Deadbeat dads continue
to be a source of concern
~ Close to US $500,000 owed in child support ~
By Judy H. Fitzpatrick
PHILIPSBURG--Father’s Day, observed yesterday, Sunday, should have been a time to celebrate the joys of fatherhood. But for scores of children whose fathers play little or no role in their emotional upbringing and contribute very little financially, there was not much to celebrate.
Although refusing to pay “child support” is a crime, which attracts a sentence of up to a year and despite efforts by the Court of Guardianship (COG) and the Prosecutor’s Office to corral deadbeat dads and get them to live up to their financial responsibilities, the list of offenders continues to grow, says COG Head Joel Arndell.
Currently, an estimated 400 fathers should be paying child support through the COG having been reported by frustrated mothers, but a large percentage has defaulted. The office rarely comes across cases of deadbeat mothers. Arndell estimates that about US $500,000 is currently owed in child support and he says the figure is climbing.
The COG intervenes in an average of three new cases each week. The first step is to call in the father to make payment arrangements. If he refuses to cooperate, the mother can turn to the penal system.
Figures provided by the COG shows that from 2003 to mid June 2008, 192 cases were sent to the Prosecutor’s Office for handling.
Expressing frustration over the situation, Arndell said many fathers conjure up all sorts of excuses not to pay or complain that the amount is too high. The amount is set based on the income and expenditure of both parents. For the average family it is NAf. 300 per month, per child.
It’s a double whammy for the many children who find themselves in these situations, says psychologist and Safe Haven official Aisheline Maduro, who explained that some fathers who fail to support their children financially were also likely to have the propensity to spend less time moulding them.
About 50 per cent of the mothers seeking shelter at Safe Haven from abusive men come from homes where the man is the sole breadwinner and are dependent on the financial assistance of the father. These cases are particularly sensitive as the man sometimes withholds the money in an effort to coerce the woman to return, says Maduro.
Jail is not the answer
Prosecutor Dikran Sarian, who has handled many of these cases in his three years operating in St. Maarten, says that while a strong signal should be sent to child support defaulters, jailing them is not always the answer. “If we get really tough on fathers and send them to jail, then mothers won’t get the support for their kids,” he argued, noting that approximately 30 fathers are hauled to court for non-payment of child support annually.
Most delinquent fathers get off with a warning or are given a conditional sentence, usually of about six months to keep them out of prison so that they may work and pay off their arrears said Sarian. The maximum sentence of a year in prison is seldom handed down.
Both Arndell and Sarian said in some chronic cases the wages of the fathers’ (new) spouses had to be garnished because these fathers simply refused to pay. There were also cases in which liens were placed on their property. “Some men stop working, just so they don’t have to pay. I’ve heard of every excuse in the book,” Arndell explained.
Victims
But while the COG and the penal system can order fathers to pay, they can’t force them to give the love and the emotional support a growing child needs.
Thirteen-year-old Gary and 10-year-old Derrick are two of the many children in St. Maarten who are being deprived of this love and emotional support.
Although his biological father has been mandated by the court to pay child support, Derrick says his dad spends no time with him and shows him no love. “Once when I was sick and in the hospital he came to collect some papers and he left without even speaking to me and I felt bad…Another time during carnival he passed me and picked up (embraced) another child,” Derrick recalled.
“I think when men have children they should be there for them because it hurts when you are not there,” he says. “Right now I have a stepfather and I’m very happy.”
His mother, S.M. said although she has had to drag the three fathers of her three children to court for child support, it’s the time that they don’t spend with their children that is of even greater concern.
M. said Derrick’s father was a caring person up until the she got pregnant and he started denying that the yet unborn child was his. He had also contested every child support order saying that he had (three) other children to take care of and in the end the amount stipulated was reduced from NAf. 350 to NAf.100 per month.
Since Gary’s father stopped showing interest in him after his parents ended their 20-year on-again, off-again relationship in 2003, it left him confused and wondering why his daddy no longer found time for him. Since the split, his father abruptly stopped their weekend activity of herding family cattle; stopped visiting him and even missed his graduation last week. “I miss my father a lot,” says Gary, adding that there are many things that he wants to talk to his father about but he is just never around.
Additionally, the father’s excuses and unwillingness to pay child support for Gary and his three other siblings has forced his mother to take on the role of both mother and father as she tries to cope with the increased pressure to stretch the minimum wage she earns as a cleaner to raise her family in today’s worsening economic times.
“It’s not been easy. We’ve had some really rough times,” says Gary’s mother C. emphasizing how tough it can be for a single mother, with little help from her children’s father.
No sex no child support
C. said her children’s father had five other children with four different women during their long-term tumultuous relationship and uses this as an excuse as to why he can’t support their children regularly. He never offers money voluntarily and C. says she seeks his assistance only when she has to meet additional expenses such as school fees or uniforms.
She also reported of occasions when he tried to hold her at ransom by demanding to have intimate relations with her when she called upon him to help out financially.
With six children fathered by three men who did not want to support their children, *Lisa, 43, has also had a very rough life. COG has been intervening in her case since her first visit in 1988, she said in an interview conducted in the presence of Arndell.
Walking wallets?
While under the law, men have an obligation to support their children financially, some men believe they are seen as “walking wallets” by mothers who milk them for all they are worth.
E.J, a carpenter and father of seven children mothered by five different women, said he has had a lot of wrangling with the estranged mother of his two youngest children, ages 12 and 13. Describing her as “stingy”, J. said although he used to give her varying amounts of money whenever he had it and whenever she asked, she still dragged him to the COG to demand regular monthly payments. He admitted to being in arrears on more than one occasion, but said in most of these cases he was jobless. He was also taken to court three or four times over child support. On one occasion the judge threatened to throw him in jail if he didn’t clear off his arrears.
On a more recent occasion the mother allegedly demanded a 100 per cent increase in the US $150 per child she is receiving. This case is still pending.
J. said too that his estranged reputed wife had also poisoned his children’s mind against him and doesn’t allow him to take them anywhere without her being present. He doesn’t believe the system is tough on delinquent fathers but said some mothers make it difficult for fathers trying to do the right thing. “I think she is making life miserable for me because she wants us to get back together,” he opined.
Arndell said he was familiar with J’s case and (with permission) corroborated his story.
Family planning
Both Arndell and Sarian contend that the prevalence of deadbeat dads in society points to the serious need to teach couples about family planning.
Arndell says while there are deadbeat fathers in all social classes, it is more prevalent among people at the lower end of the economic ladder. He also says that while his office had once run a public awareness family planning campaign, he doubted whether it had reached the group of people who needed it most.
Over two years ago Sector Health Care Affairs started the process of opening a family planning facility which would be manned largely by volunteers, but implementation appears to be progressing at a snail’s pace. SHCA official Dr. Rachel Eersel told this reporter in an earlier interview that it was moving slowly because “we want to do it right.”
Sarian says it seems to be a “cultural” thing for men to father many children with different women and “no one seems to care. I’m not judging, but this seems to be the reality. If it’s the case then we need to teach men to take more responsibility.”
Amidst all this gloom, however, efforts such as the awareness campaign “Save Our Young Men,” launched in St. Martin over the weekend and geared towards encouraging fathers to play a bigger role in the upbringing of their children must be considered a positive step in this regard.
