TN Child Support Enforcement

This blog post will be in close relation to a previous blog in February 2010 regarding child support and justice. There are millions of cases all over the world that are somewhat comparable to one another. The difference in all of these cases is the mother and father involved and what type of character they portray. In most cases one parent always benefits more than the other, instead of the children being the ones benefitting from the current situation. To provide a real world example of a situation of this nature, we should get on a personal level. I have been and still am involved in a relationship with a Daddy of two small children. These children went through divorcing parents at the ages of one and four. These children are now four and almost eight. Over the past almost three years, it has been a very torturous situation for both their father and the children. The mother in this situation has refused to take a full time job, she lives with her mother and father and she goes to school at best part time. What about her situation is helping to better the lives of their children? While on the other end of this situation, dad travels all over to make a living, pays over a thousand dollars a month in child support, he receives every other weekend visitation and that is if she decides if she wants to bring them or not, on a consistent basis we have to purchase new clothing, new shoes, school supplies for our house to work with them, school supplies for school and the list goes on and on. Meanwhile, what is the child support for? The child support is set based both incomes and it is supposed to support the children in all aspects of life. When mom enrolls them in sports, part of her responsibility is to ensure they have the proper equipment to play, when mom fights to have them ¾ of the year, it is mom’s responsibility to have them dressed properly and in clothing the fits properly. The situation is this, no one forced her to take those children 285 days per year, that is what she fought for in order for her to be able to collect her child support check so she could continue to be a stay at home mommy and live the lifestyle she use to. When parents chose to become husband and wife and have children, should things not work out; it isn’t a matter of who can draw the most blood to bring the other parent down? It should be what can we do as parents to our children to make sure that they have the most normal and sufficient life as possible. Most often times rulings are made based on the bad raps of parents. It is sad that each case can’t be decided on because of it uniqueness, it has to be decided on because of the history of this cycle. Sadly enough, during custody battles and child support calculations, the children are never the ones that are discussed. For the most part, one parent is angry at the other and they want nothing more than to use their child or children to control the situation and the other parent. I am not going to point fingers at either parent for doing something of this nature because often times both parents are trying to do it to each other. The judge in most cases makes an emotional decision because one parent has played on the judges emotions and the custody ends up in I feel as “what the judge would want to happen to he/she.” What the most unfortunate part about this is, there are really no laws on certain situations. All of these parenting time decisions are based on an individual’s emotions toward this situation, not what is most beneficial and realistic for the children. I hope is that some day, this will all change. I hope the change is that each parent receives a fair chance to parent their child the best of their ability until they are proven that they aren’t fit enough to do so. Maybe one day, justice will be served!