By Jordan Forrester

The courts having to step in to dictate parental responsibility always seemed a bit strange to me.  It’s always been my wide-eyed naïve opinion that grown people should be immediately drawn to their children and willing to pitch in accordingly.  Of course, that’s not the truth as much as I would like it to be.  Hence, family courts around the country have the overwhelming job of keeping people on task when it comes to donating to the well being of their seeds. The results, however, seem to always leave one parent in an unfortunate fiscal tailspin and the other claiming victory.  Where do the kids come in though?

I hear so much about the parents when this subject is raised.  Mothers and fathers lay out their cases in terms of their personal needs or desires.  Sometimes it’s only when prompted that they bother to suggest that the baby needs anything. It seems that child support is more of a chess match between the two adults and the object is to beat the opponent; not to come to a consensus on how the child will be taken care of.

The situations run the spectrum.  There are women producing multitudes of children simply to augment their monthly payments. There are married men who father children outside of their marriage and refuse to acknowledge them because they have no feeling for the mother. Then there are the poor souls who find out years into their parenting that they aren’t even their child’s father.  It’s just sad.

I remember reading years ago about a movement that championed a parental opt-out policy for men if they were not married to the newborn’s mother.  It was suggested that they should be given a two-week period to determine if they wanted to be fathers.  If they decided that fatherhood wasn’t for them they could sign a few pieces of paper and release themselves of any and all obligation to their children without the consent of the mother.  There are those who also suggest the percentage taken from a man’s check should be lessened if the child was born out of wedlock. 

Being a parent isn’t cheap, nor is it a job always performed by a married couple.  We all know that.  The idea of tailoring your payments to your liking or just saying f**k it, I’m not interested in being a dad right now sounds crazy to me.  I guess paternal instincts are not what they used to be.

I know plenty of men have horror stories.  Women who trap men into getting them pregnant through deceit is a common one.  Men know that the women are in control of the decision to have the child so that’s something that must be considered when beginning a sexual relationship.  Thinking about it after you have been hauled into court is simply too late.

Women have horror stories too.  There are plenty of men who don’t contribute to their children’s lives.  There are men who quit their jobs purposely so they can’t be charged child support.  There are men who marry someone else and have more children who they would rather take care of then the one they fathered in high school. So there is very little empathy for men who are paying under duress.

The bottom line is that these courts can’t judge behavior and it’s up to grown folks to realize what being a parent entails and try to work that battle on their own. When you’re standing in front of a judge, your problems have likely started way before you received that summons.

If you know that you are subject to the regulations of your state when it comes to parental responsibility, it’s your job to use the necessary precautions to prevent becoming a monetary slave to a woman you don’t like. While there are problems with the system, it can’t morph itself into something that can make the fiscal portion of parenting convenient for you. You may see it as unfair, but most of us know what it is and we should all behave accordingly.  Not just to preserve your paycheck, but to save millions of children every year from becoming nothing more than pawns in a money war.

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