Child Support is a very touchy topic for most people who have either been put on it at some point, or have had to put someone on it. While I do not have any children myself (and most people will say that that disqualifies me from having an opinion on this topic, but that’s not true at all, as people often have opinions on topics that they themselves haven’t been through,) I do have opinions on how child support should be ran as an entity to help the parent of the child who actually is keeping the child for a majority of the time. If you already have a situation worked out, then I don’t believe that anything that I am about to say applies to you, as you probably already have a successful co-parenting situation going on, and it’s best not to mess that up. My suggestions/opinions are for those who are not in a good situation with their significant other, and a child hangs in the balance.

Men:

Here’s the problem I have with a lot of guys who make children, then leave the mother to raise the child/children by themselves: she didn’t make them by herself. As a man, they had as much to do with that child being there as the mother, and yet, there are plenty of men who don’t accept that type of responsibility, and leave the mother to do all of the work of raising a child, which is just unfair. Sure, there have been systems, programs, and circumstances that have attempted to remove men from the household (when weed and cocaine hit the hood and welfare, to name a couple), but that itself should not succeed in separating men from their families. There are plenty of stand up men that continue to be in the child’s life after they have split from the mother, and has even continued to support the child, as they should.

(Quick Note: These rules apply to the opposite sex, in the event the opposite sex has custody, i.e. the man has custody of the child.)

As far as what I propose for men in terms of child support, I believe in two interconnected scenarios:

Once the man has left the household, and has not contributed to the well being of the child in any way, a blood test should be taken to determine parentage. Once it is confirmed that he is indeed the father, he should be put on mandatory child support, a fixed amount that is determined by the collaborative efforts of the man and the child support office. That money is debited from his gross earnings, and comes out before he sees his check, that way, there is no way he can “accidentally” spend it. In the event he does not have a job, or is reporting no earnings, then the child support office should assist him in finding a legal job, that will provide enough money to support his child, and comfortably take care of his other responsibilities. In the event he does not accept help from the office because he does not want to pay child support, then he should be put in a rehabilitation program that still allows him to make money, but does not actively put him in prison, because then you are depriving the child of the support they deserve from both parents, which is counterproductive. Prison/jail often doesn’t rehabilitate anyone, and won’t make the men who don’t want to help, all of a sudden help, or want to help.

Along with the mandatory child support, there should be mandatory visitation set up, unless the man has a verifiably toxic environment that he lives in, that wouldn’t be conducive to the child development. Most men would be fine with just paying the money and not providing time to spend with the child, but because time is most important, there should be a timeframe that the child spends with the man. Mandatory visitation should be set up by the collaborative effort of the man and child support office, and should be happening once a month, at the very least, for a weekend consisting of Friday morning to Monday morning. At most, the man should have the child for two weeks out of every month, equal to the time the lady has the child, that way the child gets to experience the parents for equal amounts of time. If the man outright refuses, then there should be a penalty amount that should come out of his check to go to the child, scaling upward with every month that the father doesn’t see the child, with a maximum amount that will make it clear that seeing the child is the better option. If there are verifiable excuses that come up, then the visits can be excused, but only three times per year. After that, the penalties will come the same as someone who outright refused. For the men who take visitation, for the days that the child is with him, then those days will be subtracted from the child support taken from his check, meaning he gets to keep more money, the more his child is with him.

Women:

There are plenty of single women that do well raising children without support, or with very little support, so much respect to those women. But, there are plenty of women who depend on child support for the livelihood of not only their children, but themselves, and that is not right. CHILD support is for the CHILD, and that man’s hard earned money (or however he gets it) should not be supplying that woman’s lifestyle, no matter how adverse she feels to that. Even though she has children, SHE is responsible for supplying the lifestyle she wants for herself, and shouldn’t be dipping into child support funds to augment/enhance that, which is why Father Time with the child/ren is so important.

The answer to the abuse of child support funds is simple. There should be a bank where the funds are deposited, and the mother gets a debit card that she can use to make purchases for the child. The card will work most places, and accepted online, but, the mother has to provide receipts to the child support office every month, stating that every cent spent on the debit card issued was spent on the child. That can include rent, lights, gas, cable, and other amenities, but the entire child support deposit can not be used for bills like those, because then the justification for more money than is necessary to support the child can become culpable, and the mother has to show that she is capable of proving a stable, safe, effective environment without the use of child support to help. The receipts can either be physical or online, but must be presented by the deadline, which can be presented online or in person. They must be presented by the deadline, otherwise repercussions will be implemented, such as a probationary period, and even getting her own income garnished to pay for the expenses that were not accounted for. After three strikes in a year, meaning the receipts do not match the expenses on the card, then the woman goes into a review period, and can have the child support stripped from her, and given to the other parent so that they can manage the account. In the even that both parents show that they are not capable of managing the account, then they are both fined by the office, and will continue to be fined until one of them complies with the regulations. Complying with regulations for an extended amount of time will take the woman off of probation, and the payments will resume. In the meantime, the payments from the father will continue whether or not the mother is in good standing, so as to not hamper the child, and deprive them of their needs.

There are certain things that are allowed to be bought by the debit card that may not fall under necessary expenses. If there is a birthday party coming up, or if the child wants to do an extracurricular activity such as play a sport, then the child support card can be used for that, but the entirety of the child support can not be used for those expenses. There has to be some financial input from both parents, meaning the mother has to put in on the actual activities, not just getting the children there. Say there’s a baby girl that wants her nails done, then that’s something that the debit card can be used for, but not for both the child and the mother. The mother has to pay for her nails with a separate card, because that money is not meant for her. Christmas time, the card can be used for gifts that the child will use, such as TVs, gaming systems, or whatever else the child is into, provided the receipts are available to verify the purchases.

All in all, it’s about accountability and responsibility when it comes to the children. Parents are having children younger and younger, and they still have to learn to be adults, while learning how to handle children. As far as child support, this is my basic solution, with some tweaks, and other things that would have made this already long post even longer.

QUESTIONs: What do you think of child support? How would you have it run if you had the chance to put your own spin on it? Doy ou agree with my thoughts or not? Why or why not?

Black History Fact:

Myth: That crack in the “ghetto” was the largest drug crisis of the 1980s

The bodies of people of color have a pernicious history of total exploitation and criminalization in the US. Like total war, total exploitation enlists and mobilizes the resources of mainstream society to obliterate the resources and infrastructure of the vulnerable. This has been done to Black people through a robust prison industrial complex that feeds on their vilification, incarceration, disenfranchisement, and erasure. And the crack epidemic of the late 1980s and ’90s is a clear example of this cycle.

Even though more white people reported using crack more than Black people in a 1991 National Institute on Drug Abuse survey, Black people were sentenced for crack offenses eight times more than whites. Meanwhile, there was a corresponding cocaine epidemic in white suburbs and college campuses that compelled the US to install harsher penalties for crack than for cocaine. For example, in 1986, before the enactment of federal mandatory minimum sentencing for crack cocaine offenses, the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 11 percent higher than for whites. Four years later, the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 49 percent higher. 

Even through the ’90s and beyond, the media and supposed liberal allies, like Hillary Clinton, designated Black children and teens as drug-dealing “superpredators” to mostly white audiences. The criminalization of people of color during the crack epidemic made mainstream white Americans comfortable knowing that this was a contained black-on-black problem. 

It also left white America unprepared to deal with the approach of the opioid epidemic, which is often a white-on-white crime whose dealers will evade prison (see: the Sacklers, the billionaire family behind Oxycontin who has served no jail time; and Johnson & Johnson, which got a $107 million break in fines when it was found liable for marketing practices that led to thousands of overdose deaths). Unlike Black Americans who are sent to prison, these white dealers retain their right to vote, lobby, and hold on to their wealth.