It is a very broad term that has been used frivolously I agree. But, I'm not talking about dads that have nothing, dads that never had anything, dads who are so ill they can't work, dads that have ABSOLUTELY nothing and can barely afford to take care of themselves. I'm talking about the DADs who, obviously all read the same "how to" book on "how to get around working off the books, BUT OWN EVERYTHING." All owning homes, cars, trucks, horses, and have $500,000 plus homes with two acres of property. Paying taxes, car insurance, car payments, credit card payments, vacations, gas, food, luxuries, etc.
In my case, why are they feeding horses, building horse corrals and horse barns, buying horse trailers to take care of animals (BEFORE THEIR CHILDREN), putting in built in pools, hot tubs, buying new cars that are ALL visible to the naked eye you ask? BECAUSE NO ONE GOES AFTER THEM and the Courts don't have strong enough FIRST punishments for them to be afraid not to PAY. Listen, even when you get pulled over for DWI the very first time, you get your license suspended for a period of mandatory six months, second DWI offence suspended for a year and third I believe its up to the court's discretion of 18 months or revoked indefinitely. I know this because my husband is a retired police officer.
I have been in and out of court for all these years since 2000. He owes the me $20,000.00 in arrears for his non payment of child support. The children stand by and watch their father's lives escalating to heights unimaginable to them, as their electric gets shut off, their car gets taken away, and then their house goes into foreclosure. It costs thousands upon thousands of dollars that I and other women just don't even have to protect ourselves and our children.
My husband had six attorneys throughout those six years. THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars were paid to lawyers, court fees, document fees, hearing fees, trial fees, if they don't have the money for Child Support, where is this money coming from? LOOK AT HIS FUNDS THEN, not three years later because by then the only people who have gotten any money was the LAWYERS, not the Children. I had proof upon proof of his willful nonpayment and still nothing. And to this day, SCU tells me that they have no record of a job for him. Did his house go into foreclosure, did his truck(s) get re-po'd is he getting food from the Church like we did, is he using flashlights because he has no electric, is he living in a card board box? Lets' suppose not. How does he afford his life, if he can't afford his children's lives? Are his horses eating well? Maybe he should stop feeding the horse for a month or two, see what happens. You all know the story, we have heard it a million times.
I find myself back at Family Court in Nassau County again. Somehow, all you women know what I mean, you always get that horrible sinking feeling in your stomach which emanates through your whole body, that your back in this place again and will "awaken the monster" as soon as you report he is not doing what he is suppose to. I told the clerk that my husband was late and didn't pay this past month. She checked the status of the account. She told me that they could not help me until he was late as of the 15th of October which would make him 30 days late and that they usually don't do anything to severe to him until you have at least three petitions against him or he is four months late. I told her he already owes me $20,000.00 and that my attorney advised me to come here. If I didn't the court can say to me, "obviously you don't need the money that bad, that you waited so long." She then added that unless he has three support violation petitions against him, they usually don't do anything. Could we send a louder message to those dads, that YOU ARE ABOVE THE LAW. Her last bit of advice was write your Congressman. So, I'm writing everyone and anyone who will listen, if not for me, but for others to follow.
It did, however, seem ironically funny to me as I looked around at all the other people in this office probably for the same thing. NON PAYMENT. The office is staffed to the hilt. If the statistics don't show an over abundance, of as the court calls it, "willful" flagrant abusers of the court system, then take a look around at the amount of file cabinets, case workers etc. There are obviously that many out there that are not obeying the court laws. If we can't get people to be afraid of the consequences of the smaller of the laws, what happens to the rest. I suspect the ripple effect. You break this law, so I can break this law too, and so on. This is for and about the future of our CHILDREN, our future Law, Politicians and Presidents. We are allowing the bad seed to flourish in the garden of our children's lives.
So, what do we do with law breakers of this kind, nothing. It takes years and years and obviously petition after petition to even get somewhere, but mostly nowhere but right back where you started from. And then by that time, those dads, have hidden everything and have changed the names to protect, yes, the "guilty".
I have had family court orders, supreme court orders, and now again Family court orders reinforcing the Supreme court orders that are NOT BEING OBEYED. So now I have to wait for him to be four months in arrears before I can have someone reinforce the reinforcement.
I decided to go home and look up on the computer "dead beat dads". I have found a couple of things to read. I'm sure that a lot of what some writers say about subject may very well be true, and some not, but the fact still remains is that whatever the circumstance, statistic of whether it be joint or sole custody, visitation or no visitation with the father, THE FATHER'S ARE STILL NOT PAYING. Funny, you can still get a speeding ticket because you got caught speeding, but what the officer doesn't know is that you were just trying to get away from someone stalking you. YOU WERE STILL SPEEDING. Everyone has a story more stories then Walt Disney, but the fact truth be told, it is our children that are SUFFERING. Those father's are trying to punish the mother, for the reason or reasons she had to divorce him in the first place.
Think about it, this one article mentions that 80% of divorces are filed by women, WHAT does that tell you. Women don't settle. They do not want to be in marriages that are unhappy, unfulfilling, abusive and above all an unhappy atmosphere for the children. So the first thing the father's do, is don't pay the electric, let the car get re-po'd and the mortgage go into foreclosure, etc., thinking he's only hurting his wife. For those dads, the trend will go on forever.
There are also really wonderful dads out there that fulfill their financial and well as emotional obligations for their children and this certainly doesn't apply to them, but everyone that has anything to say about this subject is so busy defending and trying to find reasons to blame his (the father's) NOT PAYING on everything and anything except for changing it and STOPPING it. Why should it take lawyer upon lawyer, petition on petition, day after day in court, so even if you had a job, you loose it. Freeze his assets, freeze his life, as he ultimately freezes his children's lives.
It has to stop, our children are becoming the brunt of financial ABUSE. Abuse being conducted by the father and co-conducted by the Courts.
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Article written by a resident of Massapequa Park, New York