Child Support Not Only Measure of Parent’s Worth

Regarding “Children Have a Right to Support,” a commentary by Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, president of the California District Attorneys Assn., Aug. 16:

I’m sorry, Mr. Bradbury, I can take your lies no more. District attorneys working “for the children” have done more harm to children than child abusers and molesters combined.

When government bureaucrats like yourself, who think they know how to raise other people’s children, intrude into the personal lives of families, they cause far more harm than good.

Your “Carrie” story tells exactly what the Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights (ANCPR) predicts: Child support only serves to force the noncustodial parent out of the child’s life. This single act is more detrimental to the child than not paying any amount of child support.

Money doesn’t raise kids, Mr. Bradbury, parents do. How does brainwashing this small child into pointing an accusatory finger at her father as a criminal because he hasn’t sent a check to the district attorney help that child? Is the only measure of a parent’s worth whether they send you money?

I noticed you avoided saying that children were better off as a result of your efforts--although you had plenty to say about increased collections. If money is so important, why not implement accountability audits on custodial parents to ensure that child support money is actually going to the children? Why not ensure that custodial parents are paying their share of child support?

You equate paying with caring--something your example does not even support. Paying is the responsible thing to do--or is it? Since when is zipping off a check once a month considered to be equally responsible as raising a child?

If you’re worried about parents losing “respect for the entire legal system,” which is what you should expect when you make criminals out of parents, I’d suggest you worry more about the millions of kids you are creating who will never gain any respect for the law. The families you destroy are replaced by new families--called gangs. When a child sees his or her parent on a “wanted” poster, do you think they believe their parent is a criminal? Not a chance. They think, “I liked life when both of my parents were around. I wish my other parent would come back. I really miss him / her.”

Your office is quick to help those wanting an increase in child support or those who claim some form of abuse. But why is it that you do not prosecute false charges of abuse? Why don’t you prosecute visitation interference? Why don’t noncustodial parents have all the same resources available to them at no charge--just like custodial parents have? Money.

A letter from San Diego Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst explains to ANCPR that perjury is not pursued unless somebody is willing to fund the prosecutions. For child support, you have the federal government’s incentive payments. For false insurance claims, you have the insurance companies. For noncustodial parents, you have nothing.

It’s time to stop using the children as pawns in your budgetary game. Hopefully, taxpayers will wise up to the fact that our nation’s district attorneys are using taxpayers’ money to break up families and increase crime--all so they can get more federal funds to expand their bureaucracies.