re: my admission to being arrested for non-payment of child support

To be effective, the pill must be taken with regularity. So you won't have sex with a woman until after you've watched them take a pill every morning for a month? Do you check under the tongue to make sure they swallowed it too? Maybe you're just speaking hypothetically.

And they say romance is dead.

Wow... how'd he get off with paying so little? I know men that don't make anywhere near that amount of money a month and pay even more. Goes to show how messed up the system is.

Leilany

Hang, in there Cybin

In the state I live in the guidelines state the % of the 'paying' parents income that should be paid - this is reevaluated off and on. I would think if you are not employed you could get your $ amount reduced ?

The state I live in controls it all - My x and I divorced in a friendly manner. I left him with the house we had built together, our daughter and his 100k a year job. I was not making even half that amount. But since I was the parent leaving - our state dictated that I pay him child support. 25% of my income was withheld from each of my paychecks by the state, and automatically paid to him. No ifs, ands or buts, it was pulled from my check before I was paid. Every year the state evaluated the situation and since I was still working it assumed I had gotten a raise and raised the $ amount by 10%. I only wish I had gotten 10% raises, lol !!

Anyway - guidelines are not always the best when situations do not follow the norm.

It's not just based on the salary of the father. It's also based (in some cases) on the salary of the mother as well.

Sure is when you see the issues in this thread. Men are too scared to romance women. They fear it'll cost them the farm.

All methods of birth control have failure rates, with the exception of abstinence. Even sterilization can be screwed up. If condoms break, most likely they have been stored in a wallet for a while. Condoms should NEVER be kept in a wallet. They should be stored in a cool, dry place and used only once. If you want to feel even more secure about your "battle gear", spermicide + condom... but then again, if you view birth control as "battle gear" chances are pretty good you really shouldn't be having sex

What does $85 a week cover?

I used to pay $800-1100 a month in child care for about 5 years. $85 a week would be a joke, that wouldn't even feed a kid. 6,000 for Catholic school, for a couple years. $1000 for 4 weeks of summer camp. $250 a year for football. $50 a week for a private tutor. $50 for sneakers since he wears mens size 9 (and they are $35 at payless, might as well get Nikes)


My son is almost 10 and I think in his entire lifetime his Father has given me about $60 cash and bought him 3 pairs of sneakers. I have paid for every thing. Orginally I never took him to court for child support because I made about 3X his income, and I didn't see the point in trying to get blood from a turnip. There is no way I would embarass myself or my son by begging some 3rd party to force someone to do what they know they are supposed to do. If you are eating shouldn't your child be eating? It is simple common sense.

I think a lot of women cause themselves unnecessary pain by making huge deals about child support, the amount of crap money most women get isn't worth the effort or the pain, get a decent career, sacrifice, take care of your own kid and let Karma take care of the jackass. If you need a court order to make someone do right, chances are they aren't going to do it anyway.

There is an old blues song, "It's Cheaper to Keep her". Why not marry the mother of your child?

I don't know about "should", I was thinking more along the lines of it being a moot point. I can't speak for all women but it's hard to imagine there being much response to a battle cry.

Did that, still have my youngest son, nothing is 100%. I just recently started getting child support for my oldest son, and he's 6, and I can't even get my youngest's father to shell out the $40 for a package of diapers and a couple of cans of formula on a regular basis. Not all single mothers are fat useless deadbeats. I work, pay day care, and raise both my kids alone and barely get by. I really hope your mother knows what a lovely and intelligent child she raised , who can just issue blanket statements about women he's never met.

I find this thread absurd in so many ways.

BTW, how much does the original poster pay in internet hookup charges?

$85 a week is $4420 a year. The poverty line, in the United States, is $19,307 a year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_line_in_the_United_States

Let us call that $4826.75 per person per year even though I am pretty sure expenses will not scale linerally. (Economies of scale and all that, the simplification can only help your argument.)

The child support being paid will not even bring her half way to the poverty line for a person household; how exactly does this translate into her being able to sit on her ass all day?

Estimates of the expense of raising a child in the United States:
http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/Crc/crc2004.pdf

The child support does not even fully cover the expense of raising the child.

Your ex-husband is a sack of shit. That dosen't mean he should go to jail because he owes money. If the dude makes $7k a month there are ways for you to get that money without putting someone in jail.

So, Did you know he was an asshole before you had four kids with him?

Oh, to answer your question, I'm not on the receiving end of child support but I used to be.

thank you to everyone who has wished me support/luck/etc., i appreciate your concerns.

just so everyone knows, neither do i complain about the amount i'm paying nor do i contend that it's enough to completely pay for what my son's needs are.

also, the $85/wk amount is the original amount that was set as payment. i didn't have a job at that time either. the judge smiply said, "well, i'm sure you can get a job to cover this amount." seriously. (and yes, i have had jobs since then.)

yes, i could request a review and try to get the payments lowered based on my non-employment, but it would be more effective to get a job first and have a review based off of that, which would surely lower the amount i would have to pay. BUT, i don't want it lowered.. i don't mind having to pay this amount and would pay more if i could.

something else to further elucidate the situation is that she is married and has a second child with her husband. i think they have been together for at least 5 or 6 years now, so she's not doing this all on her own. from what i hear though, they still have money problems at times and i'm sure the money i'm paying helps at least a little.

and Gabe, i pay about $40/mo for cable internet. and yes, i'm way behind on that bill along with all the rest of my bills.. *shrug* ..it'll all work out though.

"Blah blah blah, so you observe a major problem in society, but I am an exception to it, right I'll slag you off then, blah, blah, blah..."

Wether you raise your kids well or not, mothers who have kids to bleed off the fathers and the state is still a very real issue right now. Slag me off, but that won't change much on the ground.

And....

Fathers who don't pay child support is still a very real issue right now.

actually .. non employment does not get you off the hook. The formulas work off of earning potential if you are not currently employed.

edit to add: And that goes for both parties - the man can insist that the woman has earning potential even if she is not currently working.

Agreed, out of all the single mothers I know maybe 1/4 get regular child support. The rest have to carry all the weight of raising their children alone, when they didn't make them alone.

Yeah, there are other ways to get the money. I could hire an attorney for a minimum payment of $750 (and that's on the low end, one lawyer I spoke to wanted $2,500). We could go to court, and the judge could rule in my favor and order him again to pay child support. But if he's not doing it now, he won't do it after a second order.

I could also go through the state attorney general's office, which I actually have. They do nothing unless I stay after them. They could take away his driver's license, his hunting license.... he'd drive w/o one, and he doesn't hunt.

I don't understand why you have such a problem with someone being arrested for violating a court order.

No, I didn't know what he was like when I married him. He hid his true self very well, and I was very young. I have since learned how to detect jackasses very well.

Your jackass radar must be going wild in this thread then

It is! I might have to stop reading!

The state I live in takes their driver's license if they don't pay. Not sure I agree with this, as it takes away their ability to get to work in some places. Well, a lot of places where I live, because our mass transit is anything but mass, it sucks. But anyway, it means they may not get to work AT ALL, and then where are you going to get the money?

Jailing them, it seems to me, would be even more counter-productive, as then they REALLY become a turnip. The judge should simply order them and give them "X" a amount of time to get a job, and start paying support. Then you garnish their wages to get the payments from there on out. (They do garnish here in MN for child support, or so I am told...)

I laughed when this law came into place in CA. At the time, my daughters father was only required to pay 128.00/mo. He refused to pay and had been that way for years. Then they came up with this brilliant idea to take away their license. Well guess what? Due to 2 DUI's and countless driving on a suspended license....this guy had no license to take away. I would imagine that this would be the case with most dad's who neglect their responsibilities.

On a happier note, years later after being imprisoned he signed away his rights so that her stepfather could legally adopt her and give her his last name and be recognized by law as the dad she deserved.

MJ

Unfortunately, there are many ways out of garnishment. Oh well, I'm not in that situation and hope to never be, although it is a very real possibility it could happen. I do know there are people who are deadbeats on both sides. Some people NEVER want to be responsible for anything or anyone except themselves... and even then, they don't do a very good job taking care of themselves.

From personal experience in my home state, the jailing is an absolute last resort. Believe it or not, there are people who will go through any amount of contorting to avoid paying and it takes (at least in my state) a very long time before they get to the point of jailing. It is a last resort after all other methods have produced nothing and is a punishment, having reached a point were they don't believe the person is going to pay anyway. Jailing is not a method used for the individuals that are scrapping, it is for the people that are willfully disregarding court decree on an ongoing basis. They give people every opportunity to work something out.

Now let's roll on with all the stories about the majority of non-support paying parents that are really getting screwed and how $4,500 a year is enough to support a child on and sit on your ass watching Springer and eating Flamin' Hot Cheetos.