Child Support In America

This is a hot topic for me personally. I'm not going to elaborate on who it is that I know personally that is dealing with this right now to allow them some privacy. The whole thing sickens me to no end. I can't believe the system is this flawed. What will it take to fix it?

Here's how things play out:

The custodial parent (this is the parent that has custody of the children) asks the social worker for money. A room full of government paid employees is more than eager to assist this person. They have the means and the know how to extract the money from the other parent. Through wage garnishment to tax refund intercepts, they will dutifully do there job.

This is to be expected. Every parent has an obligation to their child.

The non-custodial parent (the one whom the child does not live with) gets a letter in the mail stating that he or she will now be expected to pay child support.

There you have it. All nice and tidy. Government involvement has cured the problem.

Wrong.

This is the face of the situation. To truly understand it you have to dig deeper.

What if the non-custodial parent wants to see the child? There is no room full of government employees to assist them. They are instructed to find an attorney. Imagine, you are obligated to pay child support for your child and now you have to hire an attorney to visit them. Whats wrong with this situation. As if the child support payments weren't enough now you have to shell out more money to actually see your child.

They have the dollar amount all wrong. Each parents obligation is based on a % of their income. This doesn't make any sense either. Some children will receive more than other children? Why should a child with a single parent be given more money than any other child with a single parent? That's like awarding wrongful death suits to individuals based on the size of the persons wallet. Its just completely wrong.

Enough ranting. I have a solution. Government establishes a committee of five people. 3 men and 2 women. This committee's sole purpose will be to establish an exact dollar amount needed to raise a child each month. They split this 40% for the custodial parent and 60% for the non-custodial. No more percentage of income. Change the disbursing of funds. Some of the money should go to the school that the child attends. If little Timmy needs a calculator the size of a computer monitor so he can do his homework well then Timmy will have the money available to get it.

All of this money is contingent upon the custodial parent allowing the non-custodial parent the right to see there children. If this is not being observed then the custodial parent loses all right to receive child support. Think about that one for a second. All I'm saying here is that if a parent decides that they don't want the other parents involvement than why should that parent be held financially responsible?

O.K. I got that off my chest. If anyone would like to comment on this I all ears. I hope this changes soon. Too many kids grow up not even knowing who there other parent is and that hole inside them can never be filled. To every parent out there that hasn't seen their child in more than 6 months my heart goes out to you.