The Manufacturing of Dead Beats

By Chris Di Maggio

Considering the ease at which legislators jump on the bandwagon of child support enforcement, you would think all men are delinquent. The fact is most men are not.

New York State legislators, however, have seen to it that more divorced men will become delinquent. Recent legislation chooses financial dependency over parental responsibility, and will surely further restrain and alienate parents from their children. The Assembly chair of the Judiciary Committee stays awake creating ways to place men at risk. These laws will actually cause men to become delinquent through no fault of their own.

Laws, purported to help children, are in fact simply new ways payments can be made to correct sins of their fathers. As this trend continues, many more men will be heading towards financial dilution. These men are the newest victims in our society. They are the manufactured dead beat! Because these victims are mostly men, no one will hear them scream.

Today, good American citizens are being told to forsake their marriage vows and life goals, personal and moral worthiness to their new families. Judges, lawyers, legislators, enforcement agencies and feminist groups have developed or supported more ways to punish those who are already unfairly burdened by divorce laws. Divorced men are being forced into being morally delinquent to any new family that they may have tried to have. They are being enslaved to the first divorce -- the enforceable divorce. They will not be able to start over again and their second family will be negatively affected forever.

Legislators have turned their back on a man's present and future in the eyes of his children. They have even allowed enforcement to go into your past, rearrange the facts, come up with an acceptable punishable scenario and pursue punishment.

Family Court Decisions are made based upon legal posturing and perception of wealth and status, such as "Pendente liete" hearings, earnings capabilities, or maintaining a level of income the children were accustomed to before the divorce. Conditions that are often impossible to duplicate in the real world. Measures like these are little more than confiscation. Signed into law in 1997 are adjustable support percentage increases based on the consumer price index. Your income may drop off and yet you may be forced to pay higher amounts. Also, it will be a felony, instead of a misdemeanor, to be behind a few payments that may naturally occur during a time of financial difficulties.

Financial resources families have available to them have dropped off significantly in the 90's. Most middle-income families are struggling to stay even because quality jobs have decreased while costs have risen dramatically. Families in transition went from sharing financial responsibility while married, to depleting them separately on demand when divorced. It is truly incredible that our legislators continue to avoid the conclusive empirical evidence that joint custodial arrangements increase child support compliance to 70% or better. That would mean that women would lose control; and let's face it, it's about control -- it's not about responsible joint parenthood at all.

When will our states' liberals stop kneeling before the skirts of feminists who do not speak for most women? "A real woman" wants her child's father involved with his child, even when they are divorced. It is not child support deficiencies that negatively affect our nation's children the most. It is parental alienation. How can our children be nurtured effectively while one of both of their parents are being restrained from them by our government lawmakers. Sociologists will call the period in the late 20th Century the great parental deficit era.