This letter is in response to an Upscale magazine article, Are Fathers Being Pimped?

Dear Editor:

I picked up your July issue of Upscale after returning from a recent trip promoting my book, The Pain of Vengeance. The reason for the prior statement is because I was stunned by the number of email I received during my absence pertaining to the article, Are Dads Being Pimped? You see, I am founder and president of I Love My Children, Too, a parental rights organization designed to reunite fathers with their children. In writing this letter, I hope to respond to a few points in your piece as well as maybe enlighten your readers on what I call America’s dirty little secret, the attack on fatherhood. Thanks for your attempt to bring to light something that has been destroying millions of fathers across this country for decades while government bureaucracies, attorneys, and some ex-wives and girlfriends live like royalty.

Needless to say, I am a father of two, and my story is not unlike those men you spoke with. It got so bad for me at one point I was ready to take my life rather than continue living in forced servitude by a government that does not give a damn about my children particularly those with black skin even though this issue crosses all socio-economic lines.

I recently conducted a seminar in Los Angeles, CA, called healing hurting men with Dr. Jeffrey Gardere. What stunned the women who attended was the sheer pain and frustration many of the fathers shared with the group. When I speak on this issue, I always pose a question to the women in the audience. If you had two children, and could only see them every other weekend, call once a week, have no say in the school they attend, religious upbringing, and 29% of your salary will go to the other parent with no accountability as to where it goes, would you as a mother be willing to conform to those guidelines? I have done numerous seminars and am yet to get one woman to say they would agree to those terms. This is no exaggeration and all admitted they loved their children yet they would not do what many consider a man must do. I then ask them if they are not willing to conform to that criterion, how do they expect the father to do so? Therein lies your problem and as a father I can truly say I was never a slave but the current child support system has got to be the closest thing to modern slavery than I have seen in some time. Are fathers being pimped? No doubt but the mothers are only the agents and the government is the true cat daddy.

What you failed to mention in your piece  the million dollar cottage industries that have sprung up in this push to "make dads responsible." State governments alone are filling there coffers with surcharges and administrative fees from fathers who struggle to make ends meet. Tennessee was collecting an extra 5% above the court ordered award for child support and was placing that money in the general fund to build roads and bridges. I testified before a subcommittee nearly six years ago advising them their collections were illegal and immoral. Recently, after a class action lawsuit, the federal government too determined the child support collection guidelines were being violated and Tennessee was forced to stop the collection of the extra 5%. None of those illegal collections have been return to fathers because the state is claiming sovereign immunity. I would submit that fathers need their money also and just two years there was a glitch in the system and mothers were not getting the child support checks and the media, and state officials went out of their way to get the problem solved yet they refuse to return illegally collected money to fathers who have abided by an unjust law and paid monies that could have went to second families, rent, car note, etc.

I do want to address a few things in your article which raised my brow a bit. The statement regarding mandatory guidelines which combine both parents income is wrong.

There are many states that are now considering changing the current guidelines that currently only look at a father’s income to a income sharing model but they are only looking. To date, child support is based on the fathers income only and that exist in most states with only a very few exceptions.

Gary Driggers states in your article that parents can challenge the system if they think payments are not equitable and I say to Mr. Driggers, that is typical of a bureaucrat in the system who has no clue how badly the system is failing fathers. What are they going to challenge with? Fathers who show up in court with an attorney challenging what he considers an unfair payment might as well run through hell with gasoline drawers on. I can hear it now, "If you can hire an attorney then you can pay child support." On the other end of the spectrum, what about the fathers who can not afford an attorney, how do they challenge? What agencies are available for fathers to right a wrong? They are few and far between and so many dads simply shut up and take their castor oil. Some drop out of society, some turn to drugs and others commit violence against new wives or girlfriends.

As far as working overtime, there too is a dilemma because yes the baby’s mama expects a raise when the father gets one but more importantly, the courts are reluctant to decrease any child support even if it is overtime because any decrease will affect the courts bottom line. One has to remember that federal matching dollars for state projects are determined in many cases by the amount of child support a state collects. The state has a vested interest to collect as much as possible and here is the money trail I spoke about earlier. Working overtime will do nothing but put a father in a higher tax bracket, increasing his obligation and ultimately working that father to death.

Accountability is one of the biggest complaints I get from fathers and I can second that emotion and concur with the statements of dirty clothes and overall lack of support from the mother when the child is in the fathers care. I have seen child support go for everything except the child. In your article, Ms. Shabazz says "It’s not a big deal where the extra money goes." It is if you are the father struggling to pay it and I dare say she would not be so cavalier if the extra money was coming from her paycheck. Here’s a novel suggestion, how about taking that extra money and putting it in escrow for college. Quite often mothers like Ms. Shabazz even refuse to send child support back to the father when the child is in his custody let alone pay the father child support. Afterall, children eat sleep and require recreation while in the fathers care as well.

The issue of fathers having to pay back the government because of false claims by the mother is the ultimate insult. This is one more example of the government not concerned about fairness and equity but more about money. What sense does it make to punish a father who was not aware of the fraud? It would seem not punishing the perpetrator emboldens that person to continue their deception, thus rampant fraud in the welfare system.

One thing that sticks in my craw more that anything is the separation in the courts as it relates to child support and visitation. Both should be viewed as equal but unfortunately, most courts view them as separate issues often times ruling on the child support and setting another day in another court for visitation. Those fathers who are lucky enough to get a visitation order are often time subjected to a mother’s version of three card molly with the child being the card a father is looking for. Couple that with what psychologists now call the Parenting Alienation Syndrome and there is no wonder our children are in trouble. When contempt hearings are heard on this matter in court, the mother only receives a slap on the wrist and the father is viewed as litigious and vindictive. I witnessed an instance where the mother admitted on tape she would purposely ignore what the judge said and deny the father access to court ordered visitation. She also perjured herself on the stand by denying those comments. She held fast until the impeachable evidence was presented but only received a warning yet the father had just spent nine days in jail for failure to pay child support. Dad wasn’t a deadbeat; he had just been laid off his job. Child support can be made up but a missed visit or time can never be given back and that leaves fathers with no recourse except the courts who refuse to do anything. In fact, fathers are always viewed as the aggressor and usually leave whimpering after their court castration.

In closing, the current child support system is irreparably damaged and needs to be completed thrown out and rebuilt from scratch. It does nothing but pit fathers and mothers against one another with their children being the casualties. Of all the negative behavior our children participate in, the common denominator is fatherlessness. I dare anyone to ask a juvenile about his father and he will say, "I don’t know him." Ask a teen mother about her relationship with her father and most will say, "I don’t have one." With that being said here are a few statistics which should make anyone question a policy which contributes to so much societal pain.

79.6%   of custodial mothers receive a support award
29.9%   of custodial fathers receive a support award
46.9%   of noncustodial mothers totally default on support
26.9%   of noncustodial fathers totally default on support
20.0%   of noncustodial mothers pay support on some level
61.0%   of noncustodial fathers pay support at some level
66.2%   of single custodial mothers work less than full-time
10.2%   of single custodial fathers work less than full-time
7%        of single custodial mothers work more than 77 hours  weekly
24.5%   of single custodial fathers work more than 44 hours weekly
46.2%   of single custodial mothers receive public assistance
20.8%   of single custodial fathers receive public assistance
                        —Technical Analysis Paper No. 42; US Dept. of HHS-Ofc. of Income Security Policy
90.2%    of fathers with joint custody pay the support due
79.1%   of fathers with visitation privileges pay the support due
44.5%   of fathers with no visitation pay the support due
37.9%   of fathers are denied any visitation
66%     of all support not paid by noncustodial fathers is due to the inability to pay
                        —1988 Census “Child Support & Alimony:1989 Series P-60. No 173p.6-7 &usgao Report” GAO/HRD-9239fs Jan 1992
50%       of mothers support not paid by noncustodial fathers continued contact with his children
                        —“Surviving the Breakup”, by Joan Berlin Kelly
40%       of mothers reported that they had interfered with the fathers’ visitation to punish the ex-spouse
                    —”Frequency of Visitation” by Stanford Braver, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
63%      of Youth suicides are from fatherless homes
                    —-US DHHS Bureau of Census
90%     of all homeless and runaway children are form fatherless homes
85%    of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes
                    —-CDC
80%    of rapist motivated with displaced anger come form fatherless homes
                    --Criminal Justice and Behavior Vol. 14, p 403
71%    of all high school dropouts come form fatherless homes
                —-National Principals Assoc. Report on the State of High School
70%     of all juveniles in state operated institutions come from fatherless homes
                —US Dept of Justice Special Report Sept. 19
88%    of all youth sitting in prisons grew up in fatherless homes

TRANSLATED: THIS MEANS that children from fatherless homes are:   

5     times more likely to commit suicide
9     times more likely to drop out of school
20   times more likely to end up in prison
10   times more likely to abuse chemical substances
32   times more likely to run away
20   times more likely to have behavior disorders
14   times more likely to commit rape
9     times more likely to end up in state operated institutions

Here’s the question. If our government already knew the detriment afflicted on children due to fatherlessness, why aren’t they doing more to encourage and support fathers? Could it be because there is more money in pain and suffering than in health and prosperity?

America should be ashamed of the way it views, values and treats fathers. If a mother can not take care of her child, she gets housing vouchers, job training, bus tokens, food, and anything else necessary to assist in the upbringing of a child. If a father can not take care of his children, he too gets government assistance…JAIL If this country truly wants to save our children, then we must begin with fathers.

Sincerely,

David W. Coleman

Written July 2003

“Cinque’s debut novel can only be summed up as earth-shattering.  Single fathers will be high-fiving after reading this book.” Lamont Page, Publisher, Prevail Magazine

 
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