Sunday, 11 January 2009

  • Deadbeat Parents

    Mama Bee by Mama Bee

    As a parent of 3 children, I can tell you it isn’t easy. There are times that I would want nothing more than a moment of silence or to have seconds at dinner or sleep in until 8am.

    There are times I need a medication but skip the refill or getting it because my son needs lunch money or wants to run cross country.

    As a mother I make sacrifices for my babies. I never think about myself first and they always have what they need. My husband works 60+ hours a week to provide for our family. Would he rather be at home spending time with our kids and me? You betcha, but because they are growing and need more, that means more money. We both work our butts off and make sure that our children come first even when sometimes, we just may not want to. My husband is the best father in the world and our kids are very lucky to have him.

    Not everyone is like that. There are people out there that have kids that believe the state should support them because they "can't" or  "won't" work. There are parents that have kids but don't support them in anyway whether it be financially, emotionally, or physically. 

    They don't pay child support or help those that have custody. They take care of themselves before their offspring. There are people that have children and hand them over to their parents, grandparents, friends, the other parent, the state, etc. and then have more only to do the same with those other innocent children. There are people that are so selfish they don't put their children first and feel it is owed to them, as the "parent" rather than to their child.

    My husband and I don't get any sort of child support from our sons' birth mother- not one penny. We've never received anything in 3 years and when she did work, we didn't see anything. As she states, she is working now but doesn't help us with our sons.

    Would it help? Yes, supporting 2 additional children isn't cheap. Lunch money, school clothes and supplies, doctors appointments, extracurricular activities...it's never ending.

    When my husband was getting things together and we only had partial custody, we paid child support. Not once did we miss a payment. It seems all too often people call the dad a deadbeat when he can't pay but if a mother doesn't pay it's her getting her life together.

    It's an unfair double standard. What people don't get is that child support isn't for the parent(s) of the child(ren) it's for the child(ren) themselves. It goes to a house payment, it goes to food, hell, it can go to taking them to Chuck E Cheese because it's OWED to the child(ren).

    However, the lady that birthed my sons does see them. Per court orders she gets them every other weekend. Sometimes she skips her weekends with them but they see her nonetheless. We feel blessed that our kids are able to see their birth mother.  Can you believe though that there are "parents" out there that don't even SEE their kids. Not to support them is one thing but not even to SEE THEM! I couldn't do it.

    I go 2 days without seeing my sons when they are with their birth mother and I can't take it.  My husband and I miss them like crazy and when they call to say they miss us too, it makes it even harder. I go a couple of hours without my princess and my world is crashing.  How can people just have a kid and not ever see that child again?

    There are dads and moms (I use that term loosely) that have their kids and never see them and don't care to see them. They don't call, they don't send letters, they don't pick them up for even an hour a month.

    My cousins haven't seen their father for a few years. YEARS! He doesn't pay child support and drinks with his money or spends it on himself and whatever girlfriend he has at the moment. He bounces from woman to woman to live with (much like other people who bounce off men/woman/the state to support them and their kids).  He always says "I need to take care of me first" which is the oldest, lamest line in the book. I've heard that way too much already, it makes me sick to hear.

    It's sad that there are people out there that don’t do what they should for the kids they had or put them first seeing as how children are the innocent bystanders in the situation. My kids are very lucky though. They have a mom and dad that love them that do everything for them. My husband and I give them a great life but it's so sad when other people don't see that as a priority. I say, those of us that support our kids and do everything for them, stand up and put a stop to this. We need to make a stink until it either knocks sense into the deadbeats or forces the courts to change something for the sake of the children.

    What do you think of "deadbeat parents?"  Did you have a parent like that or does your child? What do you think we can do to prevent this from happening? Change the laws? Force the "parent" to do the right thing?

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Comments (35)

  • TornadoChaser

    I have only seen my father a handful of times since I was 5 (when the divorce took place) and have had no contact with him since I was 11, I am 22 now. Last time I heard his own mother doesn't know where he is. We have received one child support check from the state when I was 16, they garnished his wages. He figured it out and quit. We figure he is either doing something illegal, working for cash or in jail. When he dies, any social security money he has will go to me and my brother.

    If a parent doesn't want to be around then why force an unwilling relationship onto the child? Kids are smart, they would figure it out real quick and I think the emotional effects of that would be worse if the parent just disappeared.

    Wage garnishment is one way to get money from a dead beat parent but obviously, my father proved it can be worked around. There are also programs out there designed to track down parents that have taken off. Beyond that there's not a whole lot that can be done without making the situation worse.
  • FLUFFYMOM4@xanga

    i can't stand dead beat parents. all of our children live with us full time. my daughters see their father once a year on christmas and they need to go to him. he cancells out on them the rest of the year. he does pay child support only cause it's court ordered and i would have him thrown in jail if he didn't.


    my sons mother only sees him a few times a year and doesn't pay any support. the things she does to him is horrible., like christmas she called and said she would be over the next day to pick him up and give him his presents. he was all excited that day and had all the presents he bought for her packed and ready to go. i was taking the other kids out shopping and he wanted to go but didn't want to miss her. she never showed up like usual and we haven't heard from her yet, almost a month later. last christmas she told him his presents were stolen out of her car. on his birthday she said she sent him a card with money, that hasn't showed up yet and it's been 4 months now. the saddest part of it all is he believes it and he's 13 years old. he thinks his mother would never lie to him. of course we always try and make some excuse for her or cover up for her so his feeling aren't hurt. imagine if he knew the truth about his mother.
  • musicmom60@xanga

    It's not just failing to pay child support that make a parent a "deadbeat."  Failing to pay any attention to a child or spend time with them, and spending so much time "having my ME time" that it causes the children to have to raise themselves can have disastrous consequences.  My daughter's father, who has been great about PAYING for things, is a terrible father.  He has a very distant relationship with all of his children, and at 56, still lives like a bachelor without kids.  He was widowed young; it's been difficult, I know - but I had the same situation, and did not emotionally and physically abandon my children.  His oldest, now 25, has a a child, and he and the GF live at home with dear old dad.  He doesn't work, and failed out of college.  When he was in HS, his dad was ignoring him, and never helped him apply to colleges or even cared about his grades, interest, or anything.  His 21 year old daughter has gotten out and moved all the way across the country.  His 14 year old mentally and developmentally disabled daughter has been so desperate for attention that she has gotten plenty from creepy men in chat rooms over a web cam, while she's been on the computer, unsupervised, in the attic.  The "father" has completely had his head buried in the sand, even when these bad things happen, and even when other people point it out to him.  Some people just shouldn't have kids!  I now thank God that this man DID abandon my daughter and I, because having a father like that would have been so much worse for her - although I would have been there, of course, to raise all SIX kids, because he hasn't done a damn thing, all these years, but "go out" with friends, and hole up in his room with his books, TV and computer - and ignored the kids.  What is wrong with people like this?  I honestly think he does not want to be a parent.  This poor, naive girl, who has an IQ of about 70, is now confused and hurting and obviously was acting out of a desperate attempt to get someone to give her attention and care about her.  Thank God they found out before she met someone somewhere, or got raped or pregnant, which could still very well happen.  Nothing I have ever tried has ever helped this deadbeat parent to see what he's doing to his kids - I think some people are just beyond caring, which is really, really sad.
  • onlyFORaLILwhile@xanga

    how bout my dad just stop showing up when I was in 5th grade...he didn't/doesn't pay child support and lived in the same city as us. I ran into him once at walmart, stopped in my tracks, and kind of....ran like wtf. doesn't really want anything to do with us. My husband never met his father. So he has decided to do everything he can to be in our child's life. He's the best

  • vashts6583@xanga

    Then there are those fortunate few (myself included) who have been supported by our families completely, and in every way.  However, it's still hard going through life knowing that many of my friends have one, if not two, of these "deadbeat" parents.  Whether its no emotional support, or not even taking their child to the hospital when he has a dislocated jaw.

    It depresses me that there are so many parents in the world who won't take care of their children, who won't even love them.  Whether they feel it is "owed" to them, or it's a "burden" to take care of them... I almost feel as though such parents don't deserve to have had the children in the first place... but if that were the case, I'd be missing some of my closest friends.

    Its just sad, knowing people who will want to move out when they're 16 because they can't stand living at home.
  • ShinTaeyoung@xanga

    I admire all that you do for your child. I think that you should help yourself first (ONLY so that you're able to help others around you), but not if you're going to leave out others that are important to you (may be entirely off topic, but you can't spread the word of Jesus without knowing Him... might be a bad example, but that's what I'm getting at). Your sacrifices are greatly respected. It hurts me so much to see so many families go through what 'dysfunctional' families have gone/are going through, but just as long we [all] come out on top [together for the children] and not like 'dead beats', I think that's all that matters.
  • sassi95@xanga

    This stuff burns my ass to the core.  Some "parents" seem to forget that even if they DIDN'T have children they would still have a house payment or utility payment.  They would still have bills NOT related to children.  Some people choose to live beyond their means because they have children and receive child support and nonetheless get greedy feeling they are entitled to MORE money.  This is the situation I live in.  My husband's ex wife wanted NOTHING to do with her children until I came into the picture and demanded that my husband go back to court to change the custody and child support (because when they divorced she DID get residential custody and child support awarded, however she chose to be a whore and never see her kids while my husband took care of them with NO help from her).  So when it came down to money...THEN she wanted to see the kids.  I assume because her lawyer said something around the effect of "you mean you never see your kids and you don't keep them as stated in the court papers?  Then you aren't getting any money!" 


    I realize there are people (yes men AND women) out there that are complete and utter deadbeats but why does my husband get the crap he's dealt because not only is she a greedy whore, but because the court refuses to look at the INDIVIDUAL and not the population?


    I'll stop there before I get any more angry.  This subject is so biased and ridiculous and it will never change.
  • MusingsOfAnAlmostSocio@xanga

    I would bring back debtor's prison solely for the purpose of punishing deadbeat parents who not ONLY are deadbeats physically and emotionally, but also financially. But then again, if I had my way, every man and woman would have IUDs implanted in them before they hit puberty and they would have to apply to get a 'parent' license the same way you have to apply to get a marriage license. Humph. 
  • Yesterdays_Whispers@xanga

    Sadly there are too many people in this world like this..
    I question how someone could just abandon a child that they helped into this world, something that is apart of them, everyday. Many think that just cos they pay the court order support, they are being a parent. No amount of money in this world can over take the time and effort of love and caring that being a parent has...they just do it to avoid jail.

    My ex is a deadbeat. Even though only a few blocks away, he never bothers to come see his daughter anymore, then again after he left when she was just 8 months old, it was only 3 or 4 times. Of course he does pay the court order amount and that is about it.. He was one of those guys that chose a woman over his kid, and the ironic part of it all is, two months into their marriage the girl had found another guy... I do also wonder if he even thinks how stupid he was to choose some little whorish girl over his own child... but that is given him too much credit...

    agree with the IUD thing, but prescreened instead of just one little peice of paper you fill out for a licence to parent, as if it were a marriage licence.

  • TashaDW_18@xanga

    My birth mother was a drug addict and alcoholic.  I have seen her 3 times since I was 11 (I'm now almost 27).  Honestly, my stepmom was always "mom" to me.  I wouldn't want any law that forced my birth mother to see me or support me - my life was better off without her in it.
  • MommyOf2_0507@xanga

    My sons birth father was like that, he couldnt stay clean long enough or stay out of jail to help me raise my son, and when he was out he claimed that my son wasnt his. My sons adoptive father who was my bf at the time has been there since my son was born, hes been the only one to help me raise him.


    I think deadbeat parents need to "man up" and start taking care of what they created. The child didnt ask for it at all. Its drives me nuts when I hear about parents who arent there for their kids or dont put them first, or just hand them off because they dont want the responsibility.
  • MommySherrell@xanga

    While I agree that deadbeat parents are a nuisance to society as a whole and especially to the children they leave behind, you cannot force anyone to do anything. The only freedom that cannot be taken away is the freedom of choice. Deadbest parents CHOOSE to screw around and then CHOOSE to leave their kids behind (if they are lucky and aren't aborted). I think it would be a much better thing for the child to be in a loving home environment AWAY from the deadbeat parent, rather than forcing them into emotional, life-long scarring by putting these said deadbeat parents into their lives where they don't belong.
  • jusanobody@xanga

    Growing up, my real father did drugs & such & only paid child support because he was on disability and my birth certificate said he was my father. Only time I ever saw him was when i went to my grandma's house (his mother) because my mom promised her that she wouldn't keep me away from her & he happened to be there.

    Yep, you could say he was pretty deadbeat. Now that my grandma is gone, he is more in my life than he ever was, but.. i guess now is better than never.

    Now that I'm of age & make money, its like my mom is now pretty deadbeat. she hasn't held a job in over 2 years because she chooses not to work. Lets just say, I wish we could chose our parents.

    Prevent this from happening? Ha, unless people stop having babies, i dont think it will happen. however, I still do think that there should be an application for parenthood. We have to apply for a license, a job, just about everything, why not have one for that? 

    I dont think you can force a parent to do the right thing, yeah they take classes & such but if they really don't want to do it, they're not going to be a parent.

  • phantasmas@xanga

    One of my best friends has two moms. Her birth mother became a drug addict, so she was placed in foster care, along with her 4 siblings. One of her aunts adopted my friend and her younger sister, but soon succumbed to drugs as well. Unfortunately, the authorities did not catch this case nearly as quickly. She has memories of fending for herself and her toddler sister, feeding her raw hot dogs because her mother/aunt had pawned the microwave.
    After another stint of foster care my friend, two of her sisters, and a brother moved in with their crazy grandmother in a two bedroom apartment after their guardian attempted to kill themselves.
    Finally their grandfather and his wife took my friend and her sister in, while the other children are currently living with their biological father. My friend's father, however, refused to contact her until her 18th birthday, when he contacted her asking for money.
    To this day she has credit problems because her mother started using her identity to get credit cards.
    There is so much more, I could go on and on...

    I too can never understand how a parent could act so indifferently towards their own children, going so far as to USE them to steal their identity!

    I also dated a boy whose mother abandoned him when she divorced his step father. Luckily this step father adopted him, gave him a job at his business, and put him through school. His mother still claims all 5 of her children as tax deductions and life insurance.
  • happygirl7798@xanga

    I don't think they should change the laws to force deadbeat parents to see or pay for their kids.  If someone really doesn't want to be a parent forcing them is not going to be good for the kids.  Either way it is hard on the children but I think it would be harder if it were forced.  My father left when I was 7 and I didn't see him again until I was 25.  It hurt but was better for me in the long run.  I can't imagine the kind of hell I would have had if I had seen him while he was doing drugs.  When he finally got clean he came around and with a lot of work we have a decent relationship now.  
  • medical_mystery@xanga

    This irritates the snot out of me! I married a man who had a 4 year old daughter, whom I'm now the mother to. Her mother left this precious princess and her Dad (my now husband) when my daughter was 9 months old! Just got up and left and never came back. She has a nationwide warrant out for her arrest for breaking parole several times, she's never paid a cent for child support (mostly because we can't find her). It's been a nightmare! To think that someone could bring such a wonderful thing onto this earth and then just walk away! It kills me! My husband and I have been trying to have another one for awhile now, and it doesn't look like I can conceive, yet there are people like her walking around, making babies and then just walking away! Ugh!
  • laxatives1988@xanga

    oh fuck off im not going to be your friend. im not going to fucking read about how fucking pregnant you are.


    omfg your life is so fucking hard!!! POOR FUCKING YOU!!!


    idiot.
  • neverdie373@xanga

    Just because they pay support doesn't mean they aren't still a deadbeat parent.  My dad always paid support, but he only wanted to see me when it was convenient for him.  My parents divorced when I was 10 and I'm 21 now, and just now he's figuring out that he screwed up and that's only because I didn't want to come out to see him for Christmas.  I guess he figured he should spend some time with me since I'll be graduating college and getting married in the new couple of years.  Oops...too late now.
  • lilwetduckie

    My mother got pregnant with me when she was 17 and had me when she was 18. The guy she got pregnant with, his name is Ken, decided to make up some rather stupid story as to why he didn't want her to tell his parents and how it could turn out bad. My mom didn't stick around with him. She figured he wasn't going to be much of a father, so what was the point. I probably saw him a few times up until I was a year old and didn't see him again until I was graduating high school. I thought how convient it was that he wanted nothing to do with me while I was under 18 and he was obligated to pay child support, but as soon as he found out I was graduated and over 18, he wanted everything to do with me. He wanted to see me and everything. His parents even made it known that they KNEW about it all along, but NO ONE ever made an effort to try and contact me... ever. I don't care much for them. I went and saw them in Christmas in 2006 & 2007, but I haven't gone yet for this past Christmas. They have my number and yet no one has called me this year, except Ken. He has contacted me on Myspace -- how juvenile?


    I have my real dad, who was there for me the entire time I grew. He will always be my daddy. He will always get the Father's Day gifts. Ken, is Ken. I am his ONLY child (he is married and has step-children). You would think he would want a little more to do with me and his ONLY grandchild. Hah. Wrong. I even look exactly like him.


    I say don't force a parent to see a kid, it can always turn out bad. I think they should definitely find a way to make them pay support though. My mom could have used something when I was younger. We went through a lot of hard times. *shrug* I doubt my mom would have accepted his money anyways.


    But yeah, deadbeat parents are a pain. They need to be eliminated out of society. That would be nice.
  • care

    My ex-husband owes well over $10,000 in child support (I haven't done the math lately) and has never laid eyes on my son. He has sued for custody once and visitation twice. When the courts mandated the visitation, I paid all the fees associated for therapist supervision even though at the time, I couldn't afford it. The dead beat never showed up. My ex has never sent anything besides a $15 dollar gift card to my son in over 7 years and my son will be turning 8 in the spring.


    My husband has never missed a child support payment. He talks to and sees his children regularly, despite living 1000 miles from the kids. My son knows my husband as daddy and rightly so because my husband is the man who is fathering him.


    My ex is using up precious oxygen that the rest of need. It's a damn shame.

  • MommyDolce
    You're awesome!

    you are such a wonderful woman for all that you do.  i admire your drive to love your children with all that you have. ... amd you're hubby too

  • raved@xanga

    I stopped speaking to my father when I was 15 and then slowly started building a new relationship with him when I was 18. During those three years he did not pay child support, and he felt that he didn't need to since he never saw me.

    It was his own fault that I stopped talking to him in the first place, but that's another story.

    Well, the government bit him in the ass and now he's still paying child support despite the fact that I am now 20. It makes him angry, and he tries to apologize and say that he wishes he could have treated me better, but I really don't care.
  • Zoeys_Mom

    Maybe I do not belong here..Everyone is such a perfect Mom, and well, I suppose I used to fall into the category of a bad parent.  I have changed my ways, but all of the does not seem to matter.  I think maybe people need to think before they judge other people's parenting skills.  You have never walked in their shoes.  Sure there are REALLY bad people out there, that make bad parents, but who are we to judge, isnt that up to God?  (if you believe in a God) and if not, well just think that when you are pointing a finger a someone there are three pointing back at you.  "Judge lest ye not be judged".  Like I said before I don't think I belong here, being a not so perfect parent before.  I am doing just great now...but I have to move forward not backward.  When there are people in this world who find it necessary to judge other parents I think that maybe (and i could be wrong) that we should, each and everyone of us, just try to be better parents ourselves.  Instead of focusing on how "bad" everyone else is, when we, as Mothers, should just be focusing on our own parenting.


    Thank you for listening.


    You can read my story at my Xanga site which is "Trapped_in_Ionia" at Xanga.com 

  • filtered_sunlight

    I can't imagine going weeks, months or years without seeing Megan either. But...well...I like carrots. Not everyone does. I can't expect them to just because I do...and I don't think there should be laws put into place forcing everyone to eat them. There are already laws in place for child support enforcement...and there are ways to get around them, if someone really wants to. There are always going to be ways to get around any law if someone wants to look hard enough. If you really pressed the issue and tried to be tougher, what would happen? Having these mothers and fathers put in jail? What would that accomplish? You're not going to see any support out of them while they're in the clink. The kids aren't going to get to see them anymore...and if they do see them while in jail, you're the bad guy that put mommy or daddy there in the eyes of the child(ren). And when they get out, they're going to have a criminal record. Good luck finding a decent paying job then...what's that? That's your would-be child support check getting even smaller.


    I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying that it doesn't suck for everyone involved. Just that there is no good/easy "fix" and that what we have in place now is really the best middle ground between two evils.


    "There are times I need a medication but skip the refill or getting it because my son needs lunch money or wants to run cross country." - Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but I seem to remember posts from this screen name in the past bragging about how much "stuff" the kids have. I know sometimes we're too close to what goes in on our own homes to see it (and getting other opinions different than our own is one of the great things about Momaroo and Xanga), so I'll say it from where I stand; Perhaps the kids could do with a few less DVDs and Batman dolls so that you can get what you need.


    @TornadoChaser - My dad did something similar; he claimed "self employed" so that he reported less income than he actually made -- it saved him on child support and  taxes. Win-win for him. I rarely saw him and, when he did come to Florida, I was usually a passing thought between his visits with his own friends. Honestly, it would have made life easier had he just stayed away. And I'm pretty sure mom and I could have made without his laughable $100-a-month child support contributions.


    @Zoeys_Mom - Please do not think that everyone on Momaroo thinks that they're "perfect"! It is not an accurate representation of the group as whole, to say the least. Most of us, not unlike you, are working constantly to be better than we are and owning our mistakes as we make that climb. Props to you for being strong enough to see your past errors and move on. "I have to move forward not backward." - I don't know that wiser words have ever been spoken!
  • antemeridian@xanga

    I have a hard time reading this. My ex was abusive to me and he abused drugs. I left him for my and our daughter's safety and best interest. He has never paid a dime towards anything for his daughter even when we were living with him, his money always went to him or his stuff (drugs). I'm worried about going to court over this to attempt to get support only because I don't want him in her life. i am happily married and my husband wants to fully adopt her. She thinks of my husband as her daddy, and she knows she is loved and taken care of. Does this enable my ex to be a 'deadbeat' dad? Well by definition regarding the lack of contact, or caring, then yes. But it's also protecting my child from someone who choked me and would leave her alone in a playpen all day while I worked to support us.Given the options, I would rather her not have contact.

    And another point. I have had foodstamps since I have had my children. I had them, plus medical coverage for my kids while I worked as a single parent. I worked 2 jobs just to pay for day care and our rent, I have never abused the system ( getting money from the state so I could waste my on me things). I know that people out there do it, but I feel that judging the welfare system as a whole based on a few is wrong. In this time of economic struggle, to have some welfare to help put some food on the table or to make sure they have healthcare isnt something to judge someone on.  But that's just my point of view and 'two cents'

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  • mamabee
    • From: mamabee
    • About Me: Hi, I'm Mama Bee. I'm from Colorado and I've lived here my entire life. I'm happily married to the most amazing guy and have been for going on 3 years. I am a stay at home mom with 2 step sons that live with my husband and I full time. C is 6 and J is 5. My husband, Daddy Bee, and I have a daughter together. K is 15 months and is a miracle baby. I would like to have another baby but due to some health issues I've been told I may not be able to. I believe that is why God gave me my daughter and our boys. My family has and will always come first. Marriage and motherhood are hard, but the most rewarding things I've ever been able to experience in my life. We have our ups and downs, we're not perfect but we try, we live, and we learn. We laugh when things get hard and we are thankful when things are easy. With 3 kids our life never seems boring. I look forward to sharing my family with you!
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