Deadbeat Dads

There's a great idea that is being practiced in my former state of Louisiana that attacks one of the world's greatest problems- parental abuse of children.  Louisiana's social services department has put out a "Most Wanted" list of 18 parents who owe at least $20,000 each in child support. Combined, the men owe nearly $866,000 to their children. None of the 18 deadbeats has paid child support in six months or more. The poster showing them, released Wednesday by the Department of Children and Family Services, includes their photos, last known addresses and amounts owed, along with a hotline to call with tips for tracking the men down. A little public shame goes a long way toward making many negligent parents behave responsibly.

There is a web site for viewing the despicable 18 and sadly, it says that here are more than 166,000 cases of unpaid child support in Louisiana. That's a lot of deadbeats in a state with a population of about 4 million. There are also a few deadbeat moms around too, since the court (only rarely) asks mom to pay dad child support when he has custody of the kids. In the U.S. the mom is routinely awarded custody of the child in a divorce, absent any proof that mom is an abusive or seriously negligent parent.  So the dad who doesn't have physical custody of the little ones usually gets the bill to pay mom money that she is supposed to use (but many divorced men claim mom uses the money to buy clothes for herself, visit a beauty parlor etc.) on the kids.

One may ask what do the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services employees do at work all day? Should they search for the deadbeats, catch them and jail them until they pay. But the deadbeats would not be able to pay while behind bars?  And some of them probably have good arguments as to why the monthly child support payments should have been lowered or modified. They may have had no money to pay an attorney to get the court case reviewed and modified. So, because of an irresponsible nature,  some unwisely decided to duck and run from their responsibilities to their kids..

Hmmmm One frightful question to add to the mess. How many other children have they parented? They type that regards children so callously probably has fathered a number of illegitimate children that the taxpayers of Louisiana and the U.S. pay for. It's sad that some humans can harm their own children and not be held accountable for their behavior.