No matter how frustrating it is going through the process of enforcing child support, this frustration pales in comparison with the frustration that comes from dealing with the deadbeat parents themselves. To truly understand a deadbeat lets look at what dictionaries.com defines a deadbeat as:
Noun
1. A person who deliberately avoids paying debts.
2. A loafer; sponger.
Adjective
3. Being a parent who neglects parental responsibilities, ESP. One who does not pay child support
With that being said, how can parents walk away from children and expect the other party to be everything to the children? They use every excuse in the world why they do not pay child support and why they do not live up to their parental responsibilities. Then, they are surprised when they get a notice they are being taken back to court or a notice that the District Attorney’s Office is suspending their driver’s license and garnishing their wages.
Some deadbeats use the system to make it hard to collect child support. These folks are the ones that know the system they know that they can change jobs consistently as it takes the District Attorney’s Office months to catch back up to them. They can even try to work under the table so that their income is not traceable. They can request hearing after hearing and file extension after extension to delay everything. Making the process agonizingly slow for the custodial parent that is struggling financially.
Then there are the deadbeats that just plain do not work and do not plan to work. They may have a new spouse that is taking care of the bills so they do not have to work. They may have a new spouse that forbids them from supporting children from a previous marriage. Whatever the case may be they chose their new life over “the other” children. They often are absent in the child’s life leaving the children devastated.
Deadbeats often think they are justified in the choices they make. They have convinced themselves and those around them that it is OK that they cannot pay or may even blame the custodial parent for pushing the issue instead of just letting it go. The only thing that matters to them are that the deadbeat gets what they want, leaving the custodial parent picking up all the pieces. These deadbeats often make wild accusation against the custodial parent trying to deflect attention off them selves.
Whatever the reason is that they use the only person they are hurting is the children. The children are the ones that have to go without the things that the child support money would bring to them. The children are the ones that get forgotten and left behind in all of this ugliness. The children get forgotten by the non-custodial parent in their stance that they don’t have custody so they should not be responsible. So what do we do about it?
The only thing that can be done is to make a better system. The current system is being run by District Attorney’s Office under District Attorney David Rodgers. However, nothing has been done to improve this system that they have been told is broke since the audit in 2006 and five years later nothing has been done to fix this system. In the meeting held by the Means and Way committee in March of 2009 it was suggested to put a committee together and let them figure out the changes that we need.
I have a much better idea; why not model our enforcement after the state with the best record for enforcement? Why waste money and effort on a committee, when we can use something that already has a working record of accomplishment? At this point, the state of Nevada custodial parents deserves action not more excuses lets go after these deadbeats. Nevada is still ranked last in child support enforcement and still nothing is done to help.