Five or six years ago, I became embroiled in a battle over child support. It's not what you think, though. In this case, I was the one being told to pay it, at a rate that would at best have left me with little to no money each month for luxuries such as, I don't know, food. At worst I could have lost my home. It got so bad, I wept daily and even considered quitting my job and going on welfare just so the powers that be couldn't touch me.
Now, you might reasonably be thinking to yourself: why on earth didn't she just take the hit and pay the damn child support? Kids cost money and we have to make sacrifices for them. That's your responsibility as a parent. And I wouldn't disagree with you. The problem was that I had (as I still have) a court order granting me joint custody of my daughter, which I won after a protracted and bitter battle with my ex through the family courts system (during which I had to read a report from a social worker stating that I wasn't the best parent to raise my daughter because, ahem, I worked out of the home. But that's another story.) According to that order, my daughter spent equal amounts of time each year with each parent. I incurred the same costs as her father; more, even, as I paid for school trips and uniforms, music lessons, etc. (all of that would have gone if I had been forced to pay child support, incidentally). But I was caught up in a rare loophole in British law, and one that threatened to undo much of what I had worked for in my and my daughter's life.
Joint custody orders (formally known as Joint Residence Orders) in Britain are rare; usually one parent has custody while the other has access according to an agreed schedule. The Child Support Agency, which is responsible for enforcing child support payment, uses an outdated system called Child Benefit (essentially this is like a tax deduction), which only one parent can claim. Fine if you're married; not so great if you're fresh from an acrimonious divorce. For various completely legitimate reasons to do with my employment, my ex claimed Child Benefit, not me; as a result I was labeled the Absent Parent. Even so, I might never have been pursued but for the fact that my ex was on unemployment and the law required him to apply for Child Support from the so-called Absent Parent.
By now you may think that this post is a protest against the fact that British law covering Child Support does not make allowances for joint custody. But, really, even though I'm still mad about that, what I'm working up to talking about is a now-suspended body called Fathers4Justice.
F4J was founded by Matt O'Connor after a difficult divorce and subsequent proceedings in Britain's outmoded and confrontational family courts system. O'Connor found himself facing such limited contact with his two children, that he feared he would be unable to maintain relationships with them. And he found he wasn't alone. On the F4J website, O'Connor says: "For years many fathers have been struggling to overcome the debt, poverty and childlessness forced upon them - what we call a bereavement - to fight the system. They have effectively been exiled to a Siberia of the broken. Fathers have struggled to adapt to a brave new world where they have effectively been replaced by the state as the protector and provider to their children." He created F4J to build awareness about the problems of fatherlessness.
Now, although F4J's aims may be noble, I have never liked them very much (and not just because Bob Geldof and Pierce Brosnan fell over themselves trying to lend the organisation celebrity-endorsed credence). Partly it's because their protests include actions that they call "unique and provocative" and "with a dash of humour thrown in", and which I call irresponsible, disrespectful and downright stupid. For example, in May 2003 Plymouth County Court was closed for an hour as two F4J members climbed onto the roof wearing Tony Blair masks and carrying a giant banner declaring Plymouth as the UK's Worst Family Court. In 2004 members of F4J pelted Tony Blair with flour-filled condoms. Later that same year, two members dressed as Batman and Robin broke into Buckingham Palace grounds, scaled a balcony and spent five hours protesting with signs and banners. Now frankly, I think that's just bad manners and doesn't do anything to convince me that (a) you're serious and (b) you have a cause with which I want to align myself.
But my main objection to F4J was, simply, the 'F' part of it. It seemed to me breathtakingly arrogant to start a campaign whose objective was to "deliver justice, hope, help and maybe even healing to broken families" by essentially dismissing 50% of the parental population. If they'd called it Parents4Justice or better yet Families4Justice, I think I might have been prepared to overlook the unorthodox approach to nonviolent protesting. But I had been through the hell of family courts myself, had endured sleepless nights and anxious days while the Child Support Agency attempted to take every spare cent I earned. Yet, on the face of it, I apparently stood for injustice: if the 'Fathers' in F4J were the solution, then it stood to reason, or so it seemed to me, that mothers must be the problem.
Over time, F4J became associated with a brand of protest that many found disconcerting at best and outright dangerous at worst. By and large we still come over all protective towards the Queen, and breaking into her London residence didn't earn them any sympathy. Then, earlier this week, a story was leaked that claimed that several members of F4J, dressed as Santa Claus for a protest march, had discussed in some detail (but by no means a great deal of it) kidnapping Tony Blair's 5-year-old son. Yesterday, the group's founder announced that he was suspending the organisation, claiming that it had been hijacked by militant extremists.
To his credit, O'Connor has roundly condemned the very notion of kidnapping, and seems distraught that his campaign would be used to justify such action, though he cautions that we shouldn't necessarily believe everything we read in the paper (especially when that paper is The Sun, say I. Brits will know what I mean...)
Nevertheless, the future of F4J is in doubt today, and I for one think it represents an opportunity not to be missed. From the ashes of a campaign that fostered division, derision and, quite possibly, outright criminality, could be created a new body that seeks to serve whole families...not just fathers or mothers, but brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Although F4J paid some lip service to this being in their remit, it demonstrably was never really so. Now comes a chance to change that.
After a year of near-constant stress, worry and argument, the Child Support case against me was closed. My ex had found a job and came off unemployment. All of a sudden, the Child Support Agency had other fish to fry, and I was left shaken, relieved, but terribly angry about my ordeal. I still live with the threat of a new case over my head. I don't receive Child Benefit and if my feckless ex goes back on unemployment, the whole thing will start up again. The law changed two years ago, so that the amount of time my daughter spends with me will be taken into account and my child support burden will be more reasonable. But I will still be required to pay, despite sharing equal custody of my child, and it will affect the joint finances I now share with Mr Badeggs.
There is no doubt that fathers are usually at the receiving end of the Child Support Agency, and tragic stories still surface in the press every now and then about some unfortunate father who took his life to escape the worry and stress of an unfeasibly large judgement against him for Child Support. But women suffer, too. I may suffer again, and my parents and husband will suffer with me even as they lend their support. How wonderful it would be if I could be part of a movement that aims to eradicate such an injustice for all of us, too, and not just fathers.
