Child-Support Delinquents

The child-support study published by Children Now ignores several realities of life, including the fact that we’re in a recession. If a man who lives with his spouse and kids has a bad month financially, they all have a bad month, and they all cut back a little. But if a man who lives separately from his spouse and kids has a bad month financially, he has to cut back a lot while they continue to receive the same payments they get during a good month. They have no incentive to cut back at all.

Other studies that they have decided to ignore show that men are generally slow in making support payments only when they are denied access to their children. Though there are certainly fathers who choose to be absent, for the courts to continually give custody to the mother while demanding that the father pay for the upbringing is blatantly sexist. If there were genuine 50/50 joint custody, no payments would be necessary at all since both parents would pay for the child’s upbringing while the child was in their care. Then both parties could use the other 50% of their time to make a better living. The answer to the child-support problem lies in honest joint custody rather than further regulation to gouge the paychecks of fathers.

MICHAEL DARE, Hollywood