Child Support - Mother/Father — Treat Them The Same

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I was browsing the online edition of the Charleston Gazette and saw this headline:

Ohio man gets probation, restitution over missed child-support payments

Now, it’s just a quick note, not a real story.  This guy owes $50,000 in restitution for his children.  Granted, I don’t know the backstory to this one, but I have my own history with this type of issue.

I was once married to a guy who’s wife left the kids on him.  The kids had a lot of problems, primarily psychological.  Stuff like severe AD/HD [the kind where they prowel the house at 3:00 a.m. and just walked out of classrooms], defiance disorder, and the inability to comprehend consequence.  The ex would blow his top at the least little thing.  I often reminded him that he should have assured that the young woman [20 years his junior] didn’t get with child while they were enjoying … stuff.  He hated it when I did that.

But a twist to this story was that the mother of his children was never ordered to pay child support.  Not even the mandated by law $50 per week month.  She was told that because she chose to move out-of-state that she had to come up with the transportation costs for the children to visit her.  [She never did and they never saw her unless she came in.]

So here we are, these two children were so out-of-control that we couldn’t keep them in daycare.  [One managed to slice open his leg when he went to the john and dropped the tank lid.  It shattered and sliced his leg on the way down.  Took something like 25 stitches.  He was four years old.]  Their father ended up leaving his barely above minimum wage job. [I worked for the government, had good benefits and refused to quit.] They were all on my insurance, I used my sick days when needed, ate a bunch of my vacation time running them to doctors and running interference with the schools and daycares, and she isn’t even required to pay a dime.

Then I see a story like the one above.  My initial response is ‘good, he should pay for his children’ then I’m reminded of my personal experience and I wonder why women aren’t held to the same standard as men?

I am so against discrimination of any type it isn’t funny.  We don’t need special laws for special cases.  Discrimination is wrong, period.  All forms of discrimination are wrong. 

I want to see mothers held to the same standard.

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