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The Interests of Family, In The Interests of the State

Lauren

My all-time favorite parenting blogger is throwing in the towel for the time being after being taken into court for child support under the shittiest circumstances I can imagine. Jim McQuiggin has been a full-time single dad, amicably sharing custody with his ex-wife, only engaging in the court system in ways that will legally cover both of their asses, for about two years.

Last year, Jim lost his job and was unable to continue his child support payments in full, but paid what he could when he could while sharing equal time with the children. His ex-wife was also unemployed at the time and had to apply for government services to support herself and their children, at which point the state filed a case against Jim in her name on behalf of her children despite her protests.

Jim is currently facing six months of jail time, despite his and his ex-wife’s cooperation, despite his continued payment of support:

The state demands remittance; they’re not giving TANF money without making me pay. And they’ve made their assessment based on my income two months after I got fired (when X made her claim) as opposed to what I make now – less than half of what I used to make. Interesting that the state will research a job I haven’t had for two months (at around $2200 a month) but can’t be bothered to research a job I have now (about $900 a month).

More interesting is that the state won’t do simple math. Even if the 49%/51% split was true, X would have the children 7.3 more days per year. With the state requiring $638.00 per month, I am being asked to pay child support in the amount of $1,048.77 per day.

365 / 51% = 186.15
365 / 49% = 178.85
186.15 – 178.85 = 7.3

$638 x 12 = $7656
$7656 / 7.3 = $1048.77

Even in my most hedonistic drug days, I never spent a fifth of that. I can’t imagine spending a grand a day on anything, frankly. Nor should I expect the state to expect any ordinary citizen to spend that kind of money. Then again, I’m talking about mindless bureaucrats, worthless parasites who would not think twice about spending a grand a day of your tax money.

I’ve read the letter Jim’s ex is submitting on his behalf and it is entirely clear that the state is not interested in serving this family’s best interests. Jim has requested that I and others post about this because he is at a loss for legal assistance. His court-appointed attorney does not seem to feel the gravity of the situation as Jim, his ex, and their three children feel.

His court date is this Thursday.

Trish Wilson has been writing on this phenomenon for years — no matter what we are told about child support and custody laws, ultimately the state’s main concern is itself. In the meantime, a specialized set of lawmakers make a racket off of our greatest fears of forcible separation from our families.

32 thoughts on The Interests of Family, In The Interests of the State

  1. This is exactly the kind of article that threatens to reduce me to a quivering, gibbering, pants-wetting mess.

    In which condition I would probably lose a hypothetical custody fight.

  2. I left a message at his blog, but I don’t know if he’s around to moderate comments, so I’ll reproduce it here:

    Good luck to you. I can’t really say much more than that, except what you already know and what is startingly insufficient:

    This is bullshit.

  3. Absolutely. Jim’s ex-wife’s mistake was to apply for TANF. TANF requires child support collection, even if the mother does not want it. The purpose of child support collection by the state is NOT to provide for the children. It is to reimburse state coffers. If his ex-wife is still getting TANF, I’d recommend she reject it if possible. I wish I had some good suggestions for them, but I’m afraid I don’t.

    This really sucks. TANF is all about reimbursing the state for what the state dishes out to mothers on the dole. It is not about helping children. That’s why the welfare reform mantra “child support is for the children” is such a sham. Child support theory isn’t about the children anyway, and welfare reform has made a big mess of child support theory. Child support is about reimbursing primary caregiving mothers (most primary caregivers are mothers) for the career, salary, opportunity, and life sacrifices they must take on when they raise children. Primary caregiving mothers cannot recoup those opportunity losses down the road. This is not alimony. Alimony is about the past. Child support is about the future. Child support helps to cover those future losses that cannot be regained. Child support goes to the parent who is providing the child support for the child. Welfare reform has made a big mess of it. What has happened to Jim happens to lots of men and women who have to suffer through welfare reform.

  4. This is not alimony. Alimony is about the past. Child support is about the future. Child support helps to cover those future losses that cannot be regained. Child support goes to the parent who is providing the child support for the child. Welfare reform has made a big mess of it.

    If there’s one thing that’s sort of an omnipresent theme, is that The System really only cares about you till you’re born, and then you’re just fucked. This is prima facie a disgusting example of that bullshittery. I’m livid, and I don’t know what to do.

  5. if he truly can’t afford to pay, certainly he shouldn’t go to jail. it sucks if the system can’t handle that information.

    but his math is no good. if you accept his assertion that he should only support his children 51% of the year (i do not accept such a ridiculous assertion), he pays $41 a day, NOT $1078. if he realizes that his children need food, clothing, and shelter every single day, it cuts down to a bit over $20 a day. why he divided by the 7.5 “extra” days his wife gets is beyond me, but his inability to do math explains at least why he had children (>1), he couldn’t support.

    i don’t mean to get all republican on him. but rather than going around telling other gullible people who won’t check his math (…) that he should only support his children seven and a half days a year, he should be 1. looking for better jobs and 2. calling child services or whoever every single day until they acknowledge that he’s making less money than he used to and he shouldn’t go to jail for it.

  6. Once the kidlet goes to bed I’ll write Jim an email. I’ve got to say that from what I read of this situation – it completely sucks. As I read it, his ex thinks so too.

    Ugh. I’m not sure if anybody can help, other than providing moral support.

  7. but his math is no good. if you accept his assertion that he should only support his children 51% of the year (i do not accept such a ridiculous assertion), he pays $41 a day, NOT $1078. if he realizes that his children need food, clothing, and shelter every single day, it cuts down to a bit over $20 a day. why he divided by the 7.5 “extra” days his wife gets is beyond me, but his inability to do math explains at least why he had children (>1), he couldn’t support.

    He’s referring to the child support formulas that the state uses to calculate chld support. They decided on this amount voluntarily, which is an amount that shouldn’t apply to the formula.

    It’s in my opinion that because this couple has made most of their custody agreement outside of court that this should be handled outside of court as it has been. Also, the 51/40 agreement was only on the books. In reality he had full custody of his children for about a year despite that legality.

  8. Wow, pluripotentate, you are either shockingly obtuse or full of shit.

    Or unwilling to read.

    The money you’re talking about is over and above what he’ll have to pay on the days he has custody for food, clothing, and shelter.

  9. Auguste, I hate to be a wet blanket, but I agere with pluripotentate.

    Which is to say, I think the situation sucks. I think the court is looking at the legal agreement and not considering what is going on in reality.

    But I also think Jim’s math sucks. Child support is meant to help cover all the days Jim doesn’t have the kids, not just the extra days that she gets them. The latter part of Jim’s argument is essentially the same one used by MRAs trying to weasel out of having to pay support at all.

    Again, I have nothing but empathy for everyone involved. I certainly think it’s ridiculous that he could end up going to prison over this. I’m tempted to say that it sounds like it shouldn’t be too hard to get this fixed, but I’ve been in legal trouble, and if you can’t cough up a couple thousand dollars to retain an attorney, you’re pretty much screwed.

  10. Child support is meant to help cover all the days Jim doesn’t have the kids, not just the extra days that she gets them.

    Okay, I definitely don’t understand this line of reasoning. And I especially don’t get how a person who’s making $900 a month is supposed to cough up $638 a month – over 2/3 of his income. What happens during the half of the time the kids are with him (more, from what Lauren says)? They go without?

  11. Now, if you’re telling me that half the child support that he pays returns to him, that’s one thing. But I’ve never heard of that. Then again, perhaps I’m uninformed.

  13. but his math is no good. if you accept his assertion that he should only support his children 51% of the year (i do not accept such a ridiculous assertion), he pays $41 a day, NOT $1078. if he realizes that his children need food, clothing, and shelter every single day, it cuts down to a bit over $20 a day. why he divided by the 7.5 “extra” days his wife gets is beyond me, but his inability to do math explains at least why he had children (>1), he couldn’t support.

    It would seem that if he has the children 49% of the time, she should be paying him 49% of the time and he should be paying her 51% of the time. Since writing cheques like that would be rather pointless, he should just pay her 1% of the time. Of course if she was clothing and paying for the children’s education, that would be added to the 1% but with a pretty much 50-50 split, I would like to see some evidence of that. This seems like a very involved father. You think that a father not paying child support for 365 days a year when he is caring for the child for 178 of them is a “ridiculous assertion”. Personally I find your assertion ridiculous and indicative of an agenda that is threatened by real world cases that don’t match your theory of the world.

    Child support is about reimbursing primary caregiving mothers (most primary caregivers are mothers) for the career, salary, opportunity, and life sacrifices they must take on when they raise children. Primary caregiving mothers cannot recoup those opportunity losses down the road.

    Most of the time I would agree with you but in this case (51-49%) both of their “career, salary, opportunity, and life sacrifices” are pretty much equally impacted. At most he should be required to pay for the few extra days the mother is with the child.

  14. Full disclosure: I don’t really know the child support laws all that much, and I’m certainly not defending them. There is no doubt in my mind they could be better. Or maybe they are better and I’m just wrong. It’s a possibility.

    My understanding is that most child support laws are set up so that 50/50 sharing means that child support would be much more equitable. In fact, I think the whole point of the 51/49 setup is to ensure that someone is legally required to pay a lot more.

    Let’s put it this way. The kids are understood in a legal sense to spend more time with their mother than they do with their father. Since they’ll be spending more than half their time at their mother’s house, it makes sense that their father should pay to help them out financially for all the times they aren’t there.

    Take Jim’s case. They have legally agreed to share the kids — and she gets them more than he does. His wife is does not have a job. He does. Should he be required to pay for only half of his children’s care? If these were the only facts of the case, the answer is would be a resounding “hell no.” That is why I take issue with that one part of Jim’s post. By his logic, he should only have to pay a few hundred dollars child support at most for the entire year. Which is exactly what MRAs argue.

  15. Good thing those aren’t the only facts of the case, huh?

    Which, I think, was kind of the point: Let’s remember that family law is certainly capable of screwing over both sides of the equation, and think what we can do to reform it, including not punishing someone for requiring welfare…and let’s not let the MRAs’ abuses of the system ruin it for those people (such as both Jim and his ex) who are just trying to figure out how to get it right.

  16. And as for doing the math: Since he was paying $638 a month when he could afford it, and wasn’t even constrained to, I don’t think he’s realistically saying that he should only pay a few hundred a year, simply that the state is being ridiculous in this case, especially considering his ex-wife agrees.

    And I don’t care what MRA has pled poverty while offshoring funds, there’s no math in the world that convinces me that a person who, from Lauren’s description and his own, has been the primary caregiver and will continue to be a major caregiver, should be left with $262/month after paying child support.

    Unless you want the kids to be spending 15 days per month in a cardboard box.

    And Jim, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry to spend so much time bringing up the details of your particular case, but this touched a nerve.

  17. Take Jim’s case. They have legally agreed to share the kids — and she gets them more than he does. His wife is does not have a job. He does. Should he be required to pay for only half of his children’s care? If these were the only facts of the case, the answer is would be a resounding “hell no.” That is why I take issue with that one part of Jim’s post. By his logic, he should only have to pay a few hundred dollars child support at most for the entire year. Which is exactly what MRAs argue.

    MRA are extremists who take extreme POVs. That doesn’t mean that they are always wrong on every point or that less extreme versions of the same argument is equally wrong. In this case, when he could afford it, Tim was paying support even though he had the children almost half the time (see Lauren’s post above) because he had a higher income. This was voluntary, not court-ordered. Even when he could less afford it, he was paying what he could.

    I take issue with the point of that two people with similar incomes who split custody 50-50 and one of them is legally obliged to pay money to other. When someone alleges that taking issue with it is a “ridiculous assertion”, I can recognize that they are as far out there, on the opposite side, as any MRA.

  19. And you know what’s really fucked up? If they got remarried before court on Thursday, not only would the state be completely uninterested in this case, Jim and X would (as an impoverished married couple) qualify for several different types of state aid. Food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance, subsidized childcare, the whole nine.

    Oh, and if X was on unemployment instead of TANF, there’d be no push to financially ream Jim—even though unemployment benefits tend to be higher than TANF.

    Meanwhile, the cost to keep Jim in jail, even if it’s just the county clink, is likely to be scads higher than even the amount the state wants him to magically shit out.

    Good grief. Please tell me he doesn’t live in Illinois.

  21. The thing that kills me the most about this story is here (…and throughout…):

    Perhaps I’m a sap since I signed paperwork to give the state the impression that the custody arrangement is 49% (me) vs. 51% her. I knew X wasn’t skilled (thus, consigned to a minimum wage job) and would need public assistance. I signed that agreement knowing X would need public assistance to give my children the bare minimum of what they need to survive.

    This is a couple that was trying to do their best to make sure everyone came out okay despite the circumstances of their divorce. With stories like this, there is little preventing anyone from trying to do the Best Thing and instead working to cover their own legal asses, children and exes be damned.

  22. Thank you, Lauren, for following up on my post. You did an incredible job elaborating on what most of us agree is a gross injustice.

    Auguste, NP with the comments – glad you’re also appalled.

    I don’t know what an ‘MRA’ is but as I type this, I can hear my daughters giggling and laughing in their room (and they should be asleep). Whatever an ‘MRA’ is, I doubt it applies to me.

    Simple fact of the matter is that this is a situation of shared custody. Why should I be responsible for providing two incomes? Why should I have to work hours to the point that I can’t even see my children?

    BTW, I’ve always loved the “get a better job” argument. That’s genius. Hey, why doesn’t Bush use that to improve the economy? “We’ll turn this economy around as soon as everyone gets a better job.”

  23. I don’t know that I’d call him a ‘sap’, but in bureaucratese, he told the gov’t that he did not actually have 50/50 custody.

    I forget if I asked this, but has anyone pointed him to Legal Aid yet?

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  25. “Men’s Rights Advocates” = MRAs; duh. Nope, not me. I’ve written on my blog that I find them repulsive misogynists with dull axes to grind. I was offered legal adice by a local MRA group (for a small “membership fee”) and immediately turned it down as soon as I realized what they were yet another MRA group.

    Legal Aid in this town is only available to the elderly or restricted to civil cases for people below the poverty level (like myself); if you can’t afford counsel, you’re at the mercy of court-appointed counsel.

    However, I appreciate all the input and support here, I really do.

  26. Jim,

    Some of the attacks are not at you, even though it seems so. It’s just that many of us have been hit by similar stories from MRAs, who, like you said, had an axe to grind.

    The “get a better job” was probably like one of the many stories where any MRA worked a poor job “under the table” so they could claim no income, and less child support, and then whined when he got caught.

    This does not sound like your story. I hope this works out okay, and has definately opened my eyes to some of the holes in the system.

  27. Antigone, one commenter did suggest that Jim shouldn’t have had more kids than he could afford to pay for, which even a cursory glance should have helped the commenter see that he had recently taken a 60% pay cut.

  28. You people unfortunately exemplify the blind ignorance that so resounds regarding the welfare system as we presently know (or don’t know) it.

    In 1984 with Ronald Reagan’s Welfare Reform Act, Child Support Services was mandated to collect monies paid out to AFDC clients through collecting child support payments. Basically, when a desperate, impoverished women comes in for services, she must sign off (included on forms for assistance application) her and her children’s “rights” to any child support during the time that she is on assistance and any arrears presently uncollected. But its buried in the application and frankly, when your kids are hungry and you have no idea how you are going to pay the rent next week, you will just nearly sign off anything won’t you?

    Therefore,once she’s on the dole, the slimly funded Child Support Office is churned into gear to find the nonpaying father of said children and begin proceedings to get his money. Once they begin collecting, the women is allowed to receive a 50.00 a month “pass-through”. of that money.

    The children be damned.

    It used to be that way. Then in 1995, with the passage of the Welfare Reform Act of 1995, the “pass-through” payments were stopped entirely. Now the state and feds take it all. Also, were passed along with this were the ability of states to deny benefits to women who will not or cannot name the father of their children. They also can and do force women to submit to a degrading multipage questionaire with such beautys as, “What sexual position did you use when you last had sex with this person?” “were you intoxicated?” etc., etc.

    Oh, yes, but most of you won’t know about all these beeootiful changes to our laws effecting the poor. Because well, they affect the poor and who gives a shit right?

    Even the much loved Gloria Steinem was quoted in a Ms. magazine interview in 1994 when asked about her thoughts on welfare reform, that she knew of a great commune where poor women with children were living and making baskets to sell…

    Frankly, we as women will go nowhere until we start to draw our battles lines where the weakest among us stand.

  29. Oh…and I will never understand how the majority of the left sat mute while crowing about how concerned they were about women’s rights.

    Then suddenly after the Welfare Deform Act passed, activists stood agape, aghast that the beloved Clinton signed away millions of women and children’s welfare in a giant cave in to the right wing. How could he they asked! Oh, those poor welare activists, just went home and quietly resigned to the invisibilty they had been deluded into thinking they had escaped.

    Then the major press pundits and traditional activists woke up from their long sleep and realized that, Gosh Almighty Maude! Middle Class White Women who leave Abusive husbands Will be Negatively impacted by this law that was supposed to rid us of White Trash and Black welfare queens.

    And no one has had the guts to force the issue and so women are locked everymore into horrible marriages and facing the social banishment of poverty if they chose to leave.

  30. Kate, despite your passion on the subject, it’s difficult to take anyone seriously who starts a comment with “You people” without any sort of snark whatsoever.

  32. Criticism well taken Lauren, but when one has worked on welfare issues for years (and since abandoned in frustration), it is easy to get into an “us and them” mentality.

    My apologies and I certainly hope someone can read what I posted and get beyond the “you people” although I am frustrated with the lack of knowledge about poverty issues and how they effect us all.

    Such divides as classism are what the right has successfully used to advance their horrid policies which threaten our freedoms.

    Passionate yet I am. How could one not be in light of the offense on this country in all directions and women in particular? Anger is ok you know as long as it is directed toward progress.

    It is tiring though.

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