I’m gonna have to respond to this in my own blog.

Roxanna. You have a good point about mother’s not allowing father’s who wanna be there to build relationships with their children. But this too is different in different situations. You have the women who just see dollar signs when it comes to their children and they’d just rather have dad pay instead of be there and then there are the situations where dad is being kept away for a reason.

My personal testimony is that I have had to limit the contact that my now 5 yr old daughter has with her dad because he has been (sexually) abusive to me (not our daughter) in the past and I feel that I need to insure that she stays safe. I guess bottom line is that there are so many different situations and its hard to understand and find an answer to all of them concerning dead beat dads and dads who are just flat out being mistreated.

I am absolutely loving this discussion by the way!!

Real respect for posting this. I see this all the time. In my work in microfinance, we rely heavily on credit histories as an measure of someone’s character. Invariably, as we are focused on the working poor, unfulfilled child support obligations come up frequently. In my office, which is predominently women, there is no shortage of disparaging remarks directed at these “deadbeats.”

So why is such commentary limited to only men? I find that most people fail to realize that the system is unidirectional; that the default ruling is for transfer payments to be made from the man to the woman, regardless of the distribution of income within the household. As a result, men are almost always the only ones that bear the legal, fiscal and social responsibility of “supporting their children.”

I won’t downplay the dangerous reality that many of my gender, divorced from the physical act of bearing children, fail to develop and maintain the personal responsibility inherent in fatherhood. But I have seen the other side: hard-working, caring fathers that are heartwrenchingly unable to assume, or are prevented from assuming, that responsibility.

It hits a personal note, too. I have a family member going through a nasty divorce right now. I know of few people that have worked as hard and made as many sacrifices as he has for his family. Now, the law is in motion: he will pay child support that could amount to some 70% of his income! Now, out of the home that he leveraged his entire career to provide for his family, he faces a stark choice: feed his children, or feed himself. That is not a choice any human should have to make.

You kind of mentioned it but what about fathers who can’t see their children because their “baby mamas” won’t let them. I’m talking avoiding phone calls and all that. I think that’s unfair. If the man WANTS to build a relationship with his children, he has a right to and his children have a right to know and be loved by their dad.

Great article! it definitely leaves food for thought and is a reminder of the men that are actually putting in the effort and aren’t so dead-beat.

Saw the post on The All-Black issue of Vogue too. I’m really looking forward to it!

Also, I’m currently working with Toyota and I’m really hyped when it comes to spreading the word about the new interactive Webisodes, “If Looks Could Kill”. They follow an aspiring fashion assistant who is a prime example of a woman whos’ got it going on. I’m talking the dream job, man who’s got all the ladies drooling, and the spice to keep it all together when hell hits the fan. Think James Bond meets Sanaa Lathan in “Something New”.

http://www.iflookscouldkill.com

You’ll have to see what I’m talking about. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the first episode—Haute Pursuit—so we can chit-chat about what’s really going on. Don’t be surprised when you find yourself being reeled in like bait. That will make two of us!

I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds by directly contacting you. After viewing your blog and seeing how hip to the game you are when it comes to what’s hot and current, I figured this would be something that would catch your interest.

Looking forward to the girl talk!

Best,
Ashleigh Brinson
ILCK Ambassador
ashleigh.brinson@yahoo.com

Yeah Barbara. Child support was created for divorced fathers who could pay but didn’t. But the men who are getting hit with these child support lasws, nonresident, noncustodial dads, are so different from the men these regulations were initially geared towards. You’d think states would see this and change the stipulations accordingly. not. man i could talk about this all day.

I get frustrated that child support is the first thing we tend to think of when we think about absent fathers. There’s so much more to being a father than child support.

Very thoughtful post e. The category of “absent father” is broad one, just like the category of “welfare mother”. We are so quick to brand people who are in these category negatively without realizing that they are not universal.

Father’s who can’t afford to pay child support is an issue I discussed in one of my classes last semester. We talked about the fact that the Social Services Agency is geared more toward women’s rights (and social services actually fighting for women’s rights is a bunch of bs, but I will spare that rant and rave) and not geared toward men’s rights. So, policies such as child support enforcement can actually work against good fathers by punishing them for being absent and thus straining relationships between not only the father and his children, but also, the father and the children’s mother.

Obama’s Sister Souljah Moment?

Barack Obama’s Father’s Day speech is being hailed by the mainstream media “as a centrist voice of moral authority, a position that resonates, not just in the African American community, but among voters at large.”

Fact is, Obama is merely the latest in a long line of African Americans who have spoken honestly about the crisis of black father absence. Black organizations, including the National Urban League, have called attention to black fatherlessness; in 1999 Morehouse College convened a Conference on African American Fathers.

In 2003, Rep. Danny K. Davis launched a year-long dialogue on the “State of the African American Male.” I attended the kickoff event in DC, where hundreds of black elected officials, community leaders, academics, activists and concerned citizens came together to strategize and propose solutions to, among other things, the decline in the marriage rate and father absence.

So the black community has not been missing in action in forthrightly taking on this critical issue.

That said, I agree with Dr. Boyce Watkins who in an open letter to Obama wrote:

Is Father’s Day a time to celebrate the actions of wonderful fathers or to become obsessed with the choices of neglectful fathers? In spite of what you and others may lead the media to believe, black men have just as much of a commitment to black youth as white men. I would encourage you to be more optimistic in your Father’s Day addresses in the future, as those of us who try to do the right thing find it ironic that politicians want to paint us with the brush created by men who do the wrong thing. I didn’t spend Father’s Day complaining about the one man who abandoned me. I spent that day celebrating the five men who were strong enough to take his place.

Watkins continued:

While you seem to have moved away from almost any discussion of race in your campaign, we as a black community (including myself) have continued to support you. However, I find it odd that one of the few times you feel comfortable mentioning race is when it is time to paint the entire black male community as a pack of neglectful fathers. I would have no problem with a message on the importance of good fatherhood were it delivered in a mixed race venue and left out the word “black.” I know a lot of men who aren’t black who could use such a message.

A comment left in response to the New York Times’ story on Obama’s speech struck a similar note:

Why is that when Senator Obama addresses predominantly Black crowds on the campaign trail, he scolds, reprimands and derides us: calling Black dads ‘fools’ on Father’s Day, the comment about letting Black children eat Popeye’s Chicken earlier this year. That is insulting.

Why can’t he share his platforms on energy, taxes, Iraq, jobs, Iran, etc. and tell the Black community what he plans to do for this major voting constituency of his (95+%).

He doesn’t “talk down” to the Jewish voters or those white women voters when he is in front of their crowds. He talks ISSUES. So please Senator Obama… STOP talking down to Black voters in an effort to score points with white voters. We deserve to hear an issues speech as well.

Let the church say “Amen.”