You Go Judge Hanschen! Paternity

A judge in Texas is bucking the system. The system I am talking about is the one that says "we don't care if you really fathered these children or not...just pay up the child support for them."

There is a father in Texas who started hearing rumors that one of his children wasn't really his. Shortly before his ex filed for divorce, he was served with papers to enforce child support. He was beyond the "four year" rule (a man has four years to challenge paternity of the children). Paternity tests were ordered by Judge Hanschen to be done immediately (and they were) but the Attorney General's Office filed on behalf of mom and the children to halt the paternity order. It was too late though. The results were released.

It was determined that BOTH of his daughters weren't really his (I believe his son was determined to be his). Not just one - BOTH OF THEM. That "woman" (I use the term loosely rather than referring to her as the slang for a loose woman) was trying to force him to pay for children that weren't his after denying him visitation all along. Get real! Make up your mind. Mom wants "dad's" money but doesn't want him to parent? You see, she'd kept the kids from him for two years so he went to their school and couldn't see them because they were in class. He left $2,000 with the school administrators and then was served with child support enforcement papers after that - for children that were later determined not to be his after he questioned paternity in court. You can't have it both ways lady! Well, a lot of women do have it both ways but it shouldn't be that way! This guy didn't father either one of these kids yet the state was trying to force him to pay anyway. Where was this woman's pride?

The Appeals Court ordered the DNA results be sealed and they were later ordered to be destroyed. What about this man's rights? What about these children's rights to know who their father(s) are? What about the biological fathers' obligations to support their own children rather than forcing a man with no biological ties to do it for them?

Here is a sample of the Dallas Observer article (and what I have been saying all along for YEARS about what is wrong with the current child support system):

"But to critics, the office's unwillingness to acknowledge that some of its practices may railroad poor, uneducated men into financial hardship is evidence of more sinister motives. The office receives federal funds based in part on the amount of child support that it collects and distributes, giving the Child Support Division a budgetary incentive to close as many cases as it can, no matter whose rights it might trample."

Did you get that? "The office" (referring to the state child support agency) "receives federal funds based in part on the amount of child support that it collects and distributes, giving the Child Support Division a budgetary incentive to close as many cases as it can, no matter whose rights it might trample."

The state receives federal kickbacks from the federal government for every dollar they collect in child support no matter what they have to do and whose rights they trample to get it.

Why should men be financially threatened and face jail time and seized assets for not paying child support for child/ren that are not their children? What about the rights of the children to not only know who their father(s) are but to be supported by the biological parent (rather than the male figure most easily saddled with the child support bill)?

Child support is a necessity. I think both parents have a financial obligation to their children. However, the holes in the law that allow men who father children to get out of providing support because other men are not allowed out of support obligations for children that aren't their own is WRONG.

Why should the wrong "dad" be ordered to pay support for another man's child? How is it in a child's best interests not to know who his or her biological parent is? Where is the man's equal protection under the law?

Men are also being denied due process when the Texas courts say they mail notices to the fathers to show up in court but they don't receive it. The courts assume they do but it hasn't actually been received. When he doesn't show up, he gets screwed in court in a default judgment and surprised when child support is taken from his paycheck and he has no idea what is going on. (We were recently sent a notice from the court to send objections within a set amount of days on a notice they said they sent us when they didn't! It happens.)

Not all mothers are honest. Some are liars sleeping around with a hand out to the gullible man for his money to pay for children she created elsewhere. Yes, I am a woman. Yes, I am a mother. I would be damned before I would allow myself to treat somebody so dishonestly and unfairly and deny a child of mine the right to know who their dad was...these women must have no morals or pride.

I wish for the 100th time at least that my husband had requested DNA testing on one of his children before acknowledging paternity after hearing some of the things his ex said when she was withholding the child from my husband. It would settle the questions after she told him during one argument that she was going to tell everybody that the child wasn't his. Was she speaking out of anger? Who knows. It really brings to mind that you never really know.

See the news article here.

For more of my thoughts and posts on this topic:

Teen Sues Mom for ID of Father

Paternity

Who's Your Daddy?


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