New Child Support Fee Supports War Debt - a Single Mom's Rant

I've now officially had it. Custodial parents who are paid support through the often un-reliable DCFS are now being charged a $25 annual fee in many states: let's take money from those who need it most why don't we sure, it's not a massive amount of money, but it sure adds up for the federal gov't, who receives most of the proceeds from the money the states collect. Millions of dollars to offset the debt run up over this assinine war, not to mention the doubtless high cost of torturing and spying on citizens.

Why does this make me so mad? For one, the system is already milking single parents by holding on to the money as long as they can quite often. I, very fortunately, have somehow managed to avoid having to resort to having child support paid through DCFS, however, my child's father likes to make my life as complicated as possible by, among other things, waiting until the 5th of the month, (after all bills are due, of course), to pay. When he gets really passive aggressive, he waits until later. (Unless he's planning on taking me to court for something, then he pays on time, presumably to eliminate things that would reflect badly on him). This has resulted in thousands of dollars in late fees over the years that I'd love little more than to sue him for, along with the fact that he contributed nothing to the exorbetant cost of initial equipment and other infant needs but doubt I have legal recourse.

What are my options? Surely I can do something about that, right? Wrong. The only thing I can do about it is have the court order he pay through DCFS, which would, theoretically, guarantee payment on the first. However, everyone I've talked to who receives support in this way says sometimes months go by with no payment at all. They just hold on to the money and can get away with it. Now if that happened, I'd likely be homeless, thousands of dollars in late fees would be the least of my problems.

And now this obviously corrupt system, clearly out for it's own interests, not those of the people they're supposedly set up to serve or everyone would be paid every month on time, is going to charge for their flawed services. No other service industry is allowed to do this. Can waiters and bartenders charge an automatic 20% tip whether they do a good job or not? No, though I'd argue they should be able to. SO why can the government?

Being a single parent is difficult enough, believe me. Even people with strong family support systems, in-state fathers and jobs and/or homes that haven't (yet) been hit by our fast falling into a Dickenson-like economy say so. Nevermind what those who do not have some or all of the above go through.

Attend the tale of your host and see if you think we should be charging for the few crappy services that do exist or creating new ones/improving those we have:

I was 29 when I discovered I was pregnant. The father lived a block away, I had a large 2 bedroom apartment and a great support system of friends, many with children, who I'd known for years. I was working as a paralegal with great health insurance at a firm that was talking about sending me to law school and was also making money as a writer part-time. In the event of some sort of job emergency, which I didn't anticipate, I had a lot of experience as a bartender/waitress and in retail too. I've also been to college and was an honor student to boot. The father owns his home and rents part of it as an apartment and is a PhD with a job that fits the title. It seemed, considering all of these factors, that it would be irresponsible not to have the child.

I fairly immediately knew something was wrong with the pregnancy but my doctor didn't believe me. Consequently, my employer didn't believe me when I said I was perpetually extremely ill. Ultimately, they pushed me out of my job, (it was a civil rights firm, they were too intelligent to fire me), and I found myself literally deathly ill, 7 months pregnant and jobless. The father was helpful with going with me to doctors appointments (that ignored what was going on) but offerred no help with the situation.

I had no choice but to move from my great apartment and support system back to my hometown, where I hadn't lived in 11 years. The doctor there didn't pay attention to my complaints either and I discovered that the cost of living was radically different to boot - I paid more for a barely 2 room apartment than I'd been paying for a huge, Victorian 2 bedroom. Somehow I managed to keep both apartments, hoping and expecting that I would return soon after the birth of my child. I didn't know anyone. All of my friends here had been in high school. Both of my parents are physically disabled and my brother needed help himself at the time. Needless to say, my support system was extremely limited. Oh, forgot to mention I also didn't drive - and had left a town with pretty good public transportation for one with crappy public transportation.

Well, then I almost died. I had been right all along, I had toxemia. If I had known that my mother had it too, I could have given the medical history to my doctor and would have avoided the entire nightmare described above. But, because she is disabled and had me in the 70s in then medically backward North Carolina, doctors assumed her complications were due to her disability and never screened her/told her she had it. So it only came out when my pregnancy went way over the due date, (my doctor here moved it up almost a month, undoubtedly worsening the situation), and I was seeing spots and having acute shoulder pain. I had flu at the time too. Fortunately, I'd done a lot of medical malpractice work and recognized the symptoms as blood pressure or I may not be here writing now. (Should have turned all that legal experience on to the doctor and law firm but oh well - to tell the truth, after goign through all that, and as a new parent, good luck finding the time or energy, let alone affording the lawyer.)

But I didn't die so there I was with a wonderful, healthy baby boy in spite of the medical community, (they tell you not to drink or smoke at all while pregnant but it's apparantly fine to pump you full of something that shuts down your central nervous system for 2 weeks - yep, 2 weeks. The nurses were appalled and telling me I could insist on a c-section, that the doctor was going way too far and in the old days they put you in a dark room with barbituates to keep you calm for several months. Instead I'd been battling family members, dealing with an out of state move and all the while trying to help my brother for several months. Not to mention the stress of the extreme unemployability of a 7 month pregnant, critically ill person. Again, my family didn't believe that I was ill either so boy did I catch an ungodly amount of shit and met with almost no help. There is a very unhealthy mindset in this country that pregnant people aren't supposed to feel good. I'm not kidding about that.

So, you'd imagine I'd be able to go right back to the paralegal thing after having maybe a few rough months right? Or that the apparantly responsible father, especially after seeing that I truly was ill and had no choice but to move or seirously risk my life and the life of the child, helped move us back, right? Wrong.

The father refused to help with moving and agreed to pay 1/2 of what the state would order for child support. Enter the problem of finding/paying for a lawyer. Sure, the court is set up so you don't have ot have one for such proceedings and that may be well and good if you're up against someone in the same financial position as yourself, as people often are. But good luck with it when the other party has the money for the crookedest of attorneys and is also incredibally shrewd. So I ended up naievley believing an even more crooked attorney who claimed he would help for free, blackmailed me, then hooked the father up with an extremely unethical attorney and pulled out of my case before it went to court. Fortunately, my legal background helped me avoid getting totally screwed, but belive me, I still got screwed and went through such an extreme amount of stress it's unimaginable. It destroyed several relationships, (combine all that going on with a serious case of undiagnosed post-partum).

Oh but why didn't I have it togehter? I had years of experience in a specialized, well-paying job. What the hell was wrong with me? Well, for one, law is state specific and most of my experience being out of state was a serious setback. I eventually did find a job but it was very low paying. It took years before I was able to return to a 'normal' paralegal salary, (though the father's attorney tried to assign it to me when calculating support). And it wasn't for lack of trying. I think I applied to every firm in town. Actually, I tried to find a job doing absolutely everything I was qualified for, which hits a broad spectrum, and again and again met only with frustration.

Why? I return to the lack of a support system, (now, recall I had a great one when I made the decision to have my child) and the impossible child care situation in this country. As I said, for several years I was only able to find low paying legal jobs and/or restaurant work. The restaurant work was more money but good luck finding a sitter for the hours required. Now, I did manage to do that, but it was almost impossible to work until 3, then be up until 4 or 5 because, as anyone who works in a restaurant will tell you, you're wide awake when you're done, and then get up at 6 or so with an infant. Try that for a few days and see if you don't start hallucinating. And I was still not making a living wage. I tried to get subsidized child care, but no such thing for those kind of hours and when I was working in law offices I was told, in spite of the fact that after paying for the least expensive child care I could find I'd literally take home $50, that I made too much to qualify. I hear they've raised the bar even higher now.

Ultimately, like I said, I did return to a 'normal' paralegal salary, (but at twice the cost of living that I'd had before my move, that's without adding the cost of raising a child). Then my car got totalled and I could no longer get to said job all the time. This caused problems. I couldn't get a loan for another car because I hadn't been at the job long enough. In retrospect, I should have just gotten a $500 car, (why no bus? I return you to the lovely state of public transportation in this fair city). However, at the time I didn't even know such a thing existed. Incredible until you take the fact that I'd only been driving for a couple of years into account. That, along with a few other political reasons, (the same firm fired a good friend of mine for being 'too intelligant), cost me the job.

I worked it out again for a time, using my strong theater and writing background for a career change in education that rapidly worked out to the same amount of money, albiet without benefits. The schedule made childcare much, much easier- (not so difficult to find someone or initially expensive when what you need is a few hours at a time, which is how it worked). By that time I did have a slightly better support system, but good luck building a really strong one in a new town without the childcare to go out and network. Good old catch 22.

Then the school I was working with closed, my Dad became critically ill and I added full time care of him to full time care of a still not in school child and the stress of it all culminated in a near fatal accident that took over a year to really recover from. So, back to the drawing board. I did, however, save my Dad's life. And I've managed to have my wonderful child in very good pre-schools & be very involved in his starting Kindergarten, have had room-mates who are strong role models and now am living in a fantastic neighborhood/house that finally doesn't make me rue the day I ever left that Victorian - basically, somehow I've worked it out.

But, as you see, I think anyway, it's been almost impossible. In fact, at times it has been impossible. Friends and family, (sadly, more often family), have far more often carried on about how untogether I am rather than sit and seriously take a look at what would solve the underlying problems, which has definitely made it harder. I think not being around me for 11 years, or in the case of my friends not knowing me for most of my adult life, makes it easier to fall into that. 'So many people do this all the time' they say, 'they don't have this much of a problem.' Sure they don't. Try google and see if the hundreds of postings by single parents and non-government social service agencies about what it's like to 'get it together' without a support network and see how long the theory holds up. Probably about 5 seconds. Or, better yet, try googling support services for single parents in your area and see how 'easy' it is.

I'm not trying to have a pity party here - I'm simply telling my story the way it really is and suggesting that, should you be so callous as to join the cast and crew of those who relentlessly have given me crap over the years, (usually people who don't have children or who had them in a 2 parent family and now they're grown - never mind the fact that the occurrrence of 2 disabled grandparents, especially coupled with an out of state father, is probably unheard of) - anyway, should you be tempted to do that, seriously, Google as I suggested before you do so.

And keep in mind, by all outward logic, I did not 'choose' to have such a difficult situation. Rather, I had a great job, a nearby father and a lot of support. But the unexpected happened. Over and over again. It seems to me that these are the sorts of situations society should most have some sort of safety net in place for - but no go.

Instead, the very agency that claims to exist to help single parents is now charging them a fee to not pay them on time. Just what we need. And like I said, it's not that it's that much money, though the amount of money the government ultimatey makes off of it is appalling. It's rather reflective of the attitude of the country towards single parents -

So, what's my point here? Is it just to tell you my sad tale? No. It's that many people are without the neccessary support systems to manage single parenthood. This is a problem that is even more ignored than the at least intermittently acknowledged national child care crisis, and undoubtedly feeds it. It is assumed that because the majority of single parents have parents who help with childcare everyone does. Clearly not the case if you Google as suggested. Social service agencies don't quite know what to do in these situations either, non-federal/state ones that is. The federal/state agencies just say tough luck if you make $10 an hour or so apparantly. Privately funded ones at least try to help and, per the posts on-line, often find themselves at a total loss.

And somehow it's logical to cut or add fees to the services that exist because why? While at the same time carrying on about family values and all that. Whatever. Single parents are already screwed in this country- or, rather, the children are. And that's really, really sad. The lovely government and much of the population is not only anti-abortion but anti-child if you ask me.

Is it the governments responsibilty to pick up all this slack ad infinitum? Hell no. I don't think any self-respecting person would want them to, or want parents and friends to for that matter. But in situations like that described above or any number of other ones, people who make responsible decisions and then have catastrophic events have no recourse if they can't figure it out on their own. And, clearly, sometimes this really is impossible.

I have a hard time seeing how even those who are proponents of hands-off government would advocate the above-described circumstance. Why not start a fund that helps new single parents obtain good legal help, (legal aid services do not help in chid custody/support proceedings outside of DCFS helping you get child support and we see what a concerned social service agency that is)? If I had had that in the beginning, I would undoubtedly have gotten a lot more help from my child's father, (and this is coming from a very strong legal background). That's who should be helping, especially in this instance where his income is such that he can well afford it. But no, no such service. And family just railed about how I needed to 'get it together'. Ulitimately, they lent or gave me far, far more than a lawyer would have cost to begin with. And social services do the same.

Now, this may not work in every case. Some parents don't have the income to really do but so much. But I imagine I'm not the only person in the country in something like this situation. In fact, I know some people who have dealt with even more ridiculousness from the father of their children/their families etc. Again, no, it's not the responsibility of my or anyone else's family, certainly not friends, to pick up all this slack. But something, somewhere has to give or the situation will just perpetuate itself. There's no way around it.

And again, this is from someone who is qualified to make $45,000.00 or more with the other parent making even more than that, (who knows how much, he won't say and is meanwhile trying to get support reduced and refusing visitation, which would at least allow me to work without paying childcare for a few weeks, go on job interviews as needed rather than as I am able, not to mention giving me a break for the first time in what has now been 6 years without more than a week or so at a time in the aforementioned child-care free universe. Forget going out, or playing regular gigs or anything like that. Though that's surely at the bottom of the priority totem pole.) I hate to imagine what people who have the odds stacked even more heavily against them are going through.

And now agencies are going to do less as the economy gets worse, as friends and family have less to give as a result -- what is going to happen? "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" As Scrooge said. Guess the workhouses will return. They'll probably charge a fee for those too.

Takes a lot to get me going but when I do I sure don't shut up do I?