Dianna Thompson & Murray Davis: Child support system doesn't give parents a chance
Rather than shame for pressed parents, how about help?
Lansing State Journal, Lansing Michigan, U.S.A., Dianna Thompson & Murray Davis, October 26, 2003
See the State Journal's coverage of Michigan's child support system at www.lsj.com. Dianna Thompson is a founder and director of public policy of the National Family Justice Association (www.nfja.org). Murray Davis is an NFJA founder and vice president.
According to a recent Lansing State Journal article, Wayne Erwin, 50, served three weeks in jail for being behind in child support. He explained that in 1986 he had suffered a broken back from a crash, which prevented him from working for three years. He got behind in child support payments. If Mr. Erwin doesn't somehow come up with $10,000, he'll be in jail again.
Possibly, Erwin's family will try to keep their loved one out of jail by paying his debt. In doing so, they may be plundered of their life savings, someday becoming dependent on public funds.
Some say that alleged "deadbeat parents" have the money to pay child support - they just wilfully choose not to pay. Research shows the major reason some men don't pay is that they can't pay. This is usually due to unemployment, illness, or disability. Society holds non-custodial parents, mostly fathers, to an unattainable standard to never become physically or mentally ill, never get disabled, and to never lose a job or get laid off in a poor economy.
The federal government is beginning to recognize the phenomenon of the "dead-broke dad." Yet we still labor under the widely quoted - though erroneous - study of sociologist Lenore Weitzman, who claims mothers experience a 73 percent drop in standard of living in the first year after divorce, while men live it up on a 42 percent increase. According to researcher Dr. Sanford Braver, higher child support guidelines enacted in 1988 and tax advantages to custodial parents are now leading to benefits in standard of living for the custodial parent.
The Clinton County Friend of the Court recognizes that publishing names of parents behind in child support embarrasses their children. They have rightfully refused to cooperate with the newspaper by providing names of alleged nonpayers for public shaming.
Consider this. In 2002 in Pennsylvania, under pressure from the Pittsburgh American Civil Liberties Union, judges released 37 people jailed without hearings for not paying child support. In November 2002, the ACLU got the WestRead More ..nd courts to advise people allegedly owing child support that they have a right to legal counsel during their hearings, even if they don't have the money to afford a lawyer.
According to an ACLU executive director, "... the law is clear in that anyone facing imprisonment is constitutionally entitled to a lawyer in civil and criminal procedures." According to a Sept. 27 Associated Press report, "Indigent parents jailed in New Jersey for failure to pay child support will be freed because they were denied court-appointed lawyers, the Administrative Office of the Courts said."
There's almost $660 million in undistributed child support payments nationwide. Michigan is holding $68 million, according to one advocacy group. Some agencies are rife with error. Are their so-called "deadbeat parent" lists accurate?
Fathers who see their children and who have jobs pay their support. Enforce child visitation court orders and offer shared parenting. Make sure child support guidelines are fair and enable all involved to live comfortably.
Copyright 2004 Lansing State Journal
Scotland's National Newspaper
96% of women are liars, honest
5,000 women polled
Half the women said that if they became pregnant by another man but wanted to stay with their partner, they would lie about the baby's real father.
Forty-two per cent would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, no matter the wishes of their partner.
Canada's largest
national newspaper
Mommy's little secret
The article contains info about children's identity fraud at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
December 14, 2002.
Includes interview with employees of Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada who admit they deny children's identity information to husbands/male partners of mothers who want to hide the real identity of their child because they had an affair. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of The Child specifically supports a child's human right to have a relationship with both his/her biological parents. In addition, this article is proof that The Hospital for Sick Children ("Sick Kids") supports paternity fraud.
Further "Sick Kids" supports a mother's rights only, which they view, supersedes 3 other people's rights, namely, the rights of the biological father, the rights of the mother's male partner/husband and the child's identity rights.
One in 25 fathers 'not the daddy'
Up to one in 25 dads could unknowingly be raising another man's child, UK health researchers estimate.
Increasing use of genetic testing for medical and legal reasons means Read More ..uples are discovering the biological proof of who fathered the child.
The Liverpool John Moores University team reached its estimate based on research findings published between 1950 and 2004.
The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Biological father
Professor Mark Bellis and his team said that the implications of so-called
paternal discrepancy were huge and largely ignored, even though the
incidence was increasing.
In the US, the number of paternity tests increased from 142,000 in 1991 to 310,490 in 2001.
Adulterous woman ordered to pay husband £177,000 in 'moral damages'
The Daily Mail, UK
18th February 2009
An adulterous Spanish woman who conceived three children with her lover has been ordered to pay £177,000 in 'moral damages' to her husband.
The cuckolded man had believed that the three children were his until a DNA test eventually proved they were fathered by another man.
The husband, who along with the other man cannot be named for legal reasons to protect the children's identities, suspected his second wife may have been unfaithful in 2001.
Biology, not heart, provokes women's infidelity
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
January 15, 2009
BEAUTIFUL women who have affairs can now blame it on their sex hormones.
Women with higher levels of oestradiol, a form of oestrogen, not only look and feel more attractive, they are also more likely to cheat on their partners, a new study has found.
One-night-stands are not what interest these flirtatious females, who tend to have bigger breasts, relatively small waists and symmetrical faces as a result of their high levels of oestradiol.
Rather, they adopt a strategy of serial monogamy, say the researchers, led by Kristina Durante of the University of Texas.
Paternity fraud: Is it or should it be a criminal offence under the Criminal Code of Canada?
You be the judge.