If one parent is allowed to be supported for 18 years through the provision of child support, what happens when the child support ends? The supported parent has no skills, no self-esteem, no retirement benefits, and will likely end up on welfare.
Child support guidelines, which mandate support far in excess of the actual cost to raise a child, and which ignore the custodial parent's obligation for equal financial responsibility, are the fuel for the fire. Parents fight over a mere one percent timeshare in order to be declared the custodial parent, and thereby win the custody jackpot. The custodial parent is the mother in more than 90 percent of cases; this, in turn, has resulted in the national social crisis of a Fatherless America.
The time has come to dramatically revamp the issue of child custody. The financial incentives accompanying an award of custody must be obliterated. If parents agree on joint physical custody, each parent must be responsible for the child when the child is in his or her custody. The child shares in the parent's standard of living when the child lives with that parent. When both parents are equally financially responsible for the cost of raising the child, each parent is encouraged to work to his or her full potential, instead of trying to minimize earnings in order to collect more in child support or to avoid having to pay child support. If one parent is allowed to be supported for 18 years through the provision of child support, what happens when the child support ends? The supported parent has no skills, no self- esteem, no retirement benefits, and will likely end up on welfare. This problem threatens to become a significant burden to our society, especially due to the skyrocketing rate of births to unwed mothers, who are ineligible for spousal support, never having availed themselves of the institution of marriage.
A parent with a comfortable level of discretionary income should have the discretion to spend it on the child as he or she sees fit, without the government mandating a transfer of funds to the other parent to equalize households. In cases where the parents have grossly disparate incomes, there should not be any transfer of money, unless both parents agree, and agree without the intervention of the state. To do otherwise only reinstates the financial incentives for sole custody. Life is not fair; a child must be instilled with the value of our American work ethic, and should learn the rewards of work from seeing such with his parents. A child should not be conditioned to an unrealistic expectation that as an adult a check will arrive in the mailbox without the necessity of working for it.
| What is the responsibility of a parent who abandons a child. There currently exists a blatant double standard: a mother gives up her child for "adoption," but a father "abandons" his child. |
If one parent seeks sole custody, that parent must be willing to accept sole financial responsibility for the child. If one parent seeks sole custody, it can be assumed that that parent is attempting to excise the other parent from the child's life. It is here that the subject of parental alienation of affection comes up. When a custodial parent inculcates hatred and hostility in the child against the other parent, the custodial parent seeks to sever and destroy the parental bond with the child. This is, then, tantamount to the death of the noncustodial parent, and the custodial parent should not expect financial recompense from the other parent -- just as he or she wouldn't expect recompense from a corpse. To require the noncustodial parent to pay child support in such a case is simply punitive. Both parents have an equal responsibility to raise their child, emotionally, physically, and financially, and one parent cannot choose to have all of the emotional and physical responsibility, with none of the financial responsibility. Putting the onus of financial support on the parent who seeks sole custody would automatically remove the financial incentives for sole custody.
A variation on this theme would be to have a default custody percentage of 50/50, regardless of how much time the child is in the physical custody of each parent. For example, even if one parent were to seek sole physical custody, s/he would only have a default custody of 50 percent, while each parent would remain equally financially responsible. In this fiction, neither parent would be acknowledged as having more than 50 percent physical custody. This scheme, in fact, satisfies both the equal financial responsibility of each parent, while removing the financial incentives for sole custody. Further, it would not require protracted litigation, or psychological evaluations, or therapists, or any of the adjunct court attaches that have created an industry surrounding the issue of custody battles.
What of the case where one parent abandons the other parent and child? First, each adult must be responsible for himself or herself, which narrows the question down to what is the responsibility of a parent who abandons a child. There currently exists a blatant double standard: a mother gives up her child for "adoption," but a father "abandons" his child. In essence, however, each abandons the child. Does this justify a penalty against a parent? A mother gives up her child for adoption to social workers, and incurs no penalty. Yet, a father abandons his child and becomes a hunted animal for the rest of his life. If a mother can give up her child for adoption to social workers, then a father should have the same right to give up his child for adoption (for example, to the mother). Again, the custodial parent should be solely financially responsible, because, again, the situation is akin to the death of the other parent.
The issue of choice must also be addressed. Women have the right to choose whether or not to have a child; men do not enjoy that right. When a woman makes a unilateral choice to have a child, she alone is responsible for needs of the child. A man should not be forced to fund a woman's unilateral choice. This issue becomes more concrete when examined in the context of welfare. The majority of AFDC recipients are single mothers whohave exercised a unilateral choice to bear a child that they, apparently, cannot afford. AFDC is obstensibly in place for the best interest of the child; yet it is the father who is expected to pay child support and to reimburse the government program, while the mother is absolved of all financial responsibility and is not expected to repay a dime. Father custody in lieu of welfare should be the first option; this, in turn, will alleviate some of our more pressing social issues, such as the high rate of births to unwed mothers, our skyrocketing welfare rolls, and our crisis of fatherlessness.
At this point, you are probably wondering, "But, what about the ‘best interest of the child’?" The "best interest of the child" is an anachronism. It means nothing, and everything, to the parties and all those involved in the judicial system. It presumes the existence of the child in a vacuum, outside the purview of the child's two parents. It is engendering the most bitter and acrimonious litigation; it is here that the insidious issue of "fault" has landed, with parents accusing each other of the most horrific acts -- simply to gain an advantage in the custody battle.
Society is making a terrible mistake by concentrating only on the "best interests" of one element in the dynamic of a family, while ignoring the other two critical elements: the mother and the father. Society needs to be concerned about all three persons, and not focus discreetly on only one; society needs to focus on what is best for the family as a whole (albeit divorced or separated), which ultimately will benefit society in general.
| A moveaway case is one in which the custodial parent seeks, for various and sundry reasons, to move outside the general geographic region with the child, thereby disrupting the child's life and severing the parental relationship with the noncustodial parent. |
In line with the concept of "best interest of the child," we are seeing an attempt to shift the debate to "what is in the best interest of the custodial mother is, de facto, in the best interest of the child," particularly with regard to the issue of "moveaway."
A moveaway case is one in which the custodial parent seeks, for various and sundry reasons, to move outside the general geographic region with the child, thereby disrupting the child's life and severing the parental relationship with the noncustodial parent. Again, the financial incentives for such an action need to be obliterated. As discussed above, the default custody percentage would fit nicely on this problem, as neither parent would be acknowledged to have more than 50 percent physical custody, regardless of the reality. The issue is then narrowed to the effect of fatherlessness on the child; it is becoming more and more clear that those effects are devastating, not only to the child, but to society in the long run. The solution would be that upon a mother's application to move away, physical custody is automatically changed to the father (with the same 50/50 default custody percentage), without the necessity for full-blown litigation on the "best interest of the child."
Requiring both parents to live in close geographical proximity until the child is 18, as an alternative, however, invokes the spectre of being unconstitutional; and, further, involves the state in micromanaging the affairs of individuals. The state needs to proactively eliminate all financial incentives and rewards for custody; it needs to get out of the business of child-rearing; and it needs to reduce the litigation surrounding children. By so doing, the playing field will become more level, parents will have to rely on their common sense and their own inner resources, and will more quickly come to a resolution regarding their child that is best for all parties involved. When agreement between parents cannot be reached, default custody provisions must kick in along with default financial responsibility, whether it be sole financial responsibility of the custodial parent or whether the responsibility be shared equally by the parents.