take in to consideration is that this story made it in the headlines because it is not the "AVERAGE" dead beat parent story.

First I want to establish how I feel about Child Support and where I personally stand.  First I believe that a capable and healthy parent who is capable of working and ASSISTING the custodial parent with raising the children should pay a reasonable amount if the absent parent makes more than the custodial parent. If the absent parent purchases clothing, groceries, diapers, formula, or helps to pay the rent for the home the child/ren reside on a custodial basis, than those receipts should be considered as child support payments. I also believe that Child support should be reasonable which means it is not the same amount as a car payment or a house payment if the absent parent lives near, around, or under the poverty level. An absent parent can NOT provide for their children or help their children in any way if they can not stay healthy by having groceries and medical care, keep dependable transportation to get to/from work and to visit with the child/ren as well as provide basic needs for themselves such as shelter, with running water and electricity. (Benefits the kids too, because the absent parent has a place for the child/ren to visit).

Child support payments should be counted as an expense that is a necessity when the absent parent applies for help or services because they live under the level of poverty.

Disabled parents whose only source of income is SSDI Or SSI, should NOT have to pay for child support. If the custodial parent is capable of working and the absent parent is not, I believe the custodial parent should receive the assistance to make it possible for the custodial parent to work and provide for the children (such as child care assistance). If an absent parent can not work due to a disability or other cause, they are not dead beats, they are disabled and is likely the reason they are not the custodial parent in the first place.  

Now, I will go over the the NORMAL Story of the AVERAGE absent parent.

Absent Parent was married to Custodial Parent long enough to have a child or more. Absent Parent and Custodial Parent have a problem for whatever reason and get a divorce. The majority of the time the child or children of the these parents can only live with one parent. That parent becomes the Custodial Parent. The other parent is then named the Absent Parent. Sometimes but not always, the Absent Parent was actually the Primary Care Giver of the child or children during the marriage and did not have an income and that is how the decision of who the children would live with was made in the first place.

The Custodial Parent is awarded an insane and unreasonably high Child support payment (mostly paid to the government instead of the family whom only then get $50 out of that payment if they are lucky because they quit their job and went on welfare or just simply applied for welfare).

Now, the absent parent working their behinds off, can no longer afford a car payment, mortgage payment or even rent, so they are forced to sell the car and move in with a roommate or few to provide shelter. The absent parent eventually loses their job because they do not have dependable transportation and can not get to work on time or work over time due to the schedule of public transportation services. While they are looking for a job that they are now hindered from getting because they do not have dependable transportation (public transportation is not dependable transportation) and they were fired from their last job because they were late to often and did not have a flexible schedule. Months go by and the absent parent is struggling to survive while seeking employment. They may even get lucky and have a friend who will loan them a car to work so they can have a better chance to find a job. Problem is, their child support when into arrears and is accruing at a 10% interest on top of foster care charges (although their kids are not in foster care) and now their Driver's License is taken away from them. Now they are back to the beginning. No dependable transportation and an added huge amount of a blemish on their credit which now employers look at credit ratings of all applicants to see if they are a "risk".

Now with bad credit, no car, no license, they are lucky to have a place to live or food to eat. Now the absent parent can't help support the children at all and the absent parent is continually living off the grace and charity of others or even homeless. The absent parent is then awarded the title "Dead Beat Parent".  They are sometimes arrested for the crime of not paying the outrageously unreasonable child support order to the State. This does not help the absent parent get work which does not help relieve the welfare problem. Everyone is told that absent parents are the evil and bad ones that deserve to be punished because they lost the draw when custody was established.

The Absent Parent, was turned into the Dead Beat Parent with unreasonable child support demands. Reasonably, if the absent parent is working minimum wage or in poverty and can not provide medical insurance for themselves then it is unreasonable to order them to pay for medical coverage for a family plan that costs more than it would for a plan they can not pay for just for themselves. If the Child Support payments are close to half or even more than half the cost of the Absent Parents rent, then it is unreasonable.

There are many variables to this scenario but the average scenario goes pretty much the same way when it comes to dead beat parents.  The few that manage by never having another relationship and living with their parents and actually manage to make their payments every month find that they are still paying their child support although their children are past the age of 25 because the government does not tell anyone that the absent parent's payments are going to foster care before any of the payments go toward the actual child support. (usually equal amount as the child support which means if the child support payment is $350. than the foster care payment is $349.60) I actually talked to a guy who paid faithfully every month of every year and his youngest was 26 years old and he was asking the D.A. about why he is still being charged for child support, because his youngest was 26 and he had $0 in arrears.

The Government and the media justify this stupidity by only telling the stories of the few who are actually Dead Beat Parents and avoid telling the truth about the other 4 billion absent parents who got shafted so bad that they can no longer even get a job or pay rent or have a bank account or anything simply because they lost the draw in the issue of custody.   I recall a very nice guy, had a wife and 2 kids until they got a divorce. He had a used car that he was paying on and a trailer that he lived in. He had a decent job, then he got a child support order of over $700. a month. He had to sell the trailer and liquidate the car because he could no longer afford the payments of either. He eventually lost his job because the clunker he replaced the other used car with to cancel the car payment  broke down a lot and caused him to be late or miss work frequently. His child support went into arrears while he was seeking employment and he lost his license. At that point he had NO chance of getting another job that paid equal to his original job if at all, Now, he holds the title "Dead Beat Dad".

Now, the majority of Absent Parents fall under the classification of "Dead Beat Parent" and all the laws that were designed to punish the Absent Parent for being Absent from the home (not necessarily from the life of the kids) under the guise of  "Dead Beat Parent" in order to cover the fact that the government was just trying to find another way into the pockets of the working class American and the poor. These laws to punish the absent parent have only created a bigger problem and does not solve anything. Not only is the government not getting the child support, now, they are not getting the income tax from these once hard working and employed parents (now unemployed) because a percentage of Zero ($0) is Zero ($0). 

when you see these stories about dead beat parents on the news, ask yourself why is this guy on the news if there are billions of dead beat parents just like him?  If the media does not cover low profile murders in an area that has a high murder rate because it is common place, why would the news cover the REAL story of the AVERAGE Absent Parent when it is common place. The secret of getting the facts are to pay attention to those around you and watch and listen to the average person who is part of that label and ask questions. Go directly to the source. Conduct your own personal study before taking someone else's opinions as your own.   There are two sides of every story, hear both sides before passing judgment. 

Learn to think for yourself.



 

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