http://www.violentacres.com/archives/288/quick-and-easy-child-support-reform
Two other links were also offered from the same blog:
http://www.violentacres.com/archives/54/the-deadbeat-dad-myth
http://www.violentacres.com/archives/362/how-to-save-the-world-from-idiocracy
Now, my bleeding-heart sensibilities have been tempered by a childhood spent in a poor part of the most conservative town in Nova Scotia, and sure, sometimes I think the damn kids should all have jobs to keep em off the streets and if your job only exists six months of the year, you better find another damn job for the other six months. Sure, I confess these neo-conservative rants occasionally well up in my cerebral lobes... I find that five or six beers usually dissipate them.
This Violent Acres blogger though... this is like Andrew Dice Clay on crack. The last link above is a guest post from some man who uses the word "retarded". I read the entire thing and couldn't place what was jarring me until I re-read it and noticed this.
Anyway, solely on the issue of child support, this is what I wrote on the message board. As always, I acknowledge my experience is extraordinary:
I do agree, that people don't often think through the "let's have a baby" thing, but that's why our species has been so damn successful evolutionarily speaking.
I am thrilled that my ex is a decent, good, responsible man. Part time parenting is the best! (if you trust the other person). But it does happen that people plan and discuss and prepare and then have a baby and a) the man freaks out about the lifelong commitment**, realizes he is a dedicated bachelor, and runs away to join the Royal Order of Water Buffalos, leaving mom & babe, b) everything about the relationship changes with the addition of baby and it ceases to be a loving, functioning relationship, c) any doubts and insecurities or fractures in the relationship that the baby was supposed to fix become exacerbated and they split, or d) any of the zillion other reasons that relationships end, even ones we never pictured ending.
My hubs and I never fought. We got along beautifully, had been together 10 years, had the baby and two years later I woke up one day and said, wow. I am not a burbs mom. I can't do this. I don't want this to be my life. We have a great co-parenting agreement, and he (who has a Masters degree that I supported him through earning and a fairly high-paying job) does kick in more money than I do... he pays for child care, he pays for Tae Kwon Do. But we can do that through common agreement because we have an excellent relationship and he is uber responsible. Not true of every man... thus the need for support payments.
I work at a non-profit and live in a one-bedroom apartment. I walk, bike and bus. He works for gov't and has a big new house in Lucasville, a new wife with a similar salary, and two cars. There is a jarring difference in my daughter's lifestyle from one house to the other, and if I were a different sort of person (ie, one with fewer hippie ideals) that might bother me such that I would ask for support payments to even out my daughter's experience a bit more.
**Note: women do freak out about the lifetime commitment as well, but far less frequently. There's hormones designed to placate us coursing through our veins at that point, for one thing, and with the baby growing inside you for 40 weeks you tend to get used to the idea over time, whereas for many men the whole thing isn't concrete until they are holding a squirmy red crying bundle of ugly newborn. Yes, all newborns are ugly.
Now, as to all the other bitter shite spouted by that Violent Acres blogger... wow. I can't even begin.
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