Men.. do you have problems with child support system?

[Riada]

My nephews have been taught that if they get a girl pregnant and the child is proven to be theirs, they must be ready to support that child, no matter what, because that child is their "blood" AND our blood. Their father has told them that for every spoonful of food that they might get ready to put in their mouths, they 'd better be ready to give the child half of it.

It's so odd listening or reading about some AA men talking about child support or listening to child support war stories from AA men or women because I compare that with the way the vast majority of African men I've observed(and some other)men see their children. When the marriage breaks up, not only do most of these African men support their children, they will try to "kidnap" or take the child from the mother. I had two AA girlfriends who went through this years ago and have not seen their children for over a decade. The children are in Africa and doing fine. The women hear about the children through other relatives, but initially the women were devastated and could not believe that a Black man would actually steal his child.

Now I know that many AA men DO support their children, but for other AA men who want to reclaim the best of their African heritage, IMO, copying the way most African men regard their duty to their children would be a good start.

 

[Radical Faith]

I think we need to be careful making these type of statements. Yeah, if you impregnate a woman, you should take care of your children. That isn't always enough for women. Sometimes, "doing the right thing" in your mind is not "doing the right thing" in her mind. She may want you to be with her, she may want marriage or she may want a lot more than you're able to give financially. You can still be taken to the court and hit with unjust child-support payments. Having sex should not warrant punishment, especially since both parties voluntarily participated in the act. Sometimes, the whole process is not brought on by the fact that you impregnanted a woman, it's brought on by her dissappointment in how things turned out after the fact. There are unjust child-support payments because they are base the amount on what a man makes, not on what it takes to raise a child. That's why you have NBA players and NFL players paying $10,000 a month. Now, what child takes $10,000 a month to raise? It doesn't matter how much the man makes, is he being punished for being successful or is he paying child-support? It all depends on the lifestyle, as far as how much it takes to raise your child. If you're planning to buy your kid Jordans when he's 1 yr old and FuBu gear , then maybe you do need $300-$500 a month from EACH parent. If you use your money wisely, I have found that kids can be very affordable. This whole "you have to pay to play" notion is what gives so many women a clear conscience while they're using the child-support systems as the first step and not the last resort. Let's also remember that not all of these children are concieved through unprotected sex, and not all of these fathers in the system are biologically the child's father. These are not excuses. It's called looking at the problem from every angle and not just taking the easy way out by blaming one side for actions that takes two people to make it happen.

So all the people saying men should be prepared to pay whatever amount, have never had unprotected sex or have never had sex with someone they didn't want to marry and financially support? I seriously doubt that.

Brother you have made known your feelings of pre-marital sex and you see nothing wrong with it. Well this is exactly what's wrong with that. The only person anyone can control is themselves. People often change their minds and their feelings about situations and the end result is unnecessary drama. I speak from experience brother. When you are a successful person it just comes along with the territory that you must be careful who you are sleeping with. Yes single successful men have sexual yearnings and desires but the stakes are much higher when some women know this. Who's at fault? Again we must control ourselves. A successful man can have all the sex and babies he can afford if he waits and finds the right woman to marry. If he doesn't want to get married and still have sex, then he takes the chance of being accused of rape, siring unwanted children or being stalked and obscessed over. Hey that just one of the prices of fame and fortune. To have women signing waivers or recording conversations or wearing uncomfortable condoms and having a woman wear a diaphrams is not loving or enjoyable for either person. A man might as well masterbate or hire a prostitute rather than to go through all of that for a night of sex. Even with prostitutes there's no guarantee that a man's sexual history won't be exposed. Then he become a victum of extortion. In this case who has more to loose? See sometimes abstainance isn't about religious choices but about protecting yourself from drama. These sort of things happen to broke man too. My point is each man is responsible for his own decisions despite the conditions. In fact the conditions should make those decisions easier. Hey I never said it was fair but why should it be fair that those in the entertainment industry garner more wealth and notariety than those in the education systems or civil service? Do we place more emphasis on being entertained than being educated? When a person has a lot everbody is out to get what they have. In the case the of successful men and the Child Support Agency the agency is going to look at this men with all the means for this child to have advantages that many children don't if they were being raised by their father. Now they can't make the father raise that child but they slap him a hefty babysitting bill each month. That what it amounts to when the father has more than enough resources for the child to be well taken care of in his care but he chooses to let the child remain with the mother who may not be broke but may encounter difficulties raising a child our her own. Again it may not be fair but those are the rules of the game and in order to play we must know and follow the rules....


Peace.......

 

[kente417mojo]

Brother you have made known your feelings of pre-marital sex and you see nothing wrong with it. Well this is exactly what's wrong with that. The only person anyone can control is themselves. People often change their minds and their feelings about situations and the end result is unnecessary drama. I speak from experience brother. When you are a successful person it just comes along with the territory that you must be careful who you are sleeping with. Yes single successful men have sexual yearnings and desires but the stakes are much higher when some women know this. Who's at fault? Again we must control ourselves. A successful man can have all the sex and babies he can afford if he waits and finds the right woman to marry. If he doesn't want to get married and still have sex, then he takes the chance of being accused of rape, siring unwanted children or being stalked and obscessed over. Hey that just one of the prices of fame and fortune. To have women signing waivers or recording conversations or wearing uncomfortable condoms and having a woman wear a diaphrams is not loving or enjoyable for either person. A man might as well masterbate or hire a prostitute rather than to go through all of that for a night of sex. Even with prostitutes there's no guarantee that a man's sexual history won't be exposed. Then he become a victum of extortion. In this case who has more to loose? See sometimes abstainance isn't about religious choices but about protecting yourself from drama. These sort of things happen to broke man too. My point is each man is responsible for his own decisions despite the conditions. In fact the conditions should make those decisions easier. Hey I never said it was fair but why should it be fair that those in the entertainment industry garner more wealth and notariety than those in the education systems or civil service? Do we place more emphasis on being entertained than being educated? When a person has a lot everbody is out to get what they have. In the case the of successful men and the Child Support Agency the agency is going to look at this men with all the means for this child to have advantages that many children don't if they were being raised by their father. Now they can't make the father raise that child but they slap him a hefty babysitting bill each month. That what it amounts to when the father has more than enough resources for the child to be well taken care of in his care but he chooses to let the child remain with the mother who may not be broke but may encounter difficulties raising a child our her own. Again it may not be fair but those are the rules of the game and in order to play we must know and follow the rules....


Peace.......

Like I said, those rules that you've outlined do nothing but justify women and the system taking advantage of men. You said "A successful man can have all the sex and babies he can afford if he waits and finds the right woman to marry", but these are often the men that get hit with these huge, over-the-top child support payments, not to mention alamony, since you want to speak on marriage. All that headache for "doing the right thing". Every man that seperates from the wife doesn't have the option of taking the child. Like I've pointed out before, a woman only has to complain that a man ain't **** for the system to go after him, but a man has to prove that a woman ain't **** if he wants that child. I agree that men have to watch out for themselves, but there are a lot of brothers who take your advice and wait for marriage to have children, then they turn around and get treated as if they jumped ship from day one. Like I said, there are many men that paid to support their child, but still go through the system because the woman feels scorned. There are a number of men in the system that never impregnated a woman in the first place. There are men who would rather have the child with them, but the woman holds on to the child in order to continue receiving monthly checks. There are a bunch of reasons why a man might be in the system and living away from his child, that doesn't mean he deserved it simply because he had sex (protected or not) with a woman. No one is raping these women. No one puts a gun to their head and makeing them have sex or pop out a baby that they know they can't take care of and never wanted in the first place. The reason they keep doing it is because the system pays them to, and people rationalize their dishonesty. So what's the solution? Men should all refuse sex until they marry right? Wrong, since the divorce rate is over 50%, that still leaves half of all married men vulnerable to the system and greedy women if the have kids. Men should use condoms everytime. Nope, that won't work either since condoms bust and women poke holes in them. Even if they do work, women can still get pregnant and say their husband did it. The only way to get rid of this problem is to make women own up to their responsibilites and make them accountable for their dishonesty. If women aren't continuously being rewarded for "doing the wrong thing", then they wouldn't continue doing it.

 

[Sekhemu]

My nephews have been taught that if they get a girl pregnant and the child is proven to be theirs, they must be ready to support that child, no matter what, because that child is their "blood" AND our blood. Their father has told them that for every spoonful of food that they might get ready to put in their mouths, they 'd better be ready to give the child half of it.

It's so odd listening or reading about some AA men talking about child support or listening to child support war stories from AA men or women because I compare that with the way the vast majority of African men I've observed(and some other)men see their children. When the marriage breaks up, not only do most of these African men support their children, they will try to "kidnap" or take the child from the mother. I had two AA girlfriends who went through this years ago and have not seen their children for over a decade. The children are in Africa and doing fine. The women hear about the children through other relatives, but initially the women were devastated and could not believe that a Black man would actually steal his child.

Now I know that many AA men DO support their children, but for other AA men who want to reclaim the best of their African heritage, IMO, copying the way most African men regard their duty to their children would be a good start.

It's interesting that you start off your second paragraph lamenting about the "war stories" between African American men and WOMEN, while comparing it to African men who "kidnap" or "take" their children away from the mother after the marriage breaks up.

This is interesting because you start off talking about the bahaviour of both parties but end up talking about men going to the extremes.

Hmmmmm?

 

[jgyknowledge]

Why do you sound soo angry and bitter? I can understand your reasoning and as a matter of fact my sentiments might have been pretty close to yours. Then I had the opportunity(blessing actually) to become a single parent and view things from the other side. Not saying that you are, but you seem to be blaming the system and women. What about the blame on men? You mention some very good points, but are those the majority? In every system there is always room for improvement and there are always situations that are unfair to some people. As a matter of fact, I'd recommend to any man to take himself to the court system and put everything on paper, so there is no guessing. It works out better that way.

I've had the view of parents getting divorced and my pops getting stuck with unreasonable payments. You know what he did? He paid the money and never said a bad thing about my mother. He sacrificed for his kids, and I'd do the same thing in a heartbeat.