Sunday, January 1, 2012

Let's start with the Pro's and end with the CON's

There is no one more in favor of the whole idea of Child Support than me. Hi, I'm a 53 year old man that is learning life the hard way. I always have and probably always will continue down that jagged trail. Overall, I'm a good hearted person with morels and ideals. I believe that when the parents of a child can no longer stand to be in the same room with each other, that the tension between them will be felt by the said child. I don't believe that forcing yourself to stay for the sake of that child is necessarily  good for that child. OK, well now there is going to be a split of that family system and that is not good for a child either, but which option is better for the child. Let's say that there is a split. Chances are, the one that leaves will feel the majority of the relief (other than missing the child) of the strain of the relationship and the one that stays will still be unhappy and may even be angry because the other one left. Now the court system can help with that. This is a good thing ...theoretically. The child support system was setup to ensure that the minor child, in this case, is provided for. There again, this is a good thing. There are a lot of things that can happen in an individuals life that are beyond their control. Let's say that the court determines the child's well being is worth, oh I don't know, $300.00 dollars a month. That seems handle able. This is just the amount that is to be paid to the one that still lives with the child. For that parent, there are still a lot of things that have to be done and the money they receive just gives a buffer. There will be lifestyle changes involved for everyone concerned. That money is designed solely for the child's benefit and only supplements the custody parent's income. This doesn't mean that the child is to be dumped into care of family members such as aunts or grandmothers etc. so that the custody parent can make up for things like going to concerts or car races or buying fancy clothes or anything that was lost due to the arrival of the child. Let me know if I'm wrong on this. Where was I, oh yeah. The parent that left is now going to have to obtain a place to live with all the utilities (probably not cable or internet) such as power, water and will have to pay taxes and or payments and insurance on a vehicle to get around with. If that parent moves far enough away, he or she may even have to find employment. As we all know, maintaining is a lot easier than starting new. What I mean is when you get a place you will probably have to pay deposits on everything on top of the payment itself. Anyway, what I'm so haphazardly trying to get to is, there should be some gravity to the fact that all these moneys have to be paid out. OK now let's say that we make it through all of that and are on a smooth sailing trail of money's being paid and of the child having the majority of what he or she needs. BOOM...the astrainged parent gets laid off from the job he or she had. Now let's make it worse. Due to the economy there are no jobs available. Let's go further and say that there are no jobs available for a year and counting. Unemployment is a God Send but it doesn't quite let you get everything paid. What do you do? Do you pay the child support and let them turn your power off? Or maybe let them turn your water off? We don't need these things do we? Hell we could just go live in a cardboard box an live off of other people's scraps as long as we pay that child support. Times get tough for everybody at one time or another. Here comes the worse nightmare....YOU ARE REQUIRED TO SHOW JUST CAUSE AS TO WHY THE CHILD SUPPORT WASN'T PAID. The date is set for you to come to court knowing full well that you are going to jail. You may be sentenced to 6 months or even a year. What do you think you will have when you get out. No home, if you had pets that you adored, gone. Still no job. And what makes it even better is you are now saddled with a big ole chunk of more child support that you are behind on. How long before you go back to jail? Now granted, there are circumstances where some people purposely did not pay the child support because...they didn't want to, or they spend all their money on drugs and or alcohol but if you are doing everything you can do to pay what you owe, you should not be punished due to things that are not in your control.

If you share my opinion or not I'd love to hear from anyone with a different view point.

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