The Big Payback

When 71-year-old John Gonsalves won $5.1 million in the Massachusetts lottery, his ex-wife came knocking. She wants child support. She deserves retroactive payment, plus plenty of interest. No matter that it was almost 50 years ago. A debt is a debt.

After Gonsalves walked away from his family in 1946, his wife Marie was left to raise their three boys, then ages 2, 4 and 6, by herself. Like millions of women in the same situation, life got harder. She moved in with her mother, according to news reports, cleaned houses for $7 a week, went on welfare and worked in a cafeteria. Even by 1940s standards, that was a mere pittance on which to raise three children.

Gonsalves, who worked as a longshoreman, garbage man and janitor, admits he didn’t do much for his children. But, according to his lawyer, he claims he visited them at their grandmother’s house. That’s not quite the same as paying the bills, though, is it?

After he won the lottery--which guarantees him $170,000 a year for 20 years--he gave $5,000 to each of his children, who are now adults. That works out to about one-tenth of 1% of his winnings. After his ex-wife, now Marie Hynes, made her claim, he offered her $10,000. That works out to barely $500 for each year that someone else put food on the table and a roof over the heads of his three sons. She sued.

Millions of men are fathers in name only. These deadbeat dads, and a few moms who are also missing in action, often become invisible when it’s time to provide for their children. The Clinton Administration estimates that $34 billion goes unpaid every year; In California, $3 billion goes uncollected.

According to the Children’s Defense Fund, absent parents are more likely to pay for their cars than pay for their kids. What a shameful fact.

A family court will decide if Gonsalves has to pay anything to settle a decades-old debt to his children and their mother. Marie Hynes has a lot of people rooting for her.

Here’s one case from which every mother who’s had to raise children without a father’s help can get vicarious satisfaction. Here’s one deadbeat dad who’s now on the hook to finally pay, and pay big. Better late than never.