The Beat Goes On…

As some of you know, I’ve been in a 17+ year battle to collect child support from the man who “fathered” XUP Jr. So far, we’ve managed to get a whopping total of $1800 from him — in 17 years — after two court orders — and about ten thousand phone calls to Ontario’s ironically named Family Responsibility Office (FRO).

This Ontario office has more than 180,000 active cases of deadbeat parents on their books with over $1.3 BILLION owed in child support. (It doesn’t include the god-knows-how-many deadbeat cases they’ve just given up on as they’ve tried to do to with my case several times now). And this is a province of only 13 million people! It’s beyond shameful.

If I were a math geek I could somehow figure out (using ratios and percentages and maybe even algebra) how many deadbeat parents and how much owed child support that might represent across Canada and/or the US.

And, how many children that might represent who are doing without things they might need because they’ve been shrugged off by one of their parents and the government. (I know, a bunch of you Anti-Nanny-Staters are going to say it’s not the government’s responsiblity to force parents to be responsible, right? That it’s our own damn fault for having kids with irresponsible people, right? Believe me, I think that often enough myself)

But let’s move on.

I think those deadbeat figures are mind-bogglingly shocking.  If my experience is anything to go by then, in this province, FRO can certainly take the blame for a lot of it because of their incredibly frustrating lack of ability to enforce support orders and for giving deadbeat parents opportunity after opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to weasel out of their obligations.

From where I stand, the deadbeat parent seems to control all the balls. They can keep filing Change Orders to get their support payments reduced no matter how many times a judge reviews their financial situation and orders them to pay. Deadbeats have all sorts of ways of showing little or no income and there’s apparently nothing anyone can do about it even if the deadbeat parent is living in a lovely, ocean-front home, owns a boat, has a holiday home in another country, drives a couple of high-end vehicles and has a very lucrative business. As long as the deadbeat is filing income tax forms that claim an annual income of only $10,000 they don’t have to pay child support.

And because of their “low” income, they get a free legal aid lawyer to help them while the other parent doesn’t even get a designated FRO case worker he/she can talk to, but has to call the FRO “call centre” and re-explain the entire history of his/her case at every single phone call. And, I’ve discovered regular phone calls to FRO are absolutely necessary if a person wants to keep their case moving along at all. If you don’t call them every couple of weeks, they do nothing with your file and eventually just close it.

The parent raising the child doesn’t have the luxury of saying, “Gee, I’m not really making enough money to support this child and maintain the lifestyle I enjoy, so I’m just not going to leave her on someone else’s doorstep now.” Not that a real parent would, because what kind of person doesn’t do whatever they can to make sure their own child is well taken care of? (The kind of person some people are foolish enough to make a baby with, I guess.)

But let’s broaden this discussion a bit more to see if there are any circumstances under which a non-custodial parent should ever not have to pay child support. First, here are the major reasons deadbeats say they’re not paying:

• About 40% of all deadbeat parents say they don’t pay is because they don’t have any money.
• About a quarter of all deadbeat parents say they don’t pay because they don’t think their visitation rights are fair.
• 10% – 15% percent say they never wanted children.
• Approximately another 10% say it’s not their child, so they’re not paying.
• In addition, around 70% of all deadbeat parents say they’re not  paying because they have no say in how the money is spent.

Are any of these valid? (Aside from if the man is not the child’s legal father or if a DNA test proves that the man is not the child’s biological father).

One school of thought says that if you are involved in the conception of a child, regardless of circumstances, you are, at the very least, financially responsible for that child until he or she is an adult. (Unless the child is legally given up for adoption, of course). Can such a blanket statement be made?

There’s another school of thought that says that since women hold all the cards as to whether or not they’re going to keep and raise the child, the man should have some rights when it comes to choosing whether or not (and/or) how much child support he should pay. Examples can be cited of women who “trick” men into getting them pregnant.

Let’s look at some possible scenarios: 

1. A man and a woman pick each other up in a bar, have protected sex, but something goes awry and she gets pregnant. She tracks him down and tells him and he says, “tough luck baby get an abortion,” but she won’t do that for whatever reason and decides to keep and raise the child. Should the guy still be ordered to pay child support?
2. Or, what if a couple is married, have a couple of kids, but after a while the wife can’t take being a wife and mother anymore and leaves. The husband has a good, stable, well-paying job and is left to raise the kids on his own. They get divorced and the wife gets her share of the couple’s assets. It’s enough to buy her a modest home, but she is only able to find a minimum-wage job and is having difficulty making ends meet. Should she be ordered to pay child support?
3. A man with a middle-class income has been paying child support of about $400 monthly for one child. His ex-wife works at a low-paying job so the child support is vital in helping to pay the bills. The ex-wife meets a new man and eventually moves him in with her and the child. The ex-husband feels that his ex-wife will now be spending his child support on things that will benefit the new man and feels he shouldn’t have to pay anymore. Does he have a point?
4. What about the woman who, because of some bad lifestyle choices, loses custody of her children to her husband and is allowed only supervised visits with her children once a week.  Should she still have to pay child support since the courts effectively took away all her parental rights?
5. What about a couple who gets divorced, their son is 15 and the father finds out that the boy was conceived during an affair his wife had with another man. The husband feels he shouldn’t have to pay child support.
6. A couple have 3 kids. The husband leaves the wife her for another woman and quits his job, so he has never had to pay child support. He then develops a non-specific but debilitating mental illness, which puts him on disability. The kids go to stay with him 2 days out of every week so now he’s trying to get child support from the ex-wife to pay for things the kids need the 2 days they’re with him because he says he can’t afford to feed them and entertain them on his disability pension. The ex-wife has a good job, but is just making ends meet. Should she have to pay child support to him? (This one is actually happening to a friend of mine)

Have We Come a Long Way, Baby?

Yesterday, through my Possibly Related Posts section I clicked onto a blog written by a young, sophisticated professional (her words) woman from Boston. She had some first date tips:

It’s proper protocol for a man to initiate the first date. A good man will know where he wants to take a woman; it should be well-thought out based on previous conversations and research…… A man should be willing to pick you up from wherever you are, that’s if you want him to.

At first I was pretty surprised, but then I realized that my daughter’s circle of friends operates within these 1950s boundaries as well. Even with all the stuff  that goes on in high schools these days, the girls still wait to be asked out by the guys.

I often wonder exactly what our sisters in the 1960s accomplished. I’m not quite old enough to remember life for women prior to “women’s liberation”, so maybe there’s a whole bunch of stuff we just take for granted. But I have to wonder sometimes how it is we burned our soft cotton bras four decades ago and have ended up with upholstered, wired, polyester ones instead. (metaphor).

The feminist movement opened up professional and blue collar jobs that used to be held only by men. This was supposed to give women options. I’m thinking we got a little screwed here. Because now we have to work, we don’t really have an option. We have to work because before women hit the workforce full-on, housing cost one week’s salary. Now, it costs two weeks’ salary, which means we need two salaries to cover the same expenses we used to be able to cover with one.

Women also need to work, it seems, to define themselves. Those who can manage to be stay-at-home moms are seen as somehow not quite as valuable as women who are out there in the workforce. The stay-at-home moms themselves seem to feel inadequate because they’re not bringing money into the household. This is crazy, in my opinion. Did feminism intend to disparage a job as important as raising children and keeping a home?

And, although most women do hold down a full-time job outside the home, they are still the primary care givers and homemakers. Everyone still gets all excited when a man knows how to cook or when the wife comes home and hubby has vacuumed. He stands beaming in the middle of the living room waiting for copious praise.

Also:

• Men still have almost all the high-powered jobs – there are very few women politicians, CEOs. Women still do almost all the service jobs – secretaries (oh, excuse me…administrative assistants), social workers, nurses, hospitality industry workers, etc., etc.
• Women still make 20% less than their male counterparts.
• Crimes against women are still mostly punished as misdemeanors, often receiving less severe sentences than property crimes.
• Women are still responsible for children. Men can spawn children and shrug off the responsibility of raising them pretty easily. It can take decades for the molasses-slow system to try and enforce any child support orders. Dead beat dads have all sorts of legal “outs’ to avoid supporting their kids. Most never have to. At least in the 1950s men had to join the Foreign Legion or something to get out of supporting their children.
• And, single mothers are looked at askance. Of course, 40 years ago I would have been stoned to death or something, but even today, when doctors or teachers find out I’m a single mom, they suddenly become extra-patronizing. Social workers are called every time my child sustains an injury. People assume I have no money and am borderline retarded.
• There are still women all over the world who are legally considered chattel, who have no rights, who are treated like unpaid servants, who are abused, mutilated and killed with no repercussion.
• There are still women in countries like the US who are not allowed to decide whether or not they wish to get pregnant or carry a fetus to term and give birth.
• Women’s lives still revolve around getting a man, keeping a man, looking good for their man, making their man happy. A quick look at the women’s magazines, television programs, movies, shopping centres, cosmetic surgeon’s offices, etc., will confirm this.
• And, “feminism” is some sort of dirty word these days. What happened to that whole movement? We’re not exactly done yet, are we?

I know, I know…men have lots of problems too. They are shut out of employment equity opportunities. They are always portrayed as blithering idiots by the media. Their testicles are vulnerable, blah, blah. But this post is about women, okay?

The Sad, True Saga of Ordinary Joe…

…as if told by Joe himself.

It all started, like most things do,  when I met The Dame. We were head over heels nuts about each other right off. We had good times. It was swell. So swell that after a while I gets to thinking that this was maybe “it”, you know, the big committed LTR to end all LTRs.

So we starts yakking about The Future, stuff like that. It was cool. Time went on. Then I gets to thinking that I ain’t getting no younger, you know? I mean, here I am at the wrong side of 30 with 40 knocking on the door and I figure maybe it’s time we starts talking about having some progeny.

The Dame, though, says, “no” right off. Just “no”. I don’t mind telling you, I’m kinda hurt by this. Don’t she want my kid or what? She ain’t ready she says, wants to save up enough dough so she don’t have to work for a while after having the kid, she says.

No problem says I. I got enough dough for the both of us. I was doing pretty good with my business and all and I don’t mind ponying up for a few years of her looking after the kid. It’s either that or daycare, right? And she’s got a big pickle up her ass about not wanting to send no kid of hers to daycare on account of her once working in some nightmare daycare place or something.

So, anyway, I tells her this and still she says no. Okay, so I wait and just mention it in passing like once in a while just to keep the thought in her head, you know. Which is good, because it ain’t too long before I can tell she’s softening to the idea. I can see meanwhile, she’s socking away the dough, anyway even though I told her I’d look after everything. But oh, well, as long as she’s on board, right?

Sure enough one day she says okay. Swell, says I and before you can say jack robinson, she’s got a bun in the oven. ‘Course me, I’m over the moon, braggin’ to my buddies and making plans and all. Life is perfect for a couple a months.

Then…well… I don’t know exactly what happened, but things changed. She changed, for sure. Maybe me, too. I’m starting to feel peculiar, like I can’t breath or something alla time.  And The Dame ain’t so much fun anymore – wants to sleep a lot, don’t want to go out so much, wants to eat healthier, talks about nothing but babies alla the time.

Also, and this totally freaked me out – she starts getting fat. The Dame was fit, you know, real fit, so I never pictured her getting all shapeless and fat. She’s still running and working out and all, but it ain’t doing no good. She just keeps getting fatter and fatter.  Okay, I’m not stupid, I know dames up the duff put on a lot of blubber on account of the baby and all, but still, it totally freaked me out when it happened to The Dame.

Also, she started to smell different. I can’t explain it but it totally turned me off, you know, between the fat and the smell. I mean, I couldn’t bring myself to…you know…doing it with her no more. I know, you guys out there understand what I mean, right? The Dame don’t get it though and get all super bitch about it.

And to top it all off, then she’s also always after me to go shopping for baby stuff with her or go to the doctor or meet the midwife or hold her hand at another ultrasound — like I got nothing else to do or to worry about but baby stuff.  It was always something and I’m a busy guy, specially since now she wants me to earn for all of us, right, on account of she told ’em she ain’t going back to work for five years!

 Just when I think the nagging ain’t never gonna end, she quits bugging me and starts doing all this baby stuff with some fag friend of hers from work, which is okay with me.

Matter of fact, I’m starting to think maybe I’m not really cut out for all this baby shit after all. I mean it’s all that’s ever in her head – baby, baby, baby…24/7. So I kinda runs the idea by her of maybe we’re not ready for a kid, you know and she just kinda looks at me and says in that real sarcastic, fake nice way of hers, “Okay, Joe, pass the coat hanger.”

That was uncalled for, right?  I didn’t mean nothing drastic like that, did I? I don’t want to stop her having a kid or nothing, just maybe realizing that it ain’t what I want no more, maybe. 

I know I wanted a kid and all, but I guess I didn’t know how it was gonna be. I mean, what happened to having a life, you know? We’re still people. We’re still a couple, right? We should try to forget about the kid once in a while and just let loose, right?  Nah, she wasn’t having none of it.

So, what I did, and I’m not exactly proud of this, but I got me some nookie on the side. It didn’t mean nothing or nothing — not like some big love affair or nothing. Just a few women I’d meet through work or at bars when I went out at night with my boys. And it ain’t all my fault neither ’cause The Dame was always welcome to come along, but she alla time says no on account of she says she don’t like hanging around smokey bars no more. Well, okay, but you gotta know shit happens when a bunch of guys go out on the town, am I right? Still, like I said, I ain’t proud of it or nothing.

‘Course she found out and I expected her to be a bit pissed, but I figured given the circumstances and the fact that she was usually pretty cool about other stuff, she’d be okay, you know, once I explained.

Wrong! Man, was I wrong. She flipped-totally. Called me all sorts and then told me to “get the fuck away from her”. And I’m quoting directly here and I want youse all to remember that it was her who told me to get lost, right?

So, I get lost for a while, figgering I’ll give her a chance to cool down a bit, knowing how all that hormone stuff can make dames do and say stuff they don’t mean.

A few months go by and I shows up at her place one morning just to see what’s going on and fuck me if she ain’t in labour!! There’s two dykey looking broads with her. One of them’s got her hands up The Dame’s twat and the other one’s trying to give me the old heave ho.

But I stick my ground, ‘cause that’s my kid she’s squeezing out there, right? And I wanna be there and make sure my name goes on the paper that says I’m the kid’s old man. So I hang around. It takes the whole day and most of the evening, but then out pops this baby and it’s a girl and I gotta tell ya, I felt a little something grabbing me in the vicinity of my heart when I look at her and all.

It was something alright, but the day pretty much drained me like nothing else ever has, so I crashed on the couch while they was all still cleaning up and doing whatever a bunch of chicks do when there’s a baby around.

When I woke up The Dykes had gone and The Dame and The Kid were sleeping and I had to get to work on account of missing the whole day before so I took off, trying not to wake them up.

So after all that I don’t hear nothing from The Dame for days and then when she does call she wants me to bring her groceries. I’m wondering what this means, so I gotta ask, “Does this mean we’re back on?” She says no, it just means she needs some groceries and it’s the middle of winter and she don’t wanna take The Kid outside.

Well, I gotta think more about this ‘cause I don’t wanna be used here. I mean, I’m feeling sorry for her and all and I’d like to see what The Kid looks like in daylight and all, but I don’t wanna start any kind of precedent or nothing, so I don’t go. I mean, it’s not like she don’t have nobody else to fetch shit for her, right? Why me?

There are a few more pissed off phone calls from The Dame after that, so I starts to thinking this ain’t a good situation no more and it’s time I did something about it. I give The Dame one more chance to take me back and tell her if she don’t I’m leaving town. She tells me to go fuck myself! Nice talk, eh? Does she kiss her kid with that mouth, I asks her.

So, I sells up my business and “liquidate all my assets”, as they say and then not only  do I leave town, but I leave the whole bloody country. There were a few things I’d been meaning to get into anyway and here was the perfect opportunity.

Time goes by as it usually does. The Dame and I have plenty of friends and friends of friends in common so I hears things about them once in a blue moon and probably she hears stuff about me, too, I don’t know.  And I know I made the right decision on account of it ain’t good for a kid to be in a situation like where the parents are at each other’s throats alla time, right? And me being around was just gonna set up expectations all around that weren’t going nowhere.

So anyway, pretty soon, I hears how she had to go to court to get full custody of the kid on account of my names on the birth certificate and she wouldn’t be able to do nothing of a legal nature with the kid without full custody. That’s cool. I get served some papers that say, blah, blah, the usual legal mumbo jumbo. There’s a bit tacked on about support of some piddly-assed token amount which I know nobody’s gonna bother about and which I’m sure The Dame don’t need and don’t want off the likes of me anyway. So ignore the whole thing and get on with my life.

The Dame is an independent cuss anyhow and she’ll be fine and I know she’s gonna do a good job with The Kid. She don’t need nothin’ off me, right?

I work my ass off over the next 12 years or so, sometimes doing two jobs at a time to keep my fingers in lots of pies, ‘cause that’s the kinda guy I am. I made me some good dough and met me a dame who ain’t so prickly as The Dame and married her. I told her flat out – no kids and she’d cool with that, so we’re doin’ real good.

So, then a couple of years ago, we decide to move us back to Canada to start putting The Retirement Plan into action. I got myself a nice house on the beach on the west coast. Both the wife and I love sailing so I sunk some dough into a swanky boar. I’ve got a few swell investments and a tidy little nest egg to keep us in our old age. I ain’t rich by no means, but comfortable, you know and looking forward to taking things easy.

The End, right? Not on your life. A few weeks ago, out of the blue I starts to get a whack-load of legal shit in the mail telling me I owe 15 years of back child support!! Then they tells me how I also gotta start paying the monthly child support from now on or they’re gonna seize my dough and house and boat and the investments and everything!!! Like holy fuck!? What kinda world do we live in where some dame from more than a decade ago can come along all of a sudden and mess up my life?

If I fight it, I gotta pay some lawyer a pile of dough as well. So I’m between a rock and a hard place, right? What the hell does an ordinary working stiff guy do? One option the papers say is to get holda The Dame and get her to back off (well, they call it, “make alternate arrangements”). I tries, I really do. I leaves her messages, but she don’t return none. I figure she don’t want to make no alternate arrangements, but that’s all I can figure. I can’t for the life of me figure, for instance, what the hell else to figure. Why’s she doing this now? I just can’t figure it, man.

So finally I writes her a big note.

I tells her how this is really hurtin’ me and ask why she wants to do this. I tells her how it ain’t fair that she’s hittin’ me with this just when me and the wife are getting’ ready to wind down the hard work and gearing up to relaxing more.

Then I points out that one day The Kid is gonna want to look me up, see her old man,  so if she don’t back off with this money shit now, I ain’t gonna be too friendly when The Kid comes knocking at my door in a few years, am I? I know she won’t want to mess that up for The Kid, so fingers crossed, eh?