Statement of Paul W., and Wendy G. Peterson, Cary, North Carolina

ANOTHER SIDE TO THE CHILD SUPPORT ISSUE:

I believe that the current child support laws need to be drastically changed so that a father’s second family DOES NOT SUFFER. My husband and I have been paying child support to his ex-wife for 12 years. The child support check has always been the first check that is written each and every pay day. We have 2 children of our own, ages 7 and 3. The term ‘Child Support’ is a joke to me. My step child is being supported at the expense of my own children. If I just had a penny for every time my husband or I have said something like, "Someday when child support is over, we will be able to afford.....". My children have heard the phrase, too. We have felt as though our life and family is on hold. In 3 years we will - thank God - be done paying for child support. Here’s a list of some of the things we will be able to provide for our children once we are done paying child support that we currently have not been able to:

• Proper (consistent) dental & eye care (This has been a hard one since we are currently paying for my step child’s braces.)
• Extra activities like piano lessons, sports, arts & crafts, pottery lessons, swimming lessons & summer camps to name a few
• Cable or Satellite TV
• A membership to the YMCA or other swim/exercise club
• More Clothes & Toys that don’t come from yard-sales and thrift shops
• Yearly vacations
• Cars that are newer than 8 years old and that would require collision insurance
• A college fund

I do however, consider us very blessed! We are blessed because:

• None of us has required surgery or medical attention that insurance won’t cover.
• My younger son won’t have any adult teeth until after child-support is over.
• My children seem to have good vision at this time.
• My children won’t need braces until after child support is over.
• My son’s are still young enough to be entertained with simple things.
• We are able to get public TV with a roof antenna.
• My children enjoy the lakes as much as public pools.
• My children love getting toys from yard-sales.
• We live in a prosperous enough country that people will sell nice clothes for a quarter.
• My husband knows enough about cars to keep our old ones going.
• Public school is FREE - What a blessing that truly is!

WHAT ABOUT THE FAMILIES THAT ARE NOT SO BLESSED? I just can’t imagine having teenagers and paying child support, too. I can’t imagine having a child in desperate need of constant medical attention. Yes, our family is blessed.

I am so sick of the term ‘Dead-Beat Dads’. It seems to me that fathers are guilty before proven innocent or worthy. I feel so bad for all the young fathers. My husband has a good job, and it is still hard for us. What about these dads making minimum wage? To tell them they have an 18 year sentence to pay child support is like a living hell.

I DISAGREE WITH:

• Basing child support on some crazy figures of what it costs to raise a child. We are not even going to get close to any of those figures for our children! In fact, the child support we pay does not all go to the child we are supporting. We are simply subsidizing the mother’s second husband’s income. We do not spend the same amount on both our children together.
• Figuring a portion of child support is for housing. The mother has got to pay for that anyway.
• The notion that children ought to have the same standard of living as they did before the divorce. Statistics show that 2/3 to ¾ of divorces are initiated by woman. When a mom walks out of a marriage, she walks out of that standard of living.
• Seizing bank accounts, taking money from fathers paychecks and making life a living hell for Fathers and especially the second family involved. (Statistics show that 80% of divorced men remarry, and most do within 3 years.)

What is this nonsense? I am so glad we are not in the "system". This reminds me of the bible verse "Do not provoke your children to wrath". Is the penalty for not paying child support so steep that it is causing some young fathers to look to other means of illegal income? I am not trying to justify their wrongful actions, but it just seems to me that you’d have more cooperation if you gave these dad’s a chance to do things right on their own. No one has to tell my husband to pay support, he just does it.

• Any court, state or private agency making a profit on child support!
  This would make any person distrust the incentives behind collection.
• Allowing zero accountability on behalf of the mother.
  Not only is this a breeding ground for resentment on behalf of the father, but it can be a serious DANGER to the child. A mother can take the money and buy whatever she wants with it and deprive her children of the things they need. Children having mothers with addictions are especially at risk. Tax free money that does not need to be accounted for or is easy drug money. Statistics show that 80% of the states report that parental substance abuse within poverty are the greatest child welfare problems. In some cities, more than 75% of welfare cases are linked to alcohol and drugs.
• Allowing no tax deduction for the parent who pays support. Why should the father’s second family have to pay taxes on income that benefits another family?
• Manipulating the child support system for the benefit of the custodial parents on welfare (and therefore, the government) when in fact 50-60% of all custodial parents receiving support are NOT ON WELFARE!

I AGREE WITH:

• Making it harder for people to get divorced, and premarital counseling. I think this alone could solve a lot of problems in our society.

CHILD SUPPORT GUIDELINES:

In spite of the fact that child support figures are too high, North Carolina has one of the best models for figuring Child Support. I believe all states should be consistent in figuring support, and I

believe NC’s model would be a good one for the nation to adopt. Non-custodial parents living in states that use a flat percentage to figure child support have my deepest sympathy. But even within my own state, the agencies are not consistent with the way child support is figured. This must not be so!!

TRUE STORY:

A Christian friend of mine is doing everything in her power to hold her marriage together. Because of the husband’s past, I am convinced he is cheating on her and doing drugs. He has moved into the basement of their house, and is living quite apart from her. She wants it to work out so bad, that she is allowing him to do this. I truly believe that he is content to remain in the marriage and in the basement to avoid having to make child support payments.

CONCLUSION:

Child support payments need to be FAIR. There will always be fathers who will do everything in their power to avoid payments. But even law abiding fathers need to feel as though the support is fair. Resentment can show up at bad times, and will ultimately affect the child’s sense of security. When a man and woman are married, they make decisions together on how money should be spent on the children. Divorced dads are deprived of that right. After a stressful divorce, they are forced to turn over all decisions about their children to the mother. Divorced dads don’t want money that is meant for their children to be thrown into a melting pot of the mother’s needs and wants for herself and the children. How much money does the mother REALLY need for the children, and how can we know? The custodial parent should be required to fill out paper work accounting for where the money is going, and fathers should be entitled to that information. This would ensure that the money is going directly to the child being supported, and therefore divorced dads around the country would be more apt to pay. It would also help to ensure that the fathers’ other children would not be deprived of the things they need at the expense of their half siblings.