Well it's been a while since this decision and the statistics are not in yet, but I think it ultimately will be seen as the Waterloo of our society's attempts to collect child support from stubborn fathers; and, thus, the beginning of the end of the custody wars to evade child support that have been raging across our country for the last few decades...
With one swift blow, Tennessee made the issue moot. Predictable as always, the region that has been on the wrong side of every social issue this country has ever been faced with, from slavery to unions, once again come down on the wrong side of the child support issue...
Allowing men to base their child support for first children on how many subsequent children they will spawn is like allowing someone to decide how much their minimum credit card payment will be based upon HOW much they purchased...AFTER telling them that the more they spend, the less that payment will be...
Well quess what folks...After hearing that, you'd be a darn fool not to run that card up to the limit and then some now, wouldn't you? Heck buy a whole freakin department store, maybe you can get a minumun payment of $10.00 a month to pay it all off whenever...WTF...
Frankly at this point, I say GOOD...as I and I suspect many others (including the FBI, who has been forced to set up a website and assign agents to address all of the many issues instigated by these custody wars to avoid child support) were getting darn sick of the whole thing...darn sick of it...
I can just imagine the glee of the fathers in Tennessee as they slowly became aware of the significance of this decision, not to mention the glee of the fathers' rights movement nationally as this retarded view of financial planning for your children spreads to all the other states...
Oh well...
Maybe things can get back to normal now as men continue with their history of evading responsibility for their children and women continue with ours of scrabbling around for resources to raise our children with...since the stingy male cheapskates of our society have been doing everything in their power to find a loophole like this (and let's face it you can drive a truck through this one) ever since the laws mandating higher child support guidelines were passed...
The court ruled in a case in which a Memphis father faced an 80% increase in his child support, and the father argued that the expense of raising two children in his current marriage should be considered in figuring how much he should pay to support a third child from a previous relationship. Current child support guidelines prohibit financial considerations for children from second families, except under extreme circumstances. The court found that these guidelines "violate the equal protection guarantees of the federal and state constitutions."
Now comes the spin...
It's all about the children, as it not constitutional to allow children of the same father to be treated unequally...
No...it's all about not taking on more responsibility then you can afford and then becoming a slacker because you bit off more then you can chew...that's what it's about.
Sigh...
14 comments:
Yes, you should remember that you have a daughter and the policy changes I hope for will eventually benefit her...
AND you make many snide remarks to me on other blogs which is why I respond to you as I do...You cannot expect to ask me to respond civilly to you and then when I go to other blogs you spent all your time sniping at me...
Believe it or not I have nothing against loving fathers being involved with their children; however, as I'm sure you noticed we are NOT talking about loving fathers who are driving many of the 'custody wars' here...look at the random comments of the men on the parent site of one we frequent and you'll see what I mean. These are not loving fathers.
For the most part, we are talking about men who are emotionally abusive to say the least by even instigating a custody action....as I told you already I consider it the definition of emotional abuse for a man to start one of these actions unless abuse or neglect of his children is involved.
I do NOT agree with you that men always paid support for children...especially never-married men which makes up about 30% of our births now. This is something relatively new and we are seeing the ramifications of it now...dangerous for women and children to allow these men contact when they have no connection whatsoever to either mother or child...
Married men usually paid something in the event of divorce, but it was up to a Judge's discretion what he paid...there were no support guidelines invoked by federal policy...that is new also.
AND I agree that support guidelines are too high. I think it's not the support itself but the add-ons that states attached to it...such as prorated percentage of childcare and uncovered medical...this is the problem I believe. But address that then...this business of fighting for custody to avoid paying high child support is bs and it does go on...It does...
I believe the things I post, I get no personal benefit by any of this...
I actually get many threats from people because of my views, generally men, but some women.
Like I have said many times, if men continue, women will have even fewer children then they do now, fewer...as why should they go through everything we do to bring forth the next generation and then put up with this crap after the fact...so you better start thinking about that if you ever expect to be a grandfather.
My views do NOT stop any man from being a father. They put in perspective the relative contribution of each one to the overall relationship...and maybe it's a good thing that men go into these relationships understanding the power inbalances that exist...
Men have more power vis-a-vis the financial sphere in most relationships because they make more money...plus they have more power via their larger size and physical strength against their wives and even more flexibility regarding extramarital relationships as they are judged less harshly when they cheat...if women have more vis-a-vis children with backup of law enforcement so what...
Shouldn't she have SOMETHING...
Anyway, I will try to moderate my comments to you but expect the same respect...as I am nice to people who are nice to me...
Good night...
BTW, I am NOT a feminist...or a marxist feminist...or a marxist-socialist feminist...as I frequently have said feminists are the mothers of the fathers' rights movement in more ways then one.
Children cannot be divided by like a CD collection so someone must be given custody and that person is whom the children will be spending MOST of their growing-up years...Unfortunately it is simply NOT enough incentive for women to have children if there is a possibility that they will lose them; so in the overall best interest of everyone, mothers need to continue getting custody of children...
Sorry...
As I assure you if MOST young women became aware of this change in public policy regarding custody, our birth rates would drop even more and we're heading into extinction already...Most women still believe that mothers ONLY lose custody if they are unfit...Most women are NOT aware of the changes that have taken place over the last decade or so and how easy it is for mothers to lose custody of their children today...
Actually the engine of growth for the African-American community, the single teenage mother, has already stopped reproducing probably due to this change in policy (usually changes in public policy move more rapidly through the everyday lives of poorer communities then the rest of us, so the word is probably already out). Thus, in about a decade or two we will be seeing a corresponding drop in the overall African-American population reflective of this...
Just sorry...
Take it up with mother nature if you have issues with this. That's the way the 'system' was set up...Mothers bear and raise the young of every species, including our own...Mothers invest more in their young and that larger investment usually translates into better care and nuturing of said young so it's a positive 'good' for everyone involved...
Just because it's fashionable and 'sexy' for men to strut around now exhibiting children like a new piece of jewelry or the latest fashion accessory doesn't mean it's good for our society to throw out the window a system that has been working since man first crawled out of the primal mist...
Because you know what, once you convince women that's kids are NOT that big a deal, that just any old person can raise them, that there's no special bond between mother and child, it could be pretty hard to unconvince them of just the opposite a few decades from now when the whole thing falls apart...
As my main worry is not that you're WRONG, but that you're RIGHT and what is the damn incentive for women to go through all the inconvenience, disfigurement, pain and sheer bloody mess of the whole 'baby making' thing in that case...With a 1001 reasons to say no, what the incentive for any woman to say yes to being a mother if a man who invests NOTHING in the process, absolutely nothing, can pop up 5 seconds after birth and have exactly the same rights as her to the child she just bore? What is the incentive?
I mean in a free society people can make choices and you and other fathers rights advocates seem to be talking out of both sides of your mouth on this issue...
On the one hand, you all seem to be saying that the whole mother/child bond is totally bogus, meaningless bs and that any old person can bond with a child after birth and raise child just as well as mother can...then when I say well what's the incentive for women to have children then, you all inevitably start sprouting off about the whole maternal instinct thing...women will still want to chance it due to some latent maternal instinct that exists within each woman supposedly driving them to want children...
Well isn't that a slightly inconsistent position here? I mean if you are telling me that there are no inherent differences here between mom and dad vis-a-vis children then why in the heck should I believe in some vague mysterious and sacred, maternal instinct that operates before the fact of birth, but then afterwards just stops operating and we all fall under the cold, hard logic of science again...
I mean either these things exist or they don't...they don't just exist when it's convenient for men to make a selfish case for their own best interest with and then vanish as soon as they are no longer useful...
Why should women go along with that?
Give me even ONE good reason...even one that makes sense...Just one...and your initial reasoning that, well even if dad gets custody mothers can still be a a part of childrens' lives is probably NOT going to cut it...as you are telling me basically that the person putting forth MOST of the effort will be reaping the lesser reward and, you know what, REAL life doesn't work out this way...it just doesn't...
"More money means a better life for the kids. Even if they live with dad they still never have to lose their mom. Not like the way it is now."
I hate to give you the cold hard facts Michael but if you think that you are going to find a woman to marry you and have children based upon that scenario you just outlined above, you are dreaming...the ONLY way that would work is if you lied to her about your beliefs...the ONLY way...
It never fails to amaze me of how the most seemingly intelligent men will just say and probably believe the silliest things sometimes.
I'd advise you to begin seeking a single-parent adoption rather then wait to meet someone else to have more kids with...because you are NEVER going to find a woman to go along with that...unless you are as rich as Michael Jackson and can pay somebody a million dollars and a house like he did...and frankly, now that we know so much more now about how mental illness and lesser personality disorders are hereditary in nature, I'd be afraid, if I were you, to have kids with a woman who WOULD do this...As she's probaly mentally unbalanced and any children with 50% of her genes will grow up to be like that too...in other words you'll be spawning a bunch of future nuts...
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...
"And women don't have to lose their children in the event that they live with dad because he may be more financially solvent. (I know you couldn't possibly imagine that happening to you, but hey, I couldn't imagine it happening to me either. Until it did)."
Well you know what Michael...you just keep doing what you're doing and I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and let history be the judge of who was right....because I don't believe any woman is going to bear children knowing there is a possibility that someday she'll lose custody of them...it's not going to happen...
AND the same way that this Joint Custody being introduced into states has cut the divorce rate, it's eventually going to cut the marriage and child-bearing rate of women as well...because, guess what, these sneaky trick only work ONCE...
It's like what that guy was saying about Amy Richards aborting those two fetuses but you chose NOT to understand...that her thinking on this issue spanned generations...being passed along from woman to woman and all the generations of those women being abandoned and betrayed by the men in their lives led right up to Amy Richards sitting in the doctor's office having two fetuses aborted because SHE alone, could only handle one child...and couldn't trust the man in her life enough to chance having three...
This is the scenario that we will be looking at in our future...more ill will towards men based upon more irresponsible behavior...as it is NOT reponsible for fathers to seek custody of children from mothers, unless abuse or neglect is involved...actually it an age old continuation of emotional abuse of women by men...
Like I said, let's just see where it all ends...
I read the parts of what I wrote that you posted on your blog and, of course, standing alone the excerpts meant nothing...generally most people post an excerpt that summarizes the MOST of the ideas or thesis of an article within it, you managed to post the excerpts summarizing the least...
Oh well...
I am confident that as time goes by you and other Fathers' Rights advocates like you will come to be looked upon badly...I have no doubt of it. This whole decades long episode will be noted as more abuse by men against women and children. You'll be painted as selfish, concerned only with money and determined to undermine womens' rights by holding their children hostage...
The thing most held against all of you will NOT be how you treated your children and their mothers so selfishly however, BUT how you managed to destroy our court system in this country with your continuing attempts to undermine what used to be considered one of the finest systems in the world...Your selfishness has caused our family courts to become corrupt and venal, not concerned with the best interests of the children they are supposed to be serving but instead focused on piling on top of the politically correct bandwagon in separating mothers from their children to perpetuate some weird social engineering experiment...
You'll be seen as responsible for these ceaseless parental abductions which bog down law enforcement trying to track down mothers who have every right to their children, but are now subject to having to get permission to even 'visit' them...and for the general disrespect that many now hold all family court orders in as flouting them has become as routine as jaywalking...
Even the chaos that family courts have descended into dragging the reputations of many of the Judges and other court professionals down with them will be your legacy as well...
You are NOT going to be seen as Martin Luther King or Gandhi as you continually try to paint yourselves but just the opposite...more like the men who eventually killed King and Gandhi so determined were they to keep control of a corrupt system...
You are not going to be seen as those loving fathers you keep trying to paint yourselves as in the media either, instead you are going to be seen as monsters, who for selfish gain destroyed the lives of their children and attempted to roll back the civil and legal rights of their mothers...the only group of women in the world who have gained some rights for the first freakin time in history and instead of being happy for us, you sat around plotting on how you could screw it all up for us again...
That's going to be your legacy: selfish, irresponsible, and stingy...
And just to let you know that all those women helping you are going to be seen in the same way...but worse...as too addled-brained to know any better, similar to the way those women suicide bombers help men install fundamentalist regimes that eventually kill them and other women...like that...
Not as these great pioneers as they like to paint themselves...
Okay...
I am a mother of two, and I find nymom's comments VERY disturbing. Custody shouldn't always go to the mom. When the child is older, and especially if the child is male, I believe he would benefit MORE from the father. The problem is that most mothers become selfish and don't want to give up that child support. They aren't looking out for the childs interest, they are basing there decisions on emotions and money. I also believe that when a man has other children then the child support should be reviewed again based on that. This is no different than if he was married to the woman and they had more children. At that point financial resources would be reduced towards the first child in order to accomodate the second child in the family. That's common sense. What if we told women who are receiving child support, that they should not have any more children because they can't afford to take care of the ones they have, without child support? That's not fair on either side. A father shouldn't have to prove that a mother is unfit, to get custody of his children. He may be in a better position to take care of the kids, than the mother. Child support is out of control. It's almost as though the mother wants to be "paid" for having a child, as if its her reward. I am married and have a stepson, and my husband pays child support, and it doesn't bother me one bit. I don't believe it actually goes to support the child as much as it goes to pay for her lifestyle, but thats not my business. It's his responsibility, so he pays. His son now wants to live with his father full-time, and as he is 13 he should have the right to choose, and then the mother should pay child support. What's right is right. Nymom, you sound angry. You rant and rave, but all anyone hears is, "I want money!" I will pray that God gives you peace.
Well remember one thing, the tax payers assume a vast burden as well when you allow men to reduce their child support according to how many subsequent children they have. Since every child is entitled to the same standard of living in this country and most entitlements are based upon income, a cut in child support would translate into lesser income to that child. Your thinking would cause taxpayers to have to pick up the tab as hundreds of thousands of children would suddenly become eligible for free school lunches, free medical care, and god only knows how many other entitlements.
It's simply irresponsible to take on more financial burdens if you are having problems meeting the ones you currently face. PERIOD.
Actually I do agree with you that older children should have a say in which parent they wish to live with; but don't be disappointed if he changes his mind after a year or so and wishes to return home. I read somewhere a long time ago that these type of latter custody switches rarely work out, not to mention that you'll have created life long enemy in his mother. It it really worth it?
Your argument against using future children of the fatther ass a factor in the child support calculation is fundamentally flawed because it is one-sided and unfair. The mother is free to reduce the anmount of available income she provides the first child by simply having more children. Obviously, if the mother has more children she will spend less on the first child because she has to spread the same amoutn of resources over several children. So then why does this not apply to the father as well? if the father has more children then he should be able to spread his resources evenly for all of his children, which will rersult in less resources for the first child. Your logic is sexually biased. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, period. Stop saying you want equal rights as women and then expect to be spoon fed. Get out and get a damn job and help support your children instead of being bab machines that expect the man to pay for everything. Pathetic. Your position promotes women having the children of multiple fathers who have not had children yet. Keep that income support income coming in girls, you know how to work the system. You can move on with your life but the fathers can't? There is no equality in the divorce/child custody arena. It is really sad.
Unfortunately Brandon evolution or nature is one-sided and men invest little in bringing forth life. Thus for the person who invests the least to be able to spawn kids all over the place and lower child support depending upon how many he ultimately spawns is a recipe for future financial disaster.
Sorry.
I raised my son for 7 years while his mom worked ywo jobs, went to school, and ran the bars all night getting drunk and screwing around. Whe she decided to move out, I sued for custody. In court, she argued I had to prove paternity, and even said the paternity test I had was questionable, so I had to get another one. In the mean time, she stole my son from me, and fled to her parents house, where a year later she still lives, with my son, while our case is pending. The only reason the mother wants custody is to hurt me, and make money. She leaves my son behind with her parents or others whenever she has him so she can screw around with men. And I only get to see him every other weekend, and one day a week, but not overnight, because I am a man. So I say screw you for your opinion, because as a father I raised my son for sexevn years without his mom's help at all, and she still was able to walk out of court with more parenting time than I have. So screw you and screw mothers who have possession of their kids by default, without ever having to prove they are a better parent, just because they are women.
If you love your kids, you work at making yourself financially and emotionally able to care for them yourself. Thta's me. I don't want a dime from my son's worthless mother. I just want to see my son that I raised alone for 7 years more than 2 nights every two weeks. This country is sick, and our economy and society is in shambles because of kids being raised by the wrong parents.
"The only reason the mother wants custody is to hurt me and make money..."
Well that's exactly what I'm talking about and why we have to fix the child support system...you, yourself, admit getting custody of a child involves 'making money'...
Although why a woman who worked 'two jobs' all the time needs money is beyond me.
BTW: What do you do for a living...
The desire to destroy man and his "primary bond" with his children is all too apparent from the communistic views these women who profess to know whats right for your family. That includes making the man pay over and over while the women is rewarded for her inability to run her own life without "government assistance". There should be a time limit, if the woman can not be on her own two feet in less then a year or lets say 3 months the man has the right to full custody. Sounds fair in a world where the man is to be destroyed first all in the name of children. Horrible what communism does to a country.
All you women should come to Hawaii. I'm a man. I pay $1600 every month. I was left with $300 every two weeks to live on. I am now homeless. I had to quit work because of anxiety attacks due to the stress, and could not get by an that income anyway. My ex does not work. Her boyfreind does not work. They just had a baby conceived before we were divorced. Now she gets welfare. The welfare office is coming after me for whatever they gave her. They take it out of my tax return if I have one. They will put a lein on any family property my name may be associated with. They will cancel my drivers licence. they will ruin my credit report. I obviously have no money to pay them.
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