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A colleague had his ex file for child support, putting him suddenly thousands of dollars in the hole (it was backdated to when they separated, not when she aske

A colleague had his ex file for child support, putting him suddenly thousands of dollars in the hole (it was backdated to when they separated, not when she asked for suppor) because he's not from a socioeconomic class that keeps thousands of dollars hanging around. That left him unable to renew his driver's license, drastically impacting his ability to get work and pay child support. He now, for unrelated reasons, has full custody of his kids. But he still can't get a driver's license to get a job to support his kids because he's still behind on that child support. For the kids he has in his house. He deserves some responsibility for this, but it's like the system wants him to fail and fail hard.

ectoplasm 11y ago
He's unable to borrow money from friends / family / bank / mortagage / credit card to pay the child support?
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  People who don't have thousands lying around tend to have friends and family in similar financial situations, may not have a bank account, probably don't have a mortgage, and little credit.
  - ectoplasm 11y ago
    It was an honest question. GP did say "his house". The fact that not everyone conforms to "tend to" stereotypes is exactly why it's worth asking these questions. Plenty of poor people in America have buckets of debt. Also, there's always pawn shops and the mob. Unpalatable, but still better than not being able to work.
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      It's an honest question that appears to illustrate the lack of understanding of what it's like to be poor. "There's always the mob" is just tone-deaf IMO.
      - ectoplasm 11y ago
        I was speaking from personal experience. Borrowing from illegal sources is not out of the question. For example, one of my friends is always borrowing money from the mob so he can buy more coke. He's currently about $20K in debt. Another one of my friends was tied up and threatened with a blowtorch amputation unless he paid back his loan. Another one was dragged into a bush and beaten up outside his apartment at 3am because he was overdue. If "understanding the poor" is your goal, you'd do well to dispense with the condescending generalizations.
        ceejayoz 11y ago
        The example consequences you lay out seem significantly worse than being unable to renew a drivers license, so I'm not sure why you're presenting them as viable options.
        ectoplasm 11y ago
        As long as you pay them back, the mob won't give you a hard time. If you just want the money to get a job, and you're not using it for drugs, you'll be fine. But, mostly this was just me refuting your claim that I don't understand what it's like to be poor (and desperate). I could go on, in ways that don't have anything to do with organized crime, but I have to go now. It's really infuriating being told by someone that doesn't understand your experience that you don't understand your own experience.
- danielweber 11y ago
  The amount owed is about half his yearly gross income. If he goes to work, it's entirely to pay money to his ex, not keep it for his kids. He can't pay it back in any logical sense before he dies. Although now she owes him child support every month. But any payment she makes goes right back to her, to be deducted against what he owes her.[1] Friends and family have given him a place to live where he acts as a stay-at-home dad, since for now working is useless (and the child require 24/7 monitoring by adults). If friends and family were to give him the money to pay off the debt, it would just give the money to his ex, and there is no guarantee that she would then start paying her side of the debt.[1] I guess she would then be the one unable to get a driver's license and go to work and pay child support, which is "justice" only in a weird warped sense of the word in that they each have suffered the same kind of injustice, and doesn't really help the kids. [1] The ideal situation is to just have both debts neutralize each other and disappear, but it's not clear that this would be binding even if you could get the two angry ex'es to agree to it -- parents have signed off on child support in the past only to have the courts put it in place anyway, since the kids couldn't sign it away.
  - alentrekin 11y ago
    Just like this... http://www.occupy.com/article/jpay-scam-prison-bankers-cash-captive-customers http://www.occupy.com/article/jpay-scam-prison-bankers-cash-...
testin0000001 11y ago
Not really his fault. Child support is an outdated system with zero relevance today. He is the victim. If a woman is not prepared to care for her children, she doesn't need to have any. Equality under the law means that if she can't pay, she can give up custody of her children to the father or a relative or adoption.
- DanBC 11y ago
  If he doesn't want to pay for children he can chose not to have any.
  - testin0000001 11y ago
    Exactly. Equality. He has no claim upon her (he can't force her to have children) and she has no claim upon him.
    - alkonaut 11y ago
      The child is already there. Neither of them can un-have the child. Having a child is both the parents accepting a responsibility to provide for the child in the future, regardless of whether they stay together. Obviously, the child support should be formed in such a way that as long as the children lives with both parents (either because they are together or because the child lives 50/50 in separate locations), there is no need for transfer of funds. If one parent wants to (or is forced to, e.g. after abuse) give up caring for the children (so the child lives e.g. 100% with the mother and 0% with the father) only then should that parent have to pay for child support. I'm not sure whether that is the way child support works in the US but it's pretty much the only reasonable way I can imagine.
  - chc 11y ago
    Once birth control has either failed or been neglected, men really have no choice in the matter. A man can't (and shouldn't be able to) choose whether a woman terminates her pregnancy.
    - 11y ago
norea-armozel 11y ago
Well yes and no the system 'wants' him to fail hard. Part of the problem isn't as much as the false concern for the welfare of the children (and their primary guardian). Many CPS agencies will take a cut of the child support money so the bigger the monthly required support the bigger their cut. It's really a racket onto itself. For example, my sister actually was getting child support from her first husband directly but CPS didn't like that idea and fined her ex for evading child support. In the end, he started sending CPS the checks and my sister got much less money. Gotta love Kansas. /s
AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> He now, for unrelated reasons, has full custody of his kids. I recall an article about a case where a mother was filing for government assistance and was required to list the child's father's name on the application. She didn't know the name so she made one up, which happened to be the name of a real person. So the government started garnishing his wages. He went to court because he was not the father and had never even met the mother, but the standard was "the best interest of the child" without exception. Since the child's real father was unknown, receiving child support from an unrelated person is better for the child than not receiving it from anyone, so the court said he had to pay anyway. By that logic, your colleague shouldn't have to pay now that he has full custody of the children, because it isn't in the best interest of the children for the parent with custody to be paying "child support" to the parent without custody. But that would require these things to be decided based on logic and precedent rather than politics and random chance. (And I'm only remembering an article I read some years ago; I have no idea what the law is today in your jurisdiction.)

ectoplasm 11y ago

He's unable to borrow money from friends / family / bank / mortagage / credit card to pay the child support?

ceejayoz 11y ago
People who don't have thousands lying around tend to have friends and family in similar financial situations, may not have a bank account, probably don't have a mortgage, and little credit.
- ectoplasm 11y ago
  It was an honest question. GP did say "his house". The fact that not everyone conforms to "tend to" stereotypes is exactly why it's worth asking these questions. Plenty of poor people in America have buckets of debt. Also, there's always pawn shops and the mob. Unpalatable, but still better than not being able to work.
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    It's an honest question that appears to illustrate the lack of understanding of what it's like to be poor. "There's always the mob" is just tone-deaf IMO.
    - ectoplasm 11y ago
      I was speaking from personal experience. Borrowing from illegal sources is not out of the question. For example, one of my friends is always borrowing money from the mob so he can buy more coke. He's currently about $20K in debt. Another one of my friends was tied up and threatened with a blowtorch amputation unless he paid back his loan. Another one was dragged into a bush and beaten up outside his apartment at 3am because he was overdue. If "understanding the poor" is your goal, you'd do well to dispense with the condescending generalizations.
      - ceejayoz 11y ago
        The example consequences you lay out seem significantly worse than being unable to renew a drivers license, so I'm not sure why you're presenting them as viable options.
        ectoplasm 11y ago
        As long as you pay them back, the mob won't give you a hard time. If you just want the money to get a job, and you're not using it for drugs, you'll be fine. But, mostly this was just me refuting your claim that I don't understand what it's like to be poor (and desperate). I could go on, in ways that don't have anything to do with organized crime, but I have to go now. It's really infuriating being told by someone that doesn't understand your experience that you don't understand your own experience.
danielweber 11y ago
The amount owed is about half his yearly gross income. If he goes to work, it's entirely to pay money to his ex, not keep it for his kids. He can't pay it back in any logical sense before he dies. Although now she owes him child support every month. But any payment she makes goes right back to her, to be deducted against what he owes her.[1] Friends and family have given him a place to live where he acts as a stay-at-home dad, since for now working is useless (and the child require 24/7 monitoring by adults). If friends and family were to give him the money to pay off the debt, it would just give the money to his ex, and there is no guarantee that she would then start paying her side of the debt.[1] I guess she would then be the one unable to get a driver's license and go to work and pay child support, which is "justice" only in a weird warped sense of the word in that they each have suffered the same kind of injustice, and doesn't really help the kids. [1] The ideal situation is to just have both debts neutralize each other and disappear, but it's not clear that this would be binding even if you could get the two angry ex'es to agree to it -- parents have signed off on child support in the past only to have the courts put it in place anyway, since the kids couldn't sign it away.
- alentrekin 11y ago
  Just like this... http://www.occupy.com/article/jpay-scam-prison-bankers-cash-captive-customers http://www.occupy.com/article/jpay-scam-prison-bankers-cash-...

testin0000001 11y ago

Not really his fault. Child support is an outdated system with zero relevance today. He is the victim. If a woman is not prepared to care for her children, she doesn't need to have any. Equality under the law means that if she can't pay, she can give up custody of her children to the father or a relative or adoption.

DanBC 11y ago
If he doesn't want to pay for children he can chose not to have any.
- testin0000001 11y ago
  Exactly. Equality. He has no claim upon her (he can't force her to have children) and she has no claim upon him.
  - alkonaut 11y ago
    The child is already there. Neither of them can un-have the child. Having a child is both the parents accepting a responsibility to provide for the child in the future, regardless of whether they stay together. Obviously, the child support should be formed in such a way that as long as the children lives with both parents (either because they are together or because the child lives 50/50 in separate locations), there is no need for transfer of funds. If one parent wants to (or is forced to, e.g. after abuse) give up caring for the children (so the child lives e.g. 100% with the mother and 0% with the father) only then should that parent have to pay for child support. I'm not sure whether that is the way child support works in the US but it's pretty much the only reasonable way I can imagine.
- chc 11y ago
  Once birth control has either failed or been neglected, men really have no choice in the matter. A man can't (and shouldn't be able to) choose whether a woman terminates her pregnancy.
  - 11y ago

norea-armozel 11y ago

Well yes and no the system 'wants' him to fail hard. Part of the problem isn't as much as the false concern for the welfare of the children (and their primary guardian). Many CPS agencies will take a cut of the child support money so the bigger the monthly required support the bigger their cut. It's really a racket onto itself. For example, my sister actually was getting child support from her first husband directly but CPS didn't like that idea and fined her ex for evading child support. In the end, he started sending CPS the checks and my sister got much less money. Gotta love Kansas. /s

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> He now, for unrelated reasons, has full custody of his kids. I recall an article about a case where a mother was filing for government assistance and was required to list the child's father's name on the application. She didn't know the name so she made one up, which happened to be the name of a real person. So the government started garnishing his wages. He went to court because he was not the father and had never even met the mother, but the standard was "the best interest of the child" without exception. Since the child's real father was unknown, receiving child support from an unrelated person is better for the child than not receiving it from anyone, so the court said he had to pay anyway. By that logic, your colleague shouldn't have to pay now that he has full custody of the children, because it isn't in the best interest of the children for the parent with custody to be paying "child support" to the parent without custody. But that would require these things to be decided based on logic and precedent rather than politics and random chance. (And I'm only remembering an article I read some years ago; I have no idea what the law is today in your jurisdiction.)