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Darryl James
Take "Deadbeat Dad," for example. How many of us even bother to think about other people who could be found "Deadbeat," aside from fathers?
For example, our very own society is a Deadbeat.
First, because the overwhelming majority of children in single parent homes are born to parents who are already living in poverty, society’s "remedies" often do more harm than good, with the net result of fewer fathers in the lives of children.
Those "remedies" pursue the assigned father to reimburse the state for benefits provided to the mother, sending some men to jail for their inability to pay, and forcing others out of the workforce, by taking away their driving privileges, leaving many of them to choose to quit their job or leave the state when they can not pay.
But if we pay taxes into a pool to be called on in times of need, then the overseers of those tax dollars would do greater good for society by assuring that custody agreements are being complied with and that the goal of more fathers in the lives of children be paramount.
But there are no state programs to enforce custody and no incentives for being present in the lives of children, only penalties for failure or inability to pay.
This makes society a "Deadbeat Society," because millions of children are left without fathers in their lives while the focus is on making them pay, ostensibly so that society does not have to.
There are laws to assign a father the financial responsibility, laws to access his bank account to take the money and laws to penalize him further by taking away his driver’s license or imprisoning him.
Yet, there are no laws to address the very real phenomena of the "Deadbeat Mom," a mother who has a child without having the financial wherewithal to support the child, even in tandem with child support, if collected.
Society will continue to diminish itself if all single mothers are looked upon as mere victims who have been abandoned by the male parent, or as strong, heroic women who stoically shoulder the parental burden alone, instead of viewing a portion of them in realistic terms as Deadbeat Moms who give little forethought to parenthood, viewing men as sexual partners and/or ATM machines.
But that isn’t a discussion that many people want to have.
If a woman knowingly has unprotected sex and a full term birth with a partner who was underemployed or unemployed to start with, why shouldn’t she be taken to task for bringing a child into the world without properly preparing for that child with emotional and financial support?
That has been the focus when it comes to fathers who have failed to prepare emotionally and financially for their children.
Even Michael Jackson understood that in the ‘eighties when he admonished in Wanna Be Startin’ Something: "If you can’t feed your baby, then don’t have a baby."
