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Date: Feb 3, 2012

Protecting Children There Must Be Balance

No one in their right mind can admire deadbeat dads. To that I would add that no one in their right

mind should admire deadbeat moms. The world has moved on from considering moms to be stay at

home housekeepers, with dad earning the money to support the family. Indeed, many businesses (and

countries) make it the law that dads get equal paternity leave when a baby is born. So why is it that

every court, the child protection services and a whole array of government agencies consider dads the

ones who are financially primarily responsible and who are primarily culpable if a marriage goes wrong

and therefore the kids are usually given to the mother? Mothers are automatically considered the best

child raisers (which is often not the case) whilst men are considered the one who failed. Just how far off

are these notions from the hateful treatment of women in some Muslim governed countries? Dont we

decry women having to cover up their faces and maintain the role of subservience? And yet weautomatically tell dads to cough up the support money, take the kids away from them, and seem to

favor women when in fact we are also saying their role is that of housekeeper and mother.

A friend of ours was stopped the other month for a burned out taillight. The officer checked license

and registration and was about to give him a warning when the officers car computer spat out a

suspended license warning. The officer checked why and there it was: Overdue payments in child

support. Driving license suspended. Never mind the idiocy of suspending a driving license for child

support payments meaning the man could not work and get paid to pay child support. The man went to

the Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) and asked what gives. They said his payment record

was 100% especially since it comes directly out of his paycheck, on time and alls correct. So he took that

read out and went to the judge who stamped it and then he went to DMV (and you now the wait there

is a joy) and they charged him $65 for the privilege of un-suspending his license. The woman handling it

quipped, Next time maybe youll pay your responsibility on time. That deadbeat dad label stung

especially since that day he had been late to night shift since his kids were left alone when mom went

out to party.

Howd that notice get on there? Seems months ago the mom had tried to get DCSS to pay towards

medical insurance for the kids claiming Dad wasnt paying. Thats true, he didnt contribute cash toward

medical insurance since his company policy already covered him and the kids (and his wife when they

were married). But she thought if she could get more money from them... and so he became a deadbeat

dad. DCSS staff were more than willing to come to the mothers aid without checking the facts. And in

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case you think that it was all cleared up... oh no. DCSS reports to state who report to Health & Human

Services (HSS) in Washington DC who tell the police. He was stopped a few days ago for a temporary

license plate check and they confiscated his drivers license again. Washington, informed by DCSS should

take about three months to remove the notice. Unfair punishment, punishment for the mom for false

filing? None, DCSS said its not their job.

Another friend recently was stranded in Asia. Going to the Embassy to add pages to his passport

because he was working with educational relief across two borders, the Embassy promptly confiscated

his passport because he was a deadbeat dad. Let me see, an American in a far off land is suddenly

stripped of that blue book, that proof you are an American, because of money supposedly not paid back

home? The risk to his life in the dangerous country he was in was very real. Deadbeat dad? Nope, two

lawyers and fifty long-distance calls and e-mails later, California DCSS was made to tell HSS who

amended their computer (supposedly) and then told American Citizen Services (ACS) at the Embassythey could return the passport. Without spending thousands to resolve the issue quickly, the Embassy

was worried they would have to destroy the passport within a week unless resolved. What would have

become of this American then? He would have been given an Embassy voucher to return to the US to be

arrested. Yes, arrested. How did the notice appear at DCSS and HSS and then ACS? Seems his wife who

took the kids to live in another state, filed there as well to get more money from the local government

that, in California, had been legally decided. She claimed poverty and a deadbeat dad to get extra cash.

The DCSS in that state believed her, still do, why wouldnt they? Shes a state approved mother; hes

guilty before innocent.

Making partners live up to their responsibility is right and proper. Allowing this double standard

based of outmoded stereotypes of men and women is not. The government is wrong here, wrong,

meddling, and abetting crimes of bad parenting, deception and, yes, at times vengeance. That is not a

good governments job.