Story
The purpose of this story is to share a story that many women can tell. Many single mothers and remarried mothers face the daunting task of fighting for the money their children need.
I will begin with a little background. I promise not to come off to bitter, because by now I am over the bitterness. I am only left with an empty bank account. That is of course until my children are mature and old enough to leave the nest.
The story begins not unlike many stories after several years of marriage my husband decides he needs a vacation, from me, his business, his family and his children. After a few months of nonsense and financial ruin, it is decided we will be divorced. We go to court, the Judge sets a weekly child support amount and rules that the child support will be paid through the county probation department. Which I can tell you my ex was non to thrilled about, as the child support agency will make him pay or else. Right? Well they did for a while. I had to have him arrested once because he was in the arrears. I thought that would make him straighten up. Wrong! I did receive the payments sporadically for a few more months, then he move out of state. Then the real fun began.
He moved from New Jersey to Florida. After several months of hunting I assisted the with the enforcement and the Florida child support enforcement caught up with him and garnished his pay. Then he moved again and I lost him for a while. The story repeats it's self through the states of Florida, Utah and ends in Arkansas where he has been for quite sometime. I spoke to several hundreds (ok maybe that's exaggerated) of people trying to find out what the other state's child support enforcement agencies were going to do to help me. At one point I had called the Florida county office so many times they wouldn't speak to me anymore. Single Mom's who can't afford food for their kids can be a little crazy.
I spent years fighting, finding him and reporting where he was. The only answers I ever received were we working with the county that he is in. We filed an enforcement document and you'll need to follow up with us in thirty days. I even had my Congressman's office reach out to my county agency. Which only produced more letters saying we are working on it. After a while I gave up the chase, it was too much to keep fighting.
During this time I had worked my way up the corporate ladder, I was and am still to this day making enough for us to eat. I attended college on-line and received my Bachelors Degree from the University of Phoenix. I did remarry and I have enough to live on, my children do not want for anything.
To date the payments are still sporadic and once I received a whopping $ 13,000 towards my arrears because he won a Workman's compensation case. To date my ex husband is in the arrears for almost $43,000.00. And no one is doing a thing about it. I could really use that as my younger son is getting ready to go to college himself.
The point of my story is that I would like Mr. Obama to address the issue of Inter-State Child Support Enforcement, during his first 100 Days in office.
As I said I have been lucky, I made my way and have taken care of my children the best way I could. I had and still have an enormous amount for family support, but what about the women who don't? Why can't there be a system in place to force the deadbeat Dad's or deadbeat Mom's to pay for the children they made? Why does it have to be so hard? It's just communication between the State Agency's.
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I can relate. I was 20 when the need for child support became an issue. Long story, twice , but I worked two jobs often and we did fine. You are quite right, here is an issue. If you have not, would you please add this to the hub Commission on Women?