Deadbeat and Absent Fathers

[Venus193]

What do you all think is the cause of this?  In the last three years or so I've heard too many stories of men skipping out on parental responsibilities including -- but not limited to -- their financial obligations.  Are people suddenly becoming allergic to adult responsibilities?

While there are state laws that do not allow fathers to escape supporting their children, how effectively are they enforced?  How many times do we hear in the news about men who have walked out on their children and the mothers of those children?  How many women do you know who are supporting their children on their own because of this?  How many have bypassed men altogether to adopt or to go to a sperm bank so they don't have to deal with men because of trust issues?

If the mods want to remove this thread because it is too inflammatory, I will not be surprised or even upset.  The thread about that rich family with the irresponsible guy with the two families just got my dander up.

[Brentwood]

I can only speak for my own case. In that situation, my daughter's father was so angry at me, so bitter over me, that he allowed it to affect the welfare of his own daughter.

I was the one who ended our relationship, which apparently was the source of some deep-seated resentment directed at me. He told my parents that he would not be involved in any legal paperwork that stipulated child support because he didn't want "that woman" (me) to get "his" money. You'd think it had nothing to do with our child! When I left him, we had been living in a 1969 Rollohome trailer, which I owned half of in reality, but not on paper. He had purchased it in his name, and I'd given him half the money. That was foolish. After I left, he sold it and kept all of the money, not even offering me any towards the care and feeding of our child.

I bought a new car when our daughter was two. The one I'd had was constantly breaking down and sucking money. I bought the new one with a $500 down payment I'd had to save for darn near to years to get! Ex told me that if I could afford a new car, I "obviously" didn't need child support, and he didn't want to see "his" money go to pay for my car anyway! As if I did not need a car to safely transport my child and get to and from work so I could support her. Which at least **I** was doing.

Although we have mended fences, I am still angry with him for avoiding and dodging child support all those years. I was the sole joint and physical custodian of our child, and I gave him regular visitation for the good of our daughter. There was no court order saying I had to. Why? Because in Minnesota (at least in those days), any visitation order would come attached to a child support order. He did not want to take me to court for any reason, because he knew he'd get slapped with child support.

There were a lot worse things than the above too, but I'd also like to note that he was divorced when I met him and paying $200 per month for child support to his ex-wife for their son.

My daughter is turning 20 this year. She knows that her father never paid child support for her but did for her older half-brother. And she has a lot of issues with her dad. She lives with him now, and he complains that she doesn't contribute enough financially to the household. Can you believe THAT?

Of his own free will, he chose to pay for ice skating lessons when she was a preteen, and he always bought her whatever items of clothing or toys she wanted. I guess he thought that made up for not paying child support.

This is just my longwinded way of saying that perhaps, like my case, many men are so angry at the mothers of their children that they refuse to do anything that might benefit her in any way. They think they are punishing the women, but it's the children who suffer.

[Venus193]

That's a sad story.  How did your daughter perceive things when she was younger? 

In my own case, my father was fatherless himself from the age of 4.  There was nobody to teach him responsibilities of this type and so he was financially immature in most things.  He and my mother broke up when I was 7 and he never gave my mother much in the way of child support.  Not because he didn't want to; he never made enough money to do the right thing. 

This was a kind of karmic payback to my mother, as she was a golddigger at the time she married my father.  Further payback was that she never found the sugar daddy she was looking for.  I guess the other men saw through her in ways my father wasn't able to.

[Alida]

What do you all think is the cause of this?  In the last three years or so I've heard too many stories of men skipping out on parental responsibilities including -- but not limited to -- their financial obligations.  Are people suddenly becoming allergic to adult responsibilities?

My grandfather left NJ when my mother was 13, so he could avoid paying any kind of support to my grandmother for their 3 children.  Mom's 60 now, and only reconciled with her father about 15 years ago.  It's nothing new, unfortunately.

[Brentwood]

When she was younger, she saw him as a "Disneyland Dad" - the kind who would get her whatever toy she asked for and wouldn't say no to her and had no idea how to discipline her. I had to sort of "reprogram" her after every weekend with him. Sometimes he told her horrible, hateful things about me, and it was hard to bite my tongue and avoid using her as some kind of go-between. I am glad now, though, that I did my best and kept my mouth shut and never badmouthed him to her. She is old enough to have figured things out on her own, and it shows in her relationship with him. I hope they can relate as adults now and that the current living arrangement will bring good things for her. She has always struggled with self-esteem issues. And she does now know that the things her father told her about me weren't true, and it puts a lot of her history in a new light.

[Venus193]

Do you think there is anything in the culture that does this?  I can only imagine the number of men who abandoned families in the east to go west 150 years ago, ones who survive war and never go home (although they may have unique issues), and ones who do it when they are suddenly successful.

One of my cousins was married to a guy who sponged off her, so I understand her trust issues were a contributing factor to her going to a sperm bank.

I have a male friend who has children, but behaved in just as emotionally detached manner as the fathers of our fathers' generation.  He is now paying through the nose emotionally in ways he is only beginning to comprehend.

[supernova]

I think there are a lot of psychological and sociological factors at play.  And I agree with you that it's nothing new under the sun.

First, parenthood is a heavy responsibility, and few people are as prepared for it as they should be.  Not everyone, as we've seen in several threads on this board, wants children; and not everyone who does want them is emotionally/mentally programmed to handle it.  In the case of a divorce, it may be tempting (for either sex) to see that divorce as a ticket back to not only singlehood, but freedom from the daily grind of childcare as well.

Second, the way the law currently works (and I am not passing judgment on this, good or bad or indifferent) men don't have much of a choice when it comes to having kids.  A man, if he knows he doesn't want kids ever, can have a vasectomy.  If he doesn't want kids right now, he had better buy his own condoms and hope there are no accidents.  If there *is* an accident, "planned" or otherwise, he's pretty much stuck with the woman's decision.  Not a lot of men are really happy about this.

Third, sociologically we are conditioned to believe that children and childcare are women's responsibilities.  This conditioning is ingrained pretty deeply, and many people don't even realize it's there.  But close your eyes and picture a man walking away from a marriage; then picture a woman walking away.  Which one is holding the child by the hand?  It's far, far more common for the woman to keep the kids than it is for the man. 

There are a lot of other potential contributing factors, and a lot more stuff that I shouldn't really get into here...  these are really just a few random thoughts.  But it's definitely a problem, and not just confined to our culture or our era either. 

      - saphie

[Venus193]

There is a mindset among some cultures and classes that it's "manly" to impregnate a woman, not to mention a lot of phobias about birth control among men.  Every time I read about "Latest news on the male birth control pill" I scoff; I don't know a single (or married) woman who would trust a man to take such a pill.

I've seen a few women attempt to trap a man into marriage with pregnancy.  It's an ugly thing to do and while it sounds paranoid, every man who seriously doesn't want those responnsibilities needs to be scrupulous about birth control.

I also believe that our society does not instill enough emotional responsibility in men for the spouses and children they do want.

[Clara Bow]

A lot of people let their resentment of the former spouse get in the way. They'd rather short change their kids than lift a finger to make the ex wife have an easier time. I think that some people's judgement becomes extremely cloudy when emotions get involved.
I also know of people who don't pay their child support as a pout (she got custody and I wanted custody, why should I pay).
It's really sad, but it's symptomatic of our culture's basic loss of personal responsibility. We no longer accept consequences for our actions and we are quick to point the finger elsewhere (and this goes up to the highest levels of our society and I'll stop here because I'm circling dangerously close to politics) and that practice has become acceptable.
Also, children are being seen more and more as "fashionable" (Britney Spears, Madonna, etc) and people are having them left and right without taking the larger implications of parenthood into consideration. Then when the marriage falls apart, or the relationship, they walk away from the kid because the child was born for all the wrong reasons.

[mrsbrandt]

Venus you can now officially change your mind about the fact that you, "don't know a single (or married) woman who would trust a man to take such a pill."  Dh is excited about going on it once it comes out and I'm going to be more than a bit relieved.  We already have one dd and one on the way, having used Depo Provera and the Pill.

I think this might account for a very small amount of men who skip out on their kids, but some men (married/committed/etc.) are tricked into having kids as a means of trapping them.  I know of a few good guys who have wives/gfs who said that they wanted a child (or wanted to keep a child) even if the guy didn't.  One man I know in particular wound up marrying his gf, because she refused to put the kid up for adoption or consider giving him visitation if they weren't married.  He loves his son, but the marriage is so not a good thing for either one of them.  The Unbrady's have a child that was conceived as a compromise (their first) and the child on the way was not something the husband agreed to.  His wife went off the pill without telling him.  I don't think Mr. UnBrady will cut and run, but it isn't out of the realm of possibility.

[IndianInlaw]

I've wondered too, about the enormous army of single mothers out there.

When I was pregnant, I was very, very sick and had to go for blood transfusions every two weeks.  This entailed taking a bus to the University of Iowa hospital every two weeks.  My son's dad a.k.a. "The Respondent" had a car and could take off from his job (he was an executive at an aeronautics company), but couldn't be bothered.  Actually, the one time he did, he cornered my hematologist and started yammering about the services the doctor should get me.  He mentioned that I lived in a third floor walkup and the doctor said the exercise would do me good.  I could see the doctor just rolling his eyes.

Never mind, The Respondent doing anything, other than shooting his mouth off.

As these things go, The Respondent got laid off (this was the 80's) and fled town as fast as he could.  One of my friends who worked at his company said he got a huge severance check, not that I saw a dime of it.  He even owed me money.  Money I earned leaving my apartment at 5 am to walk seven blocks downtown to catch the first of two buses to go to my part time job.  The job I worked at despite huge pregnancy related migraine headaches.

I'm getting mad now...I do every time I talk about him.

He left in August, I was actually relieved.  He said he'd come back, but that was 1983 and I haven't seen him since.

Anyways, I would go each day to my mailbox and look for a letter, just some sign that he acknowledged my presence in the world.

I called him when I went into labor and he called the hospital to ask about my progress.  This call, he charged to my phone bill.

Anyways, after 17 days in the hospital (because of my illness), my friend came and took us home.  At least I didn't have to take the bus this time.

I spent the first year going to my mailbox each day and coming back disappointed.  Keep in mind, my son was one of those babies who screamed all day, every day.  One night I just sat and cried because yesterday had been so bad, today was equally bad and tomorrow was going to be just as bad.

After 18 months there, my apartment building got sold and I couldn't afford the rent increase.  By now I had reached the angry stage.  No more Ms Nice Guy.  I moved, rented a PO Box and went down and filed a paternity suit, using the PO Box number so he wouldn't know where we lived.  Can you believe he fought it?   He told lie after lie.  The test came back 99.96 that he was the father. (If we had been on Maury, I'd have danced around the stage like the best of 'em)

Well, that was just the beginning, but I'm getting too angry to type.

[Brentwood]

I spent the first year going to my mailbox each day and coming back disappointed.  Keep in mind, my son was one of those babies who screamed all day, every day.  One night I just sat and cried because yesterday had been so bad, today was equally bad and tomorrow was going to be just as bad.

Consider yourself hugged by me.

[Bob Ducca]

IndianInlaw, bless you.  I feel for you so much.

As for the rest of the deadbeat dads, my sister married two.  One of them has only seen his son once, and was actually jailed for failure to pay child support (he pays now, but is trying to have his own parental rights terminated).  The son in question will be eight this year.

The second had a baby before he met my sister, had two babies with her, began an affair with her best friend, and now has a baby with her.  He is only 30- I wonder how many babies will follow?  He has no job, no education, and no real marketable skill.

[Lunadiana75]

Keep in mind, that many times, bitter Mothers use the kids as pawns for revenge and deny the Father the right to them.  men have no recourse in this situation.  At all.  Oh sure, he could call the cops. But that what decent father wants to subject his kids to watching their mom dragged off in handcuffs?  And, if he does that, it only makes him look bad.  So sometimes, despair will drive a man to stop paying child support. 

Just something very few people consider, but oftens more than we think.

[Evil Duckie]

I am fortunate that I have not had to deal with this first hand.

I do know a couple of guys who are deadbeat Dads.

They feel that since they are not with Mom why should they support of visit the child or are too mad at mom to love support the child. They don't see the child as "theirs" but as "hers". These guys should have a swift kick to the butt and be made to support their child. This is the most common group.

Deadbeats are not only Dads. I do know a couple of deadbeat moms.

They refuse to support the child because they are "women" and only "men" have to do that. These women are professional women with very good paying jobs. They make a big productions of the fact that they visit the child. The Dads are very generous in allowing the moms to visit as much as they want.

Then there is the third category. Moms who prevent the Dads from being part of the child life.

I know one Dad who pays with the courts blessing his child support payments into a trustfund for the child to go to college. He and the courts have no idea where mom and the child are. He has had no contact after he remarried. The Ex was mad that he went on with life and still wanted the child in it but not her.

I know one mom (I know her only through another couple) who is hiding from dad because she doesn't want the child to know him because the child might like dad better than her. She has changed her and the child's name and will not let the dad know where they are. She has said that there as no abuse or anything only she is mad at him. She told us that the child is "hers" and only "hers" never "theirs".

The sad thing is that the child is the loser when they don't have two parents who love them involved in their lives.

For the single parents who are doing their best for the child. Bless you.