Date: Feb 3, 2012 Protecting Children There Must Be Balance No one in their right mind can admire deadbeat

t dads. To that I would add that no one in their right mind should admire deadbeat moms. The world has moved on from considering moms to be stay at home housekeepers, with dad earning the money to support the family. Indeed, many businesses (and countries) make it the law that dads get equal paternity leave when a baby is born. So why is it that every court, the child protection services and a whole array of government agencies consider dads the ones who are financially primarily responsible and who are primarily culpable if a marriage goes wrong and therefore the kids are usually given to the mother? Mothers are automatically considered the best child raisers (which is often not the case) whilst men are considered the one who failed. Just how far off are these notions from the hateful treatment of women in some Muslim governed countries? Dont we decry women having to cover up their faces and maintain the role of subservience? And yet we automatically tell dads to cough up the support money, take the kids away from them, and seem to favor women when in fact we are also saying their role is that of housekeeper and mother. A friend of ours was stopped the other month for a burned out taillight. The officer checked license and registration and was about to give him a warning when the officers car computer spat out a suspended license warning. The officer checked why and there it was: Overdue payments in child support. Driving license suspended. Never mind the idiocy of suspending a driving license for child support payments meaning the man could not work and get paid to pay child support. The man went to the Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) and asked what gives. They said his payment record was 100% especially since it comes directly out of his paycheck, on time and alls correct. So he took that read out and went to the judge who stamped it and then he went to DMV (and you now the wait there is a joy) and they charged him $65 for the privilege of un-suspending his license. The woman handling it quipped, Next time maybe youll pay your responsibility on time. That deadbeat dad label stung especially since that day he had been late to night shift since his kids were left alone when mom went out to party. Howd that notice get on there? Seems months ago the mom had tried to get DCSS to pay towards medical insurance for the kids claiming Dad wasnt paying. Thats true, he didnt contribute cash toward medical insurance since his company policy already covered him and the kids (and his wife when they were married). But she thought if she could get more money from them... and so he became a deadbeat dad. DCSS staff were more than willing to come to the mothers aid without checking the facts. And in

case you think that it was all cleared up... oh no. DCSS reports to state who report to Health & Human Services (HSS) in Washington DC who tell the police. He was stopped a few days ago for a temporary license plate check and they confiscated his drivers license again. Washington, informed by DCSS should take about three months to remove the notice. Unfair punishment, punishment for the mom for false filing? None, DCSS said its not their job. Another friend recently was stranded in Asia. Going to the Embassy to add pages to his passport because he was working with educational relief across two borders, the Embassy promptly confiscated his passport because he was a deadbeat dad. Let me see, an American in a far off land is suddenly stripped of that blue book, that proof you are an American, because of money supposedly not paid back home? The risk to his life in the dangerous country he was in was very real. Deadbeat dad? Nope, two lawyers and fifty long-distance calls and e-mails later, California DCSS was made to tell HSS who amended their computer (supposedly) and then told American Citizen Services (ACS) at the Embassy they could return the passport. Without spending thousands to resolve the issue quickly, the Embassy was worried they would have to destroy the passport within a week unless resolved. What would have become of this American then? He would have been given an Embassy voucher to return to the US to be arrested. Yes, arrested. How did the notice appear at DCSS and HSS and then ACS? Seems his wife who took the kids to live in another state, filed there as well to get more money from the local government that, in California, had been legally decided. She claimed poverty and a deadbeat dad to get extra cash. The DCSS in that state believed her, still do, why wouldnt they? Shes a state approved mother; hes guilty before innocent. Making partners live up to their responsibility is right and proper. Allowing this double standard based of outmoded stereotypes of men and women is not. The government is wrong here, wrong, meddling, and abetting crimes of bad parenting, deception and, yes, at times vengeance. That is not a good governments job.