Emotional Support

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In the past when talking to the chilld support people they say that emotional support is just as important as financial support. I thought this was funny. I asked them why is there no emotional support enforcement officers? How do i file a petition in court for emotional support for my Son? They had no response. They just said they don’t know. In my opinion they do not care about it because there is no money involved w/emotions. They can’t make a few bucks off that.

They shouldn’t be able to profit from support payments. In DE they collect over 100mil every year from mostly men. That much money in the bank must earn interest. Where does this go? It should go to pay the moms who have the need like moms who have no idea where their kids fathers are. These moms get nothing while the State or whoever keeps this interest.

The Gov also gives "incentives" to go after non cus. parents. The more people on the books the more gov money they get. Men have been known to have a higher pay rate than women. It is more efficient to get as many men as possible to get the most out of each case.

To me it would make more sense to put parents in a room and not let them out until they come up w/ a solution to there own situation. If they cant then apply the Force to get them to grow up and be adults.

Most of the time they do a good job. They just need to be open to the many different situations. Not every family can be jammed into 1 process. Its not fair to any one. It only makes things worse. Men are unfairly discriminated against for not being able to give birth. …tom g

 

14 Replies to “Emotional Support”

  1. Tom,I am glad to hear about a father who wants to do the right thing by his child and be a good Dad. There are too many stories about the Deadbeat Dads who don’t support their children financially or otherwise. My Ex could go in the Ex-from-Hell category because not only was he a lousy father, he was also a pedophile and abusive to me. Although I am grateful to be free from him, I still grieve almost daily because my kids miss their Dad or they miss the Dad they didn’t have and I wish for them that they had good memories. He is locked up and will be for a long, long time (thank goodness) but what it means for me is that I am a single parent who gets no support. Granted I don’t have any custodial issues or battles to fight over child support. My consolation is justice for our daughter and the peace that comes from knowing he can not hurt her or any other children adn I don’t have to deal with him. But as I struggle to feed my kids, and put myself through school so I can afford to take care of my family, I do find some resentment in the fact that I will not ever get a dime of support from him. He gets out of all those obligations and I am left with a bankruptcy, a forclosure on our home and bills that just keep coming.Anyway, this is supposed to be about you and a pat on teh back for being a good father and trying to do the right thing. Keep up the good work.God Bless you,~Tonya

  2. Loved your space!! Wow, what a great inspiration to others…. Thanks for allowing TRUTH! Peace & Luv 🙂

  3. Good morning, Tom!Child support is a sticky issue. I have been criticized by some folks I know because I’m not strong-arming my ex into paying me ‘what he should be paying’. In fact, for the first few years, he didn’t pay anything. In reality, he couldn’t. I didn’t see a need or a reason to bankrupt him, to make him homeless. I just waited. When he started paying, we agreed to him paying me twice a month, although it is considerably lower than what my state thinks he should pay. He has missed 2 times since then, but it was because of extenuating circumstances. We talked yesterday, and he is going to give me a little more money each time until he has made up the missed payments. Don’t get me wrong – we don’t have some kind of great post-divorce relationship. And he is a what I would call a playtime dad – involved only if it is a fun thing, not involved in school or sports or discipline. I accepted that as how it was going to be a long time ago. But I never saw a reason to push it on the financial side. If he was so broke he couldn’t eat, how could he see his kids? It made no sense to me.Neither my bio father or my father did a thing about giving my mother support. They were about as deadbeat as you can get. I resented them for a long time because we had some tough times. These days, though, I’m glad that they kept their sickness to themselves and left us alone. I’m far better off since I had nothing to do with them over the years.Oh, hey – blogshares – your value is going to go up as a result of this week. That’s when mine went up. Valuations are based on incoming links, so you’ll get there. You can be removed if you want, but I figure, what the heck…I’m on an RSS feed, and my space is public…Have a good weekend. I’m off to run before my weekly time with my doctor. I love Fridays!Shelly

  4. You will find that most government workers are over-worked and under-paid. They just do not have the time to deal with all the issues. A good lawyer will help you with these issues if you ask. Standup for your parental rights and don’t let your ex walk all over you, otherwise you’ll end up walked all over with nothing to show for it. Trust me, been there and done that. Great blog!

  5. i have to agree with the govs going after non custodial parents. i happen to be a non-custodial mom. i lost my job last year and was unemployed for 6 months.. so i got behind in payments. however, when i did get a job i informed all the right gov’t agencies, as required, and they began the income withholding as before – plus some to put toward arrears. not complaining there. it’s just that i know several non-custodial parents who leave their exes with no support at all and are in arrears of $12000 or more and the same govt that chases me, orders me to court, raises the support level, etc., does NOTHING to find them. i believe they go after the ones who cooperate with the rules because it makes their enforcement capabilities look better. i think they should be grateful for those who comply and spend our tax money going after those who refuse to, that way we won’t have to raise taxes to pay for welfare.

  6. I had to leave my job in Texas to move to North Carolina because my EX took our daughter there about 9 months ago. It took a while to get a job out here and I am still paying mortgage in TX, while paying for an apartment in NC. I am heavily in debt and the EX wants me to pay $900 a month in Child Support. My child and I are very close….so all of this is worth it, however, I have to supply a bedroom and food and pay for clothes and entertainment as well. So why do I have to pay for all of those things AND $900 a month? Where does that money go? I think it goes towards the EX’s retirement account!!!

  7. Hello Tom – This is my first comment…just found your space. So far what I have read is encouraging. I don’t want to brag just give you and others hope. You see, I have a wonderful post-divorce relationship with my ex (his name is also Tom). It wasn’t always easy because Tom spent some time in trouble and then finding himself after his parents were murdered. To echo Shelly (6/17/05) I didn’t see how forcing him to pay when he was barely supporting himself was going to benefit our daughter. She was and is my primary concern. However, I did not just let him off the hook either. He did accrue some arrears but he has since repaid everything. My patience with him has completely paid off for me and my daughter. There is no bitter animosity on this issue or any other. The bottom line is yes, financially I may have suffered some during this time BUT my daughter has benefited in more ways than I can measure by my patience and her fathers gratitude. We get along and work closely together to ensure the absolute best for her and she knows it. I also wanted to put my two cents worth in on another issue. I worked for child support for over seven years here in California. For the record, I worked interstate cases so I have a good deal of experience with most states and a few countries child support enforcement practices. In regards to whether the money collected earns interest… it may, but let me clarify. The money collected on non-welfare cases (meaning those cases in which the children have not received public assistance from the state) goes directly to the custodial party (mother, father or otherwise) and therefore wouldn’t be held long enough to accrue interest for the child support office. On welfare cases the money goes to repay a debt incurred by the state to care for the child while the child was/is on public assistance. If the money happens to earn any interest this amount would belong to the state and ultimately allows (along with state and federal grants and funds) the state to continue providing public assistance to those in need. The child support office (state or county run) does not make a profit nor does any child support money collected go to pay the salaries of those employed there. Private run child support collection agencies may differ but I’ll leave that to someone with more expereince in this arena. Disclaimer: I do not in any way wish to imply that child support enforcement in America is without its imperfections. There is a great deal of room for improvement. I always did my best for the children because they are ultimately who I worked for.My advice for what it is worth… educate yourselves on your rights and responsibilities as well as those of the other party (believe it or not the custodial party has responsibilities too). Invest in a book that outlines your states family laws as well as the health and welfare laws and read up. Knowledge is power. From my experience people feel like they are getting railroaded by the system because of their own ignorance (not to imply stupidity).Signing off, Rae

  8. Hi Tom,I would settle for emotional support instead of financial support . I have four children, two ex’s. Neither ex was around for the children. I wish there was some type of test to see what type of a parent a person would be. As for financial support, oldest kids dad went twelve years without paying. His reasoning? The state didn’t make him. The state was the one collecting and they said they couldn’t confirm his address. If a letter came from CS, he simply wrote not at this address on the envelope and sent it back. Worked for him for 12 years. Only when I wrote every elected official in the state was any action taken. Funny, after I wrote, BOTH were found within two weeks. Both went to court, one found guilty of felony non support, other misdemeanor non support. Both given probation and Both ordered to pay, neither did. One spent 6 months in prison, and only THEN did he start paying because if he didn’t it was back to prison and he didn’t like it there. He paid for two years and now, nothing. Other didn’t pay at all. Back to court again, this time for felony nonsupport, again probation, again ordered to pay. This time I did receive two payments and now again, nothing. Mind you he is to pay 75 a month for two children. The older kids dad is now involved a bit, of course they are now 19 and 21 years old. Younger boys ( 12 and 10) dad has not contacted them in over 3 years and we have no idea where he is. Not a card, letter, phone call, nothing. It’s been so long now that if he would come around, I would say no to contacting the kids. If he saw them once, would he come back? Would he try to be involved in their life or would he see them just once, then disappear again? When the kids were all smaller, yes, financial support would have been very welcome. Spent time in line for foodstamps, welfare, help with housing, daycare help, help for utilities. Sometimes an additional 50 dollars would have been a windfall and the difference between making it that month or not. If they had at least been there emotionally for the kids, it would have been nice. I think if they had been around just for the kids to talk to, to do things with, to just "be" with, it would have been great. Now, things are different. I"m able to take care of things financially and not in the dire straits I use to be. One ex lives with his parents, going from job to job, other delivers newspapers for a living. So, here I sit thinking back on the poor choice of partners I made years ago. I’ve been single 10 years, younger boys dad left when I was pregnant with the youngest and I can say I am happy with my life. I am not happy with my children’s fathers and hope that my being there every day for them can make up for the fact that their fathers weren’t there for them in any way.

  9. I want to say great job….you have very good points….I’m a 32 year old single parent that has NO support at all I worked two jobs and went to nursing school fulltime to make sure my son had what he needed … I went back to work 3 days after my son was born..I was lucky i had the help of my family or I dont know what i would have done to take care of him….I do have a court order for him to pay support and my son is now 3 years old and i still have yet to see any money he has nothing to do with my son at all so why should i spend my money to take him to court and force it….like you I sure would like to know where the money goes that they collect cause it sure isnt to hard working people that are doing everything they can to make a good life for there child

  10. I’m a noncustodial mom. I’ve paid child support for about 5 years. It is very difficult for me, as I do not earn enough money to be able to live on my own and pay chlid support. I bring home $500 every two weeks after child support. That sounds like a lot of money, but due to the distance I have to live from my children, I have a new car so I have a car payment. I could have bought a used car but I was afraid to not have a warranty. I was afraid since I know nothing about cars that I couldn’t keep my car running and I didn’t want to be in the position of not being able to see my children due to car problems, plus have unexpected car repair bills. In my opinion I have to have reliable transportation. I found an inexpensive car that probably costs less than most used cars unless they are junkers. You can see I worry about it because I’ve written so much justification. I feel guilty for having a new (1 year old) car which btw has 25,000 miles on it in one year, alot of which is traveling to see the kids. I also live in a really low income neighborhood which sometimes is kind of scary. I hear a lot of gunshots on Friday nights. My kids, when they stay here, are not that comfortable. I work very hard to make this a home and make it nice but it is not the best, it is not near as nice as their dad’s house. Their dad makes a lot of money. He has a company paid car. He has a really big house, pretty much anything he wants. He buys the kids expensive toys all the time. There is no way I can compete with that and I feel sick sometimes about how hard I work to give him money, how much I go without so he can have this cushy, happy little life with the kids. I also have a student loan payment each month. I decided to go back to school to get better job skills so eventually I could earn more money. Unfortunately I chose the IT field. I had a good job for 9 months, but after it was outsourced I’ve had only clerical jobs since then. I haven’t been able to get back into IT. So I just have the student loan instead. There is more stigma attached to being the noncustodial parent when you are the mom. There is more confusion with people who assume I have the kids and then I tell them they don’t live with me. There are so many times when I have wondered if I can stand this situation any longer when all I ever wanted was to have kids and be a great mom, and I work so hard to do that but it feels like it’s never going to be like I wanted it to be.The money makes a difference because I know that the quality of life the kids have with their dad would be the same whether or not I paid him child support, but the quality of life that I’m able to provide for them is a lot lower since I pay child support. I don’t think it’s really fair. I spend a lot of time with the kids because I was able to get the court to provide that for me. I spend almost 50% of the time with the kids. I think that we should be able to pool our incomes and say, we each provide a percentage of what we earn towards what the kids need. We have 2 kids. I could pay for one of them – clothes, dental, health – and he could pay for the other. I could pay the percent of daycare proportionate to what I earn. He would obviously pay alot more towards daycare. We could also put a percent of our incomes towards college. His percent would be bigger. That would be fair.I don’t think he should be able to live a cushy life and provide wonderful things for the kids while watching me struggle to meet basic needs. what does this scenario teach our kids? That money makes the rules? That the bigger wad of cash is the winner? I hope those aren’t the values they are learning. I try to make sure they don’t but I feel that this situation is unfair and should not continue.

  11. I opened my computer today and saw your space…..It caught my eye, since we have a common interest. I am also a divorced Dad who is constantly in a struggle for paternal equality. From visitation, to support, to just being recognized as an important part of my childrens lives….It’s always a struggle.It’s nice to hear that I’m not alone in my struggle. Thank you for having the courage to publicly write about subjects so personal. If we as responsible Fathers can get our voices heard, then maybe someday we will be given the opportunity to be the Dads our children need.I would love to talk further with you and share some stories, good and bad!Craig

  12. I WISH there was emotional support enforcement!!!!!! I don’t discuss my exhusband in front of my kids, esp. my son (he’s the youngest). But my exhusband and his girlfriend go out of their way to trash talk me, his girlfriend is very insecure and thinks I will want my ex back (even though I was the one to file for divorce). It caused a lot of problems with one of my teenaged girls because she started believing the lies they said. With time, my daughter saw the truth, but she suffered greatly because of it. My other daughter doesn’t speak to her father because his girlfriend doesn’t like her because she won’t let her talk trash about me. Along with the trash talk… my kids don’t feel as if they are important to their dad anymore, on his scheduled weekends and holiday visit’s, he more often than not, calls and says he’s not coming. Then the kids later find out he’s gone on a trip to Hawaii instead. I don’t begrudge him his vacations, but why can’t he do it on days when he’s not supposed to see his kids? I always think…. "if he only knew how he was damaging his children…" but the sad thing is, so many people have tried to tell him, and he doesn’t listen. He blames it on me for divorcing him. He acts like me AND the kids divorced him.

  13. (. It only makes things worse. Men are unfairly discriminated against for not being able to give birth. …tom g) that comment you made just show’s how pathetic you are… dude get off the pity party and be a man.

  14. Hi Tom, I read your blog, I find it very touching, I may be a woman but I do know how you feel. My husband is going through the same situation. Actually his ex-wife hids the children from him for over 12 years now and brainwashed the kids against him. His ex agreed to for him to see the kids this summer, my husband even offer to pay for the kids airfare, on the last minute, she was changing her mind about it, that she’s not going to drop the kids off, so my husband got upset about the whole thing. Of course his feelings are hurt but there is nothing he can do. His wages got garnished every month which I have no problem with it because its for the kids. I just hope the kids really get the money or rather that money is being used to buy whatever they need, and not for the womans capricious needs. Rose

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