New Take on Deadbeat Dads

[K C Muffin]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10924038/

This is just too much. Now the guy's being jailed again and will never be able to repay the child support he owes. Nice try, though! What a creep.

[TexKan]

Ya know KC - I'm sure this is true but doesn't sound right to me - ya can't just call and say he's dead........ ya need a death certificate or sumthin. If my son's dad had croaked I'de been able to collect social security for him. I sure as hell didn't get child support....... Bythe time my son was 18 the jerk was behind 54,000 taking the support and interest for 16 years. I wonder how much of the state's money this cat's kids used as a means of support since he was out of the picture. Just don't know how they do that without a death certificate tho....... that's why it sounds fishy to me.

[K C Muffin]

I wondered that, too....but this coming from South Carolina in the 70's, I also wondered if there wasn't a good-old-boy network and somebody didn't request proof - they just took somebody's word for it. The ex might not have even known there was social security benefits available to the kids in the event of death of a parent - there's a surprising bunch of people out there that don't know what's available to them. In my first divorce, (in the 70's), I wasn't even awarded child support for 2 young'uns - I was one of the "proud ones" - no welfare for me! Since then, though, there's been some state-instituted guidelines for support, child and spousal. There were some weird things goin' on in the 70's......and with the limited info available, there were probably quite a few people that just fell through the cracks.

[Highwayman]

Without knowing all the details I wouldn’t be quick to badmouth the guy. I’ve seen some support orders that went way overboard. Like a guy that ended up homeless after the court got done with his paycheck. Oh, he slept in his car till the bank repossessed it. Then he slept on a crate in the warehouse where he worked. I remember a woman in college that came in and told me what the court awarded her. She had told me before how much the guy made and I thought to myself he would be gone. He split a few weeks later and she never got a dime. Then there was this cop that got screwed over so bad that he shot the wife’s lawyer right there in court. He went to prison for about 20 years and they didn’t get a dime out of him anymore.

I wish the media would do a few stories about the deadbeat moms out there.

[wordsmythe]

Whomever is ordered to pay child support and doesn't is wrong and deserves whatever can be done to them.

[K C Muffin]

I second what Wordie said, cuz he said it more succintly than I would have. There's a deadbeat mom for every deadbeat dad. This one really got to me, though, if it's true. How cruel to let your kids grow up thinking their father's dead? He prolly didn't care, though - if he didn't care for them enough to help financially raise them, he wouldn't have cared what they thought about him.

[Highwayman]

I don’t think anyone here knows if the guy was even allowed to see his kids. Did he have a chance to be a Dad or just a money machine? I ain’t going to throw rocks at the guy without knowing the whole story.

[wordsmythe]

Not a bit of that matters to me. You make kids, you pay for their upbringing. If you don't you are lower than pig shit.

[K C Muffin]

From the article and reading between the lines, they thought he was dead! Because somebody told them he was. So I don't know that seeing the kids was even an issue. You wouldn't try to withhold your kids from their dearly departed parent, would ya? The story does sound fishy, but if it's accurate, I still gotta hang with the court. He was clearly trying to beat the system.

[Lone Gunman]

Originally Posted by Highwayman

I wish the media would do a few stories about the deadbeat moms out there.

I wish they would too Highway. When I got divorced I got custody of my 2 kids and my ex was ordered to pay me child support. It pissed her off so she quit her job and moved to Texas. Therefor the kids and I had a few lean years. I had many people tell me I could get welfare bu I didn't even consider it. Always say deadbeat dad I know at least one deadbeat mom.