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Child support needs to reflect new roles for fathers, say experts
Submitted by el cid on Sat, 2015-01-03 16:33
Story here. A good attempt at re-assessing the treatment of non-custodial fathers in today's world. Excerpt:
'One kind of family is the one in an old greeting-card picture: two parents, one or more kids, all under one roof.
But another kind of family has become more and more common over the last several decades. We tend to call it “single parenting,” but it is really better described as an unmarried mother and father living apart, their children, and the government whose laws regulate their relationship.
That set of laws is the child-support system, and it covers 17 million American children—about a quarter of them. But that system is nearly 40 years old, established during a different economy, and built on an old model where the mother was the caretaker and the father simply brought home the bacon. Today, a group of critics is saying the system needs an update, not only to be fair to adults but to avoid hurting the children whose interests it is supposed to serve.
These critics are particularly focused on the role of fathers, who make up the vast majority of noncustodial parents. Fathers are overwhelmingly the target of the current system’s narrow focus on collection and enforcement. And for middle-class and high-income men, it may make sense to require simply that they pay up or else.
But 29 percent of families in the system have income below the federal poverty line, and many more have great trouble making ends meet. Since the system was first put in place, out-of-wedlock births have become less stigmatized and more common, while devastating wage stagnation has hit male workers. As a result, there are legions of low-income fathers far less able to hold up their end of the deal. They may find themselves unable to pay child support, and yet caught in a system that expects nothing else from them.'
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Comments
Pay up or "else"... what?
Jail, presumably, or perhaps death by slow torture. Yep.
How about this: Pay up "or else" but only after laws are passed that give men the right to disavow parental rights and obligations within the same period of time women can unilaterally choose to and have terminated a pregnancy via abortion. In the US, it's within the first three months of conception. So upon information that he is or will be a father, he should get three months to sign the papers. Whether the mother wants to bring the pregnancy to term is her business.
Matriarchy vs Patriarchy
I suggested this article because the author does a reasonably good job of discussing some important issues about child support--and how some "experts" are suggesting that the system may need to change. On the other hand, the debate about child support enforcement is mostly a debate among slave owners about how best to treat the slaves--whip 'em until they work or maybe try a "kinder and gentler" approach (like letting them keep enough money so they can eat).
One issue about child support not mentioned is that child support laws automatically turn dads into criminals. And turning dads into criminals turns sons into criminals. We see the result in certain groups, such as blacks, where single motherhood is the norm; 72% of children are born to single mothers. At the same time, young black men have the highest rate of crime. Typically, this is blamed on racism, but in fact it's largely because our government has turned black fathers into criminals. If the only role offered to a black man is that of criminal, it's the role he plays.
This entire issue comes down to the sort of social system we want to live in: patriarchy or matriarchy. By patriarchy, I mean father-headed households, typically with a married mother and father raising the child together. Every bit of evidence I've read on this issue shows this is The Best Way to raise children. But that system is possible only if we protect the rights and interest of fathers. If those rights are not protected, we give rise to the other system.
That other system is matriarchy, by which I mean single mothers raising children with absent fathers. The only problem with matriarchy is that it doesn't work; the system results in poverty for children and social chaos. Yet it's the system we're literally being forced into by our overlords. The Great American Matriarchy survives because of welfare and child support, but the results are still the same: social chaos and poverty. To solve these problems, we try to get more money out of dad. And to do that, we further criminalize dads--and their sons. So the poverty and social chaos continue.
A house divided cannot stand. A society divided cannot stand. And right now, men and women are not working together to raise kids or create a good society: by law, by culture, they are working against each other. Patriarchy works because it brings men and women together for the good of the children and everyone. Matriarchy fails because it divides father against mother. We will have a divided society along as we treat fathers as criminals--or as slaves to a system that does not offer them any benefit. Men have no reason to support the current system because it offers them nothing in return--except not getting whipped if they comply.
Marriage was the basis of every successful civilization because it alone offered everyone involved--mom, dad, and the child--a clear benefit. Marriage is the cornerstone of patriarchy. Matriarchy, on the other hand, offers no benefit to anyone--as one commentator in the article observes, casting out men is a bad deal for women. And marriage today offers no benefit to the man because our laws fail to protect his rights and interests in both his children and his property. Without the protection of the law, men have no good reason to marry. So marriage rates are declining. (Within this system, MGTOW is a rational choice.)
Bottom line: we either find a way to bring men and women together in a way that benefits all or we fall apart. Right now, we're falling apart. All the government force in the world cannot hold a divided house together. And we are very much a divided house.
Okay, I'll get off my soapbox.
If you can't soapbox on MANN...
... where can you? :)
Great points, el cid. Feminists' agenda includes creating this sort of matriarchy but as a means to an end. Once they get society devolved into the mess it's fast becoming, they hope that men's human and legal rights can be vacated enough so that males as a class can be "managed". Means? Curfews, monitoring devices, etc. Look for such propositions in future should the current political insanity in D.C. continue. It's the same sort of step the Nazis would've taken had they had the technology prior to the far worse things they moved onto; many ppl don't know the Nazis took away the rights of various groups they didn't like in steps, not all at once. Then by the time they went full bore, they had all the foundations established to just go ahead and do their worst.
But the "management" is also a means to an end. Through modern technology, they hope to find a way to replace human males in the human reproductive cycle. They think this is a good thing, but it's really very bad on numerous levels, just biologically speaking. As for moral and ethical considerations -- need I comment?
Agreed
Feminists want to make all men criminals, thereby justifying taking away all their rights. They've succeeded to a large degree, especially by portraying all men as violent, wife beaters, or rapists. That's why they have all the campaigns against DV and sexual abuse: so everybody thinks men are evil and deserve whatever they get. And why they judge all men by the actions of a few. A few men rape, therefore all men are rapists--or potential rapists.
Some men go along with these campaigns because of sexual competition for women--they can be the good guys vs all the bad men out there. Or they just don't realize what's going on.
As to replacing men in the reproductive cycle, well, I suspect that would be a lot like letting brothers and sisters marry. It's devolution--we'll devolve back into primordial ooze.
your rights well into the future
Don't sign the birth certificate so she and the courts cannot extort from you, and she'll have to be civil towards you since you didn't agree to waive your rights away to her or the courts. If she moves or pulls stunts she's on her own.
Protect yourself from actions not yet taken against you
INFORMATION and details not matter how insignificant about your family, past, financial dealings, work, friends, property owned..., all of these are not necessary for a good relationship, you and her in the present moment along with your experiences with her are. Marriage can wait till you've had good look at things. Most likely more than one year. Details are best kept out of an adversaries hands, even if they're good friends right now. Just say'n".
SNOOPING suggest their preparedness for such actions, in case they decide to later. You only know what she said or you found out. Better devise a good "script" in case it becomes a good idea later since most undue influence comes from yours' or especially her "friends" who may try to test you for their own selfish reasons since you may be interfering with their relationship with your girl that apparently isn't enough for your girl anyway, that's why she's with you. That doesn't mean her friends are necessarily on the "outs" due to you, or a friend to you. Just say'n.
CARING too much about what she's doing or not doing is forgetting that despite joining with her, you are in fact on your own, the whole time, all along, anyway.
If you don't think so, you're gonna find out if you're ever on the "outs".
An ATTORNEY would say "you didn't tell em anything did ya".
Keep her impressed with you, not $ ect and be better off for it. Probably easier than you think.
Indeed... some examples...
... of parthenogenic species include such luminary beings as lizards, bees, aphids, sharks, and a couple others.
Some of these species are quite old. However it's apples and oranges when considering brain complexity, parasite exposure, pathogen exposure risks, etc. Genetic variation mechanisms found among sexually reproducing species allow them to keep way ahead of other species in terms of being able to expand their ranges and remain robust and successful at survival and continued reproduction. There's a reason why the most dominant/successful/complex/evolved/adaptable species on Earth reproduce sexually.
Modern technology may one day enable human reproduction by same-sex gamete fusion (for feminists, these would only be human eggs), which could help with the need for genetic variation; but if experiments done with non-human animal eggs (sheep, etc.) are any predictor of how that's likely to pan out, I'd say it'll be a real stretch to realize that feminist dream. Still, parthenogenesis is more plausible, and it may one day come to pass. But humanity will not have taken a step forward when that day comes, regardless of whether or not it's a male "auto-reproducing" with the aid of an ectogenic-enabling artificial uterus or a female doing the same using her own built-in uterus. The devolution will have started in earnest on that day.