A child sits in a pitch black room wishing he had a better life, wishing he was someone else. He is deeply depressed and in pain. His father has been arrested and taken away from him again. The father is incapable of finding a good job due to his past mistakes and is forced to do grunt work. He can not afford to support both his children and his self, so he chooses his children and is forced to move around from house to house. Now he is homeless and rarely gets to see his children. This is just one of the few unknown side effects of the harsh enforcement of child support laws. While child support laws were created with good intent and are in effect to help divorced parents to provide for their children, there are many cases in which these laws cause more harm than good. Parents that are present and active in their children’s lives should not be forced by law to pay child support.
Child support has become a growing issue in America, however it has existed long before the development of the United States. The oldest known recording of the idea of child support can be traced back to seventeenth Century England. The original purpose of child support was to ensure that parents that had either abandoned their children or divorced their spouses, did not flee their responsiblities to help provide for their children financially. Child support laws were not present in the United States as federal laws up until 1935 when the Federal government decided to implement welfare for children and families with absent or deceased parents. Child support laws were not actively enforced until 1949 when New York noticed that too many fathers were abandoning their families and refusing to pay child support. As a result to this large group of unpaying fat...
... middle of paper ...
...go serious emotional and mental stress. There are however, more than enough cases in which the harsh enforcement of child support was more than necessary. However, in these cases the father has normally abandoned his children and refuses to own up to his responsiblities as a parent.
Works Cited
Cashmore, Judy, and Patrick Parkinson. "Children's Participation In Family Law Disputes: The Views Of Children, Parents, Lawyers And Counsellors." Family Matters 82 (2009): 15-21. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Cassity, Judith. The Parental Child-Support Obligation. Canada: Heath and Company, 1983. Print.
DuCanto, Joseph N. "Delinquent Child Support -- Making A Federal Case." American Journal Of Family Law 27.2 (2013): 138-142. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Lieberman, Joseph I. Child Support in America. Yale University, 1986. Print
The concerned camp believes that families are in decline due to the rapid changes that have happened in the past 25 years. Unprecedented levels of divorce, people having babies while not married, and also teenagers having babies have hurt families and quite possibly led into hunger. The concerned camp also believes that families have the most influence on the character and competence of children and adults (Bronfenbrenner, 1986). The concerned camp values parental commitment, marital fidelity, individual responsibility, and civic participation. They also believe that individualism overshadows or threatens these values. The concerned camp believes happiness is due to relatedness to others, investments in family, and commitments to the community. Evidence that supports the concerned camp is that many Americans are very concerned about the state of families and the well-being of children. They also believe that it is very important to be concerned about how the next generation is raised because they will be the future parents, workers, and citizens. They believe that our prosperity depends on investing in childrearing. In addition, the concerned camp...
A state that undertakes custody of a child is declaring that it can do a better job providing protection. This system is a powerful agent of support, providing positive nurturing environments that enable a child to reach his or her potential. Nonetheless, when children suffer additional abuse in the system, this government intervention should be questioned.
The goal of Juvenile Courts and the Child Welfare Agencies is to protect and make decision in the best interest of children. The ASFA law was signed by President Bill Clinton. On November 19, 1997 after it was approved by the United States Congress earlier in the month. The law was the most significant piece of legislation dealing with child welfare in twenty years. States decided to interpret the law as requiring biological families to be kept together no matter what, but the law shifted emphasis towards children health and safety concerns and away from a policy of reuniting children with their birth parents without regards to their prior abuse. ASFA lead sponsor, Republican Senator John H. Chafee of Rhode Island said, “We will not continue the current system of always putting the needs and rights of biological parents first … It’s time we recognize that some families simply cannot and should not be kept together.” This phil...
Many children across the country are wrongfully removed from their homes everyday by workers with an anti-family mindset, who use removal as a first resort not a last. It is not only detrimental to the child’s well-being, but is also immorally abusive to the child. The goal of the child welfare system is to promte safety, permanency, and wellness among all children.
Throughout history, the government has been in charge of creating and regulating different types of laws. Many of the laws have been created to protect those who reside in that country and therefore are expected to be followed. However, not everyone believes that they should follow the law and in return decide to either ignore them or rebel against them. When members of society violate the simple law that has been set in place to protect those who do not possess the capability to protect themselves, it becomes a dangerous and horrendous tragedy. One of the most horrific laws that people violate is that of child abuse and neglect.
Black men in Jail are having drastic effects upon the black community. The first and arguably most important effect is that it intensifies the problem of single parent households within the black community. When these men are sentenced to prison, they, many times, leave behind a wife/girlfriend and/or children. If they have already have had children, that child must spend multiple years of his/her early life without a primary father figure. In addition, that male's absence is even more prominently felt when the woman has to handle all of the financial responsibilities on her own. This poses even more problems since women are underpaid relative to men in the workforce, childcare costs must be considered, and many of these women do not have the necessary skills to obtain a job, which would pay a living wage, which could support her and the children. Black male incarceration has done much to ensure that black female-headed households are now equal with poverty.
Sigmund Freud nailed it when he said “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” There are numerous Consequences regarding the issue of fatherlessness in America today, many of which have lasting impacts. Poverty is one major issue that can result from a fatherless home; a recent study showed that children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In addition as of 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families. That means that children
...e best interest of their children. It’s not the amount of child support that is being paid that is important while you are doing the best you can for your children and supporting them the best way you can. Enforcing child support and having greater punishments are not just to make the nonpaying parents lives more difficult but to ensure a better life for their children.
Around the 1950’s, the media perpetuated the idea of the picturesque family unit; children made the shift from being a necessary evil to a symbol of status. Children were no longer meant to help sustain the family, so much as meant to be trophies of the parents’ competentness. Children became an outlet for parents to mold and live through vicariously: the more perfect your child was, the better parent you were. The problem is not that people want to have children, but that many cannot afford to take care of their spawn. Whether you are a young mother utilizing the assistance of government programs such as WIC or simply writing off your children on your taxes, you are making use of government incentive to procreate. Reproduction is completely natural; however, once backed by government incentive, the motivations for having children can take an unnatural turn. Children may be a symbol of love and unity, but it has expanded beyond the family unit. Many children have become the responsibility of the Unite...
Sheldon, Sally. "Unwilling Fathers And Abortion: Terminating Men's Child Support Obligations?" Modern Law Review 66.2 (2003): 175-194.Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Mar. 2014.
Forty-one percent of a couple’s first marriage ends in divorce, according to mckinleyirvin.com. Also, Seventy-five percent of children with divorced parents live with their mother while forty-three percent of children growing up nationally, are raised without their fathers. Many factors leads to the decision of the child’s custody, although mothers usually win. However, what if both parents are capable of providing a decent life for the child? Unhealthy relationships between parents can question the true intent behind child custody. After reading Pop Quiz 7 in, “Octet”, from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace, parents used money, vengeance, and love in the battle for child custody. Similar to the situation
More than one in three women in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime (The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2012). Thirty to sixty percent of perpetrators tend to also abuse children in the household (Edelson, 1999). Witnessing violence between parents or caretakers is considered the strongest risk factor for transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next (Break the Cycle, 2006). State legislatures are increasingly passing statues that encourage participants in the Criminal Justice System to attack the issue of domestic violence more aggressively. Some states still fail to realize that IPV involving a woman that is pregnant should be considered a felony because it affects the well-being of the unborn child.
...rtion should not be an option unless this endangers the health of the mother. Time and time again the mother uses not knowing who the father is as a way to eliminate complication. This makes it difficult for a law to really be effective if one was put in place. It is the mothers body and 9 months of her life but she has made this mistake and must live with it if the father is willing to take all rights and responsibilities of this child [Williams, 2013].
From everyday experiences to recent news stories, I have come across many issues that large families face in America. Poverty and child abuse are top issues in the United States. For this reason, I believe the government should start regulating the number of children people can have based on financial stability, place of residence, criminal history, and other qualifications. The ideal American family image is one that provides parents that gracefully accommodate and nurture their children with open arms, financial cohesion, warm meals, and a roof over their heads. Although one might think these characteristics are a given, they are not as common as the general population widely assumes. There are many individuals deemed “unfit parents” who, despite complaints and adequate resources, continue to reproduce, putting children’s lives at stake. This brings up the question at hand: should up and coming parents be required to obtain a license to start a family?
According to the 2012 Census Bureau report, in 2012 the average household family income was around $51,017 dollars a year. The income is nearly split in half for the income of a single parent. Single parents are often financially unstable, decreasing opportunity and lifestyle quality for their children. “The single mother lives with the competing priorities of earning money and providing caring services to their children” (Bronnimann). To provide some aid to single parents, the government requires for the noncustodial parent to pay what is known as Child Support. Child support is a payment that the noncustodial parent must pay to make up for the financial costs he or she would need to contribute to the child or children to support their lifestyle. However often times the noncustodial parent does not earn a large enough income to pay a significant amount of child support. In some cases the noncustodial parent may be unemployed and unable to contribute at all. Children coming fr...