Just Make Sure Cash Gets to the Kids

As a father who has been wrongly accused of being a deadbeat dad I feel compelled to respond to the letter to the editor about motivating deadbeats. If publishing the names of deadbeat dads and moms gets them to take responsibility, then I am all for it.

But let’s understand that the district attorney’s office has a great deal of power in the area of collections.

The D.A. has the right to garnish wages, seize your tax returns, charge interest, even prevent you from renewing your driver’s license.

What protection is in place to guarantee that the money designated to go to the children actually goes to their needs? Once the mother or father who collects the child support has the money, there is no responsible body that checks to see that those children’s needs are met first.

If ths paper chooses to print the names of the “deadbeat dads and moms” then by all means do it, but let’s be sure that the information given is accurate. Use the D.A.’s office definition and not the impotent lashings of bitter ex-spouses who have left as their only recourse to slur the names of hard-working, loving fathers.

JEFFREY C. McMANUS, M.D., Ojai