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Hello Marc-
I saw your comments and tried to email you, but this address bounced back: angelucci2000@alumni.law.ucla
You said that "custodial mothers receive higher support awards than custodial fathers even when all other factors are equal."
I know this to be anecdotally true in my own case, but I would love to see some solid documentation about this problem for use in my own situation.
During the period of 1995- to 1997, my ex-wife made the usual slew of allegations during custody proceedings in an attempt to get full custody of our child. The court, in an abundance of caution, took every claim at face value, and for those two years contact with my child was severely restricted.
During that time, even though I had been laid-off of my job and was underemployed for almost a year, the court made grand assumptions about my "capacity" to earn money, and slapped me with a heavy child-support burden. By the time I gained custody of my son in 1997, I was seriously in debt to this woman.
In the following months I returned to court to ask for child support myself. My ex-wife returned an I & E that showed she had voluntarily reduced her work hours from 40 hours per week to 30 hours, saying that she had to spend the extra time in "court and therapy." Unbelievably, the court then based her child support order on a 30-hour work week, and to this day it has been that way since custody was changed in April, 1997.
I have been reluctant (terrified!) to return to court on this matter since then, and so the order has remained the same for the past 4 years.
This is a raw-nerve issue with me. If you could direct me to some basic facts supporting the gender bias in child support orders, I would be most appreciative.
Regards,
Mike LaSalle
Editor,
Men's News Daily
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Hi Mike,
You wrote, "[Marc] said that "custodial mothers receive higher support awards than custodial fathers even when all other factors are equal."
I know this to be anecdotally true in my own case, but I would love to see some solid documentation about this problem for use in my own situation."
Marc did include the source for this info, which is Warren Farrell's latest book, Father and Child Reunion. For space reasons, I didn't include his footnote with the post.
Scott
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The most shocking and disturbing part of the article to me was at the very end, where it says LA County awards child support by default in 79% of cases, which means the alleged father may or may not have been contacted at all before being legally declared to be the father and financially responsible. I've already read about the many men in LA who have been sent bills for support of children who aren't theirs and then told that they never showed up for court and were thus legally liable for the rest of their lives regardless of paternity. But they were never notified that they were supposed to be in court in the first place. It seems to me that in something is life-destroying as child support it should be mandatory that an accused father be served in person to remove all room for doubt. Clearly LA County has been falsely claiming to mail the alleged fathers and further expects us to assume that the US Mail is 100% effective in finding these men. This is an outrage. The Department of Justice should be forced to look into this and do something.
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Mike, sorry about the email problem. I don't know what happened, but my email is angelucci2000@alumni.law.ucla.edu.
If you have trouble finding the source that Farrell cites in Father and Child Reunion, let me know and I'll dig it back up.
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My ex bounced about one in three of her child support checks and was never made to make up for the lack of payment. All men I have heard of who bounce child support checks are required to pay and are frequently charged with a criminal offense. I complained to Manitoba Enforcement about it and they sent me a letter saying they never discriminate!
Also, my next door neighbour earned about what I did: Her ex earned less than what my ex did. Her support was $550 per month and mine was $62.50 every two weeks. That is typical of the system and by far the norm. I doubt anything has changed in the last twenty years.
One dad I know had an order for $2,000 per month from his wealthy ex for the support of their six children. She never paid a penny of it and no one in the Ontario system complained about that. Could you imagine the rucus if a man owed 40 some odd thousand dollars?
Greg
the Volksgaren Project: Intelligent Abuse Recovery, http://clix.to/support/, jaxom@amtelecom.net, 519-773-9644
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Dear Mike
I'm a new user so I hope you get this. My fear is that the big problem underneath all the concerns addressed here on this site is court proceedings and the way divorce "law" is administered. "The system" is a huge monopoly that governs itself and has nothing to lose by hurting people on an individual level. I have seen a very good friend get reamed in court, as has happened to you, and I'm appalled, to say the least. I know of a lawyer who admits to "imputing" an income to an individual that is three times the currently earned amount. His rationale is that, well, if the guy stays there long enough he will be earning this amount. So he's going for it now. I frankly don't think there is any due process, just a feeding frenzy when the conditions are right.
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Too bad California forfeited the distinction of truly reforming the judicial cesspool of family law and child support.
Noting was mentioned about the need of holding the custodial parent (mothers mostly) responsible for showing that all of the child's support money really went to support the child and not spent on the whims of the custodial parent.
I have a feeling this story might be a bit bogus in reporting the figures. Because with all the layoffs and business failures now going on and the fact that California has a highly mobile immigrant population, mostly from Mexico, I doubt the figures are accurate. The figures may be "cooked" by the politicols who report them to show the sheeple that "yes, we are doing our job!" But I doubt it and they will never get over 50% compliance with support until the laws are more equitible and misandry is rooted out of the statutes. It is really just that simple!
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How do you know if LA County's child support reform efforts are a success? You did not interview a single father for your article, 'Reformed Child Support System Termed a Success.' You did not offer a quote from one single father's rights expert or attorney. You only asked a feminist from Berkeley, several child support activists, and government agents if they liked it. Of course they liked it. They don't pay a dime. They just sit back and make money from the blood of men who may or may not be the child's father and again from these same men's federal income tax. What would they not like about it?
You yourself said, "Los Angeles County has an "extraordinarily high" rate of court orders obtained by default--79%--because those sued for child support fail, for whatever reasons, to appear in court. That default rate, the report says, not only raises serious questions about the fairness of the county's approach, but also gives the court orders for child support "less credibility and makes them harder to enforce." LA County's penchant for billing the wrong man and then ordering him to pay regardless of paternity is infamous. There was an entire network news program about it in the 1990s because it is so shockingly sexist, oppressive and unjust. Men are sent bills for support they do not owe for children that are not theirs. When they appear in court they are told that they had been sent a letter informing them that they were named the father. Yet for most no such letter was ever received. For others the letter was not even addressed to them, but still the court rules that they are legally the father since the letter went to their home, even if only in a financially obligatory way. Over and over again this has occurred for over 10 years now.
And would it not seem reasonable to expect that for something as life-changing and frequently devastating as child support would warrant a standard subpoena served in person by a deputy sheriff to make absolutely certain that the accused father was the correct person and knew he was expected in court? Why is this not done? It is more than common courtesy to expect it. It is the only reasonable approach. Yet LA County doesn't bother.
Perhaps if LA County didn't shake down so many non-fathers for child support they might have a higher collection rate? And perhaps if the rights of the fathers were enforced as enthusiastically as the endless entitlements of the mothers the payment rate might increase as well? But we'll never know will we? Because LA County isn't about to treat fathers and alleged fathers as anything less than subhuman trash. And judging from the lack of fathers' views represented in your article neither are you.
Sincerely,
Steven Jones
....
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You only asked a feminist from Berkeley, several child support activists, and government agents if they liked it. Of course they liked it. They don't pay a dime.
Glad you called them on that, Steve. The article reads more like a PR piece for the system than any serious journalism.
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Beautifully written, Steve. You have eloquently expressed (and expanded) my own thoughts on the issue. Thanks.
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