twins ..two different dads and the judge says....

That doesn't surprise me a bit. When I first started getting child support, my son's absentee father was ordered to pay $32 a week. I also recall a couple of employees whose child support I had to deduct from their pay...a woman with 5 kids ordered to pay $13/week and a man from Tennessee (who was hiding in Texas to get out of paying) who had to pay $9/week when they caught up with him. Supposedly it's based on someone's income, but sometimes it just doesn't add up. If that's what the judge in this case went by, the dude must have a really shitty job.

 

I agree. It's as if taking care of the children isn't a top priority.

I can understand adjusting for certain things (like more children to support for example), but I think the courts give some people too much slack when they need to be lighting a fire under their butts to get their shit together.

Like the examples in my other post, they obviously don't always base the support amount on their income. If they did, more would've been deducted from their pay.

The system itself is a mess. From not having to pay enough, to having to pay more than one can afford, to having to pay for kids that aren't even yours...the list of craziness goes on and on and on...

 

Yeah, that and it makes no sense to keep having kids when you can't or don't take care of the ones you already have.

Good points. Without knowing the history of the case there's no way to one can only assume. In a lot of cases receiving government assistance is what motivates the attorney general to go after deadbeat parents. They don't seem to care about back support unless it's to reimburse the government for what they've put into supporting someone's kids.

 

Of course you can; getting support doesn't mean someone doesn't qualify for welfare. That's not what I what I was talking about though. My point was that the government seems to put more effort into going after deadbeats when the other parent is getting government benefits in lieu of child support. I don't know about everywhere else, but in Texas they make the deadbeat pay the state back for whatever benefits the child has received. The government seems more inclined to collect support when part of that money is coming back to them.

I can use my own case as an example. I was on assistance for a while when my son was a baby, and as soon as his "dad" had finished paying the state back for those benefits they stopped making him pay the back support my son still had coming. They even sent me a letter telling me I was on my own for the rest of it.

That's more than Texas will do, or at least it was when I had to deal with the situation. Thank God my son is grown.

I think that regular reviews should common practice across the board.

There were so many things I didn't bother to push for because most of the time it was pointless. For example, in my case the support was supposed to include medical insurance, but he told them I had my son covered by CHIPS which was a lie. The crazy thing is they took his word for it without a second thought. SMH

I'm thankful that I was able to bust my ass and take care of business without trying to rely on the intermittent child support. I remember two occasions where I actually received child support checks in the amount of $1.00...I don't know why the hell they even bothered to print them. I still have them buried in my files someplace.

Yeah, a lot of deadbeats pull that shit and get away with it, and a lot of them keep making more babies they aren't taking care of.

My son has never met his "dad". In Mr. Deadbeat's own words, "I'm not ready to be a dad; I have too much going for me." Whatever the fuck that means. There have been times I wished I could punch him in the face for hurting my son the way he has. The truth is my son was better off not having him around if that's the type of person he was.

I'm sorry your dad wasn't there for you and your mom. Thank God you had such an awesome mom who loved you and did what had to be done.

 

Count yourself fortunate for that awareness. Sadly way too many people don't have it, and the cycle never ends. It's one of the reasons my son is so careful as well.