Dear MRAs:

Please stop whining about paying child support- the statistics show that you are not actually paying it.

Jeff Fecke wrote a brilliant post at Shakesville explaining what an MRA is.

So are MRAs concerned about anything other than raping and beating women?

Oh, sure -- they also don't want to pay child support. There's a huge segment of MRAdom that's fed by divorced men angry that their ex got custody of the kids, and now they have to fork over money to support them.

There is much more that is worth reading there, but I am going to go pick apart the whole men's choice/child support argument.

Here's the basics of the Men's Choice idea. MRAs want the right to opt out of fatherhood the same way a women gets to opt out of motherhood. Except, women who choose abortion aren't so much opting out of motherhood as they are opting out of pregnancy- opting out of motherhood is a side effect, an important side effect, but still a side effect. MRAs claim that since women get to decide if they are going to let another human being use them as a life support system then men should get to decide not to be responsible for the child after birth.

That argument doesn't fly for a couple of reasons. First, people choose (hopefully) who they have sex with and if they are going to use prevention measures like condoms or birth control. Both men and women have the ability to choose to sleep with someone who uses those measures or not and to not sleep with someone who is of a different view (I'm not counting rapes- that's a whole 'nother can of worms) . There is a risk that those measures will fail- and from that risk disease and pregnancy happen.

Now if disease happens, both partners can get treatment (or not get treatment if it's untreatable). It's equal there. If pregnancy happens- only one partner is at risk for death and other health problems related to either pregnancy or abortion. That is why women get to choose to continue a pregnancy. It is their body that does the work. But a child (or potential child- I don't think either matters in the pro-choice argument) has already been created. And if that child is born- it needs to be supported.

Here's where the MRAs get their panties in a wad. Women can choose to have an abortion or have a baby, men can't. They think that in the interest of fairness, men should get to opt out of fatherhood before the child is born if the woman decides to continue the pregnancy. I can see the point kind of, but...

Children are part of society. Society has a vested interest in seeing that children are supported until adulthood because those children will grow up to contribute to society. Our society says that it is the parents job to care for those children. Women get the opt out option only before birth because it is their life and health that is at risk during pregnancy. Once the child is born, the women has no right to kill a child because the risk to her own life is no longer there. Men do not have a risk to their life or health because of pregnancy, so they never get that option (maybe someday when embryos are grown in incubators instead of women's bodies then no one will get to choose).

But back to the children are part of society thing. They are not property like a car. With a car, you pay for the maintenance on it until the car is no longer in your possession. With a child, whether that child is in your possession or not, it needs care from it's parents.

Because of the way society is structured, women do most of the caring for children. Fair- no but that is how it's been structured. Slowly, it is becoming more acceptable for men to do the caring. Feminists fully support that change. But since women still do most of the caring, women are also most likely to be the custodial parent when parents are not together.

So women are doing the work of childrearing alone. Because children still need the support of two parents, we have child support. Child support is not parenting. It is financial support. No non-custodial parent has ever been put in jail for missing little Johnny's baseball game or skipping Suzie's dance recital. Any non-custodial parent is free to skip the hard work part of parenting- the actual being there part. You may be an asshole for it, but there are lots of assholes in the world and you'll have company. Child support is the bare minimum of care that society requires of non-custodial parents. It is much easier to write a check than it is to show up and it benefits the child by ensuring housing, nutrition, health care, etc. All these things are needed to ensure a child reaches adulthood.

And most non-custodial parents have not paid child support according to what society (specifically the legal system) requires. According to the Office of Child Support Enforcement- 70% of child support cases are in arrears. (There are 11,157,421 cases in arrears and 15,844,238 cases total). Over 105 billion dollars is owed in past due child support.

$105 Billion.

$105 billion dollars that is not going to feed or house little Suzy and Johnny. $105 billion that either the custodial parents have to make up out of thin air or that society has to cover. That's a lot of money, about $9500 per case. In my particular case- the number is $40,000 that is owed. Over the course of 12 years, that is about $277 per month that has not been paid (about the cost of feeding and clothing the kid, housing (the kid's half) is about $600 more and we won't even get into health care costs). the actual child support order is for $328 per month. That is way less than half the actual cost of raising the kid. It's maybe a third. The Kid's dad has never been threatened with jail if he didn't pay it. He has never had anything bad happen to him for not paying it, other than a mark on his credit rating. His not paying child support has lead to bad things for his child though. We live at about half of what the poverty level is. Society has had to pick up a large chunk of the cost for keeping the kid fed and housed and we qualify for medicaid. If I, as the custodial parent were to stop contributing my money to raising the child (by not feeding him or clothing him) I would face jail for child endangerment- which has a much stiffer sentence than jail for failure to pay child support, though they are the same essential acts.

So please MRAs, your whining about paying child support is falling on deaf ears because it is a crock of shit. If you really don't like the laws- then either lobby for greater funding for social safety nets for children or get a vasectomy- or both. But we see through your whining about fairness, because there is nothing fair about it.