Personal Testimonies of Child Support and
Parental Alienation Syndrome Nightmares
Please read even if you are not involved in a Child Support
or Custody Issue
We need many people to get involved to change laws and make the Governments listen for the Good of All Children!
Hi Franapple,
My name is Karyn/Sunshine and I happen to be
married to one of those
wonderful men who someone tried to trap into marriage with a
baby. Bad
idea, don't those women understand that. Well, I won't be
bitter and nasty.
My husbands daughter who is now 20 has turned out to be a
super kid. Her
mother on the other hand is a mean and nasty person. She
wanted dad to be
around, but only when convenient. Ya know, for the money
and whatever else
she thought she could try to squeeze out of him. She has
done so many
underhanded dirty things that we could probably write a book all
about her.
She figured when the daughter was little that if mom wasn't happy
that the
father shouldn't be happy either. The first time she took
us to court was 2
months after we got married. At that time the child was 5
years old, why
did she wait? I still don't have the answer to that
one. From that point
on it seemed like she would wait to do anything legal wise or not
until we
were at a high point in our marriage. She didn't realise
that not only was
she making us unhappy, by being so uncooperative, but also the
child, who
now doesn't see her father as the mean ol monster mom made him
out to be. I
tell you all of this so you understand my next comments.
When they lable a
dad as a "dead beat" they don't care what the
reason for it is. All any of
the courts see is whether or not the MOTHER gets her money.
They courts
don't care whether or not the father sees the child or any of
that. They
don't even care what the money gets spent on. In our case
it always meant
that mom could get a new car while we drove(drive) old beaters
and can't
get a new one because we can't get a loan due to child support
being on the
TRW reports. It is my opinion that most dead beat
dads really aren't. Most
of them are trying to support another wife and kids. In
our case, there are
three different states involved due to her moving around so
much, so it
looks on report as if we owe child support for three
children. Mind you we
send our payments, but you must allow 60 days for anything to
even show up
as paid, ridiculous, the system is so messed up. I
tip my hat to any dad
that has a child from a previous relationship marriage or
otherwise and can
make the child support payment and keep his current family fed
and clothed.
It is not easy, we have been living this way for 10 years
now. I only wish
that the system was more father friendly in certain
areas. If we have to
pay we should be allowed LEGAL rights as well. Don't
get me wrong, I'm not
married to a dead beat dad, just one that works as hard as he can
to keep
myself and our two kids and his, which I consider mine too, above
the water
line. It isn't easy. I know I have probably rambled,
but for years I have
been the stepmom, with no credit, and doing all the work to make
sure the
payments were made and fighting for visitaions that rarely
happened. By
rarely I mean we would see her maybe every two to three years
for about a
week, if we were lucky.
I best go, my little one is wanting things. I hope this
gives you some
insight to how some of us feel.
Thanks for reading.
LOTH love,
Karyn aka Sunshine
The person I am dating is in a bad situation, for 10 years he religously sent in his child support payments. Just 6 months ago, he lost his job as a barber, because the shop owner decided to close. No warning nothing. Well he found a job 3 weeks later, and called his ex to tell her that his payment would be late. She for some unknown reason went to the DA. He sent the payment in but it was 2 weeks late. Then come to find out the DA had sent in a letter to the Barber board to pull his license. He told the shop owner and the guy fired him. His license wasn't pulled yet but he wanted to be truthful until the situation was cleared up. Now you can guess what happened. He was not able to find a job for 2 more months but because he was fired he got behind again..... They reinstated his license and then they pulled it again. He found a job finally but told the owner his situation and the guy said he was sorry but he had to let him go, now the DA is going to pull his drivers license. Is there any information that I can give him to help out his situation. I am at a loss, my son's father and I were never married and we went to court to share custody and decided to not include the court system in our lives. Thank God! Any help would be appreciated.
Your page is interesting. I have full custody
of my only son, but in the process, the system cost me everything
I owned. In addition, his mother has liberal visitations that I
agreed for outside of the court system, but she still refuses to
get a job and pay child support. The real answer to your delimma
is for the court system to have enought COMPETENT judges who can
actually enforce the child support and visitation orders. As it
stands now, most state family courts are a joke. To resolve the
problem, teach your children good values about committment and
responsibility and remind them that they are the future of this
country and the family. It will be up to them to put an end to
multi-generational femi-nazis who want men to pay for everything
while they live the life of Gomer (read the book of Hosea in the
bible for a better enlightenment of today's PROGESSIVE? women).
As for the men who don't pay their child support and vigorously
use the legal system to combat these evil women,
GET OFF YOUR BUTTS at ALL COSTS. SHOW NO MERCY to these evil
women who are set on revenge and YOUR destruction. Treat them as
the evil people they are. Gotta go, have to get back to the
court-house to file a contempt order and show cause on my ex-wife
for not paying child support or equitable distribution. If you
snooze you lose.
Fathers rights are a lie! Todays
laws are made to force fathers into submission. Being called "Dead Beat
Dads" if they can not afford child support. Divorce happens, but child
support is often father abuse. Only in place to keep the father out. My child
support was set at over 50% of my meager pay.
Dead Beat or Beaten Down Dads
Personal Testimonies of Child Support and Parental Alienation Syndrome
(PAS)
Valenta Family (FranApple) Personal Child Support Nightmare
Text
From: California Paternity Justice Act: If the Genes Don't Fit,
You Must Acquit By Glenn SacksWhen Larry Nicholson went to
court after receiving a child support order, he knew something
wasn't right.
"I looked at the child," he says. "The
child is white. I'm black. Now I'm not an expert in genetics, but
I knew something had to be wrong."
It sounds like an easy problem which any reasonable judge would
remedy with one pound of the gavel, right?
"I got a DNA test that excluded me as the father,"
Nicholson says. "The judge refused to consider the DNA
evidence--not to mention the obvious evidence right in front of
him--and made a child support order. He said that the time period
for challenges to paternity had run out. But nobody had ever
served me--I knew nothing about it until I got a bill saying that
I owed support and that I was $75,000 in arrears. If I had known,
I would have contested it in a second."
Nicholson now pays over 40% of his take home pay in child support
and arrearages, and will be paying for the next 13 years.
Meanwhile he has a wife and a daughter of his own to support.
Nicholson's ordeal has occurred in part because, under current
state law, unwed men named in default judgments have only six
months to contest an order assigning paternity. Other men faced
with erroneous paternity judgments signed paternity declarations
under the mistaken belief that they were the fathers, and had
only two years to contest the ensuing judgment.
The Paternity Justice Act of 2002 (AB 2240), recently introduced
into the California State Assembly by Assemblyman Rod Wright
(D-Los Angeles), is designed to remedy these injustices by
extending the period during which judgments of paternity may be
challenged through genetic testing. The bill requires courts to
vacate paternity judgments which are shown to be erroneous, thus
relieving falsely identified fathers of further child support.
Erroneously identified fathers often face a number of obstacles.
For one, they are often misled into believing that they are the
children's biological fathers. Others, like Nicholson, have not
been served or notified, and are not even aware that they have
been named the father of a child until their wages are garnished.
In both cases, the time period under which they can contest
paternity has often run out before the men have become aware of
reasons to challenge it. In the case of default judgments, men
generally bear the burden of proof and often find it difficult to
convince the courts that they were never served or notified.
How many men are victims of mistakes or fraud in regard to
paternity? Of the nearly 300,000 cases evaluated each year in the
United States, roughly 30% exclude the tested individual as the
biological father. Even blood typing examinations taken decades
ago showed that at a bare minimum 10% of the fathers who signed
their babies' birth certificates were unknowingly claiming
paternity of children who weren't theirs. Carnell Smith, the
founder of US Citizens Against Paternity Fraud, estimates that as
many as 20% of all fathers are victims of paternity fraud.
Paternity fraud victims' stories often provoke disbelief. For
example, four years ago Air Force Master Sergeant Ray Jackson was
divorced by his wife. Soon afterwards, he discovered that the
three children born during their marriage had, in fact, been the
product of three different extramarital affairs. Jackson's
ex-wife has disappeared with the children, and Jackson is still
paying half his income to support children who aren't his and
whom he'll probably never be allowed to see.
Los Angeles area technical instructor Bert Riddick, along with
his wife and three children, fell from the middle-class to
homelessness and welfare dependency within a few years of being
falsely identified by an old girlfriend as the father of her
child. Until going into hiding last year, Riddick was paying 60%
of his net income in child support and arrears to the well-heeled
ex-girlfriend who defrauded him. He says:
"The courts decide that I have to pay the child support
because it is ‘in the best interest of the child.' But I
wonder which child they're talking about--the child whom tests
have shown is not mine, or the three children who are mine and
who I have to feed and clothe every day. Is taking half of
daddy's money for 18 years in their best interest?"
By Roderick D. Wright -- Special To The Bee Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Friday, July 12, 2002
While I agree with the editorial's title, "What is fatherhood? / It's more than biology - much more," fatherhood also should be more than a wage garnishment from a man to support another man's child.
Take the case of Steven. He, his wife, Nancy, and two children lived in a modest home in Thousand Oaks. He was a manager for a biotech firm and his wife did volunteer work. Imagine the shock when he received a notice from Los Angeles County declaring him the father of a child and informing him that he was seven years and more than $80,000 in arrears on child support.
The support notice was also mailed to his employer. More than half his salary was attached, a lien was placed on his home, his bank accounts levied, his driver's license suspended and a negative mark placed on his credit report.
Steven's former girlfriend Donna had named him the father of her child.
The paternity hearing notice was mailed to his previous address (the only address she knew). Personal service (being handed a subpoena in person) is not required in paternity cases. It took Los Angeles County seven years to find him. Because he did not answer the default judgment within the six months allowed (since he had no idea it existed), he has no legal recourse to challenge it. He discovered his rights after paying more than $10,000 in attorney fees. He knew by the age of the child that he was not the father and a DNA test would have confirmed it, but he was too late under the law to do anything about it.
He lost his job and home, and separated from his family so they could qualify for welfare. Donna acknowledged that Steven might not be the father and sought a DNA test for closure. However, the district attorney successfully blocked the change in paternity to protect the state's financial interest because Donna had been collecting welfare.
The tally: One broken home, three children on welfare, two adult lives destroyed. Such is the status of California family law.
AB 2240 would give judges discretion to review such cases and determine the appropriate remedy.
The Bee is naive to think a man who is having his check garnished for a child who is not his own would develop an emotional bond with the child. Most likely, he has never met the child. It is not really an issue of fatherhood, but of money. In most cases, this is money that reimburses the state since the vast majority of these men do not earn enough to cover the welfare, food stamps and Medi-Cal paid by government assistance.
Challenging paternity in California costs a minimum of $2,000. Additionally, if the man thought the child were his, what would be the point of fighting? To establish false paternity, either fraud or a mistake had to have happened. While the court can garnish wages, it cannot prevent the truth from coming to light. Once the truth is known, allow the mother, the accused father and the child to decide what, if any, relationship they may wish to maintain.
Why should the actual father escape his responsibility? Several states have adopted variations of DNA challenges to their family law codes. They all have higher child support collection rates than California and spend far less in court proceedings.
A man who knows a child is his more likely would maintain a relationship with the child and pay support than a man who is not sure. In Los Angeles County, 78 percent of paternity cases are settled by default judgments at which the man was not present. Nationally, in more than 30 percent of contested paternity cases a DNA test has proven the accused man is not the father.
AB 2240 would not make it easier for parents to become deadbeat. Quite the opposite. To challenge paternity, the man would have to appear in court and more than likely retain counsel. Should he be determined to be the father, the state would have current information about him with which to set a fair support order. My bill would facilitate that.
AB 2240 would curtail "deeppocket paternity," "revenge paternity," "convenience paternity" and honest mistakes where the mother may truly not have known who the father was. DNA offers a true solution. We use it in criminal cases to establish guilt. Why can't the family code join the 21st century?
Current law is neither fair nor moral. It ruined the life of Steven. It did nothing to protect the innocent child who was not his, and it forced Steven's children into poverty and welfare. In contrast, AB 2240 would protect fathers, families and children.
In time we will DNA-match all children not only to establish paternity, but also because many new medications will be DNA-based. Until then, we must have AB 2240.
"Fairness in the Age of Columbine" by:Fran Valenta