Fathers and Families supporter Frank Glandorf published the letter Dads oppressed by unjust child-support system in the Cleveland Plain Dealer June 27. The letter was in response to the newspaper’s editorial Making sense of child support in Ohio: editorial (6/19/10), for which F & F Board Chairman Ned Holstein, MD, MS was interviewed. Glandorf wrote:
Child support is the modern, moral equivalent of debtors’ prisons, which were outlawed in the 19th century. Nonpayment of child support constitutes a felony. Falling behind in payments due to a job loss results in fines, jail time and a felony conviction — which makes it all the more difficult to find work. It is just a downward spiral…
The ODJFS’s “Most Wanted” poster for February 2010 lists only fathers. Their occupations are variously given as sanitation worker, restaurant worker, factory worker and temporary services. These men are financially no better off than the “poor, single mothers” that The Plain Dealer editorial finds worthy of child support. On the contrary, the editorial claims that fathers “refuse to pay despite, officials say, having the means to do so.”
Such regressive child-support measures and gender discrimination simply serve to drive fathers to the margins of their children’s lives.