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Child support debtors are everybody’s favorite punching bag.
The Daily News is apparently no exception, as reporter
Dana DiFillippo recently penned two ill-advised, one-sided
critiques of divorced and separated fathers.
In
Jail Threat Springs $$, DiFillippo highlights the story of a
local "deadbeat” who offered a judge a “list of reasons why he
had failed to pay almost $16,000" in child support. The judge
“barks” at these explanations and gives the surprised father two
months in jail. DiFillippo approvingly quotes prosecutor Maria
McLaughlin, who “chalked up another victory” with the case,
as McLaughlin blames the debtor for his incarceration. According
to McLaughlin, he should have simply paid the $1,200 "purge
factor" the judge set to allow him to avoid jail.
Though DiFillippo is apparently too
busy applauding to notice, McLaughlin’s view of the case makes
little sense. The father would rather spend two months in jail
than pay $1,200? The father thinks it’s better to lose his job
and two months or more of wages than pay the purge factor? This
dad is either broke or he sure has a strange set of priorities.
Federal Office of Child Support
Enforcement data shows it’s likely the former--two-thirds of
those behind on child support nationwide earn poverty level
wages; less than four percent of the national child support debt
is owed by those earning $40,000 or more a year.
The inflated arrearages are created
in large part because the child support system is mulishly
impervious to the economic realities working people face, such
as layoffs, wage cuts, unemployment, and work-related injuries.
According to the Urban Institute, less than one in 20
non-custodial parents who suffers a substantial drop in income
is able to obtain a reduction in child support payments.
McLaughlin tells DiFillippo
that some debtors don't go to jail because they "miraculously
come up with the money" for the purge factor. However, this is
usually not the debtor's money--his parents, relatives and
friends have collected the purge factor to keep him out of jail.
McLaughlin’s admission that many do go to jail rather than pay
is evidence of these obligors’ inability to pay.
In DiFillippo’s other
article, “Woman starts Web site to shame vanished dads,” she
salutes activist Fadia Ward and her website
www.sorryassbabydaddies.com. Ward excoriates dads and calls
on her fellow sisters to publicly humiliate them, saying “our
men have got to get it together…the only way to do that is to
take their manhood away." Certainly there are fathers who do not
come through for their children. Yet Ward, who at age 27 has had
four children by four different fathers, eschews any personal
fault for her own situation, claiming that none of her four
births were intended.
The home page of
Ward’s website depicts an African-American father shouting “get
outta here with all that” as his two little children cry at his
feet, begging for his affection, and the children’s mother cries
and holds out a baby to him. This is a terrible distortion of
the lives of divorced or separated dads, many of whom struggle
to remain a part of their children’s lives.
According to the
Children's Rights Council, a Washington, DC-based children's
advocacy group, more than five million American children each
year have their access to their noncustodial parents interfered
with or blocked by custodial parents. These fathers must wage
expensive court battles in order to see their children. Some
can't afford it and give up, and are understandably unenthused
about sacrificing to pay support to the exes who separated them
from their kids.
On many occasions the Daily News has movingly
portrayed the problems faced by Philadelphia's legions of low-income
African-American men. In April, Sandra Shea described a "growing
population of invisible men haunting the streets" who “enter a world stripped of
opportunity, such as the well-paying manufacturing jobs that used to exist.”
These men struggle to find jobs and pay their rent—does DiFillippo believe that
they don’t similarly struggle to pay their child support?
This column first appeared in the
Philadelphia Daily News (8/2/06). The two
Philadelphia Daily News pieces to which this responds are
Jail Threat Springs $$ (7/20/06) and
Woman starts Web site to shame vanished dads (7/20/06).
We also make positive reference to Sandra Shea’s
Rescuing society's dropouts (4/21/06). We commend the paper
for its willingness to publish such criticism.
Jeffery
M. Leving is the author of the book
Fathers' Rights: Hard-hitting and Fair Advice for Every Father
Involved in a Custody Dispute. His website is
www.dadsrights.com.
Glenn
Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of America's
largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at
www.GlennSacks.com or
via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
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