In child custody and child support administration, stereotype-based beliefs about the allocation of family responsibilities are both firmly rooted and largely unquestioned. Suppose some desirable job involved much out-of-town travel. Suppose, in hiring for that job, an employer discriminated in favor of fathers and against mothers, on the grounds that the best interests of the children favored mothers not doing extensive, out-of-town travel. The employer most likely would be in violation of sex discrimination laws and subject to a costly legal judgment. In contrast, “the best interests of the child” pretends to rationalize huge gender inequalities in state-awarded child custody and child support.
Sex inequalities in child custody and child support are about an order of magnitude larger than widely discussed sex inequalities in the labor force. From 1993 to 2007, about five mothers had child custody for every father with child custody. Across that same period, about eight mothers were awarded child support for every father awarded child support. Among parents under a child support agreement, fourteen times more mothers received physical custody than did fathers.
Gender inequalities in labor force participation, in contrast, are much smaller. Among parents ages 25 to 49 living with at least one own-child, three mothers worked full-time for every four fathers that did. Among parents of those ages living with at least one own-child under age five, one mother worked full-time for every two fathers that did. Motherhood matters much less in the workforce than in courtrooms making child-custody or child-support decisions.
Most persons value their children more than their jobs. Even if sex inequalities in child custody and child support were similar to sex inequalities in the labor force, the former sex inequalities would be more damaging than the latter.
Family-court substantive and procedural law should consider the actual sex bias in the administration of child custody and child support. Men lack reproductive rights comparable to those that women have in U.S. constitutional law and in statutory laws governing child-birth registration, giving up a child for adoption, and safe-havens that allow a mother to give up a newborn safely, legally, and anonymously. Sex inequalities in child-custody and child-support administration exacerbate sex inequalities in reproductive rights.
Child-support enforcement keeps roughly 50,000 persons in jail or in prison in the U.S. on any given day. Almost surely among those prisoners men outnumber women by eight to one or more. Sex inequalities in child custody and child support are closely related to that sex inequality in punishment.[*]
Nothing is more important to most persons than their freedom and their children. State action deprives men of their freedom and their children with gross anti-men sex bias. Imprisonment and child-custody awards are the most significant areas of gender inequality today. Those areas deserve priority in promoting gender equality.
* * * * *
Read more:
- motherhood and sexism in Turner v. Rogers
- differences between having sex and fathering a child
- child support provides arbitrary, unequal financial support for children
Data: custodial parents, parents awarded child-support, and labor-force participation by sex, 1993-2007 (Excel version)
Note:
[*] In Turner v. Rogers, the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether an indigent child-support obligor is entitled to a state-provided lawyer in a proceeding that will determine whether the obligor will be imprisoned. Turner v. Rogers is directly about the right to counsel. However, sex inequalities in reproductive rights and in child-custody and child-support administration place Turner v. Rogers within an extraordinary but unquestioned field of unequal protection under law.
that actually would not be discrimination employers are most certainly allowed to take children into account when hiring the only thing that is required is 8 weeks unpaid leave for new parents regardless of sex. If the employer was to bar all women then that would be sex discrimination because they are judged only on sex and not merit. However children on the other hand are a very real liability and obligation that is not only considered by employers but money lenders as well. Usually the fact of having children makes most more apt for a prospective job because they have mouths to feed and thus way more reluctant to quit and look elsewhere for better work if they are dissatisfied with there current employment.
I find your post intriguing. I would like to add a thought if I may. Now more than ever women are losing custody of their children due to military service. I was married to a civilian who gained custody of our son when he was 12 months. Although I was not deemed unfit, I was not chosen to be the primary custodial parent. I was however ordered to pay over $1000 dollars in child support and cover all medical expenses. Never had I understood what men endured until I was in their place. I have been denied visitation, communication, to include basic parental rights and yet in still I have to follow the order. It is a way for the Custodial parent to control, punish and hurt the other. Most of all the custodial parent is damaging the child especially if there is no founded reason of if the alternate parent is unfit, insane and or unstable. It is understanding how and why many parents give up exhausted with the unfair system. As a first time mother I will not ever as long as there is breath in my body. I will say as a woman that WOMEN do manipulate and disregard the system but so do MEN. Men can run from a DNA test as women cannot. I agree that MOST men and women value a relationship with their children more so than a job or profession. The civil system is broken and unfortunately I do not see in the near future it changing. The state does not have the capability to support everyone nor does the government.
Gender bias in our courts is not a secret at all in this country. A lot of people know about it but, since it doesn’t effect them yet or at all, they don’t care, especially enough to do something about it or even complain about it. Pretty close to half the population who are involved are recipients of the funds and happy to keep the prejudices of our courts, hence, the among college-educated couples, the percentage of divorces initiated by wives is a whopping 90 percent. The states(courts) entice the women with turning the fathers of their children into endless ATM machines and awarding sole custody so the state can then get the title IVD and VAWA large incentives from the federal government based on quotas they need to meet. Fathers who can’t meet the mark are stripped of their ability to live and then freedoms and very possibly an endless cycle of funding our prisons with more tax dollars for his repeated visits to jail. This of course in-debts him even more while reducing his ability to earn a living and the child/ren is now almost completely without a father. This allows for the women to qualify for more tax funded women and infant oriented programs while putting the father in the tax funded jail. The entire family is now on the tax payers dime and the family is poverty stricken and ruined in many different ways. It’s disgusting to watch the vile people who keep this machine going for the money. Some even seem to take thrill in it as they destroy families, using often greedy and vindictive mothers who use their children as cash cows and weapons.
Absolutely, unequivocally. 100% accurate. Now. how do we get everyone else to understand this?
Tying the Knot in the Age of Marriage 2.0
Before you take the plunge there are a few things about marriage that you need to be aware of. The institution of marriage as we know it is no more. It has undergone drastic changes in the last 50 years. What used to be a life long commitment, unbreakable barring the most severe circumstances, has been legislated into something entirely new thanks to the lobbying efforts of radical feminists and the divorce industry. In trying to make divorce “fail-safe” for women they have made marriage “unsafe” for everyone.
Marriage today is a temporary union of two individuals where the exit costs are highly asymmetrical. What does that mean? It means that upon the dissolution of the marriage, one spouse (mothers) makes off like a bandit, while the other (Fathers) is pushed into a life of unending poverty, abridged civil rights, and being two paychecks away from arrears, contempt, and prison.
If someone is made to suffer like that upon the divorce, you probably think that he/she deserved it. Perhaps they were a terrible spouse? Perhaps they cheated? If only this was so. Karma, you see, has nothing to do with it. That was the case during the olden days of “fault-only” divorce when the spouse who was at fault for wrecking the marriage got penalized during the divorce. With those old divorces , if the at-fault party was the higher-earning spouse, they were made to pay alimony and surrender many marital assets over to the wronged party. Similarly, if the at-fault party was the homemaker/lower-earner spouse, then they were made to forfeit any alimony and forced to accept a smaller share of the martial assets. Morality was a big factor in who made out better and who made out worse.
Enter Marriage 2.0
During the second half of the 20th century all of the ground rules governing marriage were changed. The laws were changed to such an extent that that we can no longer call it “marriage” as it was known through the millennia. We have to distinguish this mutated institution with a new name. We will call it Marriage 2.0.
Today all that stuff about the moral carrot and stick is out of the window. Basically the higher-earner spouse is always at-fault (i.e. made to hand over assets and pay alimony), and the lower-earner spouse is always the “innocent one” (i.e. gets most of the assets and a cut of the ex’s future salaries). It doesn’t matter if the lower-earner spouse was the one having an affair or is the one filing the divorce. Therein lies the problem with modern family laws. You can be the best breadwinner spouse in the world, take good care of your wife, and stay true to your marriage vows, and you will still get shafted in the divorce. It’s a suckers bet for the good guy.
Here are some things working against you, when you are the primary breadwinner spouse within Marriage 2.0, and your wife decides to walk out (cash out?) on you:
1. Women Filing Majority of Divorces – 75% of all divorces are now filed by wives. Publications like Cosmo love to harp on men for having a “fear of commitment”. Guys must ask themselves, why commit when it’s the other party who can’t live up to the commitment 3/4 of the time?
2. Unilateral Divorce – This is also known as no-fault divorce, with no recourse for men. There is nothing you can do legally speaking to stop a divorce.
3. Domestic Violence Fraud : Men presumed guilty until proven innocent DV laws are now widely used as the “opening chess move” of many divorces against innocent fathers. Once the husband is removed from the primary residence he never comes back, and she gets the primary residence in the asset split. Also known as the Federal VAWA Legislation, this new unconstitutional law has been fraudulently misused by divorcing spouses ever since it came out. There are no equivalent laws to protect men in abusive situations.
4. Decriminalization of Adultery – Adultery is no longer a crime. However the failure to pay alimony to an adulterous spouse is. Go figure.
5. Losing Custody of Children – Custody of the children is most often awarded to the female in family courts. Basically this amounts to: Goodbye Daddy, hello ATM.
6. No enforcement of Visitation Rights – States enforce payment obligations by fathers with an iron fist, however they don’t lift a finger to enforce the other side of the bargain, which is the visitation rights of fathers. If you are going to police one parent’s obligation to pay, why not police the female’s obligation to allow regular meaningful access to the children?
7. Children as Cashcows – The National Organization for Women (NOW) has been continuously lobbying against Shared Parenting bills in many states. Why would NOW do that? What is more equal than shared parenting? The reason is that NOW’s brand of feminism is no longer about equality, but about a zero-sum game for resources. Children are cash-cows, and NOW will be damned if they allow Shared Parenting to stop the cash-flow.
8. No-Fault Alimony – In many states, fault is no longer a factor in awarding alimony. So there are plenty of cases of “spouse-A cheats, but spouse-B pays”. In what other area of contract law does the party breaking the contract gets paid, and the innocent party gets punished? Only in Marriage 2.0!
9. One Sided Alimony: Ok so the ex-wife got used to a certain standard of living, so we will make the ex-husband pay alimony. Fine. But how about the things the ex-husband got used to? Do men have a right to be “accustomed” to stuff too? If not, why not? Shouldn’t there be some sort of reciprocal reverse-alimony payment by the ex-wife in the form of weekly cleaning, a hot meal 7 nights a week, and “romantic companionship” services for the ex-husband? How come one spouse is obligated to provide something that the other was used to during the marriage, and the female isn’t obligated to provide anything?
10. Lifetime Alimony – Contrary to common belief, Alimony isn’t on its way out. There was a period in the 1970’s when no-fault laws were first enacted when a few states put limitations on how/when it could be awarded. However since then there have been a concerted effort by powers that be such as the influential American Law Institute (ALI) for bringing alimony back in a big way. Here is a New York Times article covering the release of a landmark 2002 ALI report which recommended broadening and deepening alimony awards across all 50 states. Right on queue there are now reports of alimony horror stories coming out from many states where the breadwinner Fathers are ordered to pay lifetime alimony. There are also cases like the on in this Wall Street Journal article where long settled divorce cases are re-opened and modified under the new pro-alimony paradigms. Paul Taylor featured in the WSJ story had his ex-wife take him back to court in 2009, three decades after their original 1982 divorce when both parties had agreed to waive all past/present/future alimony. The court reversed that original 1982 divorce judgment and awarded lifetime alimony to the ex-wife. It was ordered that this new alimony be deducted out of Paul Taylor’s pension and paid monthly to a woman he hadn’t even seen in three decades. Mr. Taylor is now in bankruptcy and can look forward to spending his golden years working as a Greeter in Wal-Mart. Equality in action?
11. Paternity Fraud – If you didn’t catch right away that your kids aren’t really your kids but instead were “sired” by some guy that your wife was having an affair with, you are out of luck. What’s worse if your cheating wife divorces you, you can bring the DNA tests to court, and you will still be forced to pay 18-23 years of child support for these kids who are some other guy’s spawn, plus be made to pay for her lawyer as well as your own AND pay for all the associated costs for the DNA test. Read this case of the Toronto man forced to pay child-support for twins that even the court acknowledged are not his but ordered him to keep paying anyway. In no other area of the law do we punish the innocent victim for the conduct of two other people
Even more shocking is a New York Times article about a Pennsylvania man ordered to keep paying child support after his adulterous wife divorced him, and married the very guy she had the affair and conceived the child with. Today the bio-father, the ex-wife, and their bio-child live together under a single roof as a biologically intact family and guess who is still paying them monthly child support? Yes, the cuckold ex-husband still has to pay every month or go to jail. You can’t make this stuff up. Even cuckold porn doesn’t get this vile.
Conclusion
Marriage 2.0 is a very unequal contract where the legal power balance both within the marriage and after the divorce is heavily biased against the Father. Given that this is today’s legal reality why would you want to sign such a one sided contract? There are simply no benefits in marriage for the males under these Marriage 2.0 rules. None whatsoever. Ask yourself now: “What is in it for me?”. If the above hasn’t yet convinced you to avoid this mutated institution that has become a giant legal trap for men, then you owe it to yourself to keep learning more about the risks of saying “I do”.
Thank you for the list, I will spread it in the hopes of preventing more men from falling for this trap.
I experienced the most grotesque discrimination. I had custody of 3 kids for 7 years, due to mothers consistent involvement with cys, child death, kids left out of school for over a year etc.
Mother puts out a pfa and is immediately awarded custody. She 1st sued for child support. Found out that although I had sole custody for 7 yrs, I was going in arrears to her for non payment.
She calls cys to report abuse. They take one look at her record and immediately remove kids and give them back to me. Now, me and woman required to give random drug tests, psyche evals, drug and alcohol etc.
Mother was ordered to do so as well but said she can’t do anything, she has no income and doesn’t leave her house due to mental illness.
So Cass and kids voice get involve because case is court active. Cys keeps saying kids are fine with me, there are no safety concerns. I had them for seven years, no truancy and all on honor roll.
Despite a child dying in her custody, her being convicted of child endangerment, having founded allegations of abuse and neglect and not complying with a single order of the court, and having no income, living in abject poverty – Cass and kids voice recommended removal from me and placing kids with mother because I didn’t comply 100 percent with the court orders, which by the way gave me a child by her that was not hers whom I had to take care of for free.
Pa child custody blues.
As a man having primary custody of my son I feel like I am being discrimated. I live in nj and my ex wife lives in Florida. She owes over 13,000.00 in child support. So I go to court in June and have a lawyer at that. We asked for a substantial payment be made and the judge favors on behalf of my ex wife because she says I just had a baby and been on bed rest and I will be going back to work soon from maternity leave. Well she had this baby the middle of April and we went to court the end of June. The 12 weeks of maternity leave should have been over or close to over. Well it’s now august and she still isn’t working or paying on her support. Seriously if it was the other way around I as the man would have to pay of end up in jail. If I was on maternity leave as men are able to when a women has his child now I wouldn’t have that same sympathy. I would be told it didn’t matter and would have to find a way to pay. It’s not right that females are getting away with not paying support for their kids. And it’s even more difficult to have nj child support have florida enforce these payments. Seriously I need assistance on this discrination that I’m getting.
I have the same problem, but I’m the one living in Florida and she lives in NJ. I have had custody of my kids since Oct 31, 2009 and I have not received a penny from her. She doesn’t even call her kids or care for that matter. To be honest the world would be better off if she was dead.
I’m with you brother! I’ve had full custody of my girls over 8yrs now, didn’t even go after her for support til 2yrs into custody. Which if genders were reversed I wouldn’t of had to come after her, cs would have done it on their own. But anyway, she’s currently over 9000$ behind, has been up to 11,000$ behind in the past. Always finds a bartender job,or waitressing so she banks on tips. They’ve always only made her pay the bare minimum. She was in a jail for a couple months and while in jail I received a payment,which I was baffled cause it was months since I had a payment, and thought how’d I get one while she’s locked up? I messenged cs,they replied that she had a job right before she got locked up. So that’s where the payment came from, then they said she’s going into rehab afterwards, and they’re not going to enforce support while in there! I became unglued, don’t get me wrong I want her to get help, but 12yrs ago I was in rehab, I spent 4 months in one, relapsed ended up back in for 9 months. 13 months in an inpatient rehab, They wrote me while in there threatening me for payments and I was only 2000$ behind, I got a job in the kitchen there and gave them 70%of what I made! Now they’re going to tell me that they’re going to leave her alone? I called them out, and told them how sexist their system is! They didn’t reply,let me know if you find a way to sue,or take them to court for your claims, I’m with you and feel something needs to be done about the sexist,crooked child support system!
Now to add to the story I sent earlier. When I got together with my ex wife I didn’t know she had 3 children. She always told me that the kids her father had at the house were her brothers and sister. Anyway come to find out after I have custody of our son and she moves to florida and I talked to her dad and I find out they were her kids that he has custody of because dyfs took them away from her. She also owes him a larger amount if child support than she owes me. He also lives in nj. See a pattern of how nj doesn’t get the child support for out of state owers? Also before she moved to florida she was pregnant again with twins that werent mine. I found the hospital information after she left. Not even sure where they are. I don’t know if she miscarried, the father of the babies took them? Idk. But she moves to florida and now has 2 more children. The latest being born mid of april. So she can’t pay for the kids she has and she has more. Anyway, I go to court in June to have her pay substantial amount against the 13,000.00 and as you saw in last sent message it was shot down. I also had requested that dyfs investigate on allegations that my son made and the school 2 yrs in a row had called dyfs about it. With her history of dyfs taking away the 3 other children. Judge says to call off dyfs the kid needs his mother. Seriously. Then my son was supposed to go to summer school because he learning disabilities. She claims to the judge that I am alienating my son from her and that she can teach him the summer work. So the judge says she will teach him and she has to get the stuff needed from the school. So anyway she has the material from the school that I dropped off at the airport when I met her to take my son to florida. She signs the paper of what needs to be completed. That was July 3, 2015. So because she always does back door things to get out of doing anything she calls the school on June 10, 2015 and says the work is too hard for my son. Seriously she had him for a week and she is getting out if doing the workbooks? And the school didn’t inform me and I am the primary caregiver. So of course I have my lawyer again to see what can be done. But this is just rediculous that a women doesn’t have to take responsibility but a man has too or consequences will happen.
The evidence is absolutely clear that men make up the vast majority of domestic violence victims and, further, that the women who nowadays report domestic violence to the police are mostly the aggressors, not the victims.
Furthermore, as a husband or a partner, you might well believe that you are in an ‘equitable’ relationship with your wife or your partner but you would be very mistaken in this belief.
If she wants you out – out of the house, out of the children’s lives and out of the way – then out you will go.
Would You Sign This Contract?
“Your employer can, at any time, dismiss you, without justification, and he can have you imprisoned if you object too strongly to your dismissal. For example, if you raise your voice in anger at the way in which you are being treated, your employer may have you arrested for ‘violence’. In any event, your employer can dismiss you regardless of the circumstances, and at his sole discretion.
“Your employer can fire you from your job whenever he wishes, no matter how long you have served his company, and even if you have done absolutely nothing wrong. Further, your employer can insist that you are evicted from your own home, and never allowed to re-enter it.
“Your employer may further demand that you must, under threat of imprisonment, forfeit part of any future income to your employer for some considerable time into the future.”
How many incidents of violence against employers would take place annually if these were the terms and conditions that were set for all employees?
An enormous number, one would imagine.
Now read this. It’s the Lovers Contract.
“A woman can, at any time, dismiss her male partner, without justification, and have that partner imprisoned if he objects too strongly to his dismissal. For example, if he raises his voice in anger he may be arrested for ‘domestic violence’. In any event, a woman can dismiss the man regardless of the circumstances, and at her sole discretion.
“She can fire him from his jobs as father and partner, whenever she wishes, no matter how long he has served the family, and even if he has done absolutely nothing wrong.
“Further, the woman can insist that the man is evicted from his own house, and never allowed to re-enter it. If she has children, a woman may further demand that her sacked partner must, under threat of imprisonment, forfeit part of any future income to the woman and her children for some considerable time into the future – and, in some instances, this is the case even if her children turn out not to be his.”
Justice for men & boys (and the women who love them)1 – ‘J4MB’ – recommends that men don’t marry, because the institution has been highly risky for men for decades, and remains so. The state gives wives considerable power over husbands, because of their preferential treatment in divorce settlements – it’s as if they’re given loaded guns to use at any point during their marriages, however well they’re treated. This is toxic for marriage. Women institute 75% of divorce proceedings. Even if you bring most of the financial resources into your marriage, and earn much more than your wife during it, you could find your financial position devastated by divorce. If your ex-wife maliciously denies you access to your children – a grave emotional assault on your children, you, your parents, and others – you’ll face a lengthy, costly, and highly uncertain legal battle to gain reasonable access to them. Even if you’re denied that access, you’ll have to provide for the children financially. If you’d like to learn more about why you shouldn’t marry, visit the J4MB website dedicated to the matter.
Dear Senator
I am contacting you on a matter of great importance which is affecting many children, fathers, and families. I am the father of a 5 year old daughter who is the most important person in my life. I am Defense employee with 32 years in civilian service working with Defense contractors, honorable discharge from military service and 10 years overseas duty working with foreign Ministries and the American Embassy in Rome.
In 2012 my child’s mother left our home for the second time without notice or warning, taking our child without any information of their location to me for the following month. Eventually I found them and this time I petitioned for child custody. The mother who I loved dearly suffers from borderline personality disorder a condition which is not immediately recognized. She is on daily medication and 95% of the time considered a normal wonderful person. We did not fight and rarely argued but when she exhibits (annual) non-violent anxiety attacks she is completely unpredictable. I will forego further details at this time. At Islip family court I experienced 7 months of short adjournments which totaled $32,000., of my personal savings only to arrive at the trial date to be informed that her medical records which were supposed to be attained by my attorney with the help of the court had not materialized. I was advised to settle in the realization of my chances for a father custody decision. During this time I was not allowed to express any information or serve the court with any facts. The court in return never requested any (in establishing a determination on “What’s best for the child”) and her (mom) automatic position of primary custodian was solidified. The court will say that we came to this agreement, but surely it can be established that my endeavor for father custody was genuine and in fact limited to the extent of my finances, finances which were wasted. What cannot be established is the reason for indefinite adjournment’s and deficiencies in “process fact gathering” prior to decision making (If a decision is ever reached) by the courts. This is a very traumatizing system of justice. During the time that I waited, the attorney’s meter for payment was always running without any guarantees of a thorough or even a superficial investigation of the case or the parents on the part of the court.
Advocating separation of family, the court does not investigate fault on most separations where there is no evidence of abuse. An adult parent is allowed to leave a family and in many cases take their children away from the other parent even without any significant cause, because they can (no fault divorce or separation). If this “family break up / abandonment ” could only be traced to the leaving parent’s reasons, immaturity or opportunism, (again with no history or any evidence of abuse) and used to decide a fair decision for custody, perhaps many children’s futures could be saved from a legacy which is proven to be both destructive and repetitive. Why can’t the legislature realize that this adult decision to leave should not justify taking children away from their home and punish the child and the other parent, while disrupting the children’s home and family upbringing? If only the courts were mandated to conduct this background investigation automatically, understanding through intelligent authorities and systems of law that “they could not assume to do less!” when adjudicating in such a grave matter, then these injustices would diminish naturally. In the present legal system / family courts, the court will not work to establish the reason or cause for determining whether this action to leave, which usually has serious implications on the welfare of the children, was in fact justified. Further, the court will penalize the parent who was abandoned by allowing the other parent to take primary custody away from the abandoned parent without cause. The legislative and justice system then goes further by awarding support payments to primary custodians which encourages this perpetual action to others since it is now perceived as rewarding in our society by all those who would attempt this action. This further damages the father – child relationship and adds other future implications to include visitation abilities / problems. The Legislative and judicial system henceforth advocates the separation of family in America, henceforth 65-80% breakdowns in family and existence of children in one parent homes as a result. These children are now lessoned in a broken family upbringing (another great subject for discussion) and see separated adult relationships as the norm. (65 & 80% divorce rate in 1st and second marriages by many statistics).
By right of law, an adult has the right to choose to leave a relationship. An adult who chooses to leave a relationship should not have the immediate right to take the children of mutual parenting without reasonable cause. Reasonable cause is to be established by a ruling court through an investigative effort, automatically. Lack of investigative effort by the court should rule out any court involvement in “custody decisions”. If they cannot perform the job correctly they should not be in the business of such a serious adjudication. Attorneys in this process should be either affordable / paid for actual trial time only / provided by the State / or unnecessary based on available evidence and facts from the parties / parents or lack thereof.
How would the enforcement of gender equality in the American family courts affect these national separation statistics and child confiscations/childhood family breakdowns? Especially, when there is no valid or moral reason presented for separation and nothing to be gained monetarily / custodially? Especially when the majority of the causes for separation involving children are frivolous and unsubstantiated? You may ask how I can make this claim and I will tell you that the majority of the cases which decide or automatically allocate custody have no historical or character evidence gathered by the court on either parent within the court libraries, as they do not have on me or my child’s mother. The courts force a settlement between the parties, with all knowing that it is the mother who must be proven incompetent. The courts and attorneys extend and prolong trial despite the lack of any investigation in most cases. I would not mind endless adjournments but who can pay for them? I have had private contractor’s perform jobs, but payment was only allocated for their completion, not for how much time they decided to take for their work to be completed (blank check). Justice can be painful which is why it must be fair and just. Statistically 90% of custody decisions in America are for the mother. Statistically 80% of incarcerated young men and 80% of woman experiencing unwed teen pregnancies come from fatherless homes. (Sources upon request)
Although the new policy dictates “What is best for the child”, no steps or automatic court protocol is exercised (by the court) to establish any facts or justification for primary custody decisions. How can a decision for “what is best for the child” be conceived with this lack of information / facts? They do not adjudicate with facts collected and provided from both sides of the parent’s corners or by investigation.
They completely dismiss the fact that some parents cannot afford investigative attorneys and that lack of investigation due to lack of large funds prevent a fair hearing to enable a decision for “what’s best for the child”. The uncapped costs imposed on the parents to maintain a case for custody is barbaric. This is a very advantageous tool for the court and the mother, as it is as dangerous for the opposing parent and child; again I was not litigating for a luxury asset of monetary value or business dispute, but for the custody under fair trial, of my child. For any social establishment to believe that taking a child from a father is less painful than taking a child from its mother, that society or establishment is mistaken, as it would be for accepting this as justice.
Can the legislators and judges imagine or are they even in a position to imagine what it is like to have their child taken away from them? Do the law makers understand the gravity of personal suffering that this system is being allowed to impose and sentence on fathers? Directly or indirectly, the gravity of suffering is the same. Directly or indirectly statistics show that this system of bias and procrastination is not accidental but deliberate. Judicial process for custody and matters of children must be changed as with the personal cost to attain justice in these matters involving children. If the courts are not capable or prepared to handle these injustices they should not be in the position to act in a responsibility that they cannot accomplish justly. If the legislators are not willing to make the necessary changes then they should be alleviated the authority of law in this arena (originally belonging to the church not the state). This is a matter of my child, my flesh and blood, and the future of her physical and mental health; the children are the first victims here. The consequences of this injustice on overall social stability are immeasurable.
I have listened to fathers within my social circle and fathers who attend support groups. This injustice is one of the greatest of our time, potentially affecting up to 50 million men in this country today, the ignored damage to children immeasurable. We have not experienced such unfairness in this nation since the periods predating the rights movements, and times prior to the 13th, and 14th amendments.
I am requesting a cooperative effort for change in laws or court protocol regarding custody. Your counsel and involvement on this matter is requested.
Marriages are performed at an alter because that’s where men are sacrificed.
I need a lawyer..my ex wife owes 51 thousand dollars I child support and walks the streets of winchester va having her own business doing ghost tours ..pubs tours etc..if this was a man..he would have been sent to jail years ago..also New York State child support failed to help me…I’m discriminated!!!!! Help me!! I am a dad with soul custody of my two beautiful daughters one who just started JMU other freshman in high school..thank god I have my wife to support us and bring us to Virginia …I want equal rights!! For men and women!!! Send my Ex to jail!!!
I’m at my end here. I live in the state of Florida where I was awarded custody of my son and the mother ( we were not ever married) is ordered to pay child support in which, was way below what an average minimum wage job. By 40%.
So never mind that, she did not pay any support for 5 years in which I finally got a contempt case in court. Great huh? No, all they did was reinstate her license and nothing else even thought her arrears where reaching $5,000. Years go by nothing. No matter what I did or how many times I called enforcement, nothing. Then something miraculous happened, She got a job. So she paid four 6 months then quit.
So to make a long story longer, we have been in court for her contempt 5 times. She has been arrested 2 for not paying what the judge order her to but still got out of jail next day without making a payment. Twice. Her arrears now are at $16,000 October 2017. And the Duval County Jacksonville does nothing.
It’s because I’m a man and I work everyday 40-60 week at the same job for 11 years. She has no other children either unlike me with 4. I don’t know where to turn to fight this discrimination of my rights because I’m a man. Any advice???
I’m sorry that you are facing the anti-men sex discrimination that’s prevalent in the administration of so-called “child support.” Raising your children well depends much more on your love for them than on the amount of money you have. My non-professional advice: give your child more love to make up for the less money you have. And don’t try to have the mother jailed for non-payment of child support. That won’t help anyone.
One of the things that I write my legislators about are the kickbacks (I’m sorry – incentive payments) in the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act that reward states for increasing the gross amount of direct (cash) child support collected.
These kickbacks create financial incentives for the courts to both order sole custody of the children with the lower earning parent, and to restrict the paying parent’s access to their children because it increases the gross amount of child support collected, thereby increasing the CSPIA kickbacks to the state.
If it were up to me, there would be presumptive joint custody, and a child support trust account in the form of a shared checking account like this one (https://www.mediate.com/articles/if_they_can_do_parenting_plans.cfm) to make child support a shared responsibility instead of a requirement for the paying parent to provide a government mandated lifestyle for the children, and by inference, the custodial parent.
I would also grant parents credit for indirect and in-kind contributions to their children’s needs (https://www.selfrepresent.mo.gov/file.jsp?id=10040) as well as measuring child support compliance as the percentage of parents (with the means to do so) instead of fixating on increasing the gross amount of ‘child support’ collected . This would allow enforcement sanctions to be focused on the true ‘deadbeat’ parent, while allowing ‘deadbroke’ parents (both custodial and non-custodial) to receive job training referrals to give them the opportunity to become self-supporting and better able to provide for themselves and their children.
I’ve also never understood the logic of suspending drivers licenses of paying parents. Why would you do something that makes it harder for a parent to work and earn the money to support themselves and their children?
This is true I am a single father I kept my children for 8 years under roof , no child support won or offered, I’ve been sued twice while my kids still live with me but the state never went after the mom. But in my case before during and after the state has continued to come after me, and at this point I now have to stated attempting to collect child support I’ve filled out all necessary paperwork. And still same situation