Respect a Man’s Choice, Too

By Jeffery M. Leving & Glenn Sacks

In Kai Ma’s recent AlterNet column “The Difference Between a Womb and a Wallet” (7/26/06) she applauds a U.S. District Court judge’s quick, contemptuous dismissal of Matt Dubay’s “Roe v. Wade for Men” lawsuit. Dubay sought to wipe out the child support payments he is obligated to make to an ex-girlfriend who, he says, used a fallacious claim of infertility to deceive him into getting her pregnant.

In opposing “Choice for Men,” Ma asserts that a “woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy is not the equivalent of a man’s choice to financially opt out of fatherhood.” She cites the pain and discomfort of pregnancy, and the way motherhood “may limit our mobility or careers.”   These problems are very real; however, so are the problems created when men are saddled with child support obligations.

According to an estimate in Men’s Health magazine, 100,000 men each year are jailed for alleged nonpayment of child support. Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement data reveal that 70% of those behind on payments earn poverty level wages. The “Most Wanted Deadbeat Dad” lists put out by most states are used both for police actions and to hunt and shame “deadbeats” through newspaper ads and publicity campaigns. These lists are largely comprised of uneducated African-American and Latino men with occupation descriptions like “laborer,” “maintenance man” and “roofer.”

Ma dismisses the burden of child support as being “a few hundred dollars a month.” However, in California, AlterNet’s home state, a noncustodial father of two earning a modest $3,800 a month in net income pays $1,300 a month in child support. The money–almost $300,000 over 18 years–is tax-free to the custodial mother. One can reasonably debate whether this sum is appropriate or excessive. One cannot reasonably dismiss it as being insignificant.

Ma portrays children as a mother’s albatross, forgetting that parenting is also the greatest joy a person can experience in life. Yes, in single mother homes the mother bears the burden of most of the childrearing, but the mothers also experience the lion’s share of the joys and benefits of having children. Noncustodial fathers are not so fortunate—they’re usually permitted only a few days a month to spend with their kids. Once mom finds a new man, they’re often pushed out entirely in favor of the child’s “new dad.”

Ma condemns men who “lie, deceive, break their promises, or pull a 180…who agree to marry but don’t,” and laments that “millions of women” have been “trapped into single motherhood for life with, often, next to no recourse.” Yet according to a randomized study of 46,000 divorce cases published in the American Law and Economics Review, two‑thirds of all divorces involving couples with children are initiated by mothers, not fathers, and in only 6% of cases did the women claim to be divorcing cruel or abusive husbands.

The out-of-wedlock birth rate in the United States hovers around 33%–given the wide variety of contraceptive and reproductive choices women enjoy, this can hardly be blamed primarily on men. Yes, in some of these cases the mother and father shared a relationship which the mother (and the father) may have expected would become a marriage. Yet these relationships fail for many reasons besides male perfidy. These include: youth; economic pressure and the lack of living wage jobs (how many couples fight over money?); and the mothers’ post-partum depression and mood-swings. It’s doubtful that many men really wake up in the morning and say to themselves “my child loves me and needs me, my girlfriend loves me and needs me—I’m outta here.”

Ma says men “shouldn’t be able to choose to abandon that child in the lurch.” Yet 1.5 million American women legally walk away from motherhood every year through adoption, abortion or abandonment. In over 40 states mothers can completely opt out of motherhood by returning unwanted babies to the hospital shortly after birth. If men like Dubay are deadbeats and deserters, what are these women?

Whenever a child is born outside of the context of a loving, two-parent family, there are no good solutions. Ma overstates her case, but she is correct that “Choice for Men” is a flawed solution. However, the current regime, which provides women with a variety of choices and men with none, is also flawed.

Dubay’s conduct is not particularly admirable, and he’s certainly not a candidate for father of the year; however, he does have a point. Over the past four decades women’s advocates have successfully made the case that it is wrong to force a pregnancy on an unwilling mother. Despite the backlash against Dubay, hopefully his lawsuit will result in a greater societal awareness that it is also wrong to force a pregnancy on an unwilling father.

Jeffery M. Leving is the Chairman of the Illinois Council on Responsible Fatherhood. He 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.

Hounding Low-Income Dads Won’t Pay

By Jeffery M. Leving & Glenn Sacks

Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley and Child Support Services Department Director Steven Golightly have announced a sweeping new campaign against “deadbeat dads.” They say their new Most Wanted Delinquent Parent list is modeled on the FBI’s fabled 10 Most Wanted list. On paper the 10offenders owe over $2 million, but it’s very questionable that Cooley and Golightly will be collecting much. Golightly’s action is particularly remarkable considering that the California Department of Child Support Services, which supervises the CSSD, issued a report in January that contradicts any possible rationale for this campaign.

According to the CDCSS, there are four primary factors creating child-support arrearages in California: “high child-support orders established for low-income obligors”; “a limited number of child-support orders adjusted downward”; “establishment of retroactive child-support orders”; and “accrual of 10 percent interest on child-support debt.” Over a quarter of these arrears is interest.

Unlike the Most Wanted Deadbeat Parent put out by most states and counties, the CSSD’s list does not contain the occupations of the “deadbeats.” One can understand why.

Nationwide these lists are never comprised of well-heeled businessmen, lawyers and accountants, but instead of fathers who do low-wage and often seasonal work, and owe large sums of money, which they could never hope to pay off. It is rare to find a person with even a college degree on these lists.

In recent years there have been several highly publicized actions similar to CSSD’s, generally coupled with arrests.

For example, Virginia’s Most Wanted list was topped by a laborer, a carnival hired hand and a construction worker, who collectively somehow owed over a quarter-million dollars in child support. Similarly, Kentucky’s list during its campaign sported only one obligor with an education, and the most common designation for occupation was “laborer.”

How do men of such modest means end up with such fantastic arrearages? The child-support system is largely 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 noncustodial parents who suffers a substantial drop in income is able to get courts to reduce the support obligation.

To Cooley’s and Golightly’s credit, they did explain that some of the “deadbeats” they’re pursuing may be able to use California’s Compromise of Arrears Program. COAP allows some obligors to settle their artificially inflated paper debts to the state for realistic amounts.

The problem is there has been little outreach done on COAP, so few obligors are aware of it.  Fewer than 5,000 have used it since its inception in 2003.  Moreover, it’s unlikely that those on the list will view the Most Wanted approach as much of an invitation to turn themselves in.

Golightly says he’s doing this so the “deadbeats” will “take care of their children.” This is misleading, because 70 percent of California’s child-support debt is owed to the state, not to custodial mothers and fathers.

It is understandable that taxpayers want money spent on welfare benefits to be repaid.  Yet it makes little sense to hound low-income fathers, particularly since research shows that in some cases, were it not for child support, the men would still be playing a role in their children’s lives.

The Cooley/Golightly approach may be good politics, but it’s counterproductive policy.