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#41
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
If you know "many" men with custody of their children, and who are
supposed to be getting child support, ME, you must live in an extremely odd part of the world. Figures of fathers with custody of their children vary in different areas. However, in more than 10 years of tracking these issues, the highest percentage I have ever seen for the U.S. is 15. So fifty percent of parents are fathers, but at most only 15 percent are custodial parents. And, of that 15 percent, I'll bet only a very, very small percentage have child support awards, and an even smaller percentage of them are actually getting the money. In truth, child support money is a one-way flow of money -- from men to women. Knowing that principle is fundamental to understanding what goes on in the CS system. But perhaps you live in Saudi Arabia. ME wrote: "Werebat" wrote in message ... I find your story incredibly hard to believe, but it may just be because I was recently imprisoned after dutifully paying my CS for well over two years, ever since it was ordered. This guy owned a BUSINESS? Seems like he'd be painfully easy to track down if you ask me! Sure he is easy to track down, if the courts wanted to. But they don't want to, at least not around here. The courts around here do not see that when two people take the responsibility to sleep together that they should both take the responsibility of the consequences. If the payor (often women are paying too, not just men--I know many men with custody of their children) sends something, anything at all, they won't do or say much of anything to him/her. And the child wanted to KILL himself at 6 years old? This was not due to absence of the father -- I'd look to see if Mommy Dearest was sexually abusing him out of anger at the father and an inability to deal with the real world. Mom was not sexually abusing Baby, or abusing him in any way. I know you will reply back saying, YEAH RIGHT, or something of the sort but it's the truth. - Ron ^*^ ME wrote: I agree with the fact that the pill should not be released OTC, it is too dangerous for that kind of availability. I do also agree, however, that the OTC release of it would lessen the number of abortions, unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancy, and other matters of the sort. As for your point on men not having the choices...if we lived in a perfect world all woman would discuss the matter with the man first, but we don't. BUT... As for your 'plan B' for men....if we lived in a perfect world all men would actually pay their child support and be there for their children through all of their life, but they don't. A girl I know gets pregnant a week before her 17th birthday. Her boyfriend says the baby is not his and breaks it off with her immediatley, but he does vow that if blood test reveal he is the father he would support the child totally. She goes through the pregnancy without him. When the baby is 6 months old Mom needs a car to get a job, since she has now graduated high school. She works out a loan with her Aunt who tells her she won't loan her the money unless she takes the baby's father to court for child support. She does this. Dad requests blood tests. Dad tells the domestic relations hearing officer of all Mom's partners at the time of conception....although he was the only one she was with. Blood tests come back that he is indeed the daddy of the baby. $45 a week is ordered, yippy. Years go by, no support. After 2 1/2 years she starts getting child support when Dad feels like paying it. He sees the child, then doesnt, then does, then doesnt....Baby is now 5 years old. Dad still doesn't pay child support like he is court ordered and Mom can't get any help from the courts. (Seems the enforcing officers just have too much to do with all the other cases....ya know the ones who owe more back support) Baby starts to see psychiatrists, therapists and any other 'ist' you can imagine. Baby is so emotionally disturbed he sees them 2-4 times a month depending on behavior and emotional outbursts. Dad doesn't bother to call, send a card, a letter, or send child support. (By the way, Dad owns his own business, and for the last 4 years sat in bars 6 days a week) Baby spends a week in the inpatient child psychiatry unit at 6 years old because he told Mom he wanted to kill himself. What came out in therapy sessions? Dad did this, Dad did that, Dad didn't do this, Dad didn't do that. To make this story as short as possible because I could go on forever, your PLAN B is often ignored by men also. Around here you have to give your arm and leg and possibly both to get something done about violating court orders, getting child support etc. My point is this, although women may ignore the mans decisions in using birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption etc etc, men also ignore the fatherly rights they have. (child support, even seeing the child, providing clothes or moral support) Meanwhile mom struggles to survive because she chose LIFE and dad chose BAR, sports car etc etc etc. Sure, make a law that the Dad has to sign permission for birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption, or life but then make a law that Dad also has to live up to his responsibilities of being a Dad. This argument could go on forever, and so could I. Women are in the wrong, men are in the wrong. Men shouldn't have to pay for the choices of women? Women pay for the choices of men each and every single day. "Kenneth S." wrote in message .. In the interests of clarity, I should point out that this is not RU-486. It is a product known as an "emergency contraceptive," and is -- on my understanding -- a pepped-up dose of the ingredients of the birth control pill. It is not an abortion-inducing product. However, the basic point remains. This is yet another way of giving reproductive choices to women. Meantime, no one considers ways of giving post-conception reproductive choices to men. It would be very simple to say that men should not have to pay for decisions made unilaterally by women, and should be able to renounce their paternal rights and responsibilities. However, this doesn't get done, very largely because there is no special interest group representing heterosexual men. For men, "Plan B" consists of paying 18+ years of "child support" money to women who decide that they don't want to make use of all the post-conception choices U.S. law has given them. Kathi Kelly wrote: "Kenneth S." writes: But there is a definite possibility that the FDA WILL accept this proposal. A minority of U.S. states (as well as several European countries) ALREADY say that morning-after pills should be available to women on an over-the-counter basis. Kenneth, Bob and Mel all made good points about RU486. However, another point remains. RU486 is not a safe procedure for OTC release. There are and can be severe consequences. IMO, the FDA should not even consider this proposal. An MD should be supervising the use of RU486. To me, this is yet another example of the vocal minority getting their way to the detriment of society and health issues. It's just ridiculous. The interested readers can peruse these pages. http://pages.map.com/lroberge/ru486.htm http://www.feminist.org/action/action120f.htm#_edn1 N.B., the FM states only the "positive" and makes no mention of adverse side effects. The FM is working for their own political agenda. Women be damned as far as they are concerned. |
#42
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
No I do not live in Saudi Arabia. And yes, I agree, when men have custody
most of them do have less child support awarded to them. (Could that be because the statistics also show that men make more than women?) I do not live in an extremely odd part of the world. The biggest oddity here is the weather. You may have tracked these issues for 10 years, and that is great, but how have you tracked them? By country? By state? By large city? by county? Obviously it would take more than 10 years to track the statistics to all the small towns in the US, but you would find different numbers if it were done like that. Sure 15% of men in this state might have custody, but if it were broken up further, you probably would find X county (or town) has 25% while Y county (or town) has 10% and so on. So assume that I live in X county. So now is it so impossible for me to know many fathers with custody of their child(ren)? No it is not. I am not getting into all the politics of this issue but I have one more thing to say--I respect your opinion (and others posted here) but seems I get 'bashed' for my opinion. I have been involved in the CS system for years and in this county the system doesn't work great for either custodial parents or non custodial parents. Now, that being said, I respect your research, your opinions, etc...but respect mine, too. "Kenneth S." wrote in message ... If you know "many" men with custody of their children, and who are supposed to be getting child support, ME, you must live in an extremely odd part of the world. Figures of fathers with custody of their children vary in different areas. However, in more than 10 years of tracking these issues, the highest percentage I have ever seen for the U.S. is 15. So fifty percent of parents are fathers, but at most only 15 percent are custodial parents. And, of that 15 percent, I'll bet only a very, very small percentage have child support awards, and an even smaller percentage of them are actually getting the money. In truth, child support money is a one-way flow of money -- from men to women. Knowing that principle is fundamental to understanding what goes on in the CS system. But perhaps you live in Saudi Arabia. ME wrote: "Werebat" wrote in message ... I find your story incredibly hard to believe, but it may just be because I was recently imprisoned after dutifully paying my CS for well over two years, ever since it was ordered. This guy owned a BUSINESS? Seems like he'd be painfully easy to track down if you ask me! Sure he is easy to track down, if the courts wanted to. But they don't want to, at least not around here. The courts around here do not see that when two people take the responsibility to sleep together that they should both take the responsibility of the consequences. If the payor (often women are paying too, not just men--I know many men with custody of their children) sends something, anything at all, they won't do or say much of anything to him/her. And the child wanted to KILL himself at 6 years old? This was not due to absence of the father -- I'd look to see if Mommy Dearest was sexually abusing him out of anger at the father and an inability to deal with the real world. Mom was not sexually abusing Baby, or abusing him in any way. I know you will reply back saying, YEAH RIGHT, or something of the sort but it's the truth. - Ron ^*^ ME wrote: I agree with the fact that the pill should not be released OTC, it is too dangerous for that kind of availability. I do also agree, however, that the OTC release of it would lessen the number of abortions, unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancy, and other matters of the sort. As for your point on men not having the choices...if we lived in a perfect world all woman would discuss the matter with the man first, but we don't. BUT... As for your 'plan B' for men....if we lived in a perfect world all men would actually pay their child support and be there for their children through all of their life, but they don't. A girl I know gets pregnant a week before her 17th birthday. Her boyfriend says the baby is not his and breaks it off with her immediatley, but he does vow that if blood test reveal he is the father he would support the child totally. She goes through the pregnancy without him. When the baby is 6 months old Mom needs a car to get a job, since she has now graduated high school. She works out a loan with her Aunt who tells her she won't loan her the money unless she takes the baby's father to court for child support. She does this. Dad requests blood tests. Dad tells the domestic relations hearing officer of all Mom's partners at the time of conception....although he was the only one she was with. Blood tests come back that he is indeed the daddy of the baby. $45 a week is ordered, yippy. Years go by, no support. After 2 1/2 years she starts getting child support when Dad feels like paying it. He sees the child, then doesnt, then does, then doesnt....Baby is now 5 years old. Dad still doesn't pay child support like he is court ordered and Mom can't get any help from the courts. (Seems the enforcing officers just have too much to do with all the other cases....ya know the ones who owe more back support) Baby starts to see psychiatrists, therapists and any other 'ist' you can imagine. Baby is so emotionally disturbed he sees them 2-4 times a month depending on behavior and emotional outbursts. Dad doesn't bother to call, send a card, a letter, or send child support. (By the way, Dad owns his own business, and for the last 4 years sat in bars 6 days a week) Baby spends a week in the inpatient child psychiatry unit at 6 years old because he told Mom he wanted to kill himself. What came out in therapy sessions? Dad did this, Dad did that, Dad didn't do this, Dad didn't do that. To make this story as short as possible because I could go on forever, your PLAN B is often ignored by men also. Around here you have to give your arm and leg and possibly both to get something done about violating court orders, getting child support etc. My point is this, although women may ignore the mans decisions in using birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption etc etc, men also ignore the fatherly rights they have. (child support, even seeing the child, providing clothes or moral support) Meanwhile mom struggles to survive because she chose LIFE and dad chose BAR, sports car etc etc etc. Sure, make a law that the Dad has to sign permission for birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption, or life but then make a law that Dad also has to live up to his responsibilities of being a Dad. This argument could go on forever, and so could I. Women are in the wrong, men are in the wrong. Men shouldn't have to pay for the choices of women? Women pay for the choices of men each and every single day. "Kenneth S." wrote in message .. In the interests of clarity, I should point out that this is not RU-486. It is a product known as an "emergency contraceptive," and is -- on my understanding -- a pepped-up dose of the ingredients of the birth control pill. It is not an abortion-inducing product. However, the basic point remains. This is yet another way of giving reproductive choices to women. Meantime, no one considers ways of giving post-conception reproductive choices to men. It would be very simple to say that men should not have to pay for decisions made unilaterally by women, and should be able to renounce their paternal rights and responsibilities. However, this doesn't get done, very largely because there is no special interest group representing heterosexual men. For men, "Plan B" consists of paying 18+ years of "child support" money to women who decide that they don't want to make use of all the post-conception choices U.S. law has given them. Kathi Kelly wrote: "Kenneth S." writes: But there is a definite possibility that the FDA WILL accept this proposal. A minority of U.S. states (as well as several European countries) ALREADY say that morning-after pills should be available to women on an over-the-counter basis. Kenneth, Bob and Mel all made good points about RU486. However, another point remains. RU486 is not a safe procedure for OTC release. There are and can be severe consequences. IMO, the FDA should not even consider this proposal. An MD should be supervising the use of RU486. To me, this is yet another example of the vocal minority getting their way to the detriment of society and health issues. It's just ridiculous. The interested readers can peruse these pages. http://pages.map.com/lroberge/ru486.htm http://www.feminist.org/action/action120f.htm#_edn1 N.B., the FM states only the "positive" and makes no mention of adverse side effects. The FM is working for their own political agenda. Women be damned as far as they are concerned. |
#43
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
No I do not live in Saudi Arabia. And yes, I agree, when men have custody
most of them do have less child support awarded to them. (Could that be because the statistics also show that men make more than women?) I do not live in an extremely odd part of the world. The biggest oddity here is the weather. You may have tracked these issues for 10 years, and that is great, but how have you tracked them? By country? By state? By large city? by county? Obviously it would take more than 10 years to track the statistics to all the small towns in the US, but you would find different numbers if it were done like that. Sure 15% of men in this state might have custody, but if it were broken up further, you probably would find X county (or town) has 25% while Y county (or town) has 10% and so on. So assume that I live in X county. So now is it so impossible for me to know many fathers with custody of their child(ren)? No it is not. I am not getting into all the politics of this issue but I have one more thing to say--I respect your opinion (and others posted here) but seems I get 'bashed' for my opinion. I have been involved in the CS system for years and in this county the system doesn't work great for either custodial parents or non custodial parents. Now, that being said, I respect your research, your opinions, etc...but respect mine, too. "Kenneth S." wrote in message ... If you know "many" men with custody of their children, and who are supposed to be getting child support, ME, you must live in an extremely odd part of the world. Figures of fathers with custody of their children vary in different areas. However, in more than 10 years of tracking these issues, the highest percentage I have ever seen for the U.S. is 15. So fifty percent of parents are fathers, but at most only 15 percent are custodial parents. And, of that 15 percent, I'll bet only a very, very small percentage have child support awards, and an even smaller percentage of them are actually getting the money. In truth, child support money is a one-way flow of money -- from men to women. Knowing that principle is fundamental to understanding what goes on in the CS system. But perhaps you live in Saudi Arabia. ME wrote: "Werebat" wrote in message ... I find your story incredibly hard to believe, but it may just be because I was recently imprisoned after dutifully paying my CS for well over two years, ever since it was ordered. This guy owned a BUSINESS? Seems like he'd be painfully easy to track down if you ask me! Sure he is easy to track down, if the courts wanted to. But they don't want to, at least not around here. The courts around here do not see that when two people take the responsibility to sleep together that they should both take the responsibility of the consequences. If the payor (often women are paying too, not just men--I know many men with custody of their children) sends something, anything at all, they won't do or say much of anything to him/her. And the child wanted to KILL himself at 6 years old? This was not due to absence of the father -- I'd look to see if Mommy Dearest was sexually abusing him out of anger at the father and an inability to deal with the real world. Mom was not sexually abusing Baby, or abusing him in any way. I know you will reply back saying, YEAH RIGHT, or something of the sort but it's the truth. - Ron ^*^ ME wrote: I agree with the fact that the pill should not be released OTC, it is too dangerous for that kind of availability. I do also agree, however, that the OTC release of it would lessen the number of abortions, unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancy, and other matters of the sort. As for your point on men not having the choices...if we lived in a perfect world all woman would discuss the matter with the man first, but we don't. BUT... As for your 'plan B' for men....if we lived in a perfect world all men would actually pay their child support and be there for their children through all of their life, but they don't. A girl I know gets pregnant a week before her 17th birthday. Her boyfriend says the baby is not his and breaks it off with her immediatley, but he does vow that if blood test reveal he is the father he would support the child totally. She goes through the pregnancy without him. When the baby is 6 months old Mom needs a car to get a job, since she has now graduated high school. She works out a loan with her Aunt who tells her she won't loan her the money unless she takes the baby's father to court for child support. She does this. Dad requests blood tests. Dad tells the domestic relations hearing officer of all Mom's partners at the time of conception....although he was the only one she was with. Blood tests come back that he is indeed the daddy of the baby. $45 a week is ordered, yippy. Years go by, no support. After 2 1/2 years she starts getting child support when Dad feels like paying it. He sees the child, then doesnt, then does, then doesnt....Baby is now 5 years old. Dad still doesn't pay child support like he is court ordered and Mom can't get any help from the courts. (Seems the enforcing officers just have too much to do with all the other cases....ya know the ones who owe more back support) Baby starts to see psychiatrists, therapists and any other 'ist' you can imagine. Baby is so emotionally disturbed he sees them 2-4 times a month depending on behavior and emotional outbursts. Dad doesn't bother to call, send a card, a letter, or send child support. (By the way, Dad owns his own business, and for the last 4 years sat in bars 6 days a week) Baby spends a week in the inpatient child psychiatry unit at 6 years old because he told Mom he wanted to kill himself. What came out in therapy sessions? Dad did this, Dad did that, Dad didn't do this, Dad didn't do that. To make this story as short as possible because I could go on forever, your PLAN B is often ignored by men also. Around here you have to give your arm and leg and possibly both to get something done about violating court orders, getting child support etc. My point is this, although women may ignore the mans decisions in using birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption etc etc, men also ignore the fatherly rights they have. (child support, even seeing the child, providing clothes or moral support) Meanwhile mom struggles to survive because she chose LIFE and dad chose BAR, sports car etc etc etc. Sure, make a law that the Dad has to sign permission for birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption, or life but then make a law that Dad also has to live up to his responsibilities of being a Dad. This argument could go on forever, and so could I. Women are in the wrong, men are in the wrong. Men shouldn't have to pay for the choices of women? Women pay for the choices of men each and every single day. "Kenneth S." wrote in message .. In the interests of clarity, I should point out that this is not RU-486. It is a product known as an "emergency contraceptive," and is -- on my understanding -- a pepped-up dose of the ingredients of the birth control pill. It is not an abortion-inducing product. However, the basic point remains. This is yet another way of giving reproductive choices to women. Meantime, no one considers ways of giving post-conception reproductive choices to men. It would be very simple to say that men should not have to pay for decisions made unilaterally by women, and should be able to renounce their paternal rights and responsibilities. However, this doesn't get done, very largely because there is no special interest group representing heterosexual men. For men, "Plan B" consists of paying 18+ years of "child support" money to women who decide that they don't want to make use of all the post-conception choices U.S. law has given them. Kathi Kelly wrote: "Kenneth S." writes: But there is a definite possibility that the FDA WILL accept this proposal. A minority of U.S. states (as well as several European countries) ALREADY say that morning-after pills should be available to women on an over-the-counter basis. Kenneth, Bob and Mel all made good points about RU486. However, another point remains. RU486 is not a safe procedure for OTC release. There are and can be severe consequences. IMO, the FDA should not even consider this proposal. An MD should be supervising the use of RU486. To me, this is yet another example of the vocal minority getting their way to the detriment of society and health issues. It's just ridiculous. The interested readers can peruse these pages. http://pages.map.com/lroberge/ru486.htm http://www.feminist.org/action/action120f.htm#_edn1 N.B., the FM states only the "positive" and makes no mention of adverse side effects. The FM is working for their own political agenda. Women be damned as far as they are concerned. |
#44
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
The huge disparity in custody, ME, between fathers and mothers is a
very important issue, and I make no apology for raising it and for calling attention to efforts to fudge the question. A major weapon in the armory of defenders of the CS status quo is to pretend that men and women are equally likely to be custodial parents. One way this is done is to rely on anecdotal evidence: "I know several fathers who have custody of their children." That's what you did. Another way is to be very careful never to talk about fathers and mothers, but always to speak about noncustodial parents and custodial parents. That's what the politicians, judges, CS bureaucrats, and feminist groups do. They try to avoid anyone even thinking about the issue. Yet another way is to be careful to ensure that the actual numbers don't leak out. So, for example, if you ask in my state about the issue, you get told that they don't collect these numbers, and they don't know. If pressed, they will agree that most custodial parents are mothers. They will never acknowledge the continuation of the glass ceiling on paternal custody, or the fact that very few custodial fathers even have orders requiring that they be paid CS (in large measure because most fathers wouldn't even try to get money from the mothers of their children. They are more than content to have custody.) Finally, another way of distorting the numbers is to fudge the joint custody issue. In the great majority of joint custody situations, it is joint legal custody, but the mothers have physical custody of the children. That's no different from sole maternal custody, and should be counted as such in the numbers. As for how I have tracked these numbers, in the first place, you only need to look around you. And, despite what you say, you will find very, very few custodial fathers. Secondly, when I first started to be involved in these issues more than 10 years ago, a member of the fathers' group that I belonged to conducted his own research into custody awards in the one of the counties in this area. He found that over a period of several years, not a single father had been awarded custody over the mother's objections, except in a few unusual cases where there was some serious problem with the mother, such as her being a drug addict. The 15 percent figure, the highest I have seen, comes from a federal agency -- to the best of my recollection, the Census Bureau. (I don't know how they handle joint custody.) So-called "child support" is actually money that fathers pay mothers, because of the custody situation. If any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, the system would change very quickly -- or to be more accurate, if any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, that would indicate that the system had ALREADY changed. ME wrote: No I do not live in Saudi Arabia. And yes, I agree, when men have custody most of them do have less child support awarded to them. (Could that be because the statistics also show that men make more than women?) I do not live in an extremely odd part of the world. The biggest oddity here is the weather. You may have tracked these issues for 10 years, and that is great, but how have you tracked them? By country? By state? By large city? by county? Obviously it would take more than 10 years to track the statistics to all the small towns in the US, but you would find different numbers if it were done like that. Sure 15% of men in this state might have custody, but if it were broken up further, you probably would find X county (or town) has 25% while Y county (or town) has 10% and so on. So assume that I live in X county. So now is it so impossible for me to know many fathers with custody of their child(ren)? No it is not. I am not getting into all the politics of this issue but I have one more thing to say--I respect your opinion (and others posted here) but seems I get 'bashed' for my opinion. I have been involved in the CS system for years and in this county the system doesn't work great for either custodial parents or non custodial parents. Now, that being said, I respect your research, your opinions, etc...but respect mine, too. "Kenneth S." wrote in message ... If you know "many" men with custody of their children, and who are supposed to be getting child support, ME, you must live in an extremely odd part of the world. Figures of fathers with custody of their children vary in different areas. However, in more than 10 years of tracking these issues, the highest percentage I have ever seen for the U.S. is 15. So fifty percent of parents are fathers, but at most only 15 percent are custodial parents. And, of that 15 percent, I'll bet only a very, very small percentage have child support awards, and an even smaller percentage of them are actually getting the money. In truth, child support money is a one-way flow of money -- from men to women. Knowing that principle is fundamental to understanding what goes on in the CS system. But perhaps you live in Saudi Arabia. ME wrote: "Werebat" wrote in message ... I find your story incredibly hard to believe, but it may just be because I was recently imprisoned after dutifully paying my CS for well over two years, ever since it was ordered. This guy owned a BUSINESS? Seems like he'd be painfully easy to track down if you ask me! Sure he is easy to track down, if the courts wanted to. But they don't want to, at least not around here. The courts around here do not see that when two people take the responsibility to sleep together that they should both take the responsibility of the consequences. If the payor (often women are paying too, not just men--I know many men with custody of their children) sends something, anything at all, they won't do or say much of anything to him/her. And the child wanted to KILL himself at 6 years old? This was not due to absence of the father -- I'd look to see if Mommy Dearest was sexually abusing him out of anger at the father and an inability to deal with the real world. Mom was not sexually abusing Baby, or abusing him in any way. I know you will reply back saying, YEAH RIGHT, or something of the sort but it's the truth. - Ron ^*^ ME wrote: I agree with the fact that the pill should not be released OTC, it is too dangerous for that kind of availability. I do also agree, however, that the OTC release of it would lessen the number of abortions, unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancy, and other matters of the sort. As for your point on men not having the choices...if we lived in a perfect world all woman would discuss the matter with the man first, but we don't. BUT... As for your 'plan B' for men....if we lived in a perfect world all men would actually pay their child support and be there for their children through all of their life, but they don't. A girl I know gets pregnant a week before her 17th birthday. Her boyfriend says the baby is not his and breaks it off with her immediatley, but he does vow that if blood test reveal he is the father he would support the child totally. She goes through the pregnancy without him. When the baby is 6 months old Mom needs a car to get a job, since she has now graduated high school. She works out a loan with her Aunt who tells her she won't loan her the money unless she takes the baby's father to court for child support. She does this. Dad requests blood tests. Dad tells the domestic relations hearing officer of all Mom's partners at the time of conception....although he was the only one she was with. Blood tests come back that he is indeed the daddy of the baby. $45 a week is ordered, yippy. Years go by, no support. After 2 1/2 years she starts getting child support when Dad feels like paying it. He sees the child, then doesnt, then does, then doesnt....Baby is now 5 years old. Dad still doesn't pay child support like he is court ordered and Mom can't get any help from the courts. (Seems the enforcing officers just have too much to do with all the other cases....ya know the ones who owe more back support) Baby starts to see psychiatrists, therapists and any other 'ist' you can imagine. Baby is so emotionally disturbed he sees them 2-4 times a month depending on behavior and emotional outbursts. Dad doesn't bother to call, send a card, a letter, or send child support. (By the way, Dad owns his own business, and for the last 4 years sat in bars 6 days a week) Baby spends a week in the inpatient child psychiatry unit at 6 years old because he told Mom he wanted to kill himself. What came out in therapy sessions? Dad did this, Dad did that, Dad didn't do this, Dad didn't do that. To make this story as short as possible because I could go on forever, your PLAN B is often ignored by men also. Around here you have to give your arm and leg and possibly both to get something done about violating court orders, getting child support etc. My point is this, although women may ignore the mans decisions in using birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption etc etc, men also ignore the fatherly rights they have. (child support, even seeing the child, providing clothes or moral support) Meanwhile mom struggles to survive because she chose LIFE and dad chose BAR, sports car etc etc etc. Sure, make a law that the Dad has to sign permission for birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption, or life but then make a law that Dad also has to live up to his responsibilities of being a Dad. This argument could go on forever, and so could I. Women are in the wrong, men are in the wrong. Men shouldn't have to pay for the choices of women? Women pay for the choices of men each and every single day. "Kenneth S." wrote in message .. In the interests of clarity, I should point out that this is not RU-486. It is a product known as an "emergency contraceptive," and is -- on my understanding -- a pepped-up dose of the ingredients of the birth control pill. It is not an abortion-inducing product. However, the basic point remains. This is yet another way of giving reproductive choices to women. Meantime, no one considers ways of giving post-conception reproductive choices to men. It would be very simple to say that men should not have to pay for decisions made unilaterally by women, and should be able to renounce their paternal rights and responsibilities. However, this doesn't get done, very largely because there is no special interest group representing heterosexual men. For men, "Plan B" consists of paying 18+ years of "child support" money to women who decide that they don't want to make use of all the post-conception choices U.S. law has given them. Kathi Kelly wrote: "Kenneth S." writes: But there is a definite possibility that the FDA WILL accept this proposal. A minority of U.S. states (as well as several European countries) ALREADY say that morning-after pills should be available to women on an over-the-counter basis. Kenneth, Bob and Mel all made good points about RU486. However, another point remains. RU486 is not a safe procedure for OTC release. There are and can be severe consequences. IMO, the FDA should not even consider this proposal. An MD should be supervising the use of RU486. To me, this is yet another example of the vocal minority getting their way to the detriment of society and health issues. It's just ridiculous. The interested readers can peruse these pages. http://pages.map.com/lroberge/ru486.htm http://www.feminist.org/action/action120f.htm#_edn1 N.B., the FM states only the "positive" and makes no mention of adverse side effects. The FM is working for their own political agenda. Women be damned as far as they are concerned. |
#45
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
The huge disparity in custody, ME, between fathers and mothers is a
very important issue, and I make no apology for raising it and for calling attention to efforts to fudge the question. A major weapon in the armory of defenders of the CS status quo is to pretend that men and women are equally likely to be custodial parents. One way this is done is to rely on anecdotal evidence: "I know several fathers who have custody of their children." That's what you did. Another way is to be very careful never to talk about fathers and mothers, but always to speak about noncustodial parents and custodial parents. That's what the politicians, judges, CS bureaucrats, and feminist groups do. They try to avoid anyone even thinking about the issue. Yet another way is to be careful to ensure that the actual numbers don't leak out. So, for example, if you ask in my state about the issue, you get told that they don't collect these numbers, and they don't know. If pressed, they will agree that most custodial parents are mothers. They will never acknowledge the continuation of the glass ceiling on paternal custody, or the fact that very few custodial fathers even have orders requiring that they be paid CS (in large measure because most fathers wouldn't even try to get money from the mothers of their children. They are more than content to have custody.) Finally, another way of distorting the numbers is to fudge the joint custody issue. In the great majority of joint custody situations, it is joint legal custody, but the mothers have physical custody of the children. That's no different from sole maternal custody, and should be counted as such in the numbers. As for how I have tracked these numbers, in the first place, you only need to look around you. And, despite what you say, you will find very, very few custodial fathers. Secondly, when I first started to be involved in these issues more than 10 years ago, a member of the fathers' group that I belonged to conducted his own research into custody awards in the one of the counties in this area. He found that over a period of several years, not a single father had been awarded custody over the mother's objections, except in a few unusual cases where there was some serious problem with the mother, such as her being a drug addict. The 15 percent figure, the highest I have seen, comes from a federal agency -- to the best of my recollection, the Census Bureau. (I don't know how they handle joint custody.) So-called "child support" is actually money that fathers pay mothers, because of the custody situation. If any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, the system would change very quickly -- or to be more accurate, if any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, that would indicate that the system had ALREADY changed. ME wrote: No I do not live in Saudi Arabia. And yes, I agree, when men have custody most of them do have less child support awarded to them. (Could that be because the statistics also show that men make more than women?) I do not live in an extremely odd part of the world. The biggest oddity here is the weather. You may have tracked these issues for 10 years, and that is great, but how have you tracked them? By country? By state? By large city? by county? Obviously it would take more than 10 years to track the statistics to all the small towns in the US, but you would find different numbers if it were done like that. Sure 15% of men in this state might have custody, but if it were broken up further, you probably would find X county (or town) has 25% while Y county (or town) has 10% and so on. So assume that I live in X county. So now is it so impossible for me to know many fathers with custody of their child(ren)? No it is not. I am not getting into all the politics of this issue but I have one more thing to say--I respect your opinion (and others posted here) but seems I get 'bashed' for my opinion. I have been involved in the CS system for years and in this county the system doesn't work great for either custodial parents or non custodial parents. Now, that being said, I respect your research, your opinions, etc...but respect mine, too. "Kenneth S." wrote in message ... If you know "many" men with custody of their children, and who are supposed to be getting child support, ME, you must live in an extremely odd part of the world. Figures of fathers with custody of their children vary in different areas. However, in more than 10 years of tracking these issues, the highest percentage I have ever seen for the U.S. is 15. So fifty percent of parents are fathers, but at most only 15 percent are custodial parents. And, of that 15 percent, I'll bet only a very, very small percentage have child support awards, and an even smaller percentage of them are actually getting the money. In truth, child support money is a one-way flow of money -- from men to women. Knowing that principle is fundamental to understanding what goes on in the CS system. But perhaps you live in Saudi Arabia. ME wrote: "Werebat" wrote in message ... I find your story incredibly hard to believe, but it may just be because I was recently imprisoned after dutifully paying my CS for well over two years, ever since it was ordered. This guy owned a BUSINESS? Seems like he'd be painfully easy to track down if you ask me! Sure he is easy to track down, if the courts wanted to. But they don't want to, at least not around here. The courts around here do not see that when two people take the responsibility to sleep together that they should both take the responsibility of the consequences. If the payor (often women are paying too, not just men--I know many men with custody of their children) sends something, anything at all, they won't do or say much of anything to him/her. And the child wanted to KILL himself at 6 years old? This was not due to absence of the father -- I'd look to see if Mommy Dearest was sexually abusing him out of anger at the father and an inability to deal with the real world. Mom was not sexually abusing Baby, or abusing him in any way. I know you will reply back saying, YEAH RIGHT, or something of the sort but it's the truth. - Ron ^*^ ME wrote: I agree with the fact that the pill should not be released OTC, it is too dangerous for that kind of availability. I do also agree, however, that the OTC release of it would lessen the number of abortions, unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancy, and other matters of the sort. As for your point on men not having the choices...if we lived in a perfect world all woman would discuss the matter with the man first, but we don't. BUT... As for your 'plan B' for men....if we lived in a perfect world all men would actually pay their child support and be there for their children through all of their life, but they don't. A girl I know gets pregnant a week before her 17th birthday. Her boyfriend says the baby is not his and breaks it off with her immediatley, but he does vow that if blood test reveal he is the father he would support the child totally. She goes through the pregnancy without him. When the baby is 6 months old Mom needs a car to get a job, since she has now graduated high school. She works out a loan with her Aunt who tells her she won't loan her the money unless she takes the baby's father to court for child support. She does this. Dad requests blood tests. Dad tells the domestic relations hearing officer of all Mom's partners at the time of conception....although he was the only one she was with. Blood tests come back that he is indeed the daddy of the baby. $45 a week is ordered, yippy. Years go by, no support. After 2 1/2 years she starts getting child support when Dad feels like paying it. He sees the child, then doesnt, then does, then doesnt....Baby is now 5 years old. Dad still doesn't pay child support like he is court ordered and Mom can't get any help from the courts. (Seems the enforcing officers just have too much to do with all the other cases....ya know the ones who owe more back support) Baby starts to see psychiatrists, therapists and any other 'ist' you can imagine. Baby is so emotionally disturbed he sees them 2-4 times a month depending on behavior and emotional outbursts. Dad doesn't bother to call, send a card, a letter, or send child support. (By the way, Dad owns his own business, and for the last 4 years sat in bars 6 days a week) Baby spends a week in the inpatient child psychiatry unit at 6 years old because he told Mom he wanted to kill himself. What came out in therapy sessions? Dad did this, Dad did that, Dad didn't do this, Dad didn't do that. To make this story as short as possible because I could go on forever, your PLAN B is often ignored by men also. Around here you have to give your arm and leg and possibly both to get something done about violating court orders, getting child support etc. My point is this, although women may ignore the mans decisions in using birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption etc etc, men also ignore the fatherly rights they have. (child support, even seeing the child, providing clothes or moral support) Meanwhile mom struggles to survive because she chose LIFE and dad chose BAR, sports car etc etc etc. Sure, make a law that the Dad has to sign permission for birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption, or life but then make a law that Dad also has to live up to his responsibilities of being a Dad. This argument could go on forever, and so could I. Women are in the wrong, men are in the wrong. Men shouldn't have to pay for the choices of women? Women pay for the choices of men each and every single day. "Kenneth S." wrote in message .. In the interests of clarity, I should point out that this is not RU-486. It is a product known as an "emergency contraceptive," and is -- on my understanding -- a pepped-up dose of the ingredients of the birth control pill. It is not an abortion-inducing product. However, the basic point remains. This is yet another way of giving reproductive choices to women. Meantime, no one considers ways of giving post-conception reproductive choices to men. It would be very simple to say that men should not have to pay for decisions made unilaterally by women, and should be able to renounce their paternal rights and responsibilities. However, this doesn't get done, very largely because there is no special interest group representing heterosexual men. For men, "Plan B" consists of paying 18+ years of "child support" money to women who decide that they don't want to make use of all the post-conception choices U.S. law has given them. Kathi Kelly wrote: "Kenneth S." writes: But there is a definite possibility that the FDA WILL accept this proposal. A minority of U.S. states (as well as several European countries) ALREADY say that morning-after pills should be available to women on an over-the-counter basis. Kenneth, Bob and Mel all made good points about RU486. However, another point remains. RU486 is not a safe procedure for OTC release. There are and can be severe consequences. IMO, the FDA should not even consider this proposal. An MD should be supervising the use of RU486. To me, this is yet another example of the vocal minority getting their way to the detriment of society and health issues. It's just ridiculous. The interested readers can peruse these pages. http://pages.map.com/lroberge/ru486.htm http://www.feminist.org/action/action120f.htm#_edn1 N.B., the FM states only the "positive" and makes no mention of adverse side effects. The FM is working for their own political agenda. Women be damned as far as they are concerned. |
#46
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
"Kenneth S." wrote in message ... The huge disparity in custody, ME, between fathers and mothers is a very important issue, and I make no apology for raising it and for calling attention to efforts to fudge the question. I didn't expect an apology at all A major weapon in the armory of defenders of the CS status quo is to pretend that men and women are equally likely to be custodial parents. One way this is done is to rely on anecdotal evidence: "I know several fathers who have custody of their children." That's what you did. Another way is to be very careful never to talk about fathers and mothers, but always to speak about noncustodial parents and custodial parents. Right, I admit I should've done that in the first place.... That's what the politicians, judges, CS bureaucrats, and feminist groups do. They try to avoid anyone even thinking about the issue. Yet another way is to be careful to ensure that the actual numbers don't leak out. So, for example, if you ask in my state about the issue, you get told that they don't collect these numbers, and they don't know. If pressed, they will agree that most custodial parents are mothers. They will never acknowledge the continuation of the glass ceiling on paternal custody, or the fact that very few custodial fathers even have orders requiring that they be paid CS (in large measure because most fathers wouldn't even try to get money from the mothers of their children. They are more than content to have custody.) I see...I agree but since you want to talk statiscal numbers, men statiscally make more than women do also... therefore they wouldn't have the fear of how are they going to give the child(ren) this or that, pay for this or that..... Finally, another way of distorting the numbers is to fudge the joint custody issue. In the great majority of joint custody situations, it is joint legal custody, but the mothers have physical custody of the children. That's no different from sole maternal custody, and should be counted as such in the numbers. I see your point there As for how I have tracked these numbers, in the first place, you only need to look around you. And, despite what you say, you will find very, very few custodial fathers. I didn't doubt that there are few custodial fathers. All I said was I know quite a few....and if the statistics are from a larger area (like State) and not a smaller area (like county) it is VERY possible that there may be a higher percentage of custodial fathers in certain towns....not saying that THERE IS a higher percentage....just saying it is possible--- Secondly, when I first started to be involved in these issues more than 10 years ago, a member of the fathers' group that I belonged to conducted his own research into custody awards in the one of the counties in this area. He found that over a period of several years, not a single father had been awarded custody over the mother's objections, except in a few unusual cases where there was some serious problem with the mother, such as her being a drug addict. The 15 percent figure, the highest I have seen, comes from a federal agency -- to the best of my recollection, the Census Bureau. (I don't know how they handle joint custody.) Okay, I wasn't questioning your figures, I was simply asking was it by state, county, large cities, or small towns? I have no reason to argue your numbers. So-called "child support" is actually money that fathers pay mothers, because of the custody situation. If any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, the system would change very quickly -- or to be more accurate, if any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, that would indicate that the system had ALREADY changed. So-called "child support" could also be actual money mothers pay fathers....because, althought it may be rare, they do pay fathers....so child support is as you say 'non custodial parent paying money to the custodial parent' I strongly feel that 'child support' could definitly be time spent between child and non custodial parent. But YES it does take money to raise children that is why the non custodial parent is obligated to pay child support. If my children would ever live with their father, and I ordered to pay child support, although it may hurt my financials, I would rather see the clothing on my childrens backs, the food in their stomaches, the toys they play with, the safe car they are transported in then not pay and watch them not eat healthy, wear torn clothing, not have many toys and be driven around in a vehicle that is unsafe.... Non custodial parents are making a better life for their children every time they send that check. Most non custodial parents look at it as paying the custodial parent....maybe in some cases it is true where the custodial parent 'blows' the money or spends it on his or herself, but not always. This stuff should be evaluated on a case by case basis and the entire categories (custodia - non custodial) not put down because of this. Non custodial parent A may be happy to pay support to see custodial parent a give the children have a better life, while non custodial parent B gets so mad because he sees custodial parent B wearing the latest fashions etc while she doesn't work herself. Not all CUSTODIAL PARENTS take advantage of the CS system....Not all NON CUSTODIAL PARENTS pay child support.... I am not doubting that the figures do favor women -- but not every case does.... ME wrote: No I do not live in Saudi Arabia. And yes, I agree, when men have custody most of them do have less child support awarded to them. (Could that be because the statistics also show that men make more than women?) I do not live in an extremely odd part of the world. The biggest oddity here is the weather. You may have tracked these issues for 10 years, and that is great, but how have you tracked them? By country? By state? By large city? by county? Obviously it would take more than 10 years to track the statistics to all the small towns in the US, but you would find different numbers if it were done like that. Sure 15% of men in this state might have custody, but if it were broken up further, you probably would find X county (or town) has 25% while Y county (or town) has 10% and so on. So assume that I live in X county. So now is it so impossible for me to know many fathers with custody of their child(ren)? No it is not. I am not getting into all the politics of this issue but I have one more thing to say--I respect your opinion (and others posted here) but seems I get 'bashed' for my opinion. I have been involved in the CS system for years and in this county the system doesn't work great for either custodial parents or non custodial parents. Now, that being said, I respect your research, your opinions, etc...but respect mine, too. "Kenneth S." wrote in message ... If you know "many" men with custody of their children, and who are supposed to be getting child support, ME, you must live in an extremely odd part of the world. Figures of fathers with custody of their children vary in different areas. However, in more than 10 years of tracking these issues, the highest percentage I have ever seen for the U.S. is 15. So fifty percent of parents are fathers, but at most only 15 percent are custodial parents. And, of that 15 percent, I'll bet only a very, very small percentage have child support awards, and an even smaller percentage of them are actually getting the money. In truth, child support money is a one-way flow of money -- from men to women. Knowing that principle is fundamental to understanding what goes on in the CS system. But perhaps you live in Saudi Arabia. ME wrote: "Werebat" wrote in message ... I find your story incredibly hard to believe, but it may just be because I was recently imprisoned after dutifully payig my CS for well over two years, ever since it was ordered. This guy owned a BUSINESS? Seems like he'd be painfully easy to track down if you ask me! Sure he is easy to track down, if the courts wanted to. But they don't want to, at least not around here. The courts around here do not see that when two people take the responsibility to sleep together that they should both take the responsibility of the consequences. If the payor (often women are paying too, not just men--I know many men with custody of their children) sends something, anything at all, they won't do or say much of anything to him/her. And the child wanted to KILL himself at 6 years old? This was not due to absence of the father -- I'd look to see if Mommy Dearest was sexually abusing him out of anger at the father and an inability to deal with the real world. Mom was not sexually abusing Baby, or abusing him in any way. I know you will reply back saying, YEAH RIGHT, or something of the sort but it's the truth. - Ron ^*^ ME wrote: I agree with the fact that the pill should not be released OTC, it is too dangerous for that kind of availability. I do also agree, however, that the OTC release of it would lessen the number of abortions, unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancy, and other matters of the sort. As for your point on men not having the choices...if we lived in a perfect world all woman would discuss the matter with the man first, but we don't. BUT... As for your 'plan B' for men....if we lived in a perfect world all men would actually pay their child support and be there for their children through all of their life, but they don't. A girl I know gets pregnant a week before her 17th birthday. Her boyfriend says the baby is not his and breaks it off with her immediatley, but he does vow that if blood test reveal he is the father he would support the child totally. She goes through the pregnancy without him. When the baby is 6 months old Mom needs a car to get a job, since she has now graduated high school. She works out a loan with her Aunt who tells her she won't loan her the money unless she takes the baby's father to court for child support. She does this. Dad requests blood tests. Dad tells the domestic relations hearing officer of all Mom's partners at the time of conception....although he was the only one she was with. Blood tests come back that he is indeed the daddy of the baby. $45 a week is ordered, yippy. Years go by, no support. After 2 1/2 years she starts getting child support when Dad feels like paying it. He sees the child, then doesnt, then does, then doesnt....Baby is now 5 years old. Dad still doesn't pay child support like he is court ordered and Mom can't get any help from the courts. (Seems the enforcing officers just have too much to do with all the other cases....ya know the ones who owe more back support) Baby starts to see psychiatrists, therapists and any other 'ist' you can imagine. Baby is so emotionally disturbed he sees them 2-4 times a month depending on behavior and emotional outbursts. Dad doesn't bother to call, send a card, a letter, or send child support. (By the way, Dad owns his own business, and for the last 4 years sat in bars 6 days a week) Baby spends a week in the inpatient child psychiatry unit at 6 years old because he told Mom he wanted to kill himself. What came out in therapy sessions? Dad did this, Dad did that, Dad didn't do this, Dad didn't do that. To make this story as short as possible because I could go on forever, your PLAN B is often ignored by men also. Around here you have to give your arm and leg and possibly both to get something done about violating court orders, getting child support etc. My point is this, although women may ignore the mans decisions in using birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption etc etc, men also ignore the fatherly rights they have. (child support, even seeing the child, providing clothes or moral support) Meanwhile mom struggles to survive because she chose LIFE and dad chose BAR, sports car etc etc etc. Sure, make a law that the Dad has to sign permission for birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption, or life but then make a law that Dad also has to live up to his responsibilities of being a Dad. This argument could go on forever, and so could I. Women are in the wrong, men are in the wrong. Men shouldn't have to pay for the choices of women? Women pay for the choices of men each and every single day. "Kenneth S." wrote in message .. In the interests of clarity, I should point out that this is not RU-486. It is a product known as an "emergency contraceptive," and is -- on my understanding -- a pepped-up dose of the ingredients of the birth control pill. It is not an abortion-inducing product. However, the basic point remains. This is yet another way of giving reproductive choices to women. Meantime, no one considers ways of giving post-conception reproductive choices to men. It would be very simple to say that men should not have to pay for decisions made unilaterally by women, and should be able to renounce their paternal rights and responsibilities. However, this doesn't get done, very largely because there is no special interest group representing heterosexual men. For men, "Plan B" consists of paying 18+ years of "child support" money to women who decide that they don't want to make use of all the post-conception choices U.S. law has given them. Kathi Kelly wrote: "Kenneth S." writes: But there is a definite possibility that the FDA WILL accept this proposal. A minority of U.S. states (as well as several European countries) ALREADY say that morning-after pills should be available to women on an over-the-counter basis. Kenneth, Bob and Mel all made good points about RU486. However, another point remains. RU486 is not a safe procedure for OTC release. There are and can be severe consequences. IMO, the FDA should not even consider this proposal. An MD should be supervising the use of RU486. To me, this is yet another example of the vocal minority getting their way to the detriment of society and health issues. It's just ridiculous. The interested readers can peruse these pages. http://pages.map.com/lroberge/ru486.htm http://www.feminist.org/action/action120f.htm#_edn1 N.B., the FM states only the "positive" and makes no mention of adverse side effects. The FM is working for their own political agenda. Women be damned as far as they are concerned. |
#47
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
"Kenneth S." wrote in message ... The huge disparity in custody, ME, between fathers and mothers is a very important issue, and I make no apology for raising it and for calling attention to efforts to fudge the question. I didn't expect an apology at all A major weapon in the armory of defenders of the CS status quo is to pretend that men and women are equally likely to be custodial parents. One way this is done is to rely on anecdotal evidence: "I know several fathers who have custody of their children." That's what you did. Another way is to be very careful never to talk about fathers and mothers, but always to speak about noncustodial parents and custodial parents. Right, I admit I should've done that in the first place.... That's what the politicians, judges, CS bureaucrats, and feminist groups do. They try to avoid anyone even thinking about the issue. Yet another way is to be careful to ensure that the actual numbers don't leak out. So, for example, if you ask in my state about the issue, you get told that they don't collect these numbers, and they don't know. If pressed, they will agree that most custodial parents are mothers. They will never acknowledge the continuation of the glass ceiling on paternal custody, or the fact that very few custodial fathers even have orders requiring that they be paid CS (in large measure because most fathers wouldn't even try to get money from the mothers of their children. They are more than content to have custody.) I see...I agree but since you want to talk statiscal numbers, men statiscally make more than women do also... therefore they wouldn't have the fear of how are they going to give the child(ren) this or that, pay for this or that..... Finally, another way of distorting the numbers is to fudge the joint custody issue. In the great majority of joint custody situations, it is joint legal custody, but the mothers have physical custody of the children. That's no different from sole maternal custody, and should be counted as such in the numbers. I see your point there As for how I have tracked these numbers, in the first place, you only need to look around you. And, despite what you say, you will find very, very few custodial fathers. I didn't doubt that there are few custodial fathers. All I said was I know quite a few....and if the statistics are from a larger area (like State) and not a smaller area (like county) it is VERY possible that there may be a higher percentage of custodial fathers in certain towns....not saying that THERE IS a higher percentage....just saying it is possible--- Secondly, when I first started to be involved in these issues more than 10 years ago, a member of the fathers' group that I belonged to conducted his own research into custody awards in the one of the counties in this area. He found that over a period of several years, not a single father had been awarded custody over the mother's objections, except in a few unusual cases where there was some serious problem with the mother, such as her being a drug addict. The 15 percent figure, the highest I have seen, comes from a federal agency -- to the best of my recollection, the Census Bureau. (I don't know how they handle joint custody.) Okay, I wasn't questioning your figures, I was simply asking was it by state, county, large cities, or small towns? I have no reason to argue your numbers. So-called "child support" is actually money that fathers pay mothers, because of the custody situation. If any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, the system would change very quickly -- or to be more accurate, if any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, that would indicate that the system had ALREADY changed. So-called "child support" could also be actual money mothers pay fathers....because, althought it may be rare, they do pay fathers....so child support is as you say 'non custodial parent paying money to the custodial parent' I strongly feel that 'child support' could definitly be time spent between child and non custodial parent. But YES it does take money to raise children that is why the non custodial parent is obligated to pay child support. If my children would ever live with their father, and I ordered to pay child support, although it may hurt my financials, I would rather see the clothing on my childrens backs, the food in their stomaches, the toys they play with, the safe car they are transported in then not pay and watch them not eat healthy, wear torn clothing, not have many toys and be driven around in a vehicle that is unsafe.... Non custodial parents are making a better life for their children every time they send that check. Most non custodial parents look at it as paying the custodial parent....maybe in some cases it is true where the custodial parent 'blows' the money or spends it on his or herself, but not always. This stuff should be evaluated on a case by case basis and the entire categories (custodia - non custodial) not put down because of this. Non custodial parent A may be happy to pay support to see custodial parent a give the children have a better life, while non custodial parent B gets so mad because he sees custodial parent B wearing the latest fashions etc while she doesn't work herself. Not all CUSTODIAL PARENTS take advantage of the CS system....Not all NON CUSTODIAL PARENTS pay child support.... I am not doubting that the figures do favor women -- but not every case does.... ME wrote: No I do not live in Saudi Arabia. And yes, I agree, when men have custody most of them do have less child support awarded to them. (Could that be because the statistics also show that men make more than women?) I do not live in an extremely odd part of the world. The biggest oddity here is the weather. You may have tracked these issues for 10 years, and that is great, but how have you tracked them? By country? By state? By large city? by county? Obviously it would take more than 10 years to track the statistics to all the small towns in the US, but you would find different numbers if it were done like that. Sure 15% of men in this state might have custody, but if it were broken up further, you probably would find X county (or town) has 25% while Y county (or town) has 10% and so on. So assume that I live in X county. So now is it so impossible for me to know many fathers with custody of their child(ren)? No it is not. I am not getting into all the politics of this issue but I have one more thing to say--I respect your opinion (and others posted here) but seems I get 'bashed' for my opinion. I have been involved in the CS system for years and in this county the system doesn't work great for either custodial parents or non custodial parents. Now, that being said, I respect your research, your opinions, etc...but respect mine, too. "Kenneth S." wrote in message ... If you know "many" men with custody of their children, and who are supposed to be getting child support, ME, you must live in an extremely odd part of the world. Figures of fathers with custody of their children vary in different areas. However, in more than 10 years of tracking these issues, the highest percentage I have ever seen for the U.S. is 15. So fifty percent of parents are fathers, but at most only 15 percent are custodial parents. And, of that 15 percent, I'll bet only a very, very small percentage have child support awards, and an even smaller percentage of them are actually getting the money. In truth, child support money is a one-way flow of money -- from men to women. Knowing that principle is fundamental to understanding what goes on in the CS system. But perhaps you live in Saudi Arabia. ME wrote: "Werebat" wrote in message ... I find your story incredibly hard to believe, but it may just be because I was recently imprisoned after dutifully payig my CS for well over two years, ever since it was ordered. This guy owned a BUSINESS? Seems like he'd be painfully easy to track down if you ask me! Sure he is easy to track down, if the courts wanted to. But they don't want to, at least not around here. The courts around here do not see that when two people take the responsibility to sleep together that they should both take the responsibility of the consequences. If the payor (often women are paying too, not just men--I know many men with custody of their children) sends something, anything at all, they won't do or say much of anything to him/her. And the child wanted to KILL himself at 6 years old? This was not due to absence of the father -- I'd look to see if Mommy Dearest was sexually abusing him out of anger at the father and an inability to deal with the real world. Mom was not sexually abusing Baby, or abusing him in any way. I know you will reply back saying, YEAH RIGHT, or something of the sort but it's the truth. - Ron ^*^ ME wrote: I agree with the fact that the pill should not be released OTC, it is too dangerous for that kind of availability. I do also agree, however, that the OTC release of it would lessen the number of abortions, unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancy, and other matters of the sort. As for your point on men not having the choices...if we lived in a perfect world all woman would discuss the matter with the man first, but we don't. BUT... As for your 'plan B' for men....if we lived in a perfect world all men would actually pay their child support and be there for their children through all of their life, but they don't. A girl I know gets pregnant a week before her 17th birthday. Her boyfriend says the baby is not his and breaks it off with her immediatley, but he does vow that if blood test reveal he is the father he would support the child totally. She goes through the pregnancy without him. When the baby is 6 months old Mom needs a car to get a job, since she has now graduated high school. She works out a loan with her Aunt who tells her she won't loan her the money unless she takes the baby's father to court for child support. She does this. Dad requests blood tests. Dad tells the domestic relations hearing officer of all Mom's partners at the time of conception....although he was the only one she was with. Blood tests come back that he is indeed the daddy of the baby. $45 a week is ordered, yippy. Years go by, no support. After 2 1/2 years she starts getting child support when Dad feels like paying it. He sees the child, then doesnt, then does, then doesnt....Baby is now 5 years old. Dad still doesn't pay child support like he is court ordered and Mom can't get any help from the courts. (Seems the enforcing officers just have too much to do with all the other cases....ya know the ones who owe more back support) Baby starts to see psychiatrists, therapists and any other 'ist' you can imagine. Baby is so emotionally disturbed he sees them 2-4 times a month depending on behavior and emotional outbursts. Dad doesn't bother to call, send a card, a letter, or send child support. (By the way, Dad owns his own business, and for the last 4 years sat in bars 6 days a week) Baby spends a week in the inpatient child psychiatry unit at 6 years old because he told Mom he wanted to kill himself. What came out in therapy sessions? Dad did this, Dad did that, Dad didn't do this, Dad didn't do that. To make this story as short as possible because I could go on forever, your PLAN B is often ignored by men also. Around here you have to give your arm and leg and possibly both to get something done about violating court orders, getting child support etc. My point is this, although women may ignore the mans decisions in using birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption etc etc, men also ignore the fatherly rights they have. (child support, even seeing the child, providing clothes or moral support) Meanwhile mom struggles to survive because she chose LIFE and dad chose BAR, sports car etc etc etc. Sure, make a law that the Dad has to sign permission for birth control, RU-486, abortion, adoption, or life but then make a law that Dad also has to live up to his responsibilities of being a Dad. This argument could go on forever, and so could I. Women are in the wrong, men are in the wrong. Men shouldn't have to pay for the choices of women? Women pay for the choices of men each and every single day. "Kenneth S." wrote in message .. In the interests of clarity, I should point out that this is not RU-486. It is a product known as an "emergency contraceptive," and is -- on my understanding -- a pepped-up dose of the ingredients of the birth control pill. It is not an abortion-inducing product. However, the basic point remains. This is yet another way of giving reproductive choices to women. Meantime, no one considers ways of giving post-conception reproductive choices to men. It would be very simple to say that men should not have to pay for decisions made unilaterally by women, and should be able to renounce their paternal rights and responsibilities. However, this doesn't get done, very largely because there is no special interest group representing heterosexual men. For men, "Plan B" consists of paying 18+ years of "child support" money to women who decide that they don't want to make use of all the post-conception choices U.S. law has given them. Kathi Kelly wrote: "Kenneth S." writes: But there is a definite possibility that the FDA WILL accept this proposal. A minority of U.S. states (as well as several European countries) ALREADY say that morning-after pills should be available to women on an over-the-counter basis. Kenneth, Bob and Mel all made good points about RU486. However, another point remains. RU486 is not a safe procedure for OTC release. There are and can be severe consequences. IMO, the FDA should not even consider this proposal. An MD should be supervising the use of RU486. To me, this is yet another example of the vocal minority getting their way to the detriment of society and health issues. It's just ridiculous. The interested readers can peruse these pages. http://pages.map.com/lroberge/ru486.htm http://www.feminist.org/action/action120f.htm#_edn1 N.B., the FM states only the "positive" and makes no mention of adverse side effects. The FM is working for their own political agenda. Women be damned as far as they are concerned. |
#48
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
"Kenneth S." wrote in message ... The huge disparity in custody, ME, between fathers and mothers is a very important issue, and I make no apology for raising it and for calling attention to efforts to fudge the question. A major weapon in the armory of defenders of the CS status quo is to pretend that men and women are equally likely to be custodial parents. One way this is done is to rely on anecdotal evidence: "I know several fathers who have custody of their children." That's what you did. Another way is to be very careful never to talk about fathers and mothers, but always to speak about noncustodial parents and custodial parents. That's what the politicians, judges, CS bureaucrats, and feminist groups do. They try to avoid anyone even thinking about the issue. Yet another way is to be careful to ensure that the actual numbers don't leak out. So, for example, if you ask in my state about the issue, you get told that they don't collect these numbers, and they don't know. If pressed, they will agree that most custodial parents are mothers. They will never acknowledge the continuation of the glass ceiling on paternal custody, or the fact that very few custodial fathers even have orders requiring that they be paid CS (in large measure because most fathers wouldn't even try to get money from the mothers of their children. They are more than content to have custody.) Finally, another way of distorting the numbers is to fudge the joint custody issue. In the great majority of joint custody situations, it is joint legal custody, but the mothers have physical custody of the children. That's no different from sole maternal custody, and should be counted as such in the numbers. I believe there is a fifth way of distorting the numbers to add to your list. And that is to ignore the statistics altogether and claim maternal custody is the only correct way for children to be raised. (You know the old "calf never follows the bull" theory.) This distortion method ignores that children are parented successfully by fathers in intact families, widowers raise children all the time, and CP fathers get rave reviews from their adult children for the way they were raised and cared for. And most importantly this distortion ignores all the statisitcs that show the vast majority of troubled children are the products of mother-headed households. As for how I have tracked these numbers, in the first place, you only need to look around you. And, despite what you say, you will find very, very few custodial fathers. Secondly, when I first started to be involved in these issues more than 10 years ago, a member of the fathers' group that I belonged to conducted his own research into custody awards in the one of the counties in this area. He found that over a period of several years, not a single father had been awarded custody over the mother's objections, except in a few unusual cases where there was some serious problem with the mother, such as her being a drug addict. The 15 percent figure, the highest I have seen, comes from a federal agency -- to the best of my recollection, the Census Bureau. (I don't know how they handle joint custody.) There are significant questions about whether the 15% father custody number is even valid. Most statisitcs I have seen take the 85% mother custody number and assume the other 15% are fathers with custody. However, the national CSE office reports their client base receiving CS payments is made up of 85% mothers, 8% fathers, and 7% other non-biological parent such as aunts, uncles, and grandparents. BTW - The Census does not use words like "joint custody." Instead, the Census report measures "Parents living with their own children under 21 years of age whose other parent is not living in the home." By this definition, the Census excludes the national OSE office group of 7% non-biological parents receiving CS. So-called "child support" is actually money that fathers pay mothers, because of the custody situation. If any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, the system would change very quickly -- or to be more accurate, if any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, that would indicate that the system had ALREADY changed. |
#49
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
"Kenneth S." wrote in message ... The huge disparity in custody, ME, between fathers and mothers is a very important issue, and I make no apology for raising it and for calling attention to efforts to fudge the question. A major weapon in the armory of defenders of the CS status quo is to pretend that men and women are equally likely to be custodial parents. One way this is done is to rely on anecdotal evidence: "I know several fathers who have custody of their children." That's what you did. Another way is to be very careful never to talk about fathers and mothers, but always to speak about noncustodial parents and custodial parents. That's what the politicians, judges, CS bureaucrats, and feminist groups do. They try to avoid anyone even thinking about the issue. Yet another way is to be careful to ensure that the actual numbers don't leak out. So, for example, if you ask in my state about the issue, you get told that they don't collect these numbers, and they don't know. If pressed, they will agree that most custodial parents are mothers. They will never acknowledge the continuation of the glass ceiling on paternal custody, or the fact that very few custodial fathers even have orders requiring that they be paid CS (in large measure because most fathers wouldn't even try to get money from the mothers of their children. They are more than content to have custody.) Finally, another way of distorting the numbers is to fudge the joint custody issue. In the great majority of joint custody situations, it is joint legal custody, but the mothers have physical custody of the children. That's no different from sole maternal custody, and should be counted as such in the numbers. I believe there is a fifth way of distorting the numbers to add to your list. And that is to ignore the statistics altogether and claim maternal custody is the only correct way for children to be raised. (You know the old "calf never follows the bull" theory.) This distortion method ignores that children are parented successfully by fathers in intact families, widowers raise children all the time, and CP fathers get rave reviews from their adult children for the way they were raised and cared for. And most importantly this distortion ignores all the statisitcs that show the vast majority of troubled children are the products of mother-headed households. As for how I have tracked these numbers, in the first place, you only need to look around you. And, despite what you say, you will find very, very few custodial fathers. Secondly, when I first started to be involved in these issues more than 10 years ago, a member of the fathers' group that I belonged to conducted his own research into custody awards in the one of the counties in this area. He found that over a period of several years, not a single father had been awarded custody over the mother's objections, except in a few unusual cases where there was some serious problem with the mother, such as her being a drug addict. The 15 percent figure, the highest I have seen, comes from a federal agency -- to the best of my recollection, the Census Bureau. (I don't know how they handle joint custody.) There are significant questions about whether the 15% father custody number is even valid. Most statisitcs I have seen take the 85% mother custody number and assume the other 15% are fathers with custody. However, the national CSE office reports their client base receiving CS payments is made up of 85% mothers, 8% fathers, and 7% other non-biological parent such as aunts, uncles, and grandparents. BTW - The Census does not use words like "joint custody." Instead, the Census report measures "Parents living with their own children under 21 years of age whose other parent is not living in the home." By this definition, the Census excludes the national OSE office group of 7% non-biological parents receiving CS. So-called "child support" is actually money that fathers pay mothers, because of the custody situation. If any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, the system would change very quickly -- or to be more accurate, if any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, that would indicate that the system had ALREADY changed. |
#50
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Choices, choices, choices -- but only for women
"ME" wrote in message ... "Kenneth S." wrote in message .. [snip] So-called "child support" is actually money that fathers pay mothers, because of the custody situation. If any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, the system would change very quickly -- or to be more accurate, if any significant number of mothers paid child support to fathers, that would indicate that the system had ALREADY changed. So-called "child support" could also be actual money mothers pay fathers....because, althought it may be rare, they do pay fathers....so child support is as you say 'non custodial parent paying money to the custodial parent' I strongly feel that 'child support' could definitly be time spent between child and non custodial parent. But YES it does take money to raise children that is why the non custodial parent is obligated to pay child support. Obviously not or there would be some guidelines about how this C$ is spent or at least a modicum of desire to see to it that children benefit directly and absolutely from the C$. There isn't, therefore that is not why C$ is ordered. Compare the rates of foster-parenting payments, social security and AFDC payments and benefits with C$ guidelines. Only C$ spending has no guidelines, outlines or accountability. Odd, no? If my children would ever live with their father, and I ordered to pay child support, although it may hurt my financials, I would rather see the clothing on my childrens backs, the food in their stomaches, the toys they play with, the safe car they are transported in then not pay and watch them not eat healthy, wear torn clothing, not have many toys and be driven around in a vehicle that is unsafe.... Non custodial parents are making a better life for their children every time they send that check. This is patently untrue. The fact is that the C$ makes the CPs life better by virtue of giving her more money to spend on her choices. Even when the CP uses the C$ for better housing, food and clothing, the CP benefits along with the children in living a SOL above that she could afford otherwise, meaning the CP is utilizing the other parent's income to bolster her own. As long as the minimal threshhold standard of neglect is not breached (which is hardly fit for children's physical and mental health), no one cares or even looks. Even when it can be proven that the CP is *not* using the majority of C$ for the child but is, in fact using it as personal income, it is impossible to change the situation either legally or actually. If, indeed the focus was on the betterment of the children's lives, there would be *some* mandate about what C$ is for. As it is, C$ is for whatever the CP chooses, even when it has absolutely no relation to the children as long as they are not neglected according to the state's definition of "neglect". The state's definition of "neglect" applies equally to those at every income level; those earning $0 and those earning $10,000/month. Most non custodial parents look at it as paying the custodial parent....maybe in some cases it is true where the custodial parent 'blows' the money or spends it on his or herself, but not always. This stuff should be evaluated on a case by case basis and the entire categories (custodia - non custodial) not put down because of this. Non custodial parent A may be happy to pay support to see custodial parent a give the children have a better life, while non custodial parent B gets so mad because he sees custodial parent B wearing the latest fashions etc while she doesn't work herself. Not all CUSTODIAL PARENTS take advantage of the CS system....Not all NON CUSTODIAL PARENTS pay child support.... I am not doubting that the figures do favor women -- but not every case does.... Five legged sheep. When a few of a category change from the norm, the norm remains. In my very limited viewpoint, the case of the CP gouging the C$ system is normal. Having a few differ from the norm does nothing to change the norm. [snip] Phil #3 |
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