'Kate wrote:


I believe that the media has a hard time
beating women up in the same way that they feel free to beat men up
but I don't think that adding women on to the deadbeat parent list is
the appropriate response. I think that the appropriate response is
that parents should support their children and then these lists would
be unnecessary. But.. this isn't a perfect world, is it? I also know
that in alt.support.single-parents, the term "deadbeat dad" is
discouraged. It is in the monthly FAQ IIRC.

If you read that I was saying that everybody should be thrown in jail,
or that everybody should be a "deadbeat" then you read incorrectly.
Neither do I think it is possible to hop skip and jump from here to the
"appropriate response [being] that parents should support their children
and then these lists would be unecessary." These lists exist for people
who *do* support their children, so saying support your children and
we'll get rid of the list defies logic. Or reason. My initial point, a
point you indicate that you have read the studies on and agreed with, is
that the vast majority of people on these lists do not deserve to be on
them.

Because being male is the be all end all as far as being top of the
food chain.

That depends entirely on which "food chain" you are talking about. To
use a metaphor, a great white shark is not at the top of the food chain
in the middle of the Gobi desert. He's more of a sitting duck.
Environment plays a very significant factor.


Only if one lives in an environment that is totally unaffected by
every other environment... a glass fishbowl, perhaps. Otherwise, we
see and learn that the advantage tends to go to the men.

Then I guess that the family court system and the divorce system is a
glass fishbowl.


In family court, men are most certainly not at "the top of the food
chain". To suggest otherwise is... well... nonsensical because it
flies in the face of so much data indicating the opposite.


Men were the ones who put other men in this position (male judges). To
blame women for taking advantage of it is like blaming men for taking
advantage of being at the top of the food chain. It exists. There are
reasons why it exists as it does. They are not fair reasons.. not for
either "side."

Really? You mean women didn't get the vote in the 20's after all, or
that all judges are over 105 years old?

So now it is the male judges who are the problem, not the court system,
not the social welfare officers, not the "tender years doctrine" which,
if I recall correctly, was supposed to have gone out in the 80's with a
series of conventions, and then re-writes of the guardianship and
custody laws in the 90's, but yet are still applied.

If you could show me an outlash from the female gender *against* this
thing, then I'd agree with you. But I don't see that, even though (at
least in here) many women do agree with equal access/custody types of
things.

If that is so, then they are more likely to not pay the child support
ordered. Those two pieces of the puzzle fit well. That's exactly why
women who do want to be fair and share custody are condemned as nuts,
drunks, drug abusers, and etc.

Fine. Then make the same argument the other way around. Those men who
aren't paying who are drug users, drunks and whatnot shouldn't be placed
on the "rolls" because of that? Doesn't fit.

What backs up the statement that these women are *insert whatever
issue* is that men have had to fight awfully hard to gain custody of
their children. They have been forced to prove their ex's to be
*insert whatever issue* or lose their children. They have had to do
so using money to hire a private investigator or by getting medical
records. Also, women are more likely to seek help for "emotional
problems." Therefore, more women would be judged to be *insert
whatever issue* in a court of law than men. Men have to prove they
are better. Women have automatically won.

Don't follow this one at all.

Many of us had money issues at the time. Money issues are one of the
top three reasons why couples divorce. I was a recently married young
adult at the time and expecting my oldest child.

Hmm ... I was always told that the money, sex, kids argument line was
false. Those were symptoms, not prolems.

You work to explain the rise in divorce but the explanation has little
to do with the aforementioned "tender years" doctrine.


No.. that has to do with custody. The topic was child support and
"deadbeat dads". One cannot be a deadbeat dad without a court order to
pay. The number one reason for a custody dispute is divorce.

False. One is very easily labeled a "Beat Dead Dad." Courts do not
bestow that label. I would love to see the court order that says "And
so my Order is that Mr. So and So be a Dead Beat Dad." I have no Order
against me for anything, yet I am referred to repeatedly as a Dead Beat
Dad by the mother, by the ex-mother-in-law and my kids even bring it up
from time to time (or they used to).

I'll leave the throw away line at the end of your paragraph alone,
except to say, "relevance?"

I know. But given a choice, I would rather work on keeping couples
together than on the issue of how to divide assets and share custody.

laudable, but I don't think it can be done it "the Dark Side" becomes
fully understood. Carrot stick rationale.

Rambler