I do agree with you.

This is my situation as I am living it and I as you can see are going through hell.

The only concern I have is that the courts did not take several factors into consideration:

1. My children before this most unfortunate situation….like their lives did not matter whatsoever and even if it meant for them to become homeless. The judge cited that I live in an affluent area. This is far from the truth. My area is considered middle income. Many of us are blue collar workers…..policemen, firemen, sanitation and many other state, city and federal workers. Are we upper class in our salaries? Of course not. Nor can we be. I worked 3 (three) jobs to support myself and my children (whom live with me) before I was very seriously injured that has left me 100 percent permanently disabled.

2. The gross abuse from the system is intolerable. There is no fairness to the non custodial parent. Even if I wanted to be involved in this child’s life I could not due to the fact she removed this child from NY to FL without my consent or with permission or authority to do so…and I went to court to prevent that. The judge did not care I am 100 percent disabled and cannot afford to travel to FL.

3. A custodial parent needs support. I agree with you. But they must take other factors into consideration. And there are no provisions that compel a support magistrate to do so. They [MAY] adjust the award but there is no outright provision as circumstances permit. So if a judge doesn’t like you, as in my case, its tough luck.

4. Other children MUST be taken into consideration if their wisdom is to be applied….in the best interest of the children. You cannot tell children to move, stop religious education, or any type of entertainment that normal, healthy children do.

Thank you for listening.

AJ

I’d support a two-tiered reform to child support. Child support payments should be made more sensitive to individual situations, so that noncustodial parents are not saddled with irrational and impossible-to-pay child support orders, as has happened in some outlier cases. At the same time, typical child support payments are simply too low, compared to the cost of raising a child; therefore, most non-custodial parents should have their child support obligations increased.

If you’re describing your situation accurately, then that’s horrible, and I’m sorry that’s happened to you. And I’d support reforms to help NCPs in your situation. But getting rid of legally mandated child support entirely (but only for fathers), which is in effect what so-called “choice for men” would do, is not the solution. Fairness for non-custodial parents is important, but fairness to the other parties involved is also important.

Than….what do we do when there is an unwanted child and the mother knew she wasn’t protected and she had sex and let you ejaculate into her causing the reproducing of this child?

Than….what do we do when the support payments are so high, because you have two children that live with you and support? Is it right for the two children not subject of the court proceeding to be evicted out of their home? Told they can’t go to religion anymore because the court said so? Do we tell people that have an unwanted and unplanned pregnancy that the other child is more important to the world then you are? Do we tell the other children they cannot go out with their friends or to the movies? DO we tell children not subject to a court proceeding the judge told them to go to hell?

Than….what about paying child support payments BEFORE the child was even conceived by a very vicious and mean judge who miscalculated after slamming you and telling you your children whom you brought into this would and wanted are now reduced to rubble becuase their father was lied too and thought the woman wasn’t as vicious as she turned out to be?

Then the woman takes off to Florida to live with her sisters and mother and doesn’t work anymore. The father is now a support machine for the two of them while trying to struggle to live….and now I add….I am 100 percent permanently disabled….where do I get money?
Even if I wanted this unwanted child in my life…I couldn’t have him because a judge said she can live in Florida and if I want to address it go there to fight….yeah…being 100 percent disabled and trying to find the next dollar to survive and feed my two children that live with me.

Why is the US Government allowed to terminate support payments at 18 and yet….other men are responsible for support payments to 21 and in some states 23 while their child is now gainfully employed?

Where is the justice and fairness to everyone else?

The resounding response is…there is none. The system is brutal.

Your right though…..I should have wore a condom….but I didn’t. So what about my two children?

Cry me a river.

Yes, I know vasectomies sometimes fail to “take”, that’s why you go to your follow-up appointments to check for presence of sperm, and don’t have unprotected vaginal sex until you know the procedure was successful. Even after a successful procedure, continue to have periodic checkups to ensure you stay that way.

If you don’t want to take responsibility for your own reproduction, do you really have any reason to whine about unwanted child support payments?

That’s one interpretation. Since we’re making these up, another interpretation would be that most people see childrearing as the woman’s job, and are just as happy to keep it that way after a divorce, leaving the mother with primary physical custody. “Do you want to be a single parent and have to juggle that life with childrearing?” is not exactly on the same plane as “Hey, wanna be President?”

Bwahahahaha! Sorry I just had to let that out.

No, you didn’t have to. You chose to do so, because you’re rude and you don’t treat people who disagree with you with respect. Please reread the moderation goals. If you genuinely feel that you “just [have] to” make comments like that, then please stop posting on “Alas.”

I guess maybe you didn’t know, but there’s an awful lot more to gaining custody of a child than “asking the judge” for it.

Asking for custody is a necessary, but not sufficient, step for gaining custody in virtually all contested custody cases. Your objection would make sense if I had ever claimed that asking for custody was a sufficient step, but of course I never made that claim. Therefore your objection is illogical.

As for your substantive point, I very much doubt that the majority of NCP are actively lobbying for A330 or similar legislation, or indeed for any other goal. (I don’t think NCPs are special this way; the large majority of Americans aren’t very politically active). Therefore, unless you can provide evidence that I’m mistaken about this, the existence of A330 does not logically refute my claim in any way.

I guess maybe you didn’t know, but there’s an awful lot more to gaining custody of a child than “asking the judge” for it.

When you said this one, “Statistically, the vast majority of NCP - above 85%, iirc - never make any legal request to be considered for custodial parenting. ”

It helped me understand your perspective a lot better.

There are actually many legal requests out there for NCP’s to be considered for custodial parenting. There was one called Bill A330 recently in NY state that got voted back into committee.

Or don’t you consider lobbying for legislation to be a “legal request?”

Your third paragraph I take as some type of witticism. There isn’t evidence that something has negative consequences, and therefore nobody would ever avoid the something for fear of negative consequences. Because most people check the studies and the data before they make a decision. (Eyeroll.) There aren’t any studies that lighting up a big ol’ bong in the food court in the mall will get you in trouble, and yet everyone refrains from doing it.

I doubt that a typical judge WOULD be ticked off at a mere custody request - but I also doubt that a parent whose entire life is in the hands of that judge is blithe about taking the chance, especially when the parent knows their chances are poor. Again, that doesn’t go to desire - it goes to strategy.

As Dividing the Child - which is, I should point out, a book frequently cited and considered reliable by MRAs, so I don’t think it can be dismissed as a biased feminist work - points out, there’s no evidence that there’s a widespread problem of NCPs who really want custody, but are afraid to ask for it for fear of judicial reprisal.

Nor is there any evidence that NCPs who ask for, but don’t receive, CP, wind up with less visitation or higher child support payments for their income than NCPs who never ask for CP. So if asking for CP does “tick off the judge,” apparently ticking off the judge has zero negative consequences - so why worry about it?

In my opinion, a more likely scenario is that typical judges aren’t actually ticked off merely because someone asks for custody.

I mean, virtually every single NCP I know would much rather be a CP. They didn’t get to choose.

Statistically, the vast majority of NCP - above 85%, iirc - never make any legal request to be considered for custodial parenting. See the book Dividing the Child.

So are we relying on anecdotes for proof now? I don’t think you want to go that route.

I mean, virtually every single NCP I know would much rather be a CP. They didn’t get to choose.

But that’s the thing: it’s a choice. Custodial parents don’t get to choose: they sacrifice or they cease to be custodial parents.

So, again, you’re going to present anecdotes to argue exactly what Robert asked you–that NCPs should be allowed to unilaterally lower the amount of support they pay. CPs who complain should, in your opinion, have their custody re-examined.

Honestly, I’d rather be a poor custodial parent than a wealthy NCP

Plenty of wealthy NCPs disagree with you.

My story is that I had a pretty happening career in the biotech industry, but when I was laid off due to downsizing, I had two choices — move or give up the career I loved and had worked hard at for 15 years. At the time I got laid off I was making $70,000 per year and I had offers on the table in other states for about $90,000. There are no other biotech companies within 300 miles of me.

But my wife refused to move. So, second choice: pursue my career or be a father to my daughter.

The choice was a simple one.

But as a result, I’m starting over at 41 and I’ve taken a $25,000 per year paycut. If I was a paper NCP like most of the divorced dads I know, I’d basically be forced to move away from my daughter and would probably at best see her every other weekend. Beleive it or not, it probably would be as hard on her as it would be on me.

Honestly, I’d rather be a poor custodial parent than a wealthy NCP.

I could hit back and say that every NCP father that I know personally that I can think of right now has seen his child a mere three times since that child was born, and then only because the custodial mother took the trouble to bring the child to where the father was going to be. What does it prove?

And my case might be some freakish outlier, but the biggest cost I’ve had to pay for being a custodial parent so far has been the money I couldn’t earn from the jobs I couldn’t take because I had a dependant child to take care of. How does that figure in your analysis?

I know a guy named Chris who was working two jobs when his marriage fell apart — a regular fulltime Mon-Fri job and a part time job on the weekends.

The judge set CS based on the income from both jobs.

So, now that he’s divorced, he needs the weekends for his parenting time since he was given every weekend for visitation. It’s now his only time with his son.

So he quit his second job and went to court to have his CS modified to pay the guideline for his fulltime job. The judge said no.

Last I knew, he had to give up his apartment and was living on his sister’s couch.

Now please answer this question:
Why should a person, with a solid several year record of taking financial responsibility for his child have to ask a judge’s permission to lower his income enough so that he can actually spend some time with his kid?

You may be correct to state that it takes $20,000 per year to take care of the child. But that’s not an exclusive sum being used to ONLY support the child. It’s nearly impossible to separate the costs of supporting the child that are also shared by the needs of the parent, such as the home, the groceries, the utilities, etc. The NCP very often in middle class situations is covering much of that while also subsidizing that cost at the CP’s home.

So, yes, I’d say that if the NCP could cover that $20,000 cost since much of it is being covered already.

Incidentally, every NCP father that I know personally that I can think of right now, has his kids about 40% of the time and pays the full guideline in the way that a truly non-custodial parent does. It’s these guys really that I’m thinking of in this discussion since I see the cases of those living on the financial margins as a wholly different case.

Could you imagine doing that?

What in this scenario makes you believe that the person who can only pay 6 800 in child support suddenly will be able to pay 20 000 to support their child even if the other parent starts to pay support in their turn? And apart from the cost is the investment in time and emotional support that a child needs. How do you expect this person to handle that while looking for work?

It just seems to me that a lot of people fail to realise what it really takes to raise a child.