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Issues - CSA
CSA paying the State tax on parenthood
Friday, Jan. 7,1999
(This is an unedited, uncorrected transcript)
Prepared by Burrelle's Information Services, which takes sole
responsibility for accuracy of transcriptron.
,
ABCNFWS All these years we've been hearing bad things about
divorced fathers, those so-called deadbeat dads. Many accused
of living it up while their wives and children have to scrape
by. Well, that's a picture that's been widely painted, and,
while it's true in some cases, now there is a surprising discovery.
John Stossel's report could change our whole point of view.
The sheriff's depanmenl. Open the door.
I challenge the fathers of this country to love and care for
their children.
What's the guy's name.
If your family has separated, you must pay your child support.
,
ABCNEWS (VO) We've heard it again and again. So often fathers
behave horribly, selfishly walking out on their kids.
These
are folks who are oblivious to their responsibility.
We've heard many men just refuse to pay.
One person alone owed more than $37,000.
Right now, I'm begging and borrowing. I'm living off the neighbors.
(VO) So while ex-wives and children struggle, men live
it up. But what we're about to tell you is not the usual story
about those deadbeat dads. Because it turns out that much
of what we've heard about them is distorted.The distortion
began with US Census data that said half of divorced fathers
don't pay all the child support they owe and with this book
written by sociologist Lenore Weitzman. It's claim that men
prosper after divorce while women and children suffer terribly
got lots of publicity.
,
ABCNEWS (From tape) Women and children suffer a 73 percent
decline in their standard of living in the first year after
divorce. Men, on the other hand, had a 42 percent increase.
These statistics shocked Arizona State University psychologist
Sanford Braver who wondered...
Why are these divorced fathers acting so irresponsibly? How
could a dad abandon his child?
So you believed this data about fathers being...
Absolutely.
And you were just trying to figure out why?
Right. And I started realizing that there were some really
gaping holes in what we thought we knew and why things were
the way they were.
(VO) Braver then conducted a study of 400 divorces in
one part of Arizona, the biggest federally-funded study ever
done on
divorced dads. What he found was very different from conventional
wisdom. Divorced mothers commonly end up in poverty as a result
of the appalling irresponsibility of dads who don't pay their
child support.
Men, on the other hand, make out like bandits.
Absolutely false.
Science journalist Diane O'Connell joined Braver's project
after he'd started compiling data that contradicted Weitzman's
findings.
It really opened my eyes that there was another side to this
story.
Now, O'Connell and Braver have written this book about what
they say are myths about divorced dads. Myths like the famous
Weitzman statistic about men's living standards increasing
while women's declined 73 percent.
And that figure was a mistake. The result of a mathematical
error.
A math mistake?
Reversing a couple of figures.
But this is cited everywhere. Three hundred forty-eight social
science articles, 250 law review articles, 24 appeals court
cases. That's a famous statistic.
And it's wrong.
Weitzman wouldn't talk to us. But she does now admit that
she made a mistake on the math. She says it was the fault
of the computer analyst. It did take her more than 10 years
to admit the mistake. So, what's the truth? Who does make
out best financially after divorce? (VO) Well, here's the
graph from Weitzman's book versus what other researchers discovered
when they corrected the math mistake. Then Braver included
the cost of father's visitation and tax breaks for moms.
Our results show that men and women come out almost exactly
equally.
(VO) And what about that census data about so many dads being
dead beats? Another widespread belief is that most divorced
fathers selfishly refuse to pay their child support. True?
No, it's not true at all.
Hi.
I'm from the US Census Bureau.
(VO) The census gave us this tape to illustrate how they get
their information. Every couple of years the census sends
workers out to people's homes to ask, is child support being
paid? They found that half the time it isn't.
Yeah, but who are they asking? They're asking the mothers.
They're not asking the fathers. You're getting one side of
the story.
(VO) Amazingly, the government bases all its data on child
support on questions asked of just one of the parents. They're
asking the parent who has custody.
Exactly.
And 90 percent of the time that's the mother.
That's
the mother.
Everything
we knew about non-custodial fathers, it turns out we knew
from custodial mothers.
(VO) Dan Weinberg heads the census division that collects
the data. So the census worker says, how much in child support
payments were you supposed to receive this year? And the woman
remembers.
Yes.
How
much did you actually receive? I just have a hard time believing
that these people, many of whom are angry, are going to give
honest answers.
Actually-well,
the anger may help them remember what they're supposed to
receive.
Why not go to the man and ask, is it true?
We would be violating the confidentiality of the custodial
mother.
Is
there any cross-check.
No. We don't check any of it
But wouldn't they lie just because they're mad at the man?
People are basically honest.
(VO) When Braver in his study asked both parents, he found
much higher levels of child support paid, on average a 70
percent compliance rate.
(VO)
Another myth is that many divorced dads never bother to see
their children. The media calls them runaway dads. But Braver
says the overwhelming majority of recently divorced dads do
see their kids or try to. And when they don't, he says, there's
often a good reason. Consider Bob's story which 20/20 presented
years ago. (Clip from previously aired 20/20)
We found that a surprising number of fathers were impeded
in their efforts. The mother just simply said, 'No, you can't
see your kid.' (Clip from previously aired 20/20)
(VO) Bob's ex-wife didn't say that. But Bob says she used
her time with the kids to poison their minds against him.
He allowed a 20/20 hidden camera to follow him as he tried
to visit his children. Though Bob had court-ordered visitation,
he said he rarely got to spend the day with his five kids.
(Clip from previously aired 20/20)
J(VO)
The family court judge ordered Bob's ex-wife to
encourage visitation, but orders like that are rarely enforced.
(Clip from previously aired 20/20)
(VO) His ex-wife didn't want to be interviewed but denies
she ever tried to turn the kids against their father. She
says they were afraid of him. But the parent who has custody
does have enormous power to influence the children. (Clip
from previously aired 20/20)
(VO) Shortly after this broadcast, Bob did give up. He kept
paying child support, but he moved out of state. Six months
later, one of his sons was killed in a bicycle accident. Last
winter Bob saw all his children for the first time in 15 years,
when his oldest daughter asked him to give her away at her
wedding. Would that long estrangement have been avoided if
the court order against the mother had been aggressively enforced?
There's
no bite to the law. What are they going to do to enforce it?
They can't garnish her wages the way the government can garnish
a father's wages if he doesn't pay child support. There is
no legal recourse. They're not going to throw the mother in
jail.
They
do throw dads in jail.
Can
you come to the door? Sheriffs Department
(VO) The terrible reputation of the deadbeat dad has led America
to create an extraordinary campaign against the deadbeat.
Thousands of deputies, thousands of arrests, an enormous child
support bureaucracy chasing the dads. Just a mother's word
that the man hasn't paid sometimes start a process that leads
to his bank accounts and property being seized or jail time.
I really have no choice but to incarcerate you until you come
up with a reasonable payment.
Family court Judge Herbert Glickman says the system is not
biased against dads.
But the law is clear in just about every state that the obligation
to pay child support is unrelated to the right to have visitation
with the children.
They have to pay support even if she's not letting them in?
That
is true. That is true.
They
get to the point where they say, 'Well, I give up. What am
I, just a wallet?' So that's when they begin to drop out of
their kids' lives.
(VO) And of course we know that's terrible for the kids. So
it's a vicious circle. We want dads to be with their kids,
but the system focuses on getting money from the dads, not
time. And that drives many fathers away.
Society wants to blame fathers, society wants to see fathers
as bad guys.
You can't blame mothers. It's not politically correct to blame
mothers. And you certainly cannot blame the children. So
who's left? Well, fathers, males, are an easy target. JOHN
STOSSEL There are lots of bad guys.
Oh,
absolutely. Yes, there are. But they are not the majority.
And they are not the only story. But they're the ones that
we hear about.
(VO) So from census data that's questionable, from an influential
book that was just wrong, we have the image of the terrible
dad, which reinforces a system that Braver says drives fathers
away.
We are depriving children of a second parent. We're hurting
the people who deserve the most help: the children.
I think, John, most of us would really agree that it is better
if a child has two parents and that even if you're divorced
you shouldn't use anger to keep the child from seeing the
other parent. However, it is hard for me to
believe that most fathers are financially responsible, because
I hear from so many women who are struggling.
You think because you're a woman you find this hard to believe?
Yeah.
Well,
I can see your point. I believe that more women are more caring
about children and more men than women behave selfishly. But
I think this data is accurate and most men are responsible.
And if this misinformation has led kids to be deprived of
a second parent, that's terrible.
You're right. You know, I guess I'll just have to change my
tune.
Good.
If you would like to chat with Sanford Braver, the psychologist
in our report, he'll be available Monday afternoon 3:00 PM
Eastern time at our Web site at http://abc.go.com/daytime/theview/index.html
http://www.nationwidespeakers.com/base.swf?navchange=contact.swf
http://members.aol.com/asherah/braver.html
doconnell@nyc.rr.com
Webmaster.Mailbox@judiciary.state.nj.us
daniel.weinberg@census.gov
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