LAW GETS IGNORED
"Under current law, judges decide custody cases based on the 12 factors delineated in Michigan’s Best Interest of the Child Test."
From my recent experience in a Michigan divorce the Judge does not decide. The friend of the Court is who decides this. When my ex wanted sole custody and I wanted 50/50 custody and parenting time we had to fill out a long questioner answering questions about the 12 factors that are to determine custody. Then the FOC interviewed the family and told us how it was going to be. The Judge would only rule on the custody decision that the Friend of the Court made if the divorce went to trial. Very few divorces (less than 5%) actually go to trial so the Judge never needs to rule on the decision that the FOC made. Even if the divorce does go to trial, the Judge usually simply accepts and calls into law the recommendation from the friend of the court.
The Friend of the Court decides the fate of the children and the parenting time for the parents!
SO.. why make the point that I have?
Remember that the FOC (at least in Michigan) is very crooked. They intend to maximize the parenting time for the mother regardless of what is best for the children. They get paid more federal dollars if they assign more child support. They will max out the parenting time for the mom so she can collect the max support thus generating the max money coming to the FOC from the Government. It is really that simple. It is really that broken. It is really that bed.
Quite a system we have here huh?
Broken!
Do You think this is what is best for our children?
I'm just one guy who lost the bulk of his time with his young children to a crroked system here in Michigan. Dig around my blog for a ton more detail from credible sources including a former FOC Officer Carol Rhodes and see what others have to say. Go to the 2007 entries and find the one about House Bill HB4564 and bug Brenda Clack to quit hiding this bill under her desk and lets get it into action. All the future children if Michigan divorces need your help.
Please!
Thank you!
10 comments:
This dad is absolutley right. This needs to be known. This system in Michigan has got to be changed. It is ruining so many children and their fathers. It has been for years - when is everone going to wake up and see it! The power is in the wrong - and we need to spread the truth so it can be changed. The Friend of the Court DOES get more money if they run it this way. That is the wrong thing to be concerened about. What about the best interest of the children? Oh that is just a false statement in this system today. Many, many children and their fathers are crying out for help for they are victims of the court systems in divorce situations where the woman uses it wrongly. Help Spread the news wherever and whenever possible.
You state that the intent of the FOC is to maximize time with "mom" in order to maximize support payments from "dad"...
While this may be statistically correct, you would be more correct if you left gender out of it and focused on the "consistent wage-earner" instead.
When it comes down to it, the federal program which supplies the funding to the state/county/foc for child support enforcement (aka. Title IV-D of the Social Security Act) doesn't recognize gender. This program only recognizes the consistent wage-earner who has been labeled "absent" or "noncustodial" by the state court.
Since statistically the consistent wage-earners, or "breadwinners", tend to be the fathers, it's the fathers who tend to be removed from the lives of their children by the foc's recommendations and resulting court orders.
It has more to do with money than it does gender, and by only including "fathers" in your arguments against the system, you are essentially alienating a constantly increasing percentage of "moms" who have already lost or are going to be losing their children to the system simply because they were/are the breadwinners...
A more effective argument might include this: There is consistently one outcome in almost every foc recommendation, which is the creation of a court-ordered, child support-paying, noncustodial parent. This is obviously by design because the foc only makes money when there are support orders to enforce.
Couple that with the "rubber-stamp" of a family court judge, and the foc has been given the ultimate form of job-security - and state continues to receive windfalls of cash from the feds as well... Talk about a "win-win" for state government and bureaucracy!
Hope this sheds a little more light and puts things in a better perspective for you... Take care, and good luck!
Jason
Well spoken Jason and thank you. However I was both the bread winner and the custodial parent for all of my young children. I worked from home and raised my children every bit as much as their mother did. Probably more as she had better things to do like have boyfriends. You are kidding yourself if you don't think that the system basically and automatically gives the children to the mother and simply assigns the father the tag of "Payor". That means Pay OR go to Jail.
one more thing about the FOC and the moms. In this case (as is very often the case) the mom stayed home to raise the children and be a homemaker, an honorable and underappriciated profession I do admit. In a case like this the mom, after divorce, is expected to go out in society and get a job. This job will most likely earn far less than the fathers job because she is new to the workforce and without skills. The mom also gets the bulk of the parenting time which greatly interfears with her job hour availability. Short hours and less pay = lower income. Again.... MAX out the parenting time for the mom so the dad gets charged the MAX child support and the Friend of the Court gets the MAX Federal dollars!!
It is just that simple. Sad but simple.
Dave:
Without knowing more of the details of your case, it's hard for me to make sense of what you're saying... Regardless, if it involves your own personal case - it's most likely irrelevant when it comes to the big-picture.
The point I was trying to make was that regardless of individual circumstance, there is a federal monetary incentive provided to states and their "family" courts to consistently produce one predetermined outcome - which is the creation of a court-ordered, child support-paying, noncustodial-parent.
From a big-picture perspective which follows the money within the Child Support Enforcement program from the top (Title IV-D) down to the bottom (State/Family Courts - yes, they are a part of the CSE program too), it becomes blatantly obvious what the goal of the program is... and every attempt will be made by everyone involved to achieve that goal - because billions of federal dollars are at stake.
However, there are always anomalies and individual circumstances that go against the norm.
If your case is one of those anomalies, then count yourself lucky to have escaped the system...
If it isn't though, then hopefully you will be able to take a step back and remove yourself from your own situation for long enough to see the big-picture.
The point is that Moms and Dads are merely pawns in the game. It doesn't matter who pays support - just as long as somebody pays.
The other point is that in order to fix what's wrong, the old argument of gender has to be thrown out the window in order to leverage the full extent of the people harmed by this system.
The CSE system is constantly and dynamically changing in order to keep up with the changing circumstances being presented.
If those who wish to change the system for the better don't keep up with the dynamics, they soon become the epitome of this quote from Albert Einstein:
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
The gender argument is getting old, and quite frankly, it was never very effective anyway...
All that I am asking is that people try to step outside of their own perspective for a while and take a look at what's going on aroung them... aka. "the big-picture."
Look at the tabloids for a prime example:
Who has custody of the Spears' children - Britney or Kevin?
Who makes more money...
Throw out the rest of the outrageous circumstances involved in the case, and look at it from a purely monetary perspective.
If Kevin had more money, regardless of Britney's numerous psychoses, she would the one receiving child support from Kevin - plain and simple.
Now, let me throw this into the mix: Money from your paycheck, and every other taxpayer in the country, is going towards paying a child support enforcement officer to sit back while an automated system collects money from Britney and gives it to Kevin.
By removing gender, I can focus on this bottom-line: I, for one, am not too fond of seeing my hard-earned tax-dollars being used to provide government services to the rich and famous - regardless of gender.
Are you?
I'm sorry Jason..
You just don't seem to get it.
I'll bet you have NOT had your children taken away from you.
Not all states are as archaic as Michigan. There are some who have learned that kide need their dads a lot more than every other weekend. Some states are now automatically setting parenting time up 50/50 right out of the chute in divorces. Can you imagine..the children get to see their dad as much as they see of their mom! How nice, good, decent.
Who is the state to jump in and tell my children that they will LIVE with their mom until they are adults and only VISIT their dad once in a while???
STUPID and bad for the childern. Shame on the stste for such child abuse. Especially when they are losing a great father.
The same state wants to whine and complain when these fatherless children have a much higher drop out rate, crime rate, jobless rate, drug use rate, etc.
Open up your eyes state!! You did it to the kid.
No, Jason, it isn't gender in a lot of areas. Brittany is a ludicrious example and you know it. You talked about the consistant wage earner being "absent" or "non custodial".
That doesn't fly anymore with millions of people tele-commuting. I worked from home almost these children's entire lives. I RAISED THEM.
Jason, Please stop posting if you want to nit pick, if you don't live in Michigan, if you have not lost your children to a broken crooked system, if you really do not have direct experiance with Michigans FOC. Do both of us a favor and watch the Carol Rhodes video (former officer in a Michigan FOC) then feel free to comment on how the FOC works in Michigan. I have lived through and seen, talked with many others, etc, the exact coruption Carol speaks of. See the video here.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M7cEi61W24 . Or you can look for it in my December 8, 2007 entry titled GIVE WOMEN EQUAL RIGHTS.
Thank you.
Dave, unfortunately I DO get it...
I am not "nit-picking", and I will not stop posting simply because you want to go "alpha-male" on me in an effort to take out whatever hostility you have against me - a person you don't even know who happens to have a viewpoint more expanded than your own.
If you actually took to time to comprehend what I wrote, you would see that I was not associating the consistent wage-earner as actually being "absent..." I was attempting to explain that the family court system NEEDS an absent parent in order for their employer (the state) to continue to collect the federal revenue that keeps them and their court system employed... so the courts have turned to mass-manufacturing them out of consistent wage-earning parents - because, after all, those are the ones who the state can easily attach wage withholding orders to for child support collection.
It's all about connecting the dots Dave... You just have a few more left to connect than others.
Your defensiveness and lack of willingness to cooperate or learn anything more than what you think you know demonstrate the epitome of why parents are in the mess that most of them are in today: Failure to effectively communicate.
I don't need to solely base my entire perception of the child support system on something that ONE ex-employee of the Friend of the Court said or did or wrote... I understand the CSE program on a NATIONAL level - from the top down - not just in Michigan. What Carol exposes is only one facet of the entire system.
The thing is, Dave, if you want to fix things in Michigan with the foc, then you have to start at the top with the feds and work your way down... otherwise, the foc (and their employers, the courts) will just continue to reach for the proverbial carrot that is being dangled in front of them - which is the funding from Title IV-D for CSE...
Despite your attempt to engage me in argument with you, I'm not going to bother. Facts are facts; and facts are pretty much inarguable. So, I'm just going to tell you to re-read my posts a little more thoroughly next time if you want to actually try to understand what I am saying and try to effectively communicate with me... Who knows, you might just learn something if you could actually maintain a meaningful dialogue sans any attempts to cut people down.
It's a commonly held maxim that "ignorance is bliss..."
Have fun in your bliss while it lasts...
In the meantime, I'll keep POSTING, researching, learning, writing, and educating others (those who actually wish to learn, that is...) just as I have in the past - like the article that I co-authored with Lary Holland (Social Security, Welfare, and Child Support Enforcement - How federal welfare funding drives judicial discretion in child-custody determinations and domestic relations matters) which was published and subsequently quoted by Dr. Stephen Baskerville...
I'd put a link, but you probably wouldn't read it anyway...
Oh well. Do a google search if you're so inclined.
Dave wrote:
"Not all states are as archaic as Michigan. There are some who have learned that kide need their dads a lot more than every other weekend. Some states are now automatically setting parenting time up 50/50 right out of the chute in divorces. Can you imagine..the children get to see their dad as much as they see of their mom! How nice, good, decent."
Please provide the names of any states that have passed 50/50 legislation, and provide links to the legislation if possible.
Further, take note: The term "parenting time" refers to the time that an "absent" or "noncustodial" parent spends with their children. Most cases where there is 50/50 "parenting time" still generate a child support order for the state to collect on. Regardless of the time that a parent spends with their child post-domestic relations matter experience, re-read what I wrote: There is one common ending... A court-ordered, child support-paying, noncustodial parent. Period.
Also, please take note: The states that pass TRUE 50/50 legislation (which would eliminate the need for any support orders) are also going to be the states which will inevitably experience severe financial difficulties in the future due to the loss of millions in federal child support enforcement program funding.
Follow the money Dave. No state would rationally or intentionally create a situation that would potentially cause the loss of hundreds-of-millions in federal revenue to the state.
No "noncustodial" parents = No child support orders = No federal funding to states for enforcement of those orders.
This isn't rocket science; and it's not some conspiracy either... It's basic business; and even more, it's basic cause and effect. Open your eyes.
Jason, You said..Also, please take note: The states that pass TRUE 50/50 legislation (which would eliminate the need for any support orders) are also going to be the states which will inevitably experience severe financial difficulties in the future due to the loss of millions in federal child support enforcement program funding.
Follow the money Dave. No state would rationally or intentionally create a situation that would potentially cause the loss of hundreds-of-millions in federal revenue to the state.
I SAY: That is a damn shame that a state is relying on the breakdown of families to gain revenue. I see now how women are actually encouraged by the system to simply get a divorce rather than stay married like they promised their spouse and God. It is quite profitable to get a divorce as a woman. She is maxing out many types of support and aid from the state, gets all her own income and most of mine. I have no kids and no money.
Secondly, you also stated... No "noncustodial" parents = No child support orders = No federal funding to states for enforcement of those orders.
Right!! Just like married families. They don't need the funds for enforcement to collect child support if they don't get involved in collecting child support in the first place. 50/50 custody with no child support would be kinda like a married family wouldn't it? ,, no child support to collect, no enforcement needed. How did the states survive when there was not such a high divorce rate? Why should a state profit from my ex's infidelities and divorce? She makes more money than I do and still gets a ton from me as tax free cash. Has daycare paid for, free food, free health benifits, etc. She is smiling all the way to the bank while I starve so the state can generate revenue for its self. Meanwhile 5 young children that were raised by a stay at home dad get ripped from him and only get to visit him occassionally. Hmm, great system. Lets continue to encourage the break-up of families, have more fatherless children as a drag on society, keep dangling the money carrot in front of the moms for motovation, punish the good dads with a cookie cutter system, keep liberal guys like jason around to beat up on regular good guys like me, change "till death do you part" to "till someone better looking comes along", etc. No wonder this country is in the worst shape it has been in since it began. Forget Right, forget morals, forget family. Everyone should go out and simply do what is best for themselves. Hedonism here we come. Yay!
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