Can't Stand Child Support Enforcement Agency

For over 12 years, the Michigan Friend of Court county office that we have had to deal with for my stepchildren's child support has been nothing but difficult. My husband has always paid his child support on time, along with all their stupid fees they charge to handle the child support (because the kickbacks they get from the Federal government for every dollar they collect isn't enough). We had a few problems:

1. If you are a dad, you are automatically assumed to be a deadbeat before they even look at your record showing otherwise. You could hear the sneer in their voices when they spoke to you. The only time we didn't was when one of our caseworkers was a man. That was the only time my husband was shown a little respect for being a loving, responsible father.
2. Another problem we had every year was with their record keeping on the child support they received and their false accusations of support arrearages. It was so atrocious for years that we would spend months (every.single.year) trying to prove to them where they made a mistake in record keeping and were accusing my husband of being in arrears falsely. At one point, it took me over a year to prove to them that their accountant screwed up, not us. Eventually, dh's ex would agree that he wasn't behind but only after months (or a year) of tying ourselves into pretzels with all the canceled checks, employer garnishment records, and their own accounting records (yes, we had to point out to them where in their own records THEY screwed up and it would take months for them to finally fix the records).

Since the state took it over from the county, we have only had one problem like that happen so it is better. Instead of every year of being falsely accused of arrearages and threatened with income tax garnishment, it's only happened once in the last few years. The ex would get her money faster if we paid her direct but that would mean trusting my husband to pay her directly instead of the Friend of Court but she won't do that. He was trustworthy enough to be primary caregiver for the kids while he was with her but after he left her, he's not trustworthy enough since HE dumped HER I guess. Who dumps who makes the difference in how you can parent I guess. Not. She'd rather he pay weekly fees for the county to process her child support and also lose a part of her child support on the additional fees they just tacked on this year (at least she has to pay some of them now!).

So now what is my problem? My problem is the Friend of Court county office can't just mess up the support records of my husband for his two children but now they are affecting my own child's entrance to get into a preschool program so she can get her speech needs met there. A week ago, our county agency faxed them a request to verify the child support my husband pays for my stepkids. All they have to do is fax them back a sheet of paper that verifies that he pays x amount of dollars weekly/monthly. Did they do it? Of course not! This information is holding up my three-year-old's application. If the class fills up, which is likely since it is highly sought after in our community, she won't be able to get in.

It's not enough that they made our lives hell for years. Now their incompetence has to affect my child's speech intervention needs as well.

I sent the Friend of Court an email today requesting they submit this information ASAP. Hopefully they do it soon.

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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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