Wednesday, February 29, 2012
A Payday Loan
Having recently joined
the rank and file as a father who has been ordered by the family court to make
bi-weekly child support payments to my ex-wife to assist her with our four year
old son, I can honestly say that I was frustrated and at times disappointed
with the way that I was treated during my support hearings. Before I get into that thought I am going to
share with you my side of how I arrived at this point to begin with.
In the fall of 2007 my
ex-wife gave birth to our son, and by the end of December that same year she
and I were married. By the spring of
2008 I was contemplating if we needed to stay married because things were not
working the way that they should have been for us to be married. Things came to a head for me when I spotted
her and her ex-boyfriend coming from family court one day while I was with our
son heading to go visit my mother at work.
I was under the impression that she was at work while I had taken our
son to the doctor to see about his foot.
The reality as I found out was that while I was with our son at the
doctor’s office she was at family court with her ex-boyfriend requesting that
the court put a stop on his child support payments that he was making to her
for their daughter. I was honestly hurt when I saw all of this mainly because I
had our son with me, and I remember thinking to myself how do I explain this to
him because I knew right then that our situation was over and I was moving
on. By the fall of 2008 I had submitted
my uncontested divorce papers, and in doing so I was very adamant about paying
child support to my ex if she felt she needed the money. My ex-wife made it very clear to me that she
did not want any of my money so after unsuccessfully attempting to put myself
on child support payments with the court I just simply continued to do
everything for our son just the way I had been doing since the day he was born.
Ironically in December
of 2009 my divorce was finalized with the courts and I was now free from my
marriage. Post marriage everything was
great for me until a couple of years later when my ex decided to petition the
court for child support payments from me after we spoke and I explained to her
that I had truly moved on and was with someone else preparing for my second
child. My ex stated to me that she now
needed to make sure that her son was taken care of because she didn’t know what
would happen with my new situation.
Translation, in the event that you and the girl you are with now break
up in five years, let me get what I can now before she does. Especially since I’m not working, living at
home with my mother, and honestly really could use the money now. Needless to say this was the beginning of my
frustrations because now I’m thinking to myself that I have been the one doing
everything financially for our son so why should I now give you anything. In any case I dropped my son back to my ex after
taking him to get his haircut one day, and before I left I had been served with
a summons to appear for a child support hearing. Before I continue there is no ducking and
dodging that my feelings were very strong for my ex-wife and the relationship we
had at the time. At days end my ex-wife
brought my firstborn child into this world, and I also married her so I would
be lying to you if I said that I did not love her at the time because wanting
to have children with someone is a huge situation to be in and there be no love
for the person that you are with. With
that being said, I remember my first court appearance like it was yesterday.
My ex and I entered
into the court room and within minutes of sitting down the conversation was the
support magistrate asking who did my son stay with, and my ex answering by
saying that he lived with her. Next the
support magistrate then asked me if I acknowledge being my son’s father and I
replied yes. The magistrate then asked
for my pay stubs from work, and with a few key strokes on his calculator
determined that I needed to pay my ex three hundred and seventy five dollars in
child support every two weeks. So much
for all the other paperwork that I had brought in to show the magistrate that
the court had the wrong father because not only was I supporting my son, I was
and still am his primary source of support.
I ended up getting a lawyer which helped because as I have found out
magistrates are more likely to hear you more when a lawyer speaks on your
behalf, and eventually I was able to get my payments down to one hundred and
fifty dollars every two weeks after proving to him that my ex and I had shared
custody of my son. Even with that
knowledge on the table the court still sought to up my payment amount and my ex
and I ended up making settlement on three hundred dollars every two weeks. At days end again I need to make clear that
paying my ex the child support is not a problem for me because my view of the
situation is that the money belongs to my son.
My issue with the whole child support situation is that with my view in
mind there is no measure of accountability placed on my ex to make sure that
the money she receives is being used towards the support of my son like it
should be.
In an earlier piece
that I wrote titled, “Corporate Mother,” I alluded to the idea that some
mother’s view their child as a business decision. The business decision that I was referring to
with that statement was the decision to take a father who is doing his job and
actively living up to his responsibilities to court for child support
payments. The child support system not
just hurts but in as many cases as it can cripples a person financially. Now regardless of if the father needed to be
taken to court for the support or not, my stance is that the mother receiving
the payments needs to be held accountable for what is being done with that
money to ensure that the money is being used to support the child, and not just
tax free money that mom is collecting for herself.
A father trying to
minimize or show that he should not be paying child support would have to prove
his case by first being able to show that he has more than just a visitation
schedule with his child, and then it’s about him being able to show how he
supports his child in the form of medical expenses, daycare expenses, living
expenses, and so on. What’s troubling is
that in showing all of this he is basically accounting for every penny that is
spent to support his child to avoid being crippled financially by a system out
to do just that but for a mother receiving the money she never has to show how
she spends every penny of that money to support her child.
Mother’s receiving
child support payments are not asked to come before the court every three years
and show receipts for medical expenses paid, daycare costs incurred, or changes
in living expenses. On the other hand a father making payments could be
summoned back to court every three years and be subjected to incremental
increases in his support payments of one percent or more depending on the
circumstances for the lifetime of the payments.
Now where is the fairness in that because if this is the case shouldn’t
mom have to come back to continue to show a need for the money that she already
receives? Even at the request of the
father a mother is not obligated to show how the child support is being spent
on the child which says to me that until a measure of accountability is put in
place unfortunately it will always be likely that the child never even sees the
money being given to mother.
It would also just make
sense to make sure that a mother receiving child support is at least working,
and living in her own situation where she is independent. How do you justify making child support
payments to someone with no job? In a
situation like this it should be obvious that the person is unable to even care
for themselves to an extent so if they aren’t working and the other parent is
obviously somebody must be taking care of the child other than the unemployed
parent.
In addition to this it
should also become obvious that if the mother has no job that the support
payments being made by the father likely will serve as her only means of
income, and also her only means of supporting herself, and how does that help
support the child when it’s supporting mom also? Now if there is a legitimate reason that mom
is unemployed then of course I’m not suggesting that she be forced to work; but
if all things are equal and there is nothing to suggest that mom can’t work she
should be working to at least be able to show that she has some financial
responsibility in the situation regarding herself at the least. After that then a better and more honest
calculation can be made to determine what a father needs to pay in order to
supplement what mom makes in order to help support the child before we just put
it all on the father.
In closing what I am
saying truly applies to those fathers who are taking care of their
children. If a father taking care of his
child or children must go through the ringer of the child support system all
I’m really saying is at least give him a little protection too in the form of
the security of knowing that the money he is paying out is really supporting
his child or children, and that it’s not just a payday loan that never has to
be bad back.
Be
Great,
Chris…
Corporate Mother
Corporate mothers are bringing down
good fathers, and destroying the works of strong mothers in the
process. I have a lot of respect for all
the mother’s in the world that are out there keeping their families
together, and doing what they have to do to make sure their
children grow to be great in life.
Who I do have a problem with are those corporate mothers who secretly
view their children as a paycheck, and use them along with the family
court system to gain a steady payday through child support payments.
It’s unfortunate but chances
are a corporate mother has had her children with a father cut from good
stock. Meaning he is the type of
father who does the things he is supposed to do for his children. Whether the relationship with his children’s
mother works or not he will still be actively involved with his
children, and is going to do more for them than the family court system is
going to force him to. He is also a
father that does not have a problem paying child support because he
understands that he has a responsibility to his kids, and that
there are other components that go into raising his children besides
money.
Corporate mother’s could care less
about the other components that go into raising their children because their
attitude is, "show me the money," and their children are nothing
more than a business decision they needed to make. Dealing with
a good father corporate mothers do not understand that taking him to court
for their child support payday is actually doing more harm than good to the
children, and in the long run bringing them more aggravation.
Having children creates a
partnership between a man and a woman. So if we are going to look
at it as a business, we have to look at it as a business partnership. In a business partnership two people
invest their hard earned money into a business in order to get it
going. Not only that they also invest a
lot of their time, energy and efforts into that business because once it gets
going they want to see it profit and grow.
With that in mind, parents make a lifelong financial
investment into their children from the start, and in addition they
both invest a lot of their time, energy and efforts into their children to
see that they profit and grow.
A business plan is not drawn up with
a short term goal in mind seeking short term gains. A business plan is laid out over a span of
years with long term gains in mind. The
thinking of responsible mothers and fathers is long term. High school
diploma, get him or her through college, and teaching independence and not
dependence. Corporate mothers think
short term, “show me the money,” and as they say money is the root of all
evil. Dealing with children as a business, and chasing the money takes away
from the time a father spends with his children as well as the mental and
physical bond he builds with them. This hurts him and his children in the
long run because the time that he wants to devote to them and the time they
want from him is being spent in family court fighting over money.
Looking at the bigger picture
corporate mothers do not realize that taking the, “show me the money,” attitude
is what dissolves their partnership with the father of their children,
and makes everything about business.
Once the child support order is in place the corporate
mother becomes the employee, and her children become a product.
She now has a salary and is being paid to take care of her children when
she is with them. Dad's only concern now is making sure his children
have what they need when they are with him, and that’s the aggravating part for
the corporate mother. She gets her payday but it’s really not enough
for her to operate with and she can no longer ask her former
business partner for a loan. She can get
a raise but she’s a union worker now and she has to go through her union
(Family Court) to get it.
It’s truly sad that there are
mothers who think like this when it comes to their children because money
driven mothers are beginning to put the same type of negative stigma on good
mothers that dead beat fathers have already established. What’s even more sad is that with all
these men who don’t want to be bothered and all these mothers looking to
get paid, a huge shadow now looms over the few good fathers, and strong
mother’s who have gotten it done on their own, and those who continue to make a
way out of no way for their children.
My closing thought is to say to
the dead beat father stay out of the way so the good father can
restore the faith in fathers that you have broken. To the Corporate Mother I
say attend Florida University and F U for trying to
bring good active fathers down, and trying to destroy the works of strong
independent mothers.
Be Great,
Chris...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)