Friday, December 04, 2009

A Personal Look At A Friend's Predicament

I recently read a blog post that, unlike a lot of blog posts I read, actually touched a chord with me. I felt compelled to leave a comment, which is unusual for me. The topic was pretty near and dear to my heart though, and brought up a lot of feelings that I had a difficult time dealing with until fairly recently.

The subject was child support. The sentiment expressed in the post was that the system is flawed and someone is being punished well out of proportion to their "crime". I personally agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly. I have a similar situation going on in my life, and let me tell you, don't try to change my mind. For those of you who know me and how laid-back and open-minded I am, you know how out of character that is for me!

What started as a worthy cause has been politicized and bureaucratized into an unrecognizable and misguided mess. In the mid- to late-1980's, there were a series of very high-profile deadbeat dads that caused our state legislators to overreact and do three things that had all kinds of unintended consequences.

First, they created a set of laws that pigeonhole everyone. Square peg in round hole kind of stuff. There are enough transgressions, both real and perceived, to overload the system, which is badly designed to begin with. Depending on the level of involvement that your ex-spouse has decided to take (more on this later), you can owe nothing, miss one payment 5 years down the line, and be treated the same as the deadbeat dad who has managed to avoid paying anything and moves around to stay ahead of the law. Toss in the fact that the people who actually work the system have so many cases that they can't afford to humanize their subjects. They have to treat it in terms of statistics. This many files, this many successful collections, etc. If you've been unemployed for half a year, it makes no difference to The Machine. They will treat you the same as the person who makes a million dollars but doesn't send in a dime.

Next, they endowed an agency with virtual carte-blanche to do whatever it takes to recover their money. The amount of power the Texas Attorney General's Child Support Division has is unbelievable. With no prior warning, they have the right to place a lien on every single asset you own - your bank account, your home, your car, your business. I have heard these exact words come from a caseworker's mouth:

"Well, I can remove the hold on your account if you give us half the money you have in there."

Are you KIDDING me? No formula, no desire to work with me, no attempt to find out what my situation was. The ironic thing here is that the check really was in the mail. While my account had a hold placed on it by the Attorney General's office, the check arrived and was returned NSF BY THE SAME AGENCY. So not only did I have to pay over twice the amount of child support that month (yes, I had to give them half the money in my account), I had to pay the NSF fee that was caused by their actions to begin with!

Lastly, the system puts 100% of the burden of proof on the non-custodial parent. (80% of the time, that's the dad.) Practically speaking, that means the Attorney General OR your ex can shoot first and ask questions later. In another example, I had a very unexpected hold place on my account. In this case, I had paid two months back to back, so I would be early for the next month. When I called to clear up the confusion, the overloaded caseworker condescendingly explained to me that I had missed a payment. When I insisted she look at her records, she got angry with me. We went month by month, and when we got to the back to back payments, there was literally 10 seconds of silence from her. I HAD her! She was going to admit she was wrong! Well, wasn't I wrong! No admission of a mistake was forthcoming from this defender of justice! The only concession I got was that instead of the familiar formula of "1/2 the money in your account", she insisted on a fraction of that. I guess that's as close to an apology as I am going to get.

It's not about the kids anymore, it's about the stats. As a society, we can feel good that this watchdog agency "punished" the deadbeat dad when the truth of the matter is that if you don't toe the line EXACTLY as you were told, there will be consequences ANYWAY. The child support division of the State Attorney General's office uses extortion tactics, plain and simple, and when you call them on it they have the ultimate weapon to use against you. They can threaten you with financial hardship or jail time and you have no recourse. You either bend to their demands or you get a lawyer and fight, but if you fight, then things tend to get messy. The mother has a moral advantage that is sometimes completely out of proportion to the reality of her situation. Many times a simple phone call from said mother will bring down a world of hurt on the father. It can't be avoided. It can only be suffered, with the hope that, in the end, the consequences will be mitigated. And there are rarely consequences on the non-custodial parent because, technically, no laws were broken. So if you fight the system, prepare to fight the system's ally as well.


When I was young, I also let my child support debt get out of hand. It has taken me a long time, a lot of sweat, and not a few tears to get to the point where I can see the light at the end. I personally have swallowed a TON of crap, as well as every drop of pride I have in my body, to just make it through until my kid graduates. Get this, though: I have been paying religiously for nearly 8 years. But since I am in the system and on their radar, there is NO leeway. None. If I am late, FOR ANY REASON (including extended periods of unemployment) I get harassed. They don't call, they don't bother to find out what your situation is. They lien and hold and garnish and, quite often, your first clue is when your debit card is declined or your payroll department calls you.

The whole system is a mess. It's too easy to paint people with a broad brush, and where racism is the standard against which all such brushes are measured, the child support issue is the dirty little secret brush that nobody talks about. If you're male, you will suffer the wrath of the system , whether or not you deserve it. I applaud those men who have successfully navigated the waters and have made the most out of a bad situation. They are rare. Let's hope that one day they get taken off the endangered species list.

1 comment:

zupidStombies said...

Thank you for your honesty Richard. Great post. This is just the kind of thing I was looking for to help with the situation my friends is dealing with from my blog post. I'm glad that we could share these thoughts and concerns with each other and the world. It's not much, but maybe one day this will lead to something better.

Highest Regards