In typical gynocentric fashion the Epoch Times highlights a story of a “single mom” who is supposed to be lauded for choosing birth over abortion. Lost in the one sided telling is the story of the father who, as is the standard in support of the “single mother success stories,” is portrayed as a danger to mother and child in this case made worse than the usual unverified allegations of abuse and “fear” using mental health issues to both justify the disenfranchisement of the father and to deny their participation in driving the father to death by suicide.
We learn that the couple started a relationship in Idaho where she “fell for him super hard.” When she moved to Colorado the boyfriend moved to be with her but upon learning that he had mental health issues she decided to end the relationship. She alleges to learn of the pregnancy one week after the breakup. The father attempted to remain in contact with the mother so she filed for a restraining order to prevent him from contacting her.
At one point the “heroic single mother” considers putting the baby up for adoption to avoid a custody battle, again dismissing the rights of the father and of his entire family to be involved in raising the child. The unfortunate “complication” of the father asserting his parental rights is settled when he takes his own life to end the pain of disenfranchisement. It is then that she decides to keep the baby. To escape the “anger of the dads side” and others who blamed her for the fathers suicide the mother returned to Idaho, further alienating the fathers family.
The article ignores the systematic denial of fathers rights to be a parent by a system which sees no value other than paying financial support and which fosters Parental Alienation by one parent which excludes the other parents entire family. The number one reason a father doesn’t spend more time raising his children is a limiting court order and number two is a mother who interferes with his access to his children.
Further, Men suffer suicide rates at 4 times that of women but in child custody case this jumps to 10 times that of women, a good indication of the systemic abuse that fathers have to endure in trying to be a parent. This article blames the true victim for being unable to endure the pain of being forcibly removed from your child without cause. The denial of care and concern for the father is used as “proof” of the justification for disenfranchisement.
Blaming the victim allows all involved; mother, maternal family, courts, social services, and the media, to wash their hands of the blood that is on them as “there was something wrong with him.” Obviously it was “his own fault” and they had no part in driving a man to suicide. The heroic single mother is so “magnanimous” she has “let go of the anger she felt at Josephine’s father.”
I suspect that the father’s family would view this “inspirational” story differently, the father’s and his families perspective which was ignored in the entire article.
With fathers day upon us we’ll certainly see in the MSM a bevy of pseudo father stories of “father figures,” including mothers as father figures, who stepped up and “did it right.” This is one of the reasons I don’t read or watch any MSM. But even in so called father friendly pieces we see the gynocentric bias towards viewing fathers from the perspective of the wants and needs of women and how society thinks fathers should behave towards their children. The obligatory virtue signaling “I’m one of the good fathers” and social distancing from those other “deadbeat dads” will be loud while ignoring the pitfalls of marriage and fatherhood for men which are, in part, driving down marriage and birth rates.
As is the norm the writings regarding fathers on fathers day ignores the fathers who were there financially and emotionally there for their children, who were disenfranchised by a system which demands their financial contributions to the point of debtors prison and which does nothing to foster and reward active involvement, indeed a system which punishes any attempt to be more than a visitor. It will ignore the father who had a unilateral divorce forced on him controlling his assets and income in the present and future, losing his custody and children in a court system which sees him the same as the out of wedlock father, a wallet and a visitor. Marriage is now made a negative over out of wedlock couples as the married father is subject to alimony and loss of his residence and business in addition to being made to pay ‘child support” for children he isn’t allowed to raise.
ACFC Flyer distributed widely to national and state governments and multiple media outlets over 20 years ago
Misandrist gynocentric and chivalrous white knight views abound in all media outlets, the Epoch Times, New York Post, Heritage Foundation, and ABC/WFTS Tampa Bay examples follow. Being active in the parental/fathers rights movement for over 25 years I have submitted multiple op eds, letters to the editor, and rebuttals to coverage including to Epoch, the Post and Heritage and the response has been mostly crickets. And year after year we get the same “(’m a morally superior) married father and your should be also or the (I’m a morally superior) actively involved father unlike the “deadbeats” around me stories, which are many and the norm. Stories of disenfranchised fathers who are struggling and fighting to be a father are few and far between. Even if they do appear they have the obligatory “unlike those other deadbeats” commentary, as if active involved fathers are the exception and not the norm.
In From Neglect to Nurturing: A Fathers Day Transformation (6-16-23 Epoch Times) Adam B. Coleman relates his experience with his absent (deadbeat) biological father. He relates how he treated “his extramarital children as the least important.” From this I surmise he had extramarital siblings. While I can see the negative emotions his lack of relationship with his father placed upon him I see no similar negative emotions in this piece for having a mother who chose to have a children out of wedlock with a married man. Why is a man’s unwillingness to be a father denigrate while a woman is free to abort, abandon with no penalty, or give up for adoption without the “deadbeat” mom label?
He further speaks of the abandonment when they became homeless twice and he didn’t help them and how his mother would try to force the relationship. Missing here is the fathers perspective on the matter. Was the father paying “child support” which is actually an excise tax if the mother is on welfare as it returns to state coffers which financially strained him? Was he beholden to his current wife under threat of divorce, facing loss of access to his other biological children, loss of his house and further financial strain? If he paid his child support on time and in full didn’t he meet his paternal obligation as defined by government and much of society?
I’m glad to see Mr. Coleman had a good relationship with his own son but missing from his piece is did he marry his son’s mother and raise him (and his other siblings?) in an intact 2 biological parent home? If not, can we pass judgement on him for not doing so and for being an “absent” “visiting” father? He says his son understands he isn’t perfect and I can only wonder if his life circumstances cloud his understanding of why his father did what he did which removes his ability to see his father (and mother), as individuals? It’ not that I agree with what he did, but I wasn’t him so who am I (or anyone else) to pass judgement? One of the challenges of family is to accept and understand them as individuals with their own set of life challenges and move on in life not making the same mistakes as them as we ourselves mature.
As evidence of the one sided perspective of the media, even balanced or conservative media, Adam B. Coleman continues his discussion in This Fathers Day, let’s encourage dads to be in their kid’s lives – and maybe save some in the process (6-16-23 New York Post). His discussion here is more general regarding the problems of single parent (mostly single mother) homes and the decision to form them by divorcing our spouse is harming children. He has valid points, many of which parental/fathers rights advocates and disenfranchised fathers agree with. Yes, children do fare better in a 2 biological parent home and absent that a shared parenting arrangement (no less than 35% of access time for a parent).
He states Fathers Day should be a “day for advocating reconciliation for the fathers of America who regrettably choose themselves over their children” and further states, “Our Government can’t pass a law to make fathers get involved in their child’s life” showing ignorance of the federal government policies which have disenfranchised fathers and continue to do so. It is common to blame the father, this has been occurring since Moynihan’s Report pointed out the crisis of 25% out of wedlock birthrate in the African American community in the 1960s. Unfortunately across all communities and across time the focus is on “what is wrong with men and fathers.”
Mr. Coleman points out his mother told him that his father encouraged her to abort him. I highly suspect if she had considered it herself she would not relay that to him. That said, men have NO reproductive rights. Men who are willing to be fathers have their children aborted against their will. Further, men who do NOT want to be fathers are forced to be financially responsible regardless of their wishes. And in our gynocentrically oriented society we vilify a man who doesn’t want to be a father but is forced into it yet the over 620,000 women who chose to get an abortion in 2020 get a pass on the “deadbeat mom” label.
African American women are about 14% of the population and yet they are 36% of abortions, over 130,000 in 2020. Even given the lack of male reproductive rights, can anyone show that the number of “deadbeat” non involved dads is greater than the non involved through abortion “deadbeat moms?” My experience with out of wedlock fathers is they go to extraordinary efforts to try to be an active father in their child’s life, this with no support or assistance from the groups which are publicly cajoling them to be more active. The majority are at the hospital at the birth of their child and the majority sign on as father on the birth certificate.
Once a woman decides to have a child the federal government encourages paternity establishment by paying the states incentive dollars under Title IVd of the Social Security Act (SSA). This also provides incentive payments for the establishment of the total number of child support orders, amount collected versus owed, collection of arrears, and the cost of the program. What is missing is incentive payments to states for father involvement and/or marriage. Many fathers find out that paternity offers them NO protection to access and ability to parent and raise their child.
An example is “The Good Dad Act” in Florida, recently passed legislation which proclaims to give unmarried fathers the same rights and responsibilities that the mother has. That said, Bernard Jennings was on the birth certificate as the father of his child and was primary caregiver of him for 7 years when the mother took the child and moved away. He finally located her and served papers for “visitation,” said case being put on the calendar 5 months away. The primary caregiver reduced to 2nd class parent and, if he’s lucky, visitor. See New Florida law to give more parental rights to unmarried biological fathers (6-12-23 ABC/WFTS Tampa Bay).
Also highlighted is the story of Ulysess Carwise. His daughter was given up for adoption 2 days after birth without his consent. DNA paternity was conclusive that he is the fathers, but as the court battle drags on his child was allowed to stay with the adoptive parents and she is now 5 years old and believes the adoptive parents are her parents and her father a “visitor” as the battle to terminate his parental rights drag on through multiple courts. The adopting out against the wishes of the father is a common event across the country.
The terms “non custodial” parent and “visitation” are insulting and reprehensible to parents who want to exercise both their (supposedly guaranteed Constitutional) parental rights and their parental responsibilities and they are most often applied to fathers who are relegated to second class parental status. We label fathers a “non” parent and offer them every other weekend and one mid week 4 hour dinner visit, the standard “visitation” order across the nation, and then lament the fact that fathers are not more involved in their children’s life. The right of access and enforcement for interfering are non existent and so the visitation order is a suggestion “allowed” at the discretion of the mother. 50% of mothers admit to having interfered with a fathers time with his children (Sanford Braver 1995).
ACFC Flyer distributed widely to federal and state governments and multiple media outlets over 20 years ago
Deadbeat Dad was a term often used as a pejorative applied to fathers across the board as Title IVd of SSA put fathers into a financial provider role only and was designed, not to collect ‘child support” for the mother but to recoup payments made to “single mothers” who were receiving government benefits of any kind. When the system failed due to the fact that poor mothers needing assistance had poor fathers for their children who were unable to contribute financially, the system was expanded to capture the formerly married divorced (most against their will) fathers who were already paying child support direct to the mother of their children based upon individual state laws. As such it morphed into an income transfer from husbands to wives and is touted as a government “success” for women and children.
No Fault Divorce started in CA and moved east with NY being the last state in the nation to enact it. There is a perception that married fathers are treated better than out of wedlock fathers but in fact they are labelled “non custodial” and given the same standard order of “visitation” and “child support” as out of wedlock fathers. “Child Support” (Child Excise Tax) is set as a percentage of income based upon number of children (i.e. 17% for one child, 25% for 2, etc.) with the money paid through the child support system (a federal bureaucracy with 50 state bureaucracies in each state). Unfortunately for fathers the percentages were set pre tax and as such the payer suffered the tax liability and a father of 2 children could see his $50,000 a year gross income reduced to $7487 net income and the mothers pre divorce income of $25,000 increase to a $38,557 net. “Single mothers” have a perverse incentive to have multiple out of wedlock children with multiple fathers (i.e. 2 children x 2 fathers = 34%, 2 children x 1 father = 25%).
Thus the federal system placed perverse incentives for the states to make fathers “non custodial visitors and payers of child support” regardless of the former marital status and perverse incentives on women to divorce their husband or have multiple children out of wedlock. Historical two income blue collar families kept the father, mother and child out of poverty but now, by placing the father into poverty for the years of his children’s minority, and often beyond as many state mandated payments for “children” until 21 years old regardless of their relationship with their father, fathers are reduced to poverty to keep mother and child out of poverty. Further, arrears can not be reduced for any reason so a poor father in arrears often suffers collection by the state after his children reach majority and no longer need financial support, often until his children have children of their own.
The problem is not a liberal or conservative one with the federal uniparty giving incentives to the states to create single mother homes and then make fathers, and if not them, taxpayers pay for women and children. As Ronald Reagan would say, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” should strike fear in an individual, and in his case it is poetic in that as Governor of CA he initiated No Fault Divorce and as President initiated the federal child support system which put mandates’ and awarded perverse incentives to the states, to create “single mother” homes and “non custodial fathers” whose responsibility was only financial. The liberal government subsidizes “single mother” homes and the conservative government forces the disenfranchised father to pay the costs, at the risk of debtors prison, of her decision to marry the daddy state.
One need look no further than The Heritage Foundation, the useful idiots of Reagan policy, to see the federal think tank which pushes such ideology. Yelling from the roof tops, “marriage before carriage” and the “success sequence” (We Need Committed Dads To Quiet Our Cultural Chaos 6-17-23 The Federalist), colloquialisms of the just get married and be happy crowd as they fail to recognize that men have no reproductive rights, a large part of women control who gets married, marriage is a hostile environment for men, and women file the majority of divorces as it is financially in their interest and now socially acceptable to do so. Jump in boys, a mere 50% will burn a slow death, even odds, but it worked for (morally superior) me!
Worse they ignore the assault on parental rights which began with the denial of fathers rights. Heritage denied fathers rights while still holding them responsible while inversely claiming to uphold the parental rights of mothers while holding them to no responsibility whatsoever. Enter here the Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act, pushed forth by Heritage but excluding the “non custodial” parents, fathers, of course. Here is my updated version which includes all parents, sent to them in 2019 and several times a year thereafter with no response.
Early on I had been warning of the assault on parental rights, with both the left and right taking a blind eye to the injustice, as it was bound to impact BOTH parents, including married parents. Indeed, many a “custodial” parent found themselves (after much litigation and expense) reduced to “non custodial” status and to now be poorly treated by a system they once thought their advocate but quickly learning the system is out to benefit itself. In Albany, NY in the 1990s we saw married parents dragged into family court by a school system which demanded the parents do as ‘the professionals” said, which we warned was a harbinger of things which are occurring now. The denial of fathers rights and government control of them in the 1970s has been a slow crawl to the denial of parental rights and government control of children for ALL parents in the 2020s.
Coleman would show himself to be an involved father, morally superior to his own father even though admitting the reasons for his actions were never relayed. Jennings also makes sure he’s differentiated from those “deadbeats” stating, “There are some men out there that are not doing what they’re supposed to do to be a father, but there are other men who really want to be a part of their child’s life, married or not, they want to take responsibility, they want to parent their child.” Roberts and Squires with Heritage would lecture us fathers, “We need men who are unafraid to stand up for their wives and children and who see protecting and providing for their families as their most important vocation.” How will we do that if we can legally be beat dead, driven dead broke, and disenfranchised form out families? And will we see the same treatment for mothers who “walk away” from their responsibility by abortion, abandonment, or adoption of their children this next mothers day?
Here’s a thought for those men that think to virtue signal themselves as a superior father to other fathers, woman who thinks they can define what a good father is, and government which forces fathers into visiting wallets, yet all demanding fathers be more involved, get your head out of your gynocentric orifice and recognize it is a hostile environment created by government for men to get married and for men to have children that is the problem, not men and fathers. Morally superior chastisement does nothing to fix the hostile environment and fails to recognize government created this environment and caused the problems. You can save your lectures and virtue signaling, for us fathers who were willing to be financially and emotionally responsible for our children but were beat dead, driven dead broke, and disenfranchised from our parental rights and our children your hypocritical misandrist totalitarianism is just more of a reason for us to hold you in contempt on what is for us, Fathers missing our children Day.
by Lt. (Ret.) James H. Hays West Point, MS Prepared Sept. 11, 2022
2005 ACFC/FaFNY letter to the Parents of America
I want to start by thanking Senator Nicole Boyd, Chair and Honorable Senate Committee Members for taking this testimony on this most important topic. I am a 65 year old Retired NYS Environmental Conservation Police Lieutenant with 33 years of Law Enforcement experience in various agencies, a U.S. Army Veteran, and a Semiretired Parental Rights Activist now closing in on my third decade of advocacy on behalf of parents and families. Based upon my advocacy and studies of the issues I obtained a Bachelors Degree in Family and Society from the State University of New York Empire State College and have sat on panel discussions, attended conferences, and presented testimony to the NYS Legislature and the NYS Court System. I have over 1000 hours of individual and group counselings for parents denied access to their child. I’ll include a full list of my bona fides at the end of this testimony.
Bias against fathers:
When I read of the formation of this committee in Y’all Politics I was saddened to see that fathers were excluded from the discussion and that the focus was on women ahead of children. You will note I included a 2005 open letter appealing to the parents of America and another to Elected Officials (pg.2 and 11) regarding the destruction of the American Family due to the removal of fathers from them. Indeed, the negative consequences for children of a father absent family was well known in 1995 when I began my advocacy. The negative outcomes for children and the impact on Mississippi was recently discussed in Dads Matter: the Taxpayer Cost of Fatherlessness unfortunately only suggesting a “father figure” program to address the issue. Auditor White received immediate pushback from Representative Zakiya Summers who called it “the so called fatherlessness issue” claiming the emphasis was on traditional roles, not on individuals.
Unfortunately both White and Summers, as is the committees focus, are off the mark as the issue IS about biological fathers being involved in their children’s lives. I direct you to Fatherneed by Kyle D. Pruett and suggest a copy be obtained for the committee. I also direct you to the Boy Crisis web site at https://boycrisis.org and the book by that name which addresses the problems of families with fathers absent. The need for an active involved biological father is important for both boys and girls and it contributes greatly to their early development and improved outcomes later in childhood and in life.
Bias against shared parenting arrangements:
Sen. Boyd is quoted as saying a focus is on growing the child care workforce and “looking at how we can help women get back in the workforce.” Might I suggest an active and involved father coparenting which would allow this? Karen DeCrow, past President of the National Organization for Women (NOW) advocated for shared parenting to allow women the freedom to pursue career and family at the same time. She was also the attorney who argued for the inclusion of changing tables in men’s rooms on behalf of father organizations in the fight to allow both parents involvement in emotionally and physically raising their children. Why is there no encouragement for couples to marry, cohabitate, or work out a shared parenting plan to benefit them and their child?
I’m not sure about the level of knowledge in the MS Legislature regarding Marxism and its focus on destroying the nuclear family. Both communist Russia and socialist (NAZI) Germany viewed both parents as workers and the children wards of the state and I am honestly wondering how does the system where fathers are sperm donors and assessed “child support” paid to the government and mothers are returned to work with the children in institutional care differ from the socialist and communist systems?
As a member of the general public I am interested in answers to all of these questions. Are there any studies or evidence that a woman returning to work and putting her child in day care makes her happier? The child happier? Why do we look to subsidize day care but not to support the active involvement of a mother and a father in raising their child? Is society served by having a “single mother” and an excluded father with a child raised institutionally? Who is it good for individually and at what expense to the other parties? At what expense to society?
A Mississippi father:
Before I continue further I want to introduce you to a Mississippi father I met recently. Joe (not his real name) related his father story to me thus;
“My wife decided she didn’t want to be married anymore and we got divorced but kept it amicable. We get along for the kids, 2 daughters. She ended up getting a boyfriend and before long she ended up pregnant but was unwilling to get an abortion. The boyfriend didn’t want kids and advised he would have nothing to do with the kid. When I go to get my girls I couldn’t leave the boy out so I started taking him also. I’m now the only father the kid knows but what are you going to do?”
I asked about child support, curious to know how the system worked in MS and he responded;
“It’s weird, but we have been getting pressured to pay child support through the system even though I pay direct and am not behind. We have a good relationship regarding the children so why mess with the arrangement.”
When I told him that under Title IVd of the Social Security Act the federal government reimburses the states for each child support order and since he was paying direct they don’t get any reimbursement in his case, he said, “well, that explains it.”
Excluding fathers nurturing and emotional support:
The aforementioned abandonment of parental duties by the boyfriend in the Joe story is the exception and not the rule. 80% of out of wedlock fathers are at the hospital at the time of birth and they are pressured to take responsibility for their children. Unfortunately, they are not advised that there will be no access enforcement for parenting time for them and worse, should it be established at a later date that they are NOT biologically the father they CANNOT escape the financial responsibility even if it is proven by DNA testing. The government has defined a “responsible father” as a sperm donor who pays his “child support” on time and in full.
Unequal responsibility:
Auditor White was quoted as saying, “Don’t want to care for the baby you fathered? Just walk away, we won’t criticize.” Further stating, “By teaching people they don’t have to take responsibility for their choices, and deserve to be saved from the consequences, they are training people to think of themselves as victims.” But actually we have a dual system in place where fathers are held responsible and mothers treated as helpless victims not responsible for their actions. A father who doesn’t pay child support is labelled a “deadbeat,” this in spite of the fact that multiple studies over time have shown the number one reason a father doesn’t pay is poverty, ironically impacting men of color more as they have a higher per capita poverty rate.
I’ll save my tirade against the pharmaceutical industry which holds back reversible male contraceptives so as to maximize income from female hormonal birth control methods but will point out that pregnancy prevention has been placed almost solely on women, and here women have failed greatly even with a multitude of options available to them. Sen. Boyd points out that many pregnancies, and abortions, occur in women at higher educational levels and wants to enhance pregnancy prevention education for these women. I would hope that, like the mother in Joe’s story, these women know how babies are made. Perhaps if we stopped subsidizing single mother homes and giving the states perverse incentives to make single mother homes by the federal reimbursement standards we wouldn’t have so many unwanted pregnancies?
Outdated get the deadbeat dad rhetoric:
Attorney General Lynn Fitch is vocal about tightening down on “child support” enforcement “90% of which are men” and “maximize child support” is part of the committees agenda. Right now if you are behind on child support you are turned in a a credit risk, paychecks are garnished up to 65%, checking and savings accounts and tax refunds can be seized, drivers licenses and vehicle registrations can be suspended as can fishing and hunting licenses, you can be incarcerated, and if you cross state lines in arrears (even to get a better paying job) you are a felon. Ironically, incarceration is considered “a voluntary reduction in income” and the child support owed accumulates while a man is incarcerated.
Pray tell AG Fitch, and I ask this committee also, what’s left to do? Tar and feather or some water boarding? Perhaps a reeducation forced labor camp? Prison and solitary confinement? Like in the Joe story, a father who has parenting time with his children is more apt to pay his child support on time and in full. And a child living with his biological father gets 100% of his financial support, as does the mother who lives with them. If she isn’t working and he isn’t working she gets the kid and welfare and he gets jail. Where’s the equal rights and responsibilities here?
Bias against fathers in custody awards?
I haven’t looked at Mississippi’s parenting time awards but as AG Fitch has child support at 90% of father payers I’ll note that is a reflection on the mother custody rate in MS. I see no shared parenting laws on the books and the National Parents Organization gives MS an “F” rating noting its lack of presumptive time offsets violates federal standards (link to report here, https://www.sharedparenting.org/csreportcard). I would ask this committee to look at shared parenting legislation and presumptive offsets to child support to be consistent with federal guidelines and to ensure that competent quadrennial are conducted in a timely fashion.
Maintain fathers rights pre-adoption:
The look to ease adoptions and foster care needs to be balanced by mandatory father acceptance of the adoption. No better argument for this can be had then the book “Finding Fish” or the movie of the book “Antoine Fisher.” Taken from his junkie mother Antoine is beat and sexually abused in foster care and then later in life he finds out that his father, and the fathers extended family, was living in the city he grew up in and was ready, willing, and able to take him in. Excluding fathers excludes an entire family tree. If we foster the involvement of BOTH parents then should something go wrong we have a much greater chance of extended family being available for foster care.
Perverse incentives for out of wedlock birth’s:
As currently in place the system presents perverse incentives for a woman to have multiple children with multiple fathers. Two children with one father garners 20% of adjusted gross income but if she has 2 children with different fathers then she garners 14% of the gross income from each of them. Further, she can live with a 3rd man rent free and his income or free rent is NOT used to offset the child support paid nor to reduce her welfare benefits if any. Nor is there an offset for the time that they have their children, the emphasis and definition of a “good father” is paying child support on time and in full and not on nurturing and raising your child.
I note here that “child support” is a misnomer as the system was developed to reimburse federal coffers for aid paid out to single mother homes. As such it is a per child excise tax based upon the fathers income and not on the cost of raising a child. The system was a boondoggle as it tried to get money from poor fathers who had no ability to pay so it was broadened to cover divorced fathers, most of whom were already paying on time and in full as payments were tied to access to their children. The federal system removed that, the “child support” is owed regardless if the mother withholds access and 50% of mothers ADMIT to restricting a fathers access.
“Deadbeat Dad” myth debunked in the 1990’s:
The deadbeat dad myth was debunked in the late 1990’s by Sanford Braver who reported his federally subsidized studies in his book, “Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myth’s. Although published in 1995 the book is relevant today and should be available for the committee to read and reference. It is ironic that a 25 year old book is still relevant to the issues faced and speak volumes to how misinformation has been applied to the problems faced by families.
Mississippi’s divorce, alimony, child custody, and child support laws outdated:
In NYS, as President of the Coalition of Fathers and Families NY (FaFNY) I fought Unilateral No Fault Divorce in NYS unless there was a statutory and enforceable protections for BOTH parents rights which includes the child’s RIGHT to both parents and their extended families. NYS was the last state in the nation to enact No Fault Divorce. After review of Mississippi’s divorce, child custody, and child support laws I was displeased to see that they are virtually the same as NYS, nay – worse. Shamefully, MS is in lock step with the left coast with no statutory protections for parental rights, no protections for the marital contract holding persons responsible for destroying the family, and a focus on holding men financially responsible, behind them the daddy state, for the irresponsibility of women.
Fathering Changes Men for the Good of Society:
Many young man are a bit wild and marriage itself does nothing to curtail this. It is the addition of children which refocuses men on their responsibilities to them, their wife, and further to society. This is the norm and not the exception. Chapter 8 of “Fatherneed,“ ”How Fathering Changes Men for Good” addresses this and should be mandatory reading for the committee. While you focus on “Women, Children, and Families” you forget that we are social beings each reliant on the other for our happiness. When we reduce the family into its individual organisms we remove the natural social environment and with it the meaning and purpose of life. Mothers reduced to workers focus on themselves before their children. Fathers reduced to “visitors” focus on themselves and not their child and potential spouse. Ultimately it is the child which loses.
God, work?, country. or is it God, family, country?
The focus on individuals working has long range negative impacts on society as a whole. Has any man or woman gone to their grave stating “I wish I had spent more time at work?” Does any child wish their parents spent less time with them? Are your co-workers going to give you care and comfort when you are sick? Dying? Is a thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant with a boyfriend or girlfriend du jour preferable to a trip back to grandma’s and a packed table of extended family members including grown and young children? Will the child care facility relate the family history to your child? Your Religion? Beliefs? Morals? Are the hugs to a child by a paid caregiver the same as a parent or grand parent? Will they tell humorous or sad stories about your siblings, parents, and grand parents?
Government interference in the family, STOP blaming men:
In the 1950’s the rate of father absence in black families per capita was lower than white families, this in spite of Jim Crow laws and prejudices against them. By the mid 1960s Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote the Moynihan Report (The Negro Family and the Case for National Action) as the African American household father absent rate had increased to 25% which was considered a crisis. In it he described the “Moynihan Scissors” where typically as unemployment went down filings for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) went down also. But in 1963 in the African American population unemployment went down and the filings for AFDC went UP! This was the beginning of the daddy state and the subsidized single mother homes.
From the 1960’s to today we can see the ever increasing federal government interference in the family and parental rights for BOTH parents. As the federal government has continued subsidizing single mother homes we have seen a steady increase in them corresponding to ever increasing interference. Mothers have been turned into “baby mama’s” and fathers have been turned into visitors and “father figures”. The African American single mother rate hovers near 80% of all homes and 20% of White homes, 5% of them single fathers. Clearly our laws, policies, and procedures are taking us in the wrong direction.
The Moynihan Report was widely assailed for focusing on and blaming Black men. Unfortunately the “blame men game” continued into the 1980’s and 90’s with the creation of the mythical “deadbeat dad” where it was OK to label Black Men as such as long as it also included Asian Men, Hispanic Men, and White Men. When “Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myth’s” came out it was widely ignored by policy makers, especially by unelected “experts” who doubled down on their cognitive dissonance and who continued to focus on helping “single mother” homes while the policies had the effect of removing fathers to the crisis levels we see today. The “deadbeat dad” roundups continued of blue collar men, mostly men of color, assessed at rates they could never pay while “single mother” homes were subsidized.
STOP BLAMING MEN! The number one reason a father doesn’t spend more time with his children is a limiting court order. Number two is a mother who interferes with his time with the child. In spite of these restriction fathers have continued to be there for their children and many manage to stay involved. There are a multitude of state and federal organizations working to help disenfranchised parents stay involved yet I know of NONE which advocate for the removal of mothers and sole custody to be placed with fathers. Most, Like the National Parents Organization argue for SHARED PARENTING regardless of the marital status of the parents as absent 2 live in biological parents this is the best arrangement for children.
Flaws in Title IVd – federal child support:
Title IVd of the Social Security Act provides perverse incentives to create single parent homes and is a large part of the problem. The federal government reimburses states for establishing paternity (even if incorrect), number of child support orders entered (incentive to have one non residential parent paying through the system), amount collected versus amount owed and collection of arrears (incentive to set high awards leaving the poor to fall behind and then collect the arrears), and the cost of the program (collections versus expenses). The program provides NO incentive for both parents to live together (married or not) and to share parenting with both providing financial and emotional support.
It should be noted that there is NO accountability to how the support is spent nor any accountability to allow access to the non custodial parent to spend emotional support time with the child. Based on the income shares models and not cost shares (the actual costs of raising a child in that state) it excludes the costs incurred by the non custodial parent to raise their child. As previously stated Mississippi has no set proportional offset for increased residential times with the children (contrary to federal guidelines) thus moving the responsibility for physical raising of a child to one parent and forcing the other parent in a financial provider only.
Worse, the income transfers are in post tax dollars. In other words the payer bears the tax responsibility for the receiver. A custodial mother with 2 children earning $25,000 a year gross and a non custodial father earning $50,000 a year gross can see after tax net incomes of $36,000 and $9,000 respectively. It is easy to see that poor non custodial fathers, mostly men of color, will be driven to poverty and be denied any government benefits as they are based on his pre-tax salary. Even if he does have liberal access he will be unable to be there for his children as he’ll be scrambling to earn enough to feed, house, and clothe himself, much less provide space for 1 or 2 children.
Denial of parental rights without cause:
The committees focus on the mother is contrary to the US Constitution as it denies the fathers parental rights. SCOTUS has ruled in multiple cases that parental rights are fundamental rights yet this committee would deny the fathers rights outright and without cause yet while still holding him responsible (maximize child support), responsibilities without rights, taxation without representation. I seem to recall the founding of the country was based upon similar injustices? Both parents need to be held equally responsible for a child created by their union and the child has a right to BOTH parents financial and emotional support.
Ironically, the denial of parental rights by family and/or matrimonial courts across the U.S. (Chancery Courts in MS) has emboldened the courts to interfere with all parental rights regardless of the marital status of the parents. It has served to undermine parental rights when dealing with all other parts of government. Unelected bureaucrats can insert their view of “the best interest of the child” over those of the parents which is reinforced by a judge inserting their opinion in place of the parents.
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Frederick Douglass
Focus on families:
While the committee is focusing on young families with children under age 3 we should understand that the first pregnancy is the seed which can grow a larger family. Encouraging a young couple away from marriage, cohabitating with their child, or entering into a mutually beneficial shared parenting is to force a child into a broken family. To quote David Levy, founder of the Children’s Right’s Council and author, the Best Parent is Both Parents and both parents and their extended families are the right of each and every child. The harm to children in single parent homes is widely recognized and to deny children at a minimum shared parenting is to risk their, and societies future.
2005 ACFC/FaFNY Letter to Legislators
Conclusion:
The safest place for a man, woman, and child is in an intact 2 parent (often married) home. It provides economy of scale and increased financial security while alleviating one parent to bear all the child rearing responsibilities. Absent that the best arrangement for a child is to have the active involvement of both parents, a shared parenting arrangement with income transfers kept to a minimum and correlating to the costs of raising that child.
2 biological parents living together with their child reduces the need for financial support from the government and as such this arrangement should be encouraged. Absent that the parents should negotiate a shared parenting arrangement to provide financial and emotional support for their child and each other.
In an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy BOTH parents must sign off on their parental rights before the child displaced for adoption.
Any support programs available for “single mother” homes must be made available to intact 2 parent (married or not) homes and also to BOTH parents in a shared parenting arrangement.
In closing I want to thank the committee and Chair, Sen. Nicole Boyd for allowing me to submit testimony as part of the official record. My recommendations follow in appendix A (pg. 14) and the draft Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act in appendix B (pg. 16). I remain available for clarification and discussion of any points within this testimony which I submit as an interested Mississippi citizen
APPENDIX A
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Mandatory at birth DNA testing for out of wedlock births.
Mandatory at birth DNA testing for out of wedlock births would alleviate the problems with false paternity, that is later “Jerry Springer” domestic strife should it come out at a later date whether true or not. By making it mandatory the conflict between a requesting father and mother are removed and additionally, economy of scale says the price will come down which can be born by the higher earner of the parents to be reduced by any future child support payments. Fathers can still accept paternity at the hospital and be on the birth certificate but it will not be legally binding until results are presented to the court and affirmed.
2. A mandatory rebuttable presumption of shared parenting regardless of the marital status of the parents.
A mandatory rebuttable presumption of 50-50 shared parenting does not necessarily mean that the parents will have 50-50 physical custody (although many do opt for a week to week exchange of custody). What it means is that the parent start negotiations on a parenting plan understanding if they do not work out a plan it will revert to a 50-50 split of time.
Further, child support should have a proportional offset based on the amount of time each parent has the child. This is mandated in federal guidelines on child support which Mississippi is missing in its laws. Child support payments should further take into account the actual cost of raising the child and what direct financial expenditures the parents are making towards the child.
Regardless of their marital status, reproductive status, or birth control used young people should understand that if a pregnancy occurs because of their sexual liaison then both parties will be held responsible and have to deal with each other until the child reaches majority at 18. This should cause young people to look at their partner choice and casual liaisons in a different light. It holds both equally responsible for the agreed upon act which produced the child.
Shared parenting has a further bonus in that states that enact shared parenting see a drop in the divorce rate. A parent can’t use divorce and child custody as a financial windfall, a guarantee to get the house, custody of the kids, and child support payments providing a perverse incentive to file a unilateral divorce.
3. Enact the Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act (see Appendix B)
The Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act was designed as an amendment to the US Constitution but in original form it excluded “non custodial” parents which prevented it from getting widespread support. ACFC/FaFNY presented an updated version including ALL parents. This protection of parental rights in the face of interference in parental decision making for their child in areas such as schooling and medical decisions has brought to light the erosion of all parental rights to make decisions for their child.
The Act should be codified into law at both the federal and state level and consideration should d be given to Constitutional Amendments at both the state and federal level. As written the Act does NOT interfere in states rights to manage matrimonial and child custody matters.
4. Promote marriage by reforming Mississippi’s alimony laws.
Mississippi’s alimony laws appear open ended with no clear guidelines subjecting people to the whims of the individual court they appear before. Unclear laws foster increased litigation, clogging courts and wasting family assets on legal fees. Further, it is difficult to promote marriage when there are no protections for the parties involved.
Alimony should be a temporary payment to allow a non working spouse to gain education and or training and meaningful employment. Sen. Boyd points out that many unplanned pregnancies are among college educated women. Women with a college degree earn 104% of their equals and increasingly they find themselves paying alimony as they are the monied spouse, often after an attempt to do right by marrying the father of their unplanned pregnancy which then doesn’t work out.
5. Promote birth control education for men and women equally.
Mississippi women who want an abortion will be able to travel to another state (Illinois within an 8 hour drive of most of Mississippi) regardless of the wishes of the father. Especially the college or working women who have more means. Additionally, women can, and do, lie about their reproductive status to get pregnant on purpose, again regardless of the wishes of the man. Indeed, even stolen sperm from a discarded used condom results in responsibility on the man’s part if a pregnancy occurs. Birth control education for men and women needs to be truthful and directed at both.
As the baby boomer generation of judges retire out they are bound to be replaced by younger judges without the woman as caregiver-father as financial provider mindset and are bound to move towards shared parenting arrangements regardless of legislation. Fathers Right’s groups are getting better at gaining full or partial physical custody for fathers.
Young people need to be educated on the fact that a child will result in BOTH of them being held responsible until the child reaches majority. Further, failure to come to a parenting agreement will result in them both expending resources on litigation and losing control of decision making to a Judge.
Appendix B
(Q. & A. follows text of the Act)
Parents’ Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2022
_______ CONGRESS _____ Session
To protect the fundamental right of a parent to the care and custody of a child and to direct the upbringing of a child, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 2022 A BILL
To protect the fundamental right of a parent to the care and custody of a child and to direct the upbringing of a child, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Parents’ Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2022.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) FINDINGS- Congress finds that – the Supreme Court has regarded the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children as a fundamental right implicit in the concept of ordered liberty within the 14th amendment to the Constitution, as specified in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925); the right of parents to the care and custody of their children has been recognized as “a fundamental right protected by First, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments” in Doe v. Irwin, 441 F. Supp. 1247 1251 (D. Mich. 1977), as “far more precious than property rights” and by the Supreme Court as an “essential” right that protects a substantial interest that “undeniably warrants deference, and, absent a powerful countervailing interest, protection,” in May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528, 533 (1953), Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 (1923), and Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1971), and the Supreme Court has held in Troxel v. Granville, 530 US 2000 (99-138), that “The liberty interest at issue . . . the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children – is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court. . . . [I]t cannot now be doubted that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”
(1) this right has been recognized for centuries by the common law, and by the tradition of western civilization.
(2) the role of parents in the raising and rearing of their children is of inestimable value and deserving of both praise and protection by all levels of government;
(3) the tradition of western civilization recognizes that parents have the responsibility to love, nurture, train, and protect their children;
(4) some decisions of Federal and State courts have treated the right of parents not as a fundamental right but as a non fundamental right, resulting in an improper standard of judicial review being applied to government conduct that adversely affects parental rights and prerogatives;
(5) parents face increasing intrusions into their legitimate decisions and prerogatives by government agencies in situations that do not involve traditional understandings of abuse or neglect but simply are a conflict of parenting philosophies;
(6) governments should not interfere in the decisions and actions of parents without compelling justification; and
(7) the traditional 4-step process used by courts to evaluate cases concerning the right of parents described in paragraph (1) appropriately balances the interests of parents, children, and government.
(b) PURPOSES- The purposes of this Act are–
(1) to protect the right of parents to the care and custody of their children and to direct the upbringing of their children as a fundamental right;
(2) to protect children from abuse and neglect as the terms have been traditionally defined and applied in State law, such protection being a compelling government interest;
(3) while protecting the rights of parents, to acknowledge that the rights involve responsibilities and specifically that parents have the responsibility to see that their children are educated, for the purposes of literacy and self-sufficiency, as specified by the Supreme Court in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972);
(4) to preserve the common law tradition that allows parental choices to prevail in a health care decision for a child unless, by neglect or refusal, the parental decision will result in danger to the life of the child or result in serious physical injury to the child;
(5) to fix a standard of judicial review for parental rights, leaving to the courts the application of the rights in particular cases based on the facts of the cases and law as applied to the facts; and
(6) to reestablish a 4-step process to evaluate cases concerning the right of parents described in paragraph (1) that–
(A) requires a parent to initially demonstrate that–
(i) the action in question arises from the right of the parent to direct the upbringing of a child; and
(ii) a government has interfered with or usurped the right; and
(B) shifts the burdens of production and persuasion to the government to demonstrate that–
(i) the interference or usurpation is essential to accomplish a compelling governmental interest; and
(ii) the method of intervention or usurpation used by the government is the least restrictive means of accomplishing the compelling interest.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
As used in this Act:
(1) APPROPRIATE EVIDENCE- The term `appropriate evidence’ means–
(A) for a case in which a government seeks a temporary or preliminary action or order, except a case in which the government seeks to terminate parental custody or visitation, evidence that demonstrates probable cause; and
(B) for a case in which a government seeks a final action or order, or in which the government seeks to terminate parental custody or visitation, clear and convincing evidence.
(2) CHILD- The term `child’ has the meaning provided by State law.
(3) PARENT- The term `parent’ has the meaning provided by State law.
(4) RIGHT OF A PARENT TO DIRECT THE UPBRINGING OF A CHILD-
(A) IN GENERAL- The term `right of a parent to direct the upbringing of a child’ includes, but is not limited to a right of a parent regarding–
(i) directing or providing for the education of the child;
(ii) making a health care decision for the child, except as provided in subparagraph (B);
(iii) disciplining the child, including reasonable corporal discipline, except as provided in subparagraph (C); and
(iv) directing or providing for the religious teaching of the child.
(B) NO APPLICATION TO PARENTAL DECISIONS ON HEALTH CARE- The term `right of a parent to direct the upbringing of a child’ shall not include a right of a parent to make a decision on health care for the child that, by neglect or refusal, will result in danger to the life of the child or in serious physical injury to the child.
(C) NO APPLICATION TO ABUSE AND NEGLECT- The term `right of a parent to direct the upbringing of a child’ shall not include a right of a parent to act or refrain from acting in a manner that constitutes abuse or neglect of a child, as the terms have traditionally been defined and applied in State criminal law.
SEC. 4. PROHIBITION ON INTERFERING WITH OR USURPING RIGHTS OF PARENTS.
No Federal, State, or local government, or any official of such a government acting under color of law, or any other party, shall interfere with or usurp the right of a parent to the care and custody of the child of the parent or to direct the upbringing of the child of the parent, unless that parent has been duly convicted of the abuse or neglect of that child as defined and applied in State criminal law; or that parent has been duly found to have abrogated or violated the marital contract with the other parent of that child as defined and applied in State law.
SEC. 5. STRICT SCRUTINY.
No exception to section 4 shall be permitted, unless the government or official is able to demonstrate, by appropriate evidence, that the interference or usurpation is essential to accomplish a compelling governmental interest and is narrowly drawn or applied in a manner that is the least restrictive means of accomplishing the compelling interest.
SEC. 6. CLAIM OR DEFENSE.
Any parent may raise a violation of this Act in an action in a Federal or State court, or before an administrative tribunal, of appropriate jurisdiction as a claim or a defense.
SEC. 7. ATTORNEY’S FEES.
Subsections (b) and (c) of section 722 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 1988 (b) and (c)) (concerning the award of attorney’s and expert fees) shall apply to cases brought or defended under this Act. A person who uses this Act to defend against a suit by a government described in section 4 shall be construed to be the plaintiff for the purposes of the application of such subsections.
PRRA Q. & A.
What is the PRRA?
The Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act declares that parents’ rights to direct the upbringing of their children are fundamental rights which the government can curtail only under conditions of “compelling interest” and with strict scrutiny. It stipulates that “No federal, state, or local government, or any official of such government acting under color of law, shall interfere with or usurp the right of a parent to direct the upbringing of the child of the parent.”
What would be the effect of this bill?
This law has more potential to halt the destruction of the family than any measure that government is now undertaking or can possibly undertake and to do so safely, with minimum government interference, because it guarantees the most essential foundation of the family: the parent-child bond. It is fully compatible with other measures now being proposed to strengthen the family, but it will have far greater efficacy. It will do more to hold marriages together than expensive and questionable marriage psychotherapy programs proposed by the Bush administration. It will do more to promote and restore fatherhood than the similarly questionable fatherhood programs of the Clinton administration. It will do more to strengthen family integrity than futile attempts to censor the media. It will have more efficacy than programs that nag at people to get married or stay married. It will do more to reduce divorce than rolling back no-fault laws, and it may even do more to ensure that children have two parents than shared parenting laws (both of which can be circumvented by judges). Yet it is consistent with all these measures, which can still be pursued at the state or federal levels.
Would this act federalize family law?
No. States could still enact any laws they wish on marriage, divorce, and custody, and state courts would remain the venues for handling these matters. But they would have to respect the parent-child bond and could not disrupt it without compelling cause, and the federal judiciary would be explicitly required to guarantee that bond.
Would this bill create new rights or a new protected class of “victims”?
No. It would simply codify rights that have been recognized in Anglophone countries for centuries.
What is the origin of the PRRA?
The original PRRA was introduced in 1995 to protect home-schoolers and other intact families from school authorities and other government officials who might usurp their right to raise their children as they see fit. But the original bill had a major weakness: It exempted from its protection parents who lose their children through involuntary divorce (or false allegations of child or domestic abuse). In other words, the proposed law stipulated that the government could not interfere with or separate children from a parent unless the other parent requested it by filing for divorce, in which case the government could seize control of the children with no further explanation. By specifically exempting divorce, the proposed law could even have been interpreted as endorsing government-enforced separation of children from parents. We propose to close this loophole (Section 7 of the original bill), so that the act does protect parents and children of divorce.
Perhaps most important, it will accomplish all this not by involving government in the family but by keeping government out of the family.
It may not solve every family problem — that is for families to do themselves — but it will get the government out of the family so they can do so. Government’s role will be limited to the negative one of guaranteeing and protecting family integrity against external violation by anyone, including itself.
Why should it be enacted when it failed before?
The original bill had support among professional pro-family groups: home-schoolers, family advocates, social conservatives, the religious right, and some libertarians. But a huge constituency of parents themselves, who could have been mobilized to support this bill (viz., non-custodial parents and victims of child abuse laws), was specifically excluded from its protections. The 1995 bill was defeated not only by special interest lobbying (primarily by teachers’ unions), but also by a lack of enthusiastic public support.
Closing the loophole and including non-custodial parents would create a broad-based coalition, uniting the original bill’s advocates with a much larger constituency of parents themselves, who have watched their authority over their children be not simply eroded by the culture but, more seriously, usurped by the government.
Non-custodial parents, couples who lose their children through spurious child abuse accusations, parents who have their children improperly adopted against their wishes, and others would have a clear stake in this bill. It would also give the pro-family groups a proactive agenda and place them on the moral high ground as the as the defenders of individual and family rights.
It would also put fathers’ groups in alliance with mainstream political groups. We would be the vanguard of a parents’ revolt: Not because we are another groups speaking for parents. Because we are parents.
Wouldn’t it provoke massive opposition, just like the first time?
Yes, perhaps even more. Not only the teachers’ unions but probably social workers’ and other white-collar unions would mobilize against it, and of course feminists. (On the other hand, blue-collar unions might well sympathize with us.) But in a sense the whole point is to provoke controversy and create a long overdue national dialogue on the family. After decades of fatherless children, divorce-on-demand, and government impotence in the face of myriad social problems stemming from these ills, the country is ripe for it.
Family issues are now on the front pages every day. Even childless people are fed up with the destruction of the family and its huge social and economic costs to us all. But many are uncertain what can be done about it, and little clear leadership is being provided with this. Government marriage counseling and fatherhood programs promise solutions but are hopelessly vague about what precisely they can do. Attacks on pornography and abortion and public schools do not readily translate into clear prescriptions for saving the family. The country and the world are demanding leadership to rescue the family.
A clear and straightforward statement unequivocally defending the family as the guardian of a private sphere of life and asserting the rights of parents to be left in peace with their children constitutes a principle that would be virtually impossible to oppose. Defenders of the family would take the moral high ground and challenge opponents to explain why they oppose such an obviously just, sensible, and universally recognized principle as the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit and the rights of children not to be torn from the arms of loving parents.
We must not shrink from this challenge. In a sense, the battle could be almost as important as the bill. Congress could pass this bill as a resolution tomorrow, and it would sit ignored alongside the case law. By provoking a national dialogue over the family and mobilizing a grassroots constituency, we would build the structures and watch-dog institutions to monitor the judiciary and bureaucracy and foster a political culture that values parents generally, fathers in particular, families and households as zones free from government intrusion, and children as something other than weapons and tools and justifications for expanding government power.
This unconstitutional denial of due process requires men to be responsible for children based solely upon the word of the mother with no opportunity to settle the matter through testing and/or DNA testing. The full text of the legislation and activity on it can be found at this link. The Mens Action Network urges all men, and all persons interested in truth and due process and the rights of children to contact their Senators and others in opposition to this proposed legislation. In addition to contacting the Sponsor and Co-sponsors also contact the Committee on Finance Members (especially if it is your Senator) and the Senators from your state. Information on finding your U.S. Senator, Leadership, Committees and members, including how to information click this link.
Simply copy from “The Mens Action Network is OPPOSED” (substituting “I am” or your organization name as appropriate), click on the link provided, fill out the form and paste this into the narrative section. Feel free to modify it to meet your views and/or those of your organization. Given this is an election season and both parties are vying for control of the Senate you stand a better chance of your views being paid attention to.
The Mens Action Network is OPPOSED to S-4512 the Unborn Child Support Act and we submit this memo in opposition to be included as part of the official record.
As a knee jerk reaction to the recent SCOTUS decision on Roe and many red states restricting or eliminating abortion Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and some Senate Republicans have introduced the Unborn Child Support Act. And just as “Child Support” is government double speak for an arbitrary child excise tax placed upon fathers who have been forced out of their child’s life by government laws and policies, so too is the “Unborn Child Support Act.” The bill would allow a “pregnant parent” (so called in the bills summary) to have the state enforce child support obligations of the biological father of an unborn child to the mother with the amount “determined by the court, with consultation of the mother” and providing further that “any measure to establish paternity of a child (born or unborn) shall not be required without the consent of the mother.”
The latter part is so egregious that the bill should be called the Denial of Due Process while Supporting False Paternity Act. Further, the bill doesn’t set any guidelines on the amount of “child support” and, just as we have seen with child support standards act add ons and imputed income, we can expect many Judges to award amounts which will render the man impoverished and unable to pay resulting in draconian measures being used to collect the debt, up to and including incarceration. And just as in Child Support the amount has no basis on the needs of the child and if the mother is receiving ANY welfare benefits the amount paid is returned to federal coffers providing no benefit to children.
An unintended consequence of the bill will be that women will be able to file for “child support” for children they can subsequently abort, as always this regardless if the father wishes to raise the child. And while many red states have limited or abolished abortion the “child support” ordered will offset costs of travel, etc. to a state that allows abortion. And to maximize the amount she will receive the “pregnant parent” has incentives to extend the pregnancy as long as she can, choosing a state which allows abortions in the third trimester and scheduling it just before the birth of the child. Ironically, this bill by Senate Republican’s will undermine red states which have restricted abortion and provide perverse incentives in blue states to delay abortions to the last legal minute.
Paternity Fraud and False Paternity: Paternity fraud is where a woman knows she has had relations with more than one man yet intends to label another the father suspecting he is not the biological father. This often, but not exclusively, occurs in marriage. False paternity is when a woman has relations with more than one man but thinks he may be the father and the man accepts paternal responsibility, most often occurring in out-of-wedlock cases. 80% of out-of-wedlock fathers are at the hospital at the time of the birth of their child and many sign on the birth certificate as the father, most unknowing that paternity testing at a later date will not alleviate them from the financial responsibility.
Unscrupulous women will name a man with financial means as the father and many men have paternity testing done before they accept responsibility for a child which may not be theirs. This bill would negate the ability to establish paternity above the statements of the mother as any measure to establish paternity of a child (born or unborn) shall not be required without the consent of the mother ( bold and italics added). Reasonable estimates at the false paternity rate in out-of-wedlock cases are as high as 10% and given the perverse incentives here we expect that to increase as unscrupulous women name the highest earning male she knows as the father as he will have no means to establish actual paternity. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg better get ready for the onslaught of filings which they will not be able to disprove due to the law.
Mommy’s baby is Daddy’s maybe. Currently the law does NOT allow a man to escape his financial responsibility when he is the victim of paternity fraud or false paternity. To stop false paternity we should have mandatory at birth DNA testing. A CHILD has a right to know who their biological father is. Further, any man who finds he is NOT the biological father of a child which he has been acting as a father should be relieved of any and all forced financial responsibility while at the same time, at the courts discretion, retaining his rights to access and parent the child.
The “Child Support” Standards Act, when enacted, was designed not to provide financially for children but to return to federal coffers from fathers money that was given to mothers in federal aid (Welfare, AFCD, Food Stamps, etc.). Based on a percentage of income per child it is an excise tax and has no bearing on the money needed to raise a child. In cases where the money doesn’t go to the government, it again has no bearing on the needs of the child but is an income transfer from fathers to mothers, with no accountability on how it is spent, and with the fathers bearing the weight of the taxes. As such it is a financial windfall for the mother, see ‘Child Excise Tax Freedom Day for “Non Custodial” Parents’, and often poverty for the father.
The number one reason a disenfranchised father doesn’t pay child support is poverty.
The anti-father, anti-male, gynocentric perspective is evident in the bill when it states it is, “taking into account the best interest of the mother and child” ignoring the needs of the father entirely and also the fact that BOTH parents have equal rights and RESPONSIBILITIES for their child. It is in the child’s best interest to live in a household with BOTH of their biological parents providing for their financial and emotional needs and contrary to working towards this end the bill will further drive fathers from their families and children, deny due process, and encourage fraud in establishing paternity.
The current administration is promoting the complete replacement of a husband and father with daddy state subsidies to single mother homes. For those of us advocating for the Father/Men’s/Parents Rights this attack on the family is no surprise for we have seen the steady destruction of individual and parental rights under the guise of “protecting” women and children and fighting the “war on poverty”. Indeed, one can put the 1960’s federal government war on poverty and subsequent programs on a chart showing increased “family” programs and it corresponds with the increases of single parent homes. Following the trend, this next round of government programs should get us near to no nuclear families by 2040.
As part of its Build Back Better plan the current administration promotes the fairy tale “The Life of Linda” (https://www.whitehouse.gov/build-back-better/) showing a single mother, Linda, and her son Leo from his birth to her end on earth subsidized by funds from the daddy state. Missing from this once upon a time is the husband/father and any male influence in their lives as the story paints a fantasy world of happiness for her and her son from her pregnancy to her need for elder care, overseen by Leo, or course. It is obvious government propaganda on a par with Stalin’s completely made up Pavlik Morozov (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov) which duped a generation into support of a communist police state in the Soviet Union.
Presented in 7 panels in comic fashion we are introduced to Linda who’s pregnant and working in a factory. In panel 2 Linda is seen grocery shopping with her toddler son Leo, subsidized with $300 a month for essentials. #3 Leo is happy in day care, subsidized by the government capped at 7% of her income. #4 a happy Leo enterers a “high quality” Pre-K program for “free” at 3 years old. Next we fast forward to Leo graduating high school and entering community college subsidized by extended Pell Grants. Panel 6 has Leo getting a good paying, union job. And lastly we find an old Linda, arm in arm with Leo as she spends her last years taken care of by government which is paying for her elder care.
Cradle to grave government happiness
The true story of the life of Linda is more like this. Linda meets Lenny and they date. Linda wants a child but not a husband so Linda lies about her reproductive status. Once pregnant Linda breaks it off with Lenny without his knowing of the pregnancy. At birth Lenny learns he has a son and files for paternity and DNA shows him to be the father, using all of his savings to pay for an attorney. It is then that Lenny gets hit with a child support order and is assessed at 17% of his $60,000 income is to be paid to the Child Support Unit. He also learns that the child support is after taxes so he is assessed 22% federal and 5% state income tax. This has reduced Lenny to $710 a week.
Both Lenny and Linda have health insurance through work but it is Lenny who is ordered to maintain a family plan to cover Leo which is $85 a week for the family plan as opposed to $20 a week for the single plan. After Social Security, union dues, and other mandatory deductions Lenny’s is reduced to $600 a week take home pay. Lenny also has to file as single for tax purposes while Linda gets to file as head of household thus reducing her income for tax purposes. As Lenny’s income is higher than Linda’s he has to pay 60% of all out of pocket expenses such as child care and co-pays and Linda pays 40%.
Linda’s after tax weekly take home after mandatory deductions is $675 a week as her tax is reduced by her head of household, standard deductions, and child tax credits. On top of this she gets $196 a week tax free in child support giving her $871 a week in income. Lenny has filed for visitation and he is allowed to visit every other weekend and every Wednesday for 4 hours. To maintain his visitation Lenny needs a two bedroom apartment so his son Leo has a bedroom of his own on the 4 days a month he is sleeping over with his dad. Even though Lenny’s mother is available for child care and wants to spend time with her grandson, Linda chooses to put him in day care at $270 a week, and Lenny has to pay $180 of that but Linda’s child care is capped at $1880 (7% of her income), a cap which doesn’t apply to Lenny. Together with co-pays for doctors and such, Lenny’s weekly income drops to $510, 2/3 of which is used to pay rent on a 2 bedroom apartment (about $1800 a month).
Linda gets a new boyfriend and he owns his own house and she stays with him rent free. Unfortunately the rent or other financial benefits she receives from him don’t affect what Lenny has to pay her in child support nor does it count against the government benefits and tax breaks she receives. The house is two counties removed and Lenny has to spend extra time and money traveling farther to pick up Leo. At 3 Leo is placed into pre-K and Lenny doesn’t like the facility they chose as what they teach are counter to his beliefs. He finds out there is nothing he can do about it as he is a “non custodial” parent.
Leo was smart and good in math but with limited father involvement he started to use alcohol and drugs. When Lenny tried to intervene Leo just pulled away and would skip his visitation time with his father. Lenny thought with supervision Leo could work hard and earn grades to get him into a 4 year college and earn an engineering degree. But Linda didn’t want to pay the 40% she would be assessed to send him to college and encouraged him to go to the free community college which Leo did. So instead of earning $150,000 a year as an engineers Leo earned $60,000 a year as a technician.
Working until she was 62, in retirement Linda could only afford a one bedroom apartment on her retirement and social security, the boyfriend long gone from her life. She has a nice photo of her and Leo from the last time he visited 2 month’s ago, luckily she gets elder care in her home. It’s not the quality care one gets from a caring relative, but it’s enough to keep her out of the nursing home. Leo has 2 children with 2 different women, both of whom moved away from where he works. He is assessed 17% for each kid, 34% of his gross pay before taxes. Both his “baby-momma’s” are on welfare so what he pays in child support goes back into federal coffers to offset the costs paid to the mothers. He lives in a one bedroom apartment in the bad part of town as that’s all he can afford. He still drinks and uses drugs to escape his reality. He’s “to busy” to visit his mother working extra to try to keep ahead of the bills, besides, she has people who from the government who take care of her. Linda has a photo of each kid as a baby and she hasn’t seen either in over 2 years. She sits alone, counting the days.
Lenny paid his child support for 18 years and became estranged when Leo pulled away as he started the partying, drug lifestyle. Lenny warned him about gold diggers looking to get pregnant by him as he had a good job. Leo didn’t listen and blames his problems on his father “for not being there,” even though it wasn’t the fathers choice. Lenny had lived on so little for so long when he finally didn’t have to pay through the nose he started saving and investing. He built up a nice little nest egg, including long term care insurance so he wouldn’t be stuck in a state nursing home when he’s very old and feeble. He sees both his grand kids when he wants as he can afford to travel to them and free babysitting for the weekend and a gift certificate to the spa to mama is enough to get him a weekend. His last girlfriend gave him the marry me or I leave speech. He has a new girlfriend.
Unfortunately the real world outcomes for boys of single mothers is far from the happy idealist scenario presented by the government. By choosing a state subsidized single mother lifestyle the Linda’s of the world are setting themselves and their sons up for negative consequences from increased domestic and child abuse to possible gang participation, drug and alcohol use, and poverty. While negative or positive outcomes are not guaranteed, the statistics are clear that a child raised in a 2 biological parent household have a much greater chance at a successful and happy life. Single mother homes are the bulk of families living in poverty and no person ever got out of poverty by living off of government programs. Some may seem to do better financially up front with government subsidies, but the back end financial and social costs for all are steep.
Being a beat dead, disenfranchised father for 25 years one would think that I would have hardened and gotten used to the anti male posts, articles, and comments about fathers on Father’s Day. But I haven’t, the negativity and chastisements telling fathers how they are supposed to be and blaming fathers for being absent still pisses me off to no end. I suspect it is from the idiocy and propaganda that family break down is the fault of men and not government policies, laws, rules, and regulation which is the cause. Blame which flies in the face of reality.
The most recent installment of idiocy is the Administration for Children and Families “Dadication” campaign (https://fatherhood.gov/dadication) directed at fathers through its fatherhood.gov web site. Of course government needs to push the “responsible fatherhood” agenda as cover for the fact that the disenfranchisement of fathers and the destruction of families is the result of their own programs. In response to a 20% out of wedlock birth rate in the African American community in the 1960’s the Moynihan Report came out (the Johnson Administration) and received immediate backlash for blaming black men.
Johnson’s war on poverty and the developing nanny/daddy state began subsidizing single mother homes. As these federal programs increased (Nixon, Ford, and Carter Administrations) so too did the problem of single mother homes. Adding to the out of wedlock fatherless homes was an increasing divorce rate which was made easier by “no fault” divorce laws. Even though more woman initiated divorce then men the stereotype was the philandering husband abandoning his family for the younger trophy wife. Men were blamed for “abandoning” their children regardless of circumstances.
Many people are unaware that the advocacy for men’s rights and fathers rights goes back to the 1970’s. Groups like the Men’s Defense Association published “The Liberator” newspaper advocating for equality for men in divorce and with child custody. The National Coalition of Free Men, renamed the National Coalition For Men at NCFM.org, was formed in 1977 and is still in existence today. (Full disclosure, I was a member of MDA and am a life member of NCFM). Sadly, blaming men for social ills continued with liberals looking at men as oppressors, “the patriarchy”, and conservatives looking at them a “deadbeats” not living up to their responsibilities.
It was under the Reagan administration the blaming men rose to new heights. A PBS special highlighted a black man who bragged of having 9 children with 9 different mothers and this was used to argue for a Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement to set standards for financial responsibility for fathers. “Deadbeat dads” were to be held responsible to pay back into federal coffers money expended to pay for his children. Title IVd of the Social Security Act was amended to award states money to hold these deadbeats responsible and a massive federal and state bureaucracy was born.
Of course the gynocentric hypocrisy was ignored. The fact that there was 9 tawdry mothers who had children out of wedlock with the same man was overlooked as was the fact that women choose to have out of wedlock children, not men who have no say in a woman’s pregnancy or abortion. Child support payments were now separated from father access to his children, no kids no check used to be the rule. Combined with no fault divorce, a man could be divorced from his children against his will and responsible fatherhood was redefined by government and media as did you pay your child support on time and in full.
Dr. Warren Farrell wrote “the Myth of Male Power” in the 1990’s pointing to the gynocentric hypocrisies. Sanford Braver conducted federally funded research in the 1990’s which he published in “Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myth’s” where he debunked the myth of the deadbeat dad. Unfortunately truth was countered by a biased media (see Bernard Goldberg’s book “Bias”) and now a large state and federal bureaucracy funded to take money from fathers and transfer it to federal coffers or direct to mothers.
I (with others) formed the Coalition of Fathers and Families Inc. and the NY Men’s Action Network PAC in the 1990’s and like others hoped the new technologies of email, internet, and web sites would help dispel the myth’s of the deadbeat dad and other negative stereotypes of men but unfortunately well funded government agencies and well funded by government non profits use these same tools to better advantage. Misinformed chivalry meets biased gynocentrism supported by propaganda from government and organizations making a living “fixing” the problem. There is no better example then the “Dadication” Campaign, unfortunately which is but one of many.
I was lifted today when I read an op-Ed in the Epoch Times, “On Fatherhood” by Paul Adams (https://www.theepochtimes.com/on-fatherhood_3863038.html). In it he points out the difference in treatment of mothers on Mother’s Day and fathers on Father’s Day with mothers receiving praise and fathers being admonished. We are making some progress. Unfortunately right along side of it is an article about fathers manning up in a feminized world. On the former article I commented on items which needed to be fixed, on the latter I commented on the mistake of blaming men (which pulled me from other chores to write this blog).
We are now entering the 6th decade of government nanny and daddy state regulation of the family. Each succeeding generation we have seen an increase in fatherless households to now 40% of families in America, 75% in the African American community. We continue to blame men, now “soy boys”, “cellar dwellers” or “gang bangers” for being raised absent their father and admonish them to act different while the new “woke” generation blames everything on men (ignoring how good most of us have it in America).
Government regulation of fathers and families has made marriage a hostile environment for men and we wonder why nobody wants to get married and women lament the “lack of marriageable men”. Child support has gotten so draconian that having a child, in or out of marriage, is a hostile environment for men and we wonder why the birth rate has dropped below 2 children per woman, not large enough to sustain our population. We raise children without their biological father then we wonder why they suffer greater anti-social behaviors. As long as we continue to blame men, give women a pass for not being responsible, and ignore the problems of government regulation of the family, we are not going to see any change for the better.
Not a day goes by where we don’t see a person on TV talking about the problems of father absence and out of wedlock births. Do a search for “Responsible Father” and up pops web sites and government programs directed at men and talking about their responsibility to their children. As a 25 year father rights activist I am well aware of these programs having attended state and national seminars put on by government promoting responsible fathers all aimed at fixing fathers. Unfortunately they are all the same and doomed to failure for they fail to properly identify the problem and keep blaming men and ignoring the federal government and states as the culpable parties.
The 1935 Social Security Act (SSA) included federal dollars for Aid to Dependent Children. At that time most black mothers worked so the program was aimed primarily at white mothers with a deceased, absent, or unable to work husband. In the early 1960s civil rights activists and welfare reform activists worked to eliminate biases within the system and black mother participation increased. Fearing the program would reduce marriages the name was changed to Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1962. In 1964 President Johnson began his war on poverty campaign which added food stamps and medicaid for poor people. Thus the role of father as financial provider was usurped.
In 1967 the federal government required states to establish paternity and also to extend benefits of unemployed male parents. In 1968 the Supreme Court ruled that the AFDC benefits could not be reduced for a man in the house if they were not deemed to be an “actual or substitute parent.” In 1981 the Supreme Court ruled that a step-fathers income be considered. Thus providing a financial incentive to mothers to not live with their children’s father and to not marry any future significant others.
In 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan saw that there was a crisis in African American families as 23.6% of births were to unmarried mothers. He also noted that historically the rate of increase or decline in African American male unemployment paralleled the rate of AFCD cases but in 1962 the lines crossed with AFDC cases going up as unemployment claims went down. He warned against Defining Deviancy Down as single mother houses were becoming socially acceptable. When he published his findings in “The Negro Family: the Case for National Action” he received criticism from civil rights leaders for labelling blacks. The report was not put into policy by Johnson due to this.
In 1960 the birth control pill was approved for use in the United States giving women reproductive choice. In 1970 abortion was legalized. Men have no similar effective temporary birth control method nor means to “abort” an unwanted pregnancy. If a woman has an unwanted pregnancy she can terminate the pregnancy regardless of the wishes of the man. If a woman decides to carry the pregnancy to term, even if she lied to the man about her reproductive status, and even if he doesn’t want to be a father, she can establish him as the father and he will be held financially responsible for the child.
The Feminist movement began in the 1960s and originally touted itself as an equal rights movement but the radical feminist movement split off from that blaming “patriarchal white men” for “oppression” of women. It portrayed the view that men were abusers of women and children. The theme of the feminist was women don’t need men. Labor participation increased for women throughout the 60’s with 1963s Equal Pay Act and 1965s establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act and prohibitions on sex discrimination in employment. While originally about choice, the movement looks down and denigrates women who choose a traditional nuclear family over a career, encouraging young girls to forego the former and choose the latter as the social norm.
Historically the person wanting out of a marriage or who committed adultery lost custody of the children. In the late 1800s the courts increasingly relied on the Tender Years Doctrine holding that young children be placed with the mother and older children with the father. In 1970 California passed the first “no fault” divorce law and this trended across the land. In reality all one needed to do to escape a marriage was to file for legal separation in family court, live apart for a year, then file for divorce under the abandonment statutes. New York was the last state to enact no fault divorce in 2010. Child custody changed in the 1970s abandoning the Tender Years Doctrine in favor of The Best Interests of the Child standard. Thus decision making on custody was placed at the courts discretion. Even with this standard the mother custody rate after divorce was well over 85% due to judicial bias against men. Divorce rates jumped to about 50% of all marriages.
The combination of subsidized single mother homes and easy divorces saw divorces and father absent homes rise as did AFDC claims. In 1988 President Reagan signed the Family Support Act establishing a federal Office of Child Support Enforcement thus removing states rights in this area. He ordered the states to have support guidelines in effect but left the states only one year to establish them. Each State was to also establish an Office of Child Support Enforcement. While labelled as “child support” the massive bureaucratic program was designed to establish paternity of children receiving AFDC and hold the father financially responsible and return the money to federal coffers. And thus the “Deadbeat Dad” was created.
Lacking time to establish reasonable child support guidelines the states just enacted the example guidelines provided by the federal government, an income shares model which taxed the “non custodial parent” (most often the father) 17% of his income for one child and 25% for two (with some variation in states). The assessment is pre tax dollars so the payer is responsible for the income tax in addition to the income transfer and one child is 35% and two 48% of gross income. In later years draconian collection methods were implemented, including incarceration. Fathers making close to 3 figure salaries can usually make the payments and still get by but a father making under $60,000 is reduced to living below poverty levels. Studies have shown that the vast majority of “deadbeats” are really dead broke, inability to pay the number one reason for default. Incarceration disproportionately affects poor fathers who tend towards young fathers and fathers of color.
In the 1990s Sanford Braver conducted the only federal research on child support and the family and he published his findings in “Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myth’s.” This, and subsequent private studies, have shown that about 80% of divorces are filed by women with the number one reason being “we grew apart”. The divorce rate peaked at about 50% of all marriages and has been declining as the marriage rate is rapidly declining. After divorce mothers obtain about 50% of the marital assets, usually more, and gain custody of children in about 85% cases. Worse, there are virtually no access enforcement avenues for a non custodial parent denied access by the custodial parent, and 50% of women admitted to having interfered with a fathers access to his children.
In out-of-wedlock births the support guidelines provide a perverse incentive for women to have multiple children with multiple fathers as two 17% payers (34%) is higher than one father paying for two (25%). Poor young men have no disincentive to having out-of-wedlock children as they have no income to be taxed. And those with out-of-wedlock children are incentivized to work off the books, crime and drug distribution two good off the books income earners. Access to their children can be had by providing direct financial support to the mother in exchange for access. And we are now in the third and forth generations of children raised in single mother homes, thus establishing it as the societal norm for 1/2 the population.
As government “helped” the family these past 6 decades we saw marriage decline, divorce and out -of-wedlock births increase and now 40% of children live absent their father, close to 75% of African American fathers. I think it’s plain to see, it isn’t fathers that need to be taught responsibility.
James Hays, Lt. (Ret) NY En-Con Police, past President of the Coalition of Fathers and Families NY, Inc. (FaFNY) and past Director of the NY Men’s Action Network (NYMAN).
Organizational infighting, no organizational cooperation towards a specific goal, and a lack of individual support are killing the men’s rights/fathers rights/parental rights movement. Now that I have 25 years of activism under my belt with a multitude of organizations (many of which have come and gone) I can offer up my personal experience as an example of individuals not supporting the cause and worse, individuals undermining the cause.
It’s 1995 and I got whacked with the standard triple order, a “Temporary Order of Protection (TOP) restricting access to my children, a “Temporary” Custody Order for my (soon to be) ex wife, and the “Temporary” Child Support Order. Sound familiar? This when the internet hadn’t yet been invented and email was a new thing which most didn’t have. I found a newspaper notice of a meeting for the “Fathers Rights Association NYS” (FRANYS) and attended my first meeting of the local Capital District chapter (FRA-CD).
The first meeting was attended by the President of the local chapter and me. That’s it. I did get a load of good information from him to help me individually as a pro se litigant. Subsequent meetings would have at most 3 or 4 people and for the most part consisted of people relaying their personal injustices suffered, each story worse than the one before. The statewide meeting was to be in our area in a couple of month’s and I attended that, about 10 people at that one. I sat down and when attendance was taken of the chapter delegates voting on the state board there was none from my chapter so I was sat as the voting member. I’m 4 months into the process and sitting on a policy board.
The organization, a 501c3 non profit, lacked any consistent lobbying of government for change and had NO political action committee or lobbyist. The monthly meetings consisted of people looking for help on their individual cases and upon hearing the system was so bad that they would end up with the “Standard NY Order” of every other weekend visits which weren’t enforced and payment of excessive child support which would leave them personally at the poverty level most attended 2 or 3 meetings and never joined to organization as a member. But every month a group of new initiates to injustice would show up looking for help.
The organization held a lobby day at the NYS Legislature each spring and I attended my first in 1996. Attendance was less than 50 people, this in a state with a population of about 20 million where it is estimated there were 2.5 million plus non custodial parents. It was disorganized with few meetings between organization leaders and the leaders of the legislature and important committees. Many attendees showed up in shorts and t-shirts and it was not uncommon for a meeting with a legislator to turn into an insult fest with legislators shouted at for what they haven’t done to help out. Once the event was over there was no lobbying presence and outside of this legislative activity there was no interaction with state agencies or the executive and judicial branches of government.
After 3 years of litigation I lost my kids to alienation in 1999. Instead of dealing with individual injustices I decided to get involved to change things for the better for everybody. I was elected President of FRA-CD and also made the Chair of the Legislative Committee with FRANYS. I had weekly meetings with legislative leaders and began lobbying the Governors Office and the Office of Court Administration which oversees NYS Courts. I was joined by FRA-CD members Debby Fellows and Randall L. Dickinson and we 3 became the principle advocates and lobbyists in NYS.
In 2001 we lobbied the NYS Senate Leader for money for a fatherhood center and were to receive a grant of $25,000 the first year. But some in the state leadership feared that FRA-CD, the largest chapter of 6, would break from it so they “decertified” the FRA-CD leadership. They then filed felony theft charges against me for paying the chapters outstanding bills “without authorization”. The frivolous charges were dismissed at grand jury, but not without 6 month’s under the color of charges which resulted in the Senate pulling support for the Fatherhood Center.
The removal of FRD-CD did result in the chapter going independent and the Coalition of Fathers and Families NY, Inc. (FaFNY) was formed as a statewide membership organization from the leaders of the FRA-CD Chapter. FRANYS and its chapters ceased activity except for local in person meetings and folded all together a few years later. We chose to call ourselves a coalition as our focus was going to be on educating and lobbying NYS Government in all branches and at all levels and in doing so would bring together the various organizations in NYS to work on goals and objectives such as shared parenting and court reform.
We held a statewide lobby day in April of every year to bring in the groups to lobby for our legislation. In addition we held weekly meetings with legislators, staff, the Governors Office and NYS Court Administration. I delivered flyers and handouts to the entire legislature EVERY week, walking the floors and delivering them personally. We wrote op-ed articles and appeared on TV and Radio. But to maintain this level of work we were expending 30-40 hours a week, this on top of our full time jobs. Maintaining membership lists got to be an administrative burden and we changed to a Board run organization which freed up more time to lobby. We affiliated nationally with the American Coalition of Fathers and Children (ACFC). We held many successful protests with media coverage and were successful in changing many policies and rules for the better and we blocked a lot of anti-father legislation.
In 2006 we started a push to get shared parenting enacted. The powers opposed managed to hold the bill in the Children and Families Committee of the Assembly and we focused our attention there. Through affiliation with ACFC we used Glenn Sacks “His side” computer-fax and developed a “Thumbs Up!” campaign to bombard members of the committee daily and continually to bring the bill up for a vote this in addition to collecting signatures across the state. Month’s of work culminated in a scheduled vote but opposition by Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver resulted in him horse trading favors for no votes and a slim majority of both parties together held the bill, in effect killing it that year.
I think my experience supports my position of a lack of support and organizational cooperation. I don’t want to sound all gloom and doom though. Given that organizations are staffed almost 100% by unpaid volunteers and we represent a group of people who have been financially wiped out, and usually remain so for many years, the advocacy organizations have made great headway. In 1995 you would have been given every other weekend Friday at 5 to Sunday at 6 and one mid week 4 hour visit with NO enforcement for interfering with that little time and it was unheard of for a father to actually get custody. Child Support Enforcement and courts treated you like the enemy, now not so much. So things have improved, but there’s much more to do.
Just as emails and internet changed our organization from meeting in a physical location once a month, social media and high speed internet are changing the way groups “meet” and discuss things. Information which took us month’s to find or distribute now can be disbursed in minutes with the worlds information available immediately on your smart phone. That said, it is a bit shameful that in this day and age of instant communication we have no organizational cooperation towards a specific goal, no individual participation in action items like contacting legislators, and legislation like shared parenting which has about 85% support of the population sits idle with no organizational or grass roots advocacy.
If you agree the system needs changing the person to do that is you and the time to do it is now.
While directed to NYS the following letter can be used as a template in other states with minor modifications.
Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks, NYS Unified Court System 25 Beaver St. New York, NY 10004
Commissioner Michael P. Hein, Office of Temporary Disability Assistance 40 N. Pearl St. Albany, NY 12243
Commissioner Scott Lekan, ACF, Office of Child Support Enforcement 330 C Street, S.W. Washington, DC 20201
Dear Sirs;
I am writing on behalf of the New York State child support payers for information and with suggestions to help in these trying times. With 10 million jobless claims in the past 2 weeks alone it is apparent that the system is going to see massive filings to reduce payments due to loss of income through no fault of the payers. I am asking what measures are being put into place to ensure that everyone get due process and no one falls through the cracks and is penalized by the system?
I am unsure if relief payments will be seized in the Federal and State Tax Offset Programs for payers in arrears and look for clarification of this fact. Also, how is the per child payment to families to be calculated, to those that get the child deduction on the 2018 tax filing? Or “custodial” and “non custodial” status on custody agreements? If circumstances changed after the 2018 tax year how would parents ensure the child relief payment gets distributed correctly?
I see NYC Family Court allows virtual courts, is this being expanded outside of NYC due to the current travel restrictions? And to prevent persons from having to travel unnecessarily, what measures are being put into place to allow filing of documents by electronic means such as email or web page platforms with fill in the blank forms? Are filing rules being loosened to allow electronic filings in place of time stamped documents?
Government is asking mortgage holders, landlords, and creditors to delay collection methods and to not apply interest and penalties for missed or late payments. Is the Child Support Collection System going to do the same?
Certainly some vindictive parents will use the shelter in place order to deny a parent their parenting time with the children. What system of expedited filing and methods for enforcement is in place? Given that the children are not attending school and both parents are likely at their separate homes, either out of work or working from home, what is the procedure to handle the filings for physical shared parenting as parents are now equally available to parent their children during this crisis?
I suggest that the system stop all methods of punitive arrears collection (suspension of licenses, garnishments, etc.), including suspending the Federal and State Tax Offset Programs for the duration of the crisis. We all know the number one reason a person doesn’t pay is inability due to poverty and the current financial mess is certainly bound to add many more to those unable to pay.
I suggest that judges waive mandatory filing rules so that filings can be considered based upon a preponderance of the evidence of the actual date of change and not the date of filing. Also, the system needs to accept electronic filings to prevent both court personnel and users from having to interact in person subjecting all to possible infection by this dreaded virus. And a system of conference calling needs to be in place of physical hearings.
I close thanking you for your attention to these matter and I look forward to hearing from you. I am available by email, through the web site, or by phone on request.
In 1970 there was growing concern regarding fatherless homes when it reached over 7% of African American families (see The Negro Family: The Case for National Action [Moynihan Report], Daniel Patrick Moynihan 1965. Annotated copy at https://www.theatlantic.com). Today, in 2019 it is a widely accepted fact that 48% of children live absent their biological father and in the African American community it may be as high as 60%. The U.S. Census shows living arrangements for children 1960 to present but what is glaringly absent from these statistics is the number of homes with shared parenting arrangements. This bias to break down children’s family structure into single parent (mother or father) or married parent families neglects shared parenting arrangements and is directly related to federal biases in the Social Security Act, Title IV part d section 458 “Incentive payments to states”.
The question is, are states encouraging our of wedlock birth’s which undermines their support for marriage and post divorce/separation working against shared parenting arrangements? Federal financial incentives to states require that families be divided into two classes; married or single parent. Currently states are reimbursed for for; 1. establishing paternity, 2. number of child support orders entered, 3. amount collected versus amount owed, 4. collection of arrears, and 5. the cost of the program (collections versus expenses). Given the federal financial incentives to the states it is apparent they benefit from the creation of single family households. Comparing single parent households and federal child support programs over time does seem to highly indicate a correlation, discussion which follows.
In 1950 the Federal Government began to require states to notify local law enforcement when providing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) which was later renamed Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and is common referred to as “welfare”. This was an effort to force parents to be responsible for their children and relieve the taxpayer from that burden. The Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act was enacted to allow enforcement over state lines (pushed by the American Bar Association).
When the Moynihan Report came out in 1965 ( The President Johnson Administration) there was much backlash against the report with 2 major faults noted. First, it focused on fatherlessness in the black community, ignoring that per capita that there were more fatherless white children than fatherless black children. Second, it blamed African American fathers for abandoning the family when in many instances it was against their will. In effect it was seen as somewhat both racist and sexist. In 1970 there were 58,939,000 two parent families and 8,200,000 mother headed homes and 748,000 father headed homes. (see the US Census Bureau for statics used here)
In 1974 (In the Ford Administration from policies in the Nixon Administration of which Moynihan was a part of) the Social Security Act was amended and Title IV d required states to establish their own individual child support collection agencies which were designed to seek reimbursement from absent parents (usually the father) for payments made from welfare coffers. The money paid went into federal accounts and was not disbursed to the welfare recipient. This fact makes it a tax designed to go into federal coffers which is unrelated to financial child support. By 1975 two parent family homes decreased and mother headed homes increased to 11,245,000 and father headed homes increased to 1,014,000.
In 1981 (The President Reagan Administration) the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act authorized the IRS to withhold refunds to those persons who were delinquent, states to withhold a portion of unemployment benefits, and prevented child support from being discharged in bankruptcy for those cases with court ordered child support. In 1984 The Dept of Health and Human Services developed the Federal Child Support Guidelines Project which modified the Social Security Act in 5 areas; 1. Mandatory enforcement, 2. Improved interstate enforcement, 3. Equal services for welfare and non welfare families, and 4. Collecting spousal support (alimony) when child support was in place, 5. Formulate guidelines for determining child support. In 1985 two parent families declined to 46,149,000 and mother headed households increased to 13,081,000 and father headed households increased to 1,554,000.
Throughout the early 1980’s (The Reagan and H.W. Bush Administrations) many changes were proposed to Federal Law and incentives to the states to enact the Guideline project recommendations. When child support guidelines were enacted it mandated the states have them in place the legislation only gave a one year window prior to the states being financially penalized. While each state was entitled to have their own standards in place it was easier for the states to enact the Federal Model which was an incomes shares model, a percentage of income (i.e. 17% for one child, 25% for two) and was to be rebuttable, meaning the payer could present evidence on why they should be lower. Additionally, the percentage of income was based upon gross income thus 17% is 35% of income, 25% is 48% of income, etc.. The 1988 Family Support Act mandated guideline use by judges and required states to establish paternity among a host of other changes. In 1990 two parent families went up but at a much lower rate than mother headed families to 13,874,000 and father headed families to 1,993,000.
In 1992 The Child Support Recovery Act (The President H. W. Bush Administration) was enacted. This allowed states to prosecute parents who willfully chose not to pay child support. Notably absent was provision excepting those who did not have the ability to pay the amount set due to circumstances beyond their control, including poverty. This was the creation of a modern day debtors prison for as previously noted you can’t remove child support arrears even in bankruptcy. This includes attorney fees as they are considered “in the nature of child support”. 1995 saw single mother homes increase to 16,477,000 and single father homes increase to 2,461,000.
In 1996 (President Clinton’s Administration) the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliations Act (PRWORA) was enacted. This created a Federal Registry of Child Support Orders. Thus what is supposed to be a state issue (matrimony and child welfare) was now fully taken over by the Federal Government. It mandated a Directory of New Hires where government mandated employers provide information on all new hires for enforcement across state lines. This data base holds information on ALL new hires regardless if they owe child support or not, a wide net cast to catch a very few. The law also allowed fathers to voluntarily acknowledge paternity at the time of birth. 80% of out of wedlock fathers are in the hospital at the time of birth and these young men are pressured to “be responsible”. These ‘voluntary” acknowledgements provide NO parenting time with their child and worse, could not be overturned even if DNA later showed it to be false paternity.
In 1998 The Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act increased penalties for “willfully choosing” to not pay child support making it a Felony with fines of $10,000 and imprisonment for up to two years if the child is in another state (or the payer moves to another state). Again ability to pay is not taken into account and a payer can be held responsible under the law even if he went across state lines to secure employment to pay the child support due. In 1999 mother headed households continued to increase to 16,805,000 and father headed households to 3,094,000.
To recap, from 1970 to 1990 we saw married households decrease from 58,939,000 to 48,775,000 and single mother homes increase from 8,200,000 to 16,805,000. Single father homes increased from 748,000 to 3,094,000. Prior to 1970 fatherless homes held consistent at about 4-5% in the population. In 1970 the federal government stepped in and through unconstitutional federal laws and incentive payments to states set out to “help” and at each decade of increasing interference we see increased single parent households. Ronald Reagan said, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. If only he and the other Presidents had taken this advice.
After the backlash to the Moynihan Report the focus on African American fatherless households diminished and to show it was not biased programs switched to target fathers in general and to keep the backlash down for sexual bias the government differentiated between “responsible fathers” and “deadbeat dads”. But the “deadbeat dad” label was debunked in federally funded studies by Sanford Braver (Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myth’s) in the 1990’s. Studies still show that those in arrears on child support are due to poverty and inability to pay, two categories which proportionally negatively impact minority men and results in their incarceration in debtors prisons. Braver also found that the only reason a father doesn’t spend more time with his children is a limiting court order, number 2 a custodial mother who interferes with his access in a system with NO access enforcement. The number one complaint of fathers is that instead of being treated as a nurturing parent they have been turned into a wallet, forced to transfer income with no accountability of how it is spent and then reduced to, at best, being a visitor to their child.
The focus on fatherless homes started first blaming black fathers and then continued to blame all fathers. Chivalry and gender bias gives women a pass for irresponsible behavior. As the programs to collect dollars were increased so were the conferences and programs which looked to find out what was “wrong” with fathers these days and build “responsible fatherhood”. All these ignored the findings of Sanford Braver. Increased “father involvement” as a visitor and increased paternity establishment, of course, means greater reimbursements to the states which is the incentive definition of a responsible father under the child support system. This sexual bias against men flies in the face of the increasing number of father headed households indicating a willingness for fathers to be residential fathers. And the myriad of National and State Father Rights Organizations (in every state) shows a willingness for fathers to be there IN PERSON for their children.
To classify families as “married” “single father” or “single mother” fails to capture the many classifications of shared parenting arrangements between single mother and single father families. Any arrangement which has two involved parents, even if one is labelled “non custodial” means that you have two one parent families, both a “single mother” and “single father” albeit one with more and one with less residency. It also ignores the many faces of “step” families which may contain at any time her children, his children, and their children rotating in and out to other biological parents.
Garbage in, Garbage out as the saying goes. The Federal System breaks the family down into 3 classes. For divorced/separated and out-of-wedlock parents it labels the “single” parents “Custodial” and “Non Custodial” even though they are both alternately residential custodian and both share responsibility to financially provide for the children. The measure of a “responsible” parent is only on the one ordered to pay an income transfer to the other and if they meet these payments. There is no accountability that any money is spent to benefit the child and worse, there is no accountability for ensuring both parents can spend time with, and parenting their child. Shared Parenting isn’t counted as it doesn’t fit the focus on financial child support which is the only Federal measure for responsible parenting.
From 1970 to the present we have seen an ever increasing number of single parent families as opposed to 2 parent families. And while I assume many of these are co-parenting and share in the rights and responsibilities of raising their child, we have no idea as no such statistics exist in the Federal system. And as outlined in increments above, every time the Federal Government enacted programs to “help” maintain two parent families for the benefit of children we see no leveling off or reductions and in fact never ending increases.
2019, It is safe to say that the federal programs enacted over the past 50 years, costly to taxpayers and further bloating the federal bureaucracy, have not worked to benefit children and families. If we take the Census Bureau Living Arrangement of Children Chart showing percentage of decreasing two parent households we could use the same declining line to show the effectiveness of Federal Family Programs over the same time period. And given the incentive payments to states increase as single parent families increase it’s easy to see that the states have incentives to do so and the numbers indicate they are doing so. If the Federal Government is serious about helping children by securing two active and involved parents they need to completely overhaul its Title IV d Program and the incentives to states and stop creating what they purport to want to end.
