Child Support: A State Crime

     I've written about child support before but I thought it deserved a revisit since I've recently learned a few new things about the system that makes me loathe it even more. I think the very idea of a State enforced child support system to be an outrageous abuse of power and intrusion by the state into people's private lives thereby making private life choices, matters of the State. Of course, whenever you talk about children to Americans, our minds open up in an unnatural way because culturally, it is seen as reprehensible to hold any position that could be painted in as detrimental to children. Fuck that! The child support system is immoral, unethical and should be illegal in spite of the fact that it supposedly ensures that some custodial parents have more income with which to raise their children.

     First of all, if you decide to make a child with a dead beat who doesn't want to take care of it, that's not a problem that the State should be concerned with fixing. You should make better choices about who you make children with and you would if you didn't have the State providing a financial guarantee that if you make a bad choice, you'll be compensated for it. Historically, Americans weren't so quick to procreate because they knew that they could be stuck living with the consequences if their mate turned out to be a bad choice. There used to be so many hurdles a one had to jump before being deemed worthy of consideration for that level of intimacy. Americans used to date in search of a spouse and life partner as most others cultures do. Americans now date to find suitable sex partners with whom they might spend an extended period of time with before moving on to the next. Some do still marry for life but life is no longer considered "natural life" but rather, the time it takes to raise the children. Many modern marriages don't make it far passed the raising of the children.

     Okay, so we all get the supposed logic behind the child support system which is that children are suffering because mothers and fathers aren't staying together to raise them and therefore the child has to live a lifestyle based on the income of the one parent who has custody rather than the two parents who made them. Personally, I think that's as it should be. If your relationship doesn't last and you want full primary custody, you should be fully and primarily financially responsible. If you don't want full financial responsibility then you should agree to joint custody. In fact, if the State is going to be involved with these matters, joint custody should be their default position unless the parents agree to something otherwise. The State also holds the position that many welfare parents receive welfare because the non-custodial parents of their children aren't contributing to the raising of the kids. Thus it supposedly decreases the burden on the State/tax payers if non-custodial parents are forced to be financially responsible for their children. That's bullshit!

     The State still issues the same welfare it always has, child support or no child support. The only difference is that it forces the non-custodial parent to repay it. Explain to me how the fuck that's fair? Two people have a child, they are both supposedly responsible but only one has to repay the welfare the child receives. As a matter of fact, why does anyone have to repay the State for welfare, the government isn't pulling money out of thin air to pay the welfare rolls. That money comes out of our taxes - including the taxes of the person being forced to repay welfare. So if I paid the State the money to pay my child welfare, why do I have to pay the repay the State that same money? If I am repaying the State that money, why isn't coming back to me, the person who gave it to the State in the first place? It's an unethical money grab by the State is the bottom line.

     Bye the way, there are some dead beat parents out there. So what? Why has being a dead beat parent become a crime? It's an over-reach of the authority of the State, an abuse of power and a waste of criminal justice resources to make criminals of people who simply aren't good parents. It is felonious to not pay child support these days. The State thinks it has the right to force people to be "financial parents" or incarcerate them for not doing so but at the same time, they allow parents to legally dump children at fire stations, hospitals and police departments if they no longer want to be parents and make no financial demands on those people - nor do they suffer any criminal or social stigma. A person can give up custody via adoption or surrendering their child voluntarily to the state without any financial or criminal liability. Why is it that the State sees such a difference with couples who simply don't work out? Why the heavy-handedness in these situations but not in any of the the others previously exampled?

     Let's, for argument's sake, say that we all agree that there should be a State sponsored child support system. Okay, fine. Even if you believe that there should be one, do you think that the structure of this one is sound? Let's look at the current philosophy and structure. The philosophy of the current system is that the children of broken families should enjoy the same financial lifestyle that they would if the parents had stayed together since the separation can't be the child's responsibility. Secondly, the parents are intended to be equally responsible financially accept for in case where one parent earns substantially more than the other, in which case the financial responsibilities are respectively proportional. So a math formula is employed to determine what would be the financial contribution to the child's financial needs by each parents if the parents had stayed together and then the non-custodial parent is required to pay their portion of that to the custodial parent. So far it doesn't sound too malicious, does it?

     Here's where it starts to fall apart: if the non-custodial parent loses their job, they are still responsible for paying child support. Remember, the system is supposedly structured so that the child enjoys the "same" financial lifestyle it would if the parents had stayed together and the fact is that if the parents had stayed together and one of them lost their job, the child's financial lifestyle would suffer as a result. The child, and the family as a whole for that matter, would probably miss some meals and perhaps even lose some utilities. Some families have to downsize the size of their homes, sell vehicles, give up extracurricular activities, etc. Why is the non-custodial parent racking up a financial debt when their financial circumstances change? Even worse, if fortune doesn't find the out of work parent fast enough, a warrant is issued for their arrest and they can be criminalized for their misfortune. That's not where it ends for the non-custodial parent you see, even in jail the child support bill still ensues. The non-custodial parent can be convicted of the crime of not paying child support, serve their time and still be held responsible. Isn't that double jeopardy?

     Now here's some more insult to the injury of child support that's inflicted on the non-custodial parent. This, I only recently discovered myself, as I approached the end of the child support order against me. As you know, child support doesn't automatically end when the child is no longer a child at the age of eighteen if they attend college. In addition to being forced to pay for medical insurance for the child, the non-custodial parent has to pay child support for four additional years - until the child is eighteen - at a time when the custodial parent might have no financial burden at all, especially if the child attends school out of State. That's not the insult I was referring to however. What I was referring to is the fact that if the custodial parent evicts the child before the child no longer qualifies for child support, the non-custodial child still has to pay child support unless they pay the court to cancel the order (the custodial parent at no point has to pay anything to receive child support). If the custodial parent moves without notifying the non-custodial parent (which is a violation of the law and what happened in my case) the State will not stop the child support unless the non-custodial parent can track the custodial parent down and provide the State with the new address even though the State knows exactly where the person is because they have to have the current address to send the checks out.

     So even if the custodial parent violates the State's child support law and has evicted the child and no longer has the right to receive child support, the State still refuses to assist the non-custodial parent. This is true even if the child moves in with the non-custodial parent thereby making them the custodial parent. The fact is that the system isn't established to help the child but rather to punish the non-custodial parent. Everything the State does is done to make it difficult on the non-custodial parent, even at the expense of the child.

     The fact is that people have to pay a price for bad decisions and that's how we learn to not make them. That's reason one for there not to be a State sponsored child support system. Also, I have more faith in people. I don't believe the State needs to intervene in these matters. I think enough people have a conscience and therefore would be compelled by it to do the right thing if given the chance. There are also natural social pressures and stigmas that would be associated with being a dead beat parent if nature were allowed to take its course. Finally, it's obvious that the State is only involved in these matters for a money grab a chance for a little social engineering via the carrot and stick of child support.

What do you think? Is this a sensible, ethical and necessary system?