I thought this was an interesting comment, particularly considering the on-going situation in the news with Brittany Spear losing custody of her children recently…so I decided to take the liberty of making an entire post of it considering that all comments on the internet become public property anyway…
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "ANOTHER SENSIBLE RULING REGARDING RECREATIONAL SPE...":
My 25 year old daughter (just before she started her last year of college) got knocked up last summer after a 2 week thing with a not-so-ideal guy that she realized (shortly into the fling) that she has nothing in common with. He was 29, had an 8 year old daughter living in another state from a prior marriage whom he doesn't see but has child support payments that are automatically withdrawn from his paycheck. (He REALLY resents the payments but has no choice. He makes about $32K per year and really needs to stretch to pay his bills...and is not shy about talking about it.)
My daughter was on the Pill and got a bladder infection during the month she was with this guy and so the pill failed her and she got pregnant. A healthy baby boy was born in April and she graduated from college in May and has a full time job. She and her baby lives here in our house in an attached apartment with my husband and I. We are supporting her a little financially and with the help of a part-time nanny.
The father who I shall hereafter refer to as SD (Sperm Donor) initially told her he wanted her to do whatever she wanted...ie, have an abortion, adoption...maybe keep the baby..etc. Maybe they'd move in together...but no marriage.
My daughter got wise to him but because of the pregnancy tried to make it work for about 8 weeks after she found out she was pregnant. She had told him when she first met that she someday wanted children and he mocked her for that in front of another couple...he made it clear that he did not want them at all----he had enough with this daughter he did not see.
So she broke up with him and had the baby and moved back with us. She really wants nothing to do with him as she has determined he's a creep. Before the baby (boy) was born, we found out that he had a vasectomy to make sure that he'd never have this happen again. He still wants sex---just no consequences.
This loser is now trying to take the infant BOY (his "show" puppy) on a 50/50 basis. He doesn't want to pay child support but suddenly he wants to be a "father". He has already promised to teach the baby the opposite of our beliefs, so he fully intends to mess with his mind. His concerns are now about him having a SON to show off to his buddies.
We really don't want anything from him (including child support). We just want him to go away as he has very opposite world views and will develop a lot of conflict in the child as he gets older.
How can we get him to go away? He's just an awful guy but nothing is sufficient so far to prove this to the courts (he's a heavy drinker, a biker, heavily into porn and kinky sex with multiple partners, he smokes, and we don't trust him not to hurt the baby, either by accident or deliberately)
Any ideas? Any case law that can help frame our argument? This is essentially stranger casual sex that resulted in a child and now the stranger wants to impose himself on our lives and the baby's innocence.
Help!!
Posted by Anonymous to Women as Mothers at 8:00 PM
My Reply:
First of all there is absolutely nothing either your daughter or anyone in the family can do about it and if you try too much, your daughter can lose custody due to a finding of “parental alienation”. Just to let you know: most parents who lose custody due to alienation are mothers and it’s virtually impossible to overturn on appeal and doubly impossible to enforce visitation afterwards.
Additionally, if this jerk manages to get joint custody or shared custody, whatever they call it in your state, he can sue your daughter for child support (if he makes less income then her) and ultimately wind up getting money from YOU…as a Judge can decide to impute income to your daughter, even as a student. Students loans, for instance, can be considered income for child support purposes as can any cash assistance you and/or her father give to her. Even non-cash assistance can be imputed to her as income for child support purposes (such as providing her free room and board, living expenses, etc.,).
So prepare yourselves, you now have a leech attached to you for life or at least for the minority of your grandchild.
This is a similar situation to what Brittany Spears faces right now. AND let’s make no mistake about it, I have no sympathy for Brittany Spears. She should have lost custody of her sons due to her conduct. My problem is the fact that instead of her family getting custody, as should have happened and would have happened years ago until she straightened out her life, they gave custody to this money-sucking leech Kevin Federline. Who is, at best, a total loser similar to Brittany Spears, just contesting custody for the payday it involves.
Getting custody today from someone like Brittany Spears is similar to hitting the lottery. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for at least 20 years, most of it tax free. So it’s actually better then hitting the lottery, as you pay taxes on lottery winning, but not on child support.
Women need to wake up to this totally new abuse of us and our children and be damn careful about who they pick as husbands and fathers.
Wake up…
Sorry for your situation.
50 comments:
Oh my, that "show puppy" description hit me like a slap across the face... that sounds SO MUCH like my ex, it is scary!
Many many times we have joked wryly about how much easier things WOULD have been if my Z had only been born FEMALE.
So, no, I'm sorry folks, but this SD will basically get all the visitation he desires merely by asking for it. You can only hope to give this child a strong enough foundation at his "real" home to counteract all the destructive influences the SD/his friends/family & associates bring to bear...
Good luck.
Hi Val.
Good to hear from you...
Yes, I agree the SD will get visitation. But I'm not against visitation as men always had that option. It's this joint custody business that I don't like, particularly involving very young children. However I have supported joint custody in the past on this blog as the lesser of many, many, many evils that women and children can face, if we don't support it.
So that's the problem.
IknowIknowIknowIknowIknow you are RIGHT!!!
The basic injustice of a man who threatened our lives (even if it was Way Back When), and whose carelessness recently landed my son in ICU just makes it hard for me to swallow, personally...
thanks for your continued sharp insights!
With the larger issue being (as you well know) that you can't even complain about it. As the courts can remove your contact with your son if they find out you are even discussing it with him or with his teachers or his friends' mothers and such...
I've even heard of that happening.
Where a mother lost custody of her child because she was supposedly 'conducting a campaign' against her ex by discussing some of his conduct with her child's teachers.
So the courts have placed a club in the hands of every man to control the conduct, speech, etc., of the mother of his children...
Just to show you what a double standard the courts have these days, check out how Hasselhoff, the guy who was videotaped dead drunk by his teen daughter, got full custody anyway, and his now back in rehab AGAIN. But its ok, ya know, 'cause he's the dad...(sarcasm here).
Hope his ex-wife can get custody back, but it will be an uphill battle.
I think women and moms need a stern and bracing reality check about what its like these days. But I don't want to scare them so much that they think it's hopeless. You can win against an abusive/controlling ex. Unfortunately, it can take a fortune and many years. I got my daughter back after 11 horrible years--years where her father verbally and emotionally abused her, neglected her medical care, worked her like a dog (she had to do all the "chores"), and forced her to live in a pig sty of a house that even freaked out the CPS workers when they finally saw it. Even then, I felt that the CPS investigation was going to be swept under the rug. We had to contact state assemblyman to put pressure on the county DSS commissioner, since the caseworker wouldn't return our calls. We had to respond when at the emergency hearing regarding custody, CPS had no idea (because of GAL incompetence) that they were even involved in the case. The system around here was all ready to sweep the situation under the rug, and we had to go around the courts--contacting sympathetic politicians and the like--so my daughter wouldn't end up back in a house with animal feces and urine all over the place, animal cages everywhere, garbage, holes in the floors and ceilings, walls infested with mold, you name it.
"Women need to wake up to this totally new abuse of us and our children and be damn careful about who they pick as husbands and fathers."
What do you expect from women who would fall in love with men if they're: excessively handsome, rich and fame. They got what they wanted: jerks, assholes, bad guys, etc.
Only if they're picking nice/good guys over jerks and assholes, many problems women went/are going through will be much, much less than they're in these situation right now.
It says a lot about their poor tastes and judgments, ain't it? Normally, I'd offer some sympathies but this time, I won't because women kept picking jerks, assholes and bad guys over nice/good guys. They deserved every consequences from the choices they made. You'd say the same thing about men who choose wrong women. Right? Having that said, men who did this to women are wrong and should be punished as such.
$5,000 says that this post will not published nor unaltered. Echo chamber must stay echo chamber.
I found your blog because it was nominated for Most Obnoxious Blogger on Blogger's Choice. That nomination seems to be part of the backlash against women who dare to have opinions in the blogosphere. I LOVE your blog! I'm recommending it as a resource for my students. Thank you for speaking up, speaking out and refusing to be silent!!
Hi Nymom, I had seen you on a couple of men's sites and I wanted to read more of what you wrote because at the time I thought you were pretty much both sided. But I guess something happened along the way. I work in the community with single mothers and am one myself.
It is not because of men that single parents are getting a bad wrap in society. It happens in schools, neighbourhoods and many areas. It is the fact that the children aren't doing as well as in 2 parent homes. 80% of our youth and adults in prison are from single parent homes. Our children that are mostly dropping out of school early and missing many days are from single parents. The louts that are destroying shops and hanging with gangs are mostly from single parent homes.
It is difficult to get a fair go sometimes except when the children are little and all research puts it down to many factors. Men is not one of them.
Drugs and alcohol play a part also. 65% of child in social welfare are from single parent homes.
With all this going on, you must be able to see that blaming a gender is not the reason or the answer.
Almost 50% of children are now being raised in single parent homes.
But I won't go on. I hope you become balanced again.
If you want some research I can pass it on.
Silverside:
Have you or your daughter thought about the option of suing the county for neglecting their duty???
I only say this as even if there is no money involved, the people/agencies involved need to be exposed so they don't pull a stunt like this again. Some kid could be seriously injured or killed in these attempts to be politically correct and give unfit fathers custody of children.
Additionally any professionals, fathers rights groups, friend, neighbor or family members who testified on his behalf without verifying the true situation should be open to lawsuit as well. We have to begin holding people to a higher standard when it involves representing, investigating or testifying vis-a-vis custody issues, as it can leave a child languishing in a dangerous or unfit situation for years...
"What do you expect from women who would fall in love with men if they're: excessively rich, handsome or fame. They got what they wanted. jerks, etc...."
Yes and no.
Women have been programmed for eons to select men by the male potential to provide and all of those attributes you highlighted above contribute to their ability to do just that. It's only here in western civilization and only for the past few decades that women have been able to bypass that 'provider' standard and pick a guy just because they like him...
That option has only been available as a privilege to men in the past.
So that new-found freedom is going to cause a lot of stupid behavior and acting out on the part of women. Since you don't change hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of years of evolutionary behavior over a few decades.
Thus to some limited extent, I do agree some of this is womens' own fault.
However even after taking all of that into consideration, I still believe most children are better off being with their mothers. As she's the individual who has risked the most, contributed the most and is simply the most invested person in her child...but if that's not possible due to her bad/dangerous behavior, abuse, neglect, etc., then the next choice should be from the maternal family line, ie., either the grandmother, aunt, sister, of mother, etc.,
So in Brittany Spears' case next choice should have been her mother, not Kevin Federline...
Sorry, that's just the way I see it.
"I'm recommending it as a resource for my students."
Thanks. Could you give me an idea of the age of the students???
"Hi nymom. I had seen you on a couple of mens' sites..."
Most of those sites I quit posting on because I was either driven off through threats against me or outright banned.
"I thought you were pretty much both sided. But I guess something happened along the way."
No, nothing happened along the way. I've always been an advocate for mothers Julie and I'm pretty sure I made that clear on every site I've ever been on.
Now to be clear, I have nothing personal against fathers having custody of children, if mothers have voluntarily agreed to these arrangements. As how people order their personal lives is their own business.
What I do object to is these court-ordered arrangements forcing mothers and children into all of these weird involunary living arrangements, many of them just put in place so that men can pay less child support or get a better property deal in a divorce.
Sorry but I will never agree to any system, no matter how 'fair' it might appear to be on paper, that forces a mother to hand over her child involuntarily UNLESS there is a prior finding of abuse/neglect, etc., against her...
Mothers rights should come under the heading of natural law and cannot and should not be trumped by courts that men have designed to benefit themselves...
Regarding your statistics, they are phoney. I've read them dozens of times, most of them are culled from minority groups in the west, whose problems have NOTHING to do with whether or not their mothers are single...and men all over the world are responsible for most anti-social acts: from rapes/robberies, murders to waging wars and fathers figure very prominently in their families in most other parts of the world.
You cannot separate western man from his links to all other humanity, as much as you might wish to. He's the same man standing on a street corner in Brooklyn or riding a camel across the desert dunes...same being.
Having a single-parent home does not "cause" a high rate of imprisonment. It is a correlation that goes along with poverty, and many of the young people going to prison weren't "fatherless" as such, but had a father who was in prison. In fact, the most significant predictor of prison is having a parent who was in prison. So let's be clear: These kids had fathers. But they didn't necessarily function as good fathers. In many cases, the fathers were criminals themselves or drug addicted, alcoholic, or otherwise lost to the street. Many may have been abusive when they were in the home. In these cases, getting them out of the house would have been the right decision, but not enough to counteract all the other risk factors for falling into a life of crime. But this is typical Fathers Rights oversimplification as NYMOM notes.
In addition, learn the facts about dv. Hardly anybody goes out and gets abused on a first date, and then goes out on a second. For many women, you don't see any signs of abuse until after you are married. In fact, pregancy seems to be when a lot of the bad behavior starts. For my ex, he was even this bad 11 years ago when I divorced him. But he has continued to go utterly downhill. He has now gone 16 years without a real job, and can't keep a decent house either, for all his animal hording. The guy is thoroughly delusional now, and probably mentally ill. I just want to relocate out of state and get away from his craziness, but that's an uphill battle in NYS.
"For many women, you don't see any signs of abuse until after you are married."
Amen to that Silverside! Even after the abusive SOB shows his true colors, between his mastery of manipulation & societal pressure to keep that "normal" facade intact, years pass until you finally do "wake up" & realize that you are in a completely untenable situation...Having child[ren] only anchors you more firmly in the maelstrom.
(Apologies for the melodramatic metaphors; I'm in a foul mood today)
The statistics that we are using where 80% of prisoners are from single parent homes belongs to the Family Violence Prevention group. They are run by feminists and men's groups that get funding and work with feminists. It is not just the man's problem but also the mother's problem. I am not at all against mothers.
This is just something we have to as community groups work with.
The laws in my country are soon to pass a bill that puts 10 to 12 year olds in prison and 13 - 15 year olds. I guess testosterone is something that only a prison can help. lol But that's not really funny.
Men and women who are intellectuals are suggesting we decide who can have kids and who can't. Even tampering with the water supply and putting a type of drug in it that will stop women from falling pregnant is on the tables.
This all just seems wrong to me. My neighbour is a single mother of 3 boys who has lung cancer. All 3 boys are on the wrong path. I think we need to involve fathers in the children's lives whether the mothers want it or not.
The laws are changing around custody in my country also but it is the grandparents raising grandchildren group that is changing them. They are raising their grandchildren because their daughters can't.
How capable are a women these days? Many grandparents are complaining.
Maybe having the state care for all children is a good idea after all.
As the feminists say, Mums and Dads do not have rights, only responsibilities.
Yes, you're correct silverside.
Many in the mens' movement and their brain-dead, idiot, female supporters use these sorts of false statistics to make their case against mothers.
BTW, I think you can move now and this is a good time to do it. That way your daughter can get to know your side of the family (the normal side) before college starts in a few years. After that she'll be too busy.
So take her and the rest of your family and go home now.
Val and Silverside, I don't think it is that women don't see the signs of abuse. I think it's that we've been trained, programmed, brainwashed whatever you wish to call it to ignore these signs.
Women are great at making excuses for the men in their lives and finding 1001 reasons to justify their bad behavior. So even if it's not actually abuse, men STILL get away with a lot more then women ever would in a relationship.
Even if you see these ordinary sitcoms on TV where the husbands are lazy, sloppy, sneaking out of the house all the time with friends, not doing their share around the house etc., and the wife spends her entire life trying to 'train' them to take responsibility. If you reverse this scenario, how long would the relationship last??? Probably a year if a woman was lucky...sneaking out at night to meet her friends and not being with the kids???? You saw how long Brittany Spears lasted with that behavior, not even a year.
But, we, women are trained as young girls to make excuses for the failings of men. That's the range of the spectrum...with making excuses for run-of-the mill bad behavior amongst ordinary men at one end (such as ignoring your birthday, his family's birthdays, Christmas, etc., spending all his money on 'toys' for himself) whereas abuse is on the other...all other interaction falls somewhere in the middle along the line...so women do enable a lot of it by ignorning the early signs.
Julie: you need to open your eyes and wake up...
Mothers (human and animal) are perfectly capable of raising children alone. Actually we're raised most of the children of the world alone and there are millions of them...alive and kicking.
AND not to degrade grandparents as I love grandparents. Actually I'm a grandparent, but you never saw this much interest in grandchildren until the change in child support laws made having custody of kids worth money and benefits to the custodian. I've heard estimates of $10,000 anually thrown around for NYS anyway and that's not even counting the money you get in child support from the child's mother if you get custody of her kid. That's just the tax breaks, credits, and other non-cash benefits you receive...PLUS then the child support kicks in.
So that's a lot of money...
Sadly we've made kids worth money to people and this is the root of all of this custody nonsense.
This is income to people...sorry to say it...
Grandparents function best as auxilliaries to parents, someone to visit on a Sunday or a holiday. They should not be fighting with a mother to try and be a replacement for her. That's not their role.
Nymom, the grandparents aren't taking the children for money. They are taking them because the mothers and fathers are on drugs and so forth. And because the mothers and fathers don't want them or are too young to be responsible.
They don't get anywhere as much as a single mother gets. They are mostly on pensions. The Government is understanding of their plight so I am a bit amazed that you are asking me to open my eyes.
I don't know where you live but even our primary schools have drug dealing going on.
The grandparents are not interested in raising their grandchildren and I agree that they shouldn't be.
So if you can get mothers on the right track all would be good? No, mothers don't have that much right and nor should they.
Families is what children need. Whole community involvement would be good also. Not a mother alone.
If women think they are the 'be all and end all', they are on the wrong track.
BTW, I am not meaning to come over too strong. I am just in between things at the moment. I do enjoy to hear others views. That is what learning is about and I can make better decisions with knowledge.
Re crime statistics.
Did you know that high crime rates very often go along with high ice cream sales? It's a fact! We really need to do something about restricting ice cream sales in low-income, high crime areas, because the numbers speak for themselves.
Obviously the above (for people who can still reason) is utter nonsense, although the part about ice cream sales and crime is actually true. But it's a correlation. One doesn't cause the other. The causation factor is heat.
In the same way, the "disappearance" of fathers from working class and poor families are all related to poverty. The disappearance of family-paying manufacturing jobs. The flood of drugs into the urban areas (and now rural areas). Alcoholism. Crime. All these things make stable marriage a poor bet, and a relatively unattractive option. Moms are trying to make it on their own, typically little or no male support, and massive cutbacks in social services. So they are forced to live in the problem filled neighborhoods filled with criminals and a dad who very likely is in prison as well. Throw in ridiculous programs requiring the kids to visit the old man in prison, and you quickly create diminished expectations.
That's the story. Single-mother homes don't CAUSE crime. They are a correlary of poverty. Like ice cream and crime.
I'd love to invite you to visit the forum at www.dearblackman.com. We have a very interesting topic entitled "Where are The Fathers", your imput would be a blessing.
tina
How do you figure that Britney's family should have custody of those kids and would have years ago?
Whatever you think of Federline he was no RD, as you call it. Those kids were born into a legal marriage.
There's never been a time when a mother's family would have been favored for custody of a child over a willing and able legal father in the event of a divorce. That's a complete aberration by any standard.
Britney's family hasn't even asked for custody. They know they don't have the right. Her mother has been supportive Federline, as is a grandmother's place.
"willing and able"
I'll agree with you on this fact...but what you leave out of your little history lesson is that before the west revised child support policies and made children worth money to the custodial parent, FEW MEN bothered with custody.
Throughout history many fathers turned their backs on their children w/o a second thought until the government finally got sick of paying to raise your kids. That's what forced men back into the process through implementation of tough child support guidelines and enforcement policies.
Prior to this, few people ever saw the inside of a courtroom to fight for custody. Mothers and their families had the right (or the burden) to decide what to do with a child...Now every divorce or birth is accompanied by legal action and our family courts are totally swamped by this activity.
Family court didn't even exist until about 100 years ago. Now it's busier then criminal court.
BTW, anonymous, you are quickly slipping over into borderline 'abusive' language patterns with me. If it continues, I'm not posting your comments here any more.
I don't have the patience these days to tolerate much. So if you want your comments to show up on this blog, watch it.
With all that is going on in the world it is hard to make any generalisations any more.
I hear women speak of the things that are unfair to women over in Iran/Iraq and I personally agree with that view because I have met women from over there who left who are glad they got out of there and I have heard that the parents try to get their daughters and sons out too.
And then I think about the west. Here in the west we have a whole generation being raised in with feminism. Now a days neither man nor woman can be generalised.
What I would like to see is that we stop generalizing males and females because there are so many outliers.
I look at my ex and I can see the old style masculine in him. Womens role to raise the children, never spoke about how her felt or what was really bothering him, the whole shabam. But then I see in my sons a new type of male. And my friends see it in their sons and other friends see it in their daughters.
We do need to change our attitudes to suit the modern. That is probably the hardest task as a mother with boys. It is very difficult to change the opinions of the leaders let alone the opinions of those in society. And why, because we all have a tale to tell whether it be ours or someone close to us. We don't seem to be able to find common ground. Why is that?
Actually, given that I have been doing a lot of research on custody, the fact is that it was only in the 20th century (roughly 1920 - 1960) that more or less decent moms were assured of getting their children. Up until the 19c, at least in western cultures, moms didn't have any legal rights to their own children. Not even when their husbands died. Under English common law, a father could leave his kids to someone else. And even if moms got physical placement, it was very common for control of the children's estate to be assigned to a male relative, effectively impoverishing the mother. Mothers of illegitimate children typically lost their kids after weaning, when they were "bound out" by the authorities. And of course slave mothers had no rights either.
So what's your point, NY? That because paternal abandonment used to be more common than it is now that we should put grandparents ahead of a kid's natural and legal father in family court?
You must know that something like that would never get anything close to popular support.
Plus it's a huge slap in the face of marriage, as if marriage needed yet another one of those.
Julie, we can't know all the reasons behind the increase in grandparents getting custody of children. I think I read as high as five million custodial grandparents (figures from AARP) whereas I think there are less then 1 million drug addicts in the entire country, most of them men btw...as most anti-social behaviors are exhibited by men...
Like I said before I have nothing against grandparents, I am one. But their role (in most cases) should be limited to whatever is voluntarily agreed to by a child's mother. Who should be first amongst equals in all things concerning her child.
Tina:
I'll try to visit your website this week. I'm just recovering from being sick and not on the internet as much. But I'll take a look at your site in a day or so.
Thanks.
Silverside:
Right as usual.
People continue to take the statistics of mostly Afr. Amer. men and try to make a case against mothers using them...
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Black men in this country are not in trouble because of their mothers.
"We all need to change our attitudes to suit the modern"...
Well I'll tell you what Julie: I'll change my attitude the moment men bear the same burden as women in getting children here...until that happens I don't want to hear anymore crap about equality...since the burden is not borne equally and obviously never can be.
Silverside:
Yes, those were laws on the books, rarely enforced however, as most kids were worth NOTHING...so few people ever went to court or bothered fighting for custody.
Responsibility of children was a burden, not something something would fight with a mother over unless a child had an estate or something. Then being a guardian or conservator was a valuable commodity. You can see an echo of this in Texas, where to this day, the person who is deemed custodial of a child is termed the child's
'conservator' as in an estate.
It's incorrect to apply the lifestyle of the propertied few to the vast majority of people in the west and make these grand pronouncements that most mothers never had the right to their children. Mothers have always been the ones to raise the children of the world and removing children from their mothers (like what we are doing today) is something new and horrible...A new social engineering experiment thought up by the greed of western man...not a re-occurring historic pattern.
That is what men and gender neutralized feminists would have us believe. But it is not a true representation of history: Mothers have always raised their children.
My point is that if we are going to revert to a strictly DNA defined notion of fatherhood, then we need to redefine the rights of the maternal grandmother as her DNA link is exactly the same as a child's biological father. We cannot have recreational sperm donors, who invest nothing in a child, suddenly showing up after birth expecting a payday by leeching off some poor kid.
Like what happened with Anna Nicole Smith's baby. Totally ridiculous that some recreational sperm donor and irresponsible idiot like Larry Birkhead, along with Smith's attorney, should now be in charge of that kid's life especially when she has a living grandmother who would have been very happy to take her.
Ultimately she would have been better off as with the exception of Anna Nicole Smith all of Virgie Arthur's other children seemed to turn out well.
Of course I have nothing against marriage but I think a good case could also be made against K-fed having custody of Brittany Spear's babies as well. They should go to another family member from the maternal side of the family.
Men using kids to generate income for themselves has to be discouraged.
Actually, in the 18 and 19c, kids were economic assets (first as indentured servants/apprentices later as factory hands)and all that money LEGALLY went back to their fathers. Notice that mothers started to actually solidify custody rights in the early 20 century, as child labor laws were enacted. So moms started getting custody then, but...no child support (hmm). 18th Century and 19c fathers as the legal parent were happy to ship the kid away--apparently they didn't have much sentimental attachment. So in colonial America, for example, most kids didn't live with their parents after the age of 10. Their fathers sent them away as indentured servants/apprentices so they could make money off of them. Mothers had no legal say-so in the matter one way or another. I've been reading Mary Ann Mason's book on the subject, and it's absolutely fascinating.
So while you're right, in that fathers as a group have never shown any interest in raising and nurturing children, they have had the right (which they have exercised), at least in western-influenced cultures, to take children away from mothers and have others take on their care, especially when such an arrangement made money for them.
Shades of this can be seen today among the "custodial" fathers who dump the day to day care of the kids on nannies, girlfriends, the paternal grandmother, or new wife. While they collect the child support from the mom, who makes less than he does.
NY, I already explained to you in detail that a maternal grandmother's DNA link is not the same as a father's. It can never be more than 25% vs dad's 50%.
What you're talking about is manufacturing of gametes, something totally different, which also leaves mom out of the genetic loop altogether if you're consistent about it.
I'm no fan of K-Fed either, but he's the legal father of those kids and he shouldn't have to put on a case for his parental fitness for any outsider, including a grandparent.
That would fly in the face of everything that traditional marriage is about. Any kids born into a legal and freely-contracted union belong to those two parties and no one else unless they're abandoned or in danger.
And whoa! Five million custodial grandparents? That's impossible. Provide a cite for that figure, if you please.
Richard
Silverside:
Few families could afford servants and families were larger then.
So there is no way that the few families who could afford to house and feed servants (as yes even housing and feeding kids is a burden) would be able to absorb all of the lower and working class's children. The working poor (including slaves or servants) have ALWAYS outnumbered the servant-owning class in every society. Actually these jobs of servants in good homes were even reserved for the children of the rich and propertied few...Quite a few kings and other nobility were sent as pages to live with other families of their class...
This removing children from their mothers' care is entirely new, something unique to the west and directly related to the implementation of stricter child support guidelines and allocation of non-cash benefits according to custodial status. Actually I have a few articles further back in my blog discussing how Japan and even some of the middle-eastern countries are now starting to see some of the same things happen there now as what we have going on here. This is since they have begun importing western legal concepts and systems into their societies.
This is not a return to normal historic patterns and even if I were to accept that children after 10 were not living at home in colonial America and I'm not sure that I do accept it...we are NOT talking about children after 10 years old here as even historical Islam recognized that mothers and childre should be together until at least the age of 9 or 10...
It's the idiots in the west we are talking about who don't accept this premise.
I, personally, would be very open to accepting a compromise that mothers had inalienable rights to thier children up until the age of 10 years of age or so...and that unless abuse or neglect were demonstrated no family court litigation to remove custody from a mother could be permitted until that age.
To me that would be an acceptable resolution to the current situation.
That is NOT what we have now however, now we have mothers and children being forcibly separated from birth here by court order...not being given consideration until children are 10 or so...
So children old enough to be apprentices are not the population we are talking about...you are trying to compare apples and oranges. Again, that's if I even accept that premise of Mary Ann Mason's book, which I don't know that I do.
Remember many gender neutralized feminists and others are very invested in digging up small bits of historic evidence and pockets of deviance in western civilization to try and paint a distorted picture of our history.
So everything must be carefully examined before accepting any so-called evidence...
What I think is new is this emphasis on fathers as nurturing "primary" parents--a role they have very seldom (if ever) played, either historically or across culture. That, I think, is brand new.
But the historical evidence does show women's rights to their own children has usually been problematic in western culture. And children were apprenticed to various households all the time in colonial America--it's not unusual to read the census from 1810 or so and see that the household also included a servant girl or boy farmhand who lived on the premises. A young apprentice who lived at the shoemaker's place. Mothers were not legally entitled to "bound" a child out--only fathers were. In reality, fathers never demonstrated much sentimental attachment to raising the kids at home--not when they could be earning wages somewhere else that the father was 100% entitled to.
The "golden age" for mothers receiving custody was from maybe 1920 to 1960. That's when "maternal preference" and "tender years" doctrine was at it height. It was also when children became "valueless" as economic commodities to fathers, which I find very interesting. Child labor was being abolished state by state (it was abolished nationally by FDR in 1938). And child support laws were virtually unenforceable--all a father had to do was move out of the jurisdiction, and poof! It couldn't be enforced. And wasn't.
I find it very interesting that the resurgence of fathers rights activity DID NOT follow in the early 20th century with the institutionalization of "tender years" doctrine. Virtually no historic response at all. It followed renewed legislative efforts at the FEDERAL LEVEL to collect child support. Then all the sudden we get all gooey eyed about how daddies love their kids, and need more time? Please.
Anyway, I've been doing a lot of reading on this (writing a paper on the subject, actually), and this is the pattern that's seeming to fall into place right now.
Richard: go to any AARP link...
American Association for Retired Persons...
They say one big issue for their members now is medical insurance, not for themselves (as everyone over 62 is covered by Medicare) but for their grandchildren, who they have custody of but don't work anymore so have no medical...
I use stats gained from non-traditional sources now, as I don't trust any of the more tradition ones' stats anymore and family courts are very secretive with their data. Even these so-called 'Joint Custody' rulings are frequently a cover-up for mothers losing custody. Rarely does a mother complerely lose custody of her kids (at least on paper)...its usually covered up by the term Joint Custody.
I believe most of the legal establishment understands how replused ordinary people would be to know what is going on. Most normal people would have an instinctual adversion to a mother losing her child, especially an infant, w/o good cause. So it's covered up in the stats and by the legal establishment, who still parrot the crap about mothers' getting preference in court and how a mother will rarely lose custody. This is not true and I don't think it ever was true, but since few people went to court in the past over custody, we'll never know if things were really different then...
AND I have to check this gamet theory of yours, however, I'm not up to it these days...but I will post something here about it at some point in the future...
Also back in my archives is an AARP reference to custodial grandparents.
Silverside: again you are talking about a totally different populutaion of 'children'...and many of the children you are talking about were orphans. It was very common for people to take older orphans in as help around the house or farm. Actually you were ofttimes doing the kid a favor if you gave them more to eat and better clothing then the orphanage did. OR not if they were overworked or abused by you.
Again a tossup...
AND this so-called golden age that came about due to the tender-years doctrine only existed in the minds of researchers...
Historically speaking mothers always existed in a golden age if you are referencing mothers raising our childen, as MOST kids were not in an legally designated custodial arrangement...until recently.
NO COURTS ever decided the majority of living-arrangements for most kids until TODAY...
I have two daughters, 11 years apart...the oldest 34 now was NEVER in mine or anyone else's 'custody' ever. Yet she lived with me most of her life until she finally got her own place well into her 20s (thank God, I thought she'd be home forever LOL)...the youngest 23 now was in my sole custody from the time she was a year old (stipulated to by my ex, he filed all the paperwork for our divorce/custody, etc., I never went to court as this happened before high child support became commonplace. Today would be a custody fight as he'd never stipulated custody to me and pay over $1,000 a month in child support).
Divorce probably became more common during that period you mentioned and men probably didn't bother asking for custody, since it cost them nothing NOT to bother. But mothers always raised the children here and in every other place on the planet...this was not a gift we received from men or the courts of men in some mythical "golden age" for mothers...
Women have to get away from this sort of framing of our history.
It's almost an acceptance of the facts, as painted by men and the legal establishment, like they gave us a gift which we messed up or something, so now they are taking it back.
No.
Women are not mothers because men have allowed us to be mothers.
Actually, it has nothing to do with them. Evolution, God, nature whatever you want to call it has designated women in that role. It's not men who have the right to either give it to us or take it away. It's womens' role, rights, decision and we cannot allow courts, men, some misreading of history, etc., to decide to usurp the natural rights of women or children. Because I consider it a usurption of the rights of children to attempt to remove them from their natural and best guardian, their mothers.
Additionally Silverside: I have an interesting article posted further back in my blog. Actually I think I'll re-post it today since we're on the topic: it shows how the whole idea of child support actually evolved from the racists in the Johnson administration back in the 60s.
They were trying to assign 'blame' for the condition of the Afr. American population in this country. Instead of blaming centuries old racism, history of slavery, non-compliance with economic agreements made to freed slaves after the civil war, segregation limiting economic opportunity afterwards, etc., in short blame themselves. Instead, they came up with the centuries-old excuse: blaming women for everything bad that ever happened...
From bad weather patterns to riots in the cities (mostly launched by men) there is never any event that happens which the minds of men cannot somehow link to the idea that women have done something wrong. It's never ceases to amaze me...
Anyhoo....
That was the entire motivation behind child support initially.
It was to collect reimbursement from parents whose kids were receiving any form of public benefit, as well as to control population numbers by instituting a pay-as-you-go system.
Basically, if you couldn't afford to pay the reimbursement rates or 'child support' as we know it now, you were sent to jail. I also believe many felt black people were having too many children.
So the initial premise behind child support was also the idea of a self-policing population cap through enforcement of strict economic sanctions on any family that had too many children and needed any public assistance raising them...
I mean I've heard of mothers now who will not apply for any assistance, even if they need it for their kids. As they know as soon as they do and the agencies start hunting down the fathers for child support, a custody battle will ensue. So rather then chance that, they forego assistance.
Actually Washington DC NOW chapter has started advising women NOT to pursue back child support. As this action appears to frequently launch a custody fight. So they advise just to forget about it...
Anyway, the idea of the government enforcing child support collection was originally limited to the Afr. American population, then it spread to include the middle class in the collection efforts. Today the money collected from the middle class now provided the majority of funds that states collect. They then get matching funds from the federal government for collection. The matching funds are then used to provide more goods and services to the poor.
At this point, the whole thing is mostly a huge jobs-sustaining mechanism for the public sector...
So that's another issue often (or always) left out of most of the historic analysis...
That's another reason I object to the 'golden-age' or that 'tender-years doctrine' crap. It leaves out too much of the actual history here.
OK NY, I see where the problem is now.
http://marriage.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=marriage&cdn=people&tm=36&gps=160_345_871_555&f=00&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.aarp.org/
Several quotes from this AARP link:
"The 2000 U.S. Census reported 4.5 million children living in grandparent-headed homes (a 30% increase from 1990)."
You're confusing grandparent-headed with custodial. That's apples and oranges.
If you haven't noticed already, multigenerational households are making a big comeback for economic reasons. Just about everyone knows a grandparent who let a son or daughter and a grandkid or two move in to save them money. My own folks did this for my sister and her husband and kids when they were saving for a house. It has jack all to do with custody.
"The 2000 Census also counted, for the first time, the number of grandparents who say they are responsible for the basic needs of grandchildren living with them, with a reported 2.4 million grandparents falling into that category. About one-third of these heroic grandparents are stepping in to raise their grandchildren with NO PARENT PRESENT (emphasis mine) in the home."
Most of those 4.5 million grandparents have their kids at home along with the grandkids. Of the minority who don't, probably most of these aren't even formally custodial, just holding the fort.
And of the small percentage of formal custodial grandparents, I'll wager that 99% would love nothing more than for the parents to get their act together and come pick up their damn kids.
"Why are so many children in the U.S being raised by grandparents and other relatives? At the Grandparent Information Center, we hear the most that drugs and alcohol problems are causing parents to be unable to raise their children. Mental illness is also a strong contributor, as well as incarceration, death of a parent, poverty, divorce, child abuse and neglect, teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, or domestic violence. Military deployment is also a reason that grandparents are called to step in and raise their grandchildren while one or both parents are deployed in military service and unable to care for their children."
Julie up there is pretty much spot on. Grandparents aren't wrestling their kids for custody. It's getting dropped in their laps.
Is this AARP what you consider a non-traditional source? They openly use ordinary traditional sources for all their info.
I don't believe in conspiracy theories in family court.
The legal establishment doesn't care about what the public thinks of its doings. They care about their income, which at the present time is best served by keeping money flowing from men to women via kids.
When there's as much money to be made off women as off men, and we're headed there fast, perhaps things will change.
Richard
Richard:
You should have prefaced your remarks with "In my opinion" as you don't know any more then I do about what AARP's numbers mean. OR whether or not these grandchildren referenced are in court-ordered legal custody arrangements or if the actual parents reside in the home with the grandchildren...
Actually I tend to think they are legal as AARP's main thrust was regarding health insurance for the kids since Americans over 62 are automatically eligible for Medicare but it doesn't include dependents. So you're not looking for health insurance to cover a child, if they and their parents are just staying with you for a brief period in order to save to buy a home or something.
Additionally very low-income families are eligible for Medicaid or Child Health Plus or something. Most of AARP's membership is not low-income. These are middle income people with pensions who use AARP to get discounts for travel, restaurants, prescription drugs, etc.,
Of course, reading any data you have to draw some conclusions. So my conclusions that more grandparents are taking custody of children away from their mothers to help their sons get out of paying high child support is just as valid as your conclusion are...
Last point: by non-traditional I meant not going to any of NOW's or mens' rights sites for my info...as both sides distort stats quite frequently...Clearly you have to have some 'traditional' places to pull your info from as family courts are very secretive places with their numbers...and they aren't being secretive due to the best interest of children...
I understand that AARP pulls data from the census and other traditional sources. Well the info has to come from somewhere.
I use the census as well and draw my own conclusions from it just as you do.
Your guesses on what's going on are no more valid then mine are...
Also last point: I know that all grandparents do not try to get custody of their grandchildren just for reasons of money. I don't hate grandparents, I am one. However we have to look at the reality today of how high child support is driving most of these custody fights including the ones involving grandparents.
It's not a coincidence that changes in child support guidelines and tougher enforcement is driving up the numbers of men (or their parents) willing to fight for custody. I bet if we had the correct data and plotted a graft, we would see this quite clearly. Which is why it's so damn difficult to get the data since people obviously don't wish to deal with this reality.
That's why I created this blog in an attempt to cut through all the smoke and mirrors out there surrounding this issue. It is unique in this sense, which is why although it's just one person (a grandmother btw) writing only once a week it still gets far more attention then it should by internet standards. Even those ridiculous Worse Blog on the Internet awards. My competition was a feminist blog that has about five different bloggers on it. Some of them have written books and/or have been interviewed for TV and/or magazines...
So sorry Richard, I don't buy your attempts to explain away AARP's numbers so easily....but nice try anyway...
Well hell, NY, you brought up the AARP and I just quoted them is all. I'm not trying to explain away their numbers. I told you how THEY explain them.
They know how many grandparents do and don't have the kids' parents living with them. They get that data from the Census. It ain't that hard to look up.
And no, I don't buy that grandparents are wrestling their kids for custody. It's one thing for parents to sue each other for custody, but it's like pulling teeth for grandparents to even get minimal visitation with grandkids against an unwilling parent, let alone custody. Laws just aren't set up that way.
I'm not getting this idea of yours that there's some conspiracy to keep family custody info secret because the public doesn't want to deal with it. There are a hell of a lot more troubling issues out there to deal with than this. Why bother to cover up what relatively few are interested in?
If anybody is "not dealing with reality" here, it's the state legislatures that refuse to implement presumed shared parenting despite the fact that a clear majority of the population wants it.
Why? Less money flowing thru the child support system, of course. Bad for the state coffers.
But anyway, it's been fun. You invited me over here from Gonzo's once, and since I heard you quit erasing people for disagreeing with you I decided to drop in and see what you're into these days.
Maybe I'll stop by again sometime.
Richard
First of all I want to clear up two things.
One AARP did NOT say all those things. That's your interpretation of AARP's numbers.
What AARP said was that a big unexpected issue for them has become the request by their members to lobby for some form of medical insurance for the grandchildren of their members. AARP actually never expected this to morph into an AARP issue, as all people over 62 are already covered by Medicare automatically...and who knew so many grandparents would get custody of their grandchildren? Most older people didn't want to raise children when they retire.
AND in spite of what you say, I do not personally believe that most of the grandchildren AARP is lobbying for are the ones whose parents are in jail or on drugs...AARP's membership is not composed of the lower-income strata of society or the higher income one. The former doesn't use their services as they don't have much discretionary income to travel or shop and they generally have Medicaid to cover any kids in their home; while the latter (higher income) doesn't need AARP to get any discounted services.
AARP is an organization targeted at the vast middle-class in our society...and those are the grandparents' issues that AARP is addressing.
Also I never banned anyone from this site just for disagreeing with me, although I have been banned from many site (including Gonzo) for that very reason...so don't come here trying to play the victim.
Okay.
Last point: you are sadly mistaken if you believe that any mother considers the custody of her child as a minor issue. Or that they will be okay with having their babies dragged back and forth between households (like an old football) just to save you men some money. I believe the courts know very well how most women would react to this and that's why they struggle so hard to hide the reality. Even this persistent lie both sides keep putting out: claiming fathers are discriminated against in family court. The persistence of this lie (even when all evidence points to the exact opposite) and how even people who know it's not true keep claiming it is (like custodial fathers and even some non-custodial mothers) well, this makes me think people simply want it to be true.
It comforts them or something to believe this, saids something good about their world to them.
Unfortunately it's just not true and probably never was.
MOST people never went to court to litigate custody in our past either here or anywhere else. There was no need as most children were worth nothing to anyone except their mothers. In fact their care was a burden to everyone else around them. Something that only their mother would be interested in providing. It's just the way nature planned it, otherwise every living being would have gone extinct eons ago. As there is no logical reason for anyone to invest anything in raising a baby. Actually logic argues for just the oppposite reaction, abandonment.
Thus, it is only recently that all this litigation has started and it's all related to one issue: money...nothing else.
That's the reality...
Look NY, everything that I put in quotes in my 12:06 post was taken directly from the AARP link that YOU told me to go look up. Those are their numbers of kids living at grandma's, their numbers of kids living there without parents, and their reasons why the kids are there.
Don't like their info, go bitch at them about it.
You may not like it personally, but most women as well as men do support presumed shared parenting. Polls show this every time. Hell, people know very well what's fair to kids. It's only when they're splitting up and caught up in their in their little personal grudges and pity-parties that they use whatever the legal establishment lets them use to get the best deal for themselves. That's just human nature.
The big question is why does the legal establishment keep allowing this against the wishes of the public at large who want shared parenting?
You're being extremely naive and giving the judges, lawyers and the whole legal circus out there a laughable amount of credit if you think they're "struggling" to hide any "realities" to spare anyone's feelings. I can't think of a group of bozos less concerned with people's feelings.
The state legislatures and the divorce industry in particular care about one thing and that's money. And this one interest of theirs is best served by favoring whatever arrangements keep money flowing from men to women via kids.
If so many people believe this to be true, then for crying out loud, maybe that's because it is. Keep calling it a lie if that's what rocks your world, but you haven't shown any evidence that it is.
When and if women start out-earning men and become better pickings for the industry, then you'll see a different story in family court, and the industry will be no more concerned about women's "feelings" or "how they will react" then than they are now. Only dollars and cents.
Unless the states start listening to the people and implement presumed shared parenting first.
Richard
Most 'women' support Joint Custody until they understand what it means exactly. I did too at one time not understanding it's many negative implications for mothers and children.
First of all it even applies to newborns and it can mean a mother being forced to send her baby off for days or even weeks at a time and she's not even allowed to call or have any input into the person who the child's father dumps her baby off with... AND it is dumping these babies off, as few fathers bother taking care of their kids themselves, even though they will all routinely demand Joint Custody today.
Men will frequently dump their kids off on their own mothers (which isn't too bad but I would still object to it if the child's mother herself did) but they also have no problem dumping their kid off on their latest girlfriend and using her as an unpaid babysitter. Now I don't know any men who function in the capacity as unpaid babysitters for their girlfriends.
Anyway, the entire purpose of these situations is to keep the baby away from it's mother, so men can pay less child support. As the more days away from the mother, the less money has to exchange hands.
Additionally many mothers who are non-custodial are tricked into the so-called Joint Legal Custody arrangement. And unless they read the 'fine print' on the bottom of the paper, they can wind up rarely or never seeing their children again yet still being classified for statistical reporting purposes as being in a Joint Custody arrangement.
Actually most of the mothers I know who are non-custodial have so-called Joint Custody...depending upon the state, it can be only Joint Legal Custody (which basically means nothing as you even have to spend money to get a visitation plan in this Joint Legal.
Actually I know mothers who have spent thousands to get visitation plans and then still have to spend thousands more to get them enforced with Joint Legal...
It's all smoke and mirrors.
Again, regarding AARP...it's simply facts they state (just like the census data) the interpretation of which is up to the individual...
You have your opinion on what the numbers mean, I have mine; which is just as valid as yours. I gave you mine already, you gave me yours. We disagree. So be it.
Regarding family court officials remaining secretive about the data, again, my opinion is as valid as yours is.
Abduction of children by family members (frequently the mother, not that I recognize that as a legitimate crime btw) is one of the fastest growing crimes in the US. The FBI now has it's own website devoted to so-called 'child abductors'...Again not that I recognize that as a crime, since I don't recognize the rights of an entity (created solely by men to benefit themselves) to remove any child from its mother unless proven abuse or neglect is involved.
I'd love to invite you to visit the forum at www.dearblackman.com. We have a very interesting topic entitled "Where are The Fathers", your input would be a blessing.
tina
Just to let you know Tina, I went to the website. Unfortunately I found it very difficult to navigate????
I couldn't even find the topic, probably I got over there too late and the discussion was over. But I thought I could at least read what had been said; however, you have set up your blog so that people have to register even to read anything. Personally I find that too limiting to internet interaction. I allow people to view whatever they want here, but comments I moderate and most get posted.
Anyway good luck with your site.
Tina: I take back what I said. I returned to the site and was able to read. Yet I didn't comment on the discussion as it had been over for weeks already and I didn't want to restart the issue.
Also you appeared to have let the entire conversation be taken over by a military man who managed to wrestle custody of his kids from their mother, even though he is frequently deployed overseas???? AND you allowed him to paint himself as a good man and father in spite of doing this with no one challenging him????
I'm sorry but I don't agree that managing to get custody of children today is an automatic indication of a man being a good person or father. Maybe 100 years ago it was, when it actually meant the difference between your children starving in the streets or not if their father didn't take them in. Today, it's frequently more of an indication that a man could be trying to get out of paying child support and/or get other financial benefits which a custodial parent is legally entitled to. As no children are allowed to starve in the streets here. Instead what happens is the state provides for them and then comes back and bills the non-custodial parent for it.
Interestingly enough back in the day when a fathers' movement could have done children some good, we never had one. ANYWHERE. Clearly, men were never interested enough in children to start one. Yet now when children, at least in the west, are already assured a minimal standard of care: food, shelter, clothing, medical care, education, etc., now all of these men are coming out of the woodwork with a 'fathers' movement to 'help' children.
Excuse me for seeing this as being somewhat self-serving since the laws today allows the custodial parent many financial benefits which supposedly are for the good of the child.
I'd be a little more accepting of the good will on the part of men here if these things had happened at a time when children really needed it.
Today it's almost a moot issue, at least here in the west.
I mean when did we ever have men fighting to give themselves rights to children before this. If you look at English Commonlaw, which much of American law has evolved from, most of the inpetus appears to be trying to FORCE men into accepting responsibility for children and that's when men were in charge of everything. Yet we needed laws affixing paternity. Clearly it wasn't because men were fighting to claim legal rights to children, just the opposite. They were trying to get out of having and rights or 'responsibility' as one follows the other.
So we can't disregard the actual historic record here and act like it doesn't tell us anything about the motivation of men. I would probably be a lot more accepting of a fathers' rights movement if it had started say right after the Civil War when there were probably thousands of former slaves' orphans roaming the streets. Where were the fathers of these children, former plantation owners, probably trying to disavow any knowledge of them...
That's the historic reality here with men and their children.
I read the comments and I don't see someone stating the obvious: If this woman didn't want a bum in her life, why did she gestate his child and insist on getting support from him?
NYMOM projects the women's greed by saying the man wants custody of the child just to get out of support when the woman in this case (and her parents) put up with a jerk precisely because THEY want child-support from him.
Ice cream and crime
Silverside attempts to handwave away the higher rates of criminality in the children of single parent homes by equating it to a causality versus correlation analogy of ice-cream and crime.
Nonetheless, she can't deny that "ice cream" isn't robbing and raping women walking home late at night. The children of single mother homes do.
If we blame the situation on the single women's poverty, then that shows that they are lousy providers. Hmmm, apparently women's ability to gestate children into poverty doesn't make them such great parents after all!
Even so, the welfare state and "child" support exists to offset this natural disadvantage (take it up with God). Google it up. 49% of single mothers receive "child" support and others receive welfare or other support from family and friends (such as this woman who is raising her daughter's child.)
And even then, they're still putting out the gang-bangers.
Hmm, maybe we should have ice cream raise children instead of snigle mothers. Maybe then our taxes would go down...
Post a Comment