The Rise of Big Sister-ism

The Rise of Big Sister-ism

April 3, 2005

by Carey Roberts

I have seen their shell-shocked eyes and unbelieving expressions.

Men saddled with crushing child support obligations, forced to live on
scraps or else fall into a desperate sea of mounting debt. A few of them are
white-collar guys who once held respectable jobs and lived in comfortable
houses.

Time marches forward, and the cases only become more bizarre.

Steve Barreras paid $20,000 to support his daughter, a girl he had never
met. In fact, she didn't even exist. His ex-wife Viola Trevino took another
family's daughter to court and claimed the child as hers. New Mexico
governor Bill Richardson has now ordered an investigation.

In Michigan, Terrace Hale had $300 garnished from each paycheck for three
years. The money went to support a woman he's never met to raise a child
he's never fathered. Now, Marilyn Stephen, director of the Michigan Office
of Child Support, refuses to give Mr. Hale's money back.

Then there are those cases of adolescent boys who were victimized twice.
First by their adult female rapists, and then by an inflexible child support
system that came knocking when their perpetrators carried the baby to term.

The voice of justice and outrage asks, How could this happen in America?

The answer can be found in our nation's 30-year crusade to extract child
support payments from mostly minority, low-income fathers, men who now bear
the contemptuous epithet, "Deadbeat Dads."

Last year professor Stephen Baskerville of Howard University probed the
allegations that have been leveled against these "deadbeats." His must-read
article, "Is There Really a Fatherhood Crisis?," reached some surprising
conclusions [www.independent.org/tii/ media/pdf/tir_08_4_baskerville.pdf]:

Charge #1: Most marriages break up because fathers "have chosen to abandon
their children," as president Bill Clinton once put it.

Not true. Margaret Brinig and Douglas Allen found that women file for
divorce in 70% of cases. Likewise, Arizona State University psychologist
Sanford Braver reports in his book Divorced Dads that two out of three
divorces are initiated by women.

Charge #2: When women do leave the marriage, it's to escape domestic
violence and abuse.

False. The number one reason cited by divorcing moms, according to Braver,
is "not feeling loved or appreciated," and not anything to do with violence.

Charge #3: Dads don't pay their child support because they don't care about
their kids.

Absurd. A 1998 Rutgers and University of Texas study concluded: "many of the
absent fathers who state leaders want to track down and force to pay child
support are so destitute that their lives focus on finding the next job,
next meal, or next night's shelter." The problem is not dads who are
dead-beats, the problem is men who are dead-broke.

Charge #4: Kids don't really need their dads, anyway.

Absolutely false. This is the most scurrilous myth of all, because the truth
is the polar opposite, and the harmful effects on children are so great.
"Virtually every major social pathology has been linked to fatherless
children: violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy,
suicide, and psychological disorders," notes Baskerville.

It is no coincidence that all four of these myths place fathers in a bad
light. And that suits the Divorce Industry - that veritable army of lawyers,
family court judges, custody evaluators, and child support enforcers -- just
fine.

These myths have become so ingrained in our thinking that basic
Constitutional protections are being casually tossed aside. One brief on
child support from the Left-leaning National Conference of State
Legislatures made this stunning recommendation: "The burden of proof may be
shifted to the defendant," which of course means, "Fathers can be assumed to
be guilty until proven innocent."

Of course, it's divorce that triggers the monstrous child support machinery
to lurch into motion. The rise of no-fault, unilateral divorce does not
trouble the Sisterhood. In fact, they welcome it.

Over the past 50 years, the National Association of Women Lawyers has
spearheaded the adoption of no-fault divorce legislation throughout the
country, laws that made marital dissolution that much easier. The NAWL now
notes with satisfaction, "the ideal of no-fault divorce became the guiding
principle for reform of divorce laws in the majority of states."

A growing divorce rate. Disenfranchised dads. Children lacking paternal
guidance and protection. An ever-expanding child support apparatus. Careless
disregard of Constitutional protections. A growing totalitarian mindset.

That's the Matriarchy at work.


--
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The only thing necessary for the triumph
of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmond Burke