| Re: .5
I just finished a year-long custody dispute in Mass. Here's
what I've learned about the rules (amoung other things):
1. Get a lawyer. I have an excellent one in Mass. if you need a
referral.
2. Assuming she's in Massachusetts, because jurisdiction is
based upon the residence of the custodial parent, the income of
the spouse of a non-custodial parent is exempt. When you go to
court, he must file a financial statement; your income and
assets do not count - they're not even included on the formal
statement.
2a. She has to file that same statement. Your lawyer can get
an advance copy of it from her lawyer. Check it out.
3. Strongly suggest that your lawyer subpoena the custodial
parent's bank records and income tax returns - state and
federal. If the income doesn't match the returns, she's in deep
stuff, not only for child support fraud, but also with the state
and federal government for tax evasion. In Mass., child support
guidelines say that the first $15K of the custodial parent's
income is exempt before calculating support. The non-custodial
parent doesn't get this deduction...as you probably already
know. Massachusetts, despite Governor Weld's political
commercials, is one of the more repressive child support states
in the country.
4. You can file a "Complaint for Modification" with the court -
if she's in Westford, the court is in Concord. You'll probably
get Judge Ginsburg. He'll probably assign a Guardian Ad Litem
to investigate. The G.A.L. will cost around $100/hr and will
probably spend 30 hrs or so doing the investigation. The fee is
typically divided by the two parents. The G.A.L. will probably
be female, and will probably be biased towards the mother, even
under circumstances most favorable otherwise for the father.
5. It's expensive, even if you win, which in the case of a
non-custodial father isn't very likely.
6. Move fast. Time is of the essence. Unless there's a good
strategic reason to drag things out, it's best to get in, get
out, and get it over with as fast as possible. If time will
show her to be at a disadvantage, then drag it out - but
otherwise, get it over with quickly, and save the kid(s) and
everyone else from the grief and pain.
Good luck.
tim
P.S. I'm a custodial father. I had to compromise a little, but
basically I came out ok, because I have a great lawyer.
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In welfare reform, men seen as child support only
By Ellen Debenport St. Petersburg Times
WASHINGTON -- Every now and then, during Congress' long debate on
welfare reform, someone would lament: ''What about the men? Nobody's
talking about the fathers.''
Wrong. Congress talked plenty about the fathers of 8 million children
on welfare.
The men were called deadbeat dads. They were called wife beaters and
child abusers, drunks and drug dealers. They were accused of sexually
molesting their children and impregnating teenage girls. They were
written off as abandoning their families or disappearing into the
prison system.
Now that the welfare reform bill has passed, big surprise: Welfare
mothers will get help under the new law, with job training and
counseling, medical care, day care for the children, maybe more
education.
And for the men? Nothing. Their only role is to pay child support.
In the new welfare, mothers are workers and nurturers, fathers are cash
machines. A lot of people say that's bad news for men, bad news for
women and most especially, bad news for their children.
Women in Congress were delighted to get a crackdown on child support
included in the welfare bill. Nobody argued with them that fathers
should support their children. Or that some men are louses.
Thousands of families could get off welfare if they got child support
-- 25 percent of the caseload, by one estimate. But paying child
support is more complicated.
For one thing, nearly all the fathers involved with welfare families
are poor, too. They have the same problems as welfare mothers -- no
job, no money, no skills, no education.
That's especially true of those who fathered babies out-of-wedlock, as
opposed to the fathers of divorce, said Wade Horn of the National
Fatherhood Initiative.
''These guys often don't have any money, or if they have jobs it's in
the underground economy,'' Horn said. ''What you may be doing is
driving them further underground and further away from their children
if you say, 'The first thing we're going to do is make you pay up.' ''
Lawrence Aber, director of the National Center for Children in Poverty,
worries that the well-intentioned emphasis on child support will
alienate men from their children, especially young men who could be
encouraged to nurture but are likely to be broke.
''Over the course of the 18 years of a child's life, even low-income
men -- a very large number of them -- start making more than poverty
wages,'' he said.
So what will keep them involved with their families?
Ideas are scarce. The best success seems to come from the Institute for
Responsible Fatherhood, which started in Cleveland. Founder Charles
Ballard, himself an angry young father in prison, turned his life
around and then began to mentor other men.
His premise is that getting a father involved with his children will
encourage him to support the children financially and see himself as a
role model. The father is often inspired to hold down a job and
straighten out his life.
Stuart Miller, who lobbies for the American Fathers Coalition, puts it
like this: ''As long as we teach men that their only value is as a cash
cow and a sperm donor, we are not going to teach them to be parents.''
Now, about those louses.
Congress and the states have focused lately on adult men who impregnate
teenage girls -- sexual predators, they are called.
Many states have beefed up their statutory rape laws, threatening jail
time to young men who fool around with underage girls. The girls, once
viewed as promiscuous, have come to be seen as victims.
Kathleen Sylvester, a teen pregnancy expert in Washington, has worked
hard to bring this problem to light. But painting a more sympathetic
picture of the girls seems to have made the men villains.
''I'm acutely aware that this could be perceived as just another agenda
to put more men of color in jail,'' Sylvester said.
Prosecutors are using the statutory rape laws to get child support.
They tell the fathers they won't have to go to jail if they pay up,
which Sylvester sees as satisfactory.
''It's important not to be overly romantic about all young fathers --
there are some unscrupulous ones,'' Aber said. ''But it's even more
important to recognize they are a minority.''
States are just beginning to address the problem of jobless men who owe
child support.
Florida, a national leader in welfare reform, has a pilot program in
three counties to find jobs for the fathers of children on Aid to
Families with Dependent Children. These are fathers, and a few mothers,
who don't have custody of their children.
In the first two weeks, three of four parents found jobs, said Pam
James of Gulf Coast Community Care, which contracts with the state to
run the program.
The only official goal is to help the parent work and pay child
support, but the staff has other hopes.
''We're trying to patchwork the non-custodial parent back into the
lives of the children,'' James said. ''Even two visits a year and child
support is preferable to silence and AFDC.''
The old welfare system is notorious for breaking up families. The rules
say a family can't get a welfare check if the children's father lives
at home. A boyfriend who is not their father can live there. But if Mom
marries him, her check gets cut.
Under the new bill, states will have to figure out for themselves
whether they can encourage marriage and discourage out-of-wedlock
births through welfare policy and whether they can re-engage men with
their families.
The hazards of fatherless families are increasingly well-known.
One-quarter of America's children live in mother-only homes, and
studies show they're far more likely to be poor, drop out, get pregnant
or go to jail.
Horn says 60 percent of America's rapists, 72 percent of juvenile
murderers and 70 percent of long-term prison inmates grew up without
fathers.
Not all are poor. The damage seems to occur across the board.
Not all fathers are poor, either, but they still cite reasons for not
paying child support. Mainly they blame mothers who won't let them near
their children. Visitation is key. One study showed 79 percent of the
fathers with joint custody or visitation paid some or all of their
child support.
The new welfare bill acknowledged this by including a little money to
enforce visitation rights. Florida, too, has a new visitation law to
encourage contact between non-custodial parents and children.
''Fathers want to be partners with women,'' Miller said. ''Women say,
'We don't need the men, we just want their money.' That's really
disturbing about the women's movement, or at least the people speaking
for them.''
The goal of government, all said, should be to help parents balance
work and parenting between fathers and mothers.
''Ask my child who the best parent is, he'll tell you in a heartbeat:
It's both,'' said Miller, who has custody of his 8-1/2-year-old son,
Blaine.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)
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