I AM CHILD SUPPORT
The testimony of a broken
father
I used to think that being a father would be the best
feeling that a man could ever experience. I understand that relationships
sometimes come to an end even though the couple has a child, but what I didn’t
understand was the child support system and what it had in store for me… I went
from being what would be a traditional able-bodied man to becoming a non-productive
walking paraplegic. I went from being a man that had dreams of being a
successful provider to my children to mere gum on the bottom of a shoe.
I stood in a courtroom across from a failed relationship and
listened to a judge drop invisible chain after invisible chain on me… The only
thing I was guilty of was coming home one hour early from a twelve-hour work
shift and seeing another man sitting in my home with my child’s mother and
watching my daughter running around playing. She was seemed to be used to him
and was totally comfortable with him being in the house as if he’d been there
regularly. I can’t bring myself to say the evils that gripped my mind in that
moment of madness but I can say I listened to the light and walked away. I
walked away in fear of my own life because who knows what I had been subjected
to while trusting this person with my unprotected body. I thought I did what
the smart and noble man would have done… I held my head high, caused no damage to
anyone or anything, and simply left.
Unfortunately this is not how it was portrayed by the
system. I was told to come to the stand and drilled by the prosecutor as if I
had broken the worst laws of the land. She seemed almost angry that I had on
descent clothes and shoes. The mother was allowed to speak while I was
questioned and then cut off in the middle of my answers. I walked in as a blank
canvas and they painted a false picture of a dead beat on me. I was treated
like trash and it all happened so fast I didn’t even know the full consequences
of what was done. All I knew was that I was terrified of that place, I was
treated like a sub-par human being, and never wanted to go back. I remember
standing outside of the juvenile court building wishing I were given a real
chance to speak. I wish I could’ve told them about the games that were being played
using my child as the pawn, or how I wasn’t allowed to see her, or how I had to
drop birthday and Xmas gifts off at the door in the middle of the night so I
didn’t anger the new dude that was laid up in the house.
With everything that was going on, I still kept a positive
outlook on life until that day I went to work (or thought I was going to work
rather.) I was working at a local car dealership and was doing ok for the most
part when my manager called me in to the office and let me know that they had run
random personnel audits and it was discovered that my drivers license was
suspended and they had to let me go because I couldn’t sell cars and go on test
drives any longer. I had no clue as to what happened. I did my due diligence
and found that the courts had done it because I was in arrears of over $5000. I
was so confused because I was placed on arrears from the very first day of
being placed on child support… $12,000 in arrears, not to mention the miscalculations
of income.
Instantly I had no license, my credit was destroyed because
an arrearage shows up as a tax lien on your credit, and I couldn’t find real
work other than a cook at a fast food job for $6.75 an hour. This is the point
when the downward spiral began. I was only making $525 a month before taxes but
expected to pay over twice that in support. Not a soul cared about my (and
others just like me) story. I was often told by the courts to “go cut some
grass” for extra money to meet my obligations. Well, that doesn’t work… with
the competition being the neighborhood crack heads cutting grass for as low as
their addiction would let them I found my looking like a fool once again. I
wasn’t able to take care of myself so I wound up on the couch of a friend or
under the care of a sympathetic woman. The sympathy soon turns to apathy, as I become
a grown burden to her. The stigma takes its toll and I’m viewed as an
embarrassment. She is stressed out by being the only breadwinner in the
household and began to distance herself from me. When the inevitable happened
and she just wanted out I wound up on the infamous “couch at the parents house”
and the depression really set in.
Now I am no longer a man in anyone’s eyes, not even my
own. I believe that I am the trash they
treat me like and don’t even have the self-confidence to look my child in the
face. Everyone is convinced that I am a sorry excuse for a human being because
I am on child support. The world seems so apathetic towards me now and I am in
constant fear of going jail due to the threatening letters that come in the
mail every other day. I can no longer expect to be loved by anyone because I am
considered to be a bad situation or too risky and they wouldn’t come near me so
I’m forced to lie. I’m forced to lie about my situation because I know that if
I tell the truth I will be alone. No one wants to be with a productively dead
man because he is useless to them and the household he lives in. If you ask the
woman that is with a man like me if she would leave if she had the chance I’m
positive she would say “yes.”
My depression is so deeply rooted in my soul that I can’t
even stand to hear my own name. I can no longer stand being me anymore because
I know my name is written in scarlet letters and has isolated me from everyone
else. My mind is trapped in this paper prisons while my body is thrust in and
out of the concrete ones. For those of you that don’t know what a paper prison
is, it’s the laws in place that keep you from being productive. Example, I went
to school to get my insurance license and I landed a job at a fortune 500
company that was going to pay my $75,000 a year. I passed all tests and went
through training but when they pulled my credit report and saw that I was on
child support I was denied the job because it’s a family oriented company and
the stigma destroyed my opportunity. This has happened over and over again to a
point to where I don’t even get enthusiastic about interviews anymore because I
know what’s coming. I drifted into the
dark side of life and had to sell drugs in order to survive at the basic levels
of life. I had no clue of what I was doing and faced death numerous times. I
knew I was taking chances with my freedom but I was going to go to jail anyway
so it didn’t matter. Being able to take my child shopping and finally provide
was so worth it that I would have died happy at any given time because I got to
feel what is was like to be a man again. I got to call myself a “provider”
again not even realizing how dangerous of a game I was playing.
All I want to do is to climb up to rock bottom and start
with a fair chance… The restrictions are so strong and jail is so real for me
that it has taken the value of life away from me. For us, death is freedom and we often welcome
it with not an inkling of fear. I know it sounds terrible but it’s better than
this way of life in my eyes. I feel like a failure because I can’t do anything
for my child now. I must sadly watch as I see someone else take care of them as
I sit here in dead weight. Everyday is torture because it’s one more day in
pain and just wishing for a better way.
I would give anything to be a proud father again… to see a
man when I look in the mirror… to provide… Until that day comes my name doesn’t
matter. If you want know who I am then I will simply tell you “I AM CHILD
SUPPORT.”
