Law in Popular Culture
‘Bad Dads’: New Fox Reality TV Program Collects Child Support
Posted Apr 24, 2008, 04:37 pm CDT
By Martha Neil
Forget about watching cops place the cuffs on badly behaved adults after breaking up fights and catching them with illegal narcotics. The truly compelling law enforcement reality program may be watching an expert child support enforcer confront deadbeat dads.
Viewers will soon have a chance to find out for themselves: the Fox television network has agreed to fund an initial episode of Bad Dads, a reality TV program that seeks to publicly humiliate fathers who have fallen behind on their child support and force them to ante up, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Collection tactics can be particularly aggressive in child support cases, the publication says, because the court orders being enforced are not subject to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
The unscripted Bad Dads show will feature Jim Durham, director of the National Child Support Center. His company charges a hefty 34 percent of the amount collected for its services.
However, the show's executive producer, J.D. Roth, "counters that Durham's clients typically feel so abandoned by the court system that they're relieved to get any money at all," the article states. "Plus, he said Durham is the only collector who extracts interest owed on the outstanding debt, so his clients often receive more money than if the absent dads had simply paid their bills."
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Comments
Posted by Patsy Young - 2 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 21 minutes ago
Durham is certainly not the only person seeking to collect delinquent child support who also collects interest. In child support enforcement cases filed in Harris County, Texas, all attorneys who know what they are doing seek to collect interest on the unpaid child support.
Posted by Patsy Young - 2 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 18 minutes ago
As an attorney who files child support enforcement cases in Harris County, Texas, I object to the name of the reality show--Bad Dads. Mothers too go to jail in Harris County, TX, if they are the parent ordered to pay child support but fail to do so. Of course Bad Dads is very catchy, just not accurate.
Posted by Larry Brown - 2 months, 2 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes ago
The election of Bill Clinton made Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity into household names. And the proposed Fox TV show “Bad Dads” could do the same for men and fathers rights advocates like Glenn Sacks and David Usher.
And more importantly it will finally expose the child support collection system in America for what is really is. And that is an anti-father, extortion and revenge based system for women that were never quality marriage material in the first place.
And so as a men and fathers rights advocate myself I welcome a close examination of the child support system in the United States. Because the devil is in the details, not the premise.
And if you look at the details what you will find is that in the vast majority of cases child support payments are based on the wealth of the biological father. No matter what wicket and/or deceptive acts the mother committed to conceive the child. To prevent this with law the child support system could be reformed to a (non-profit 50-50 flat rate system) where both parents would pay 50% of a flat rate equal to the amount that the state pays to foster parents that includes no access profit for ether parent.
And to all the demagogues that would question this type of arrangement I would ask why are foster care children and their parents worth less than women who lie about birth control pills and their children born out of wedlock? And why children born from sperm banks are not entitled to child support at all? Or even the basic human right to know who their biological fathers are?
Of course I’m no fool and I clearly understand in the end the child support system will not be reformed to anything like the “pie in the sky” “equal justice under law” system I outlined above until men gain the political leverage to force the issue. And that will only come when they find an antidote to all these visually undetectable and easily to manipulate female contraceptives like the pill and the patch. And the only antidote for that is the long overdue and (scientifically proven) male contraceptive pill that is being kept off the market because of the threat it poses to feminist who set up the child support system and those who profit from it.
But this bias attack on working class men and fatherhood in general proposed by Fox could serve to raise the public awareness. Maybe to the point that enough men may start to connect the dots between their inability to control their sperm in monogamous relationships and the injustices they face in the family court system.
Posted by Edward - 2 months, 1 day, 8 hours, 13 minutes ago
Be fair about this, and talk of the:
1. Dad’s who have their child support orders set at 50% to 70% of their net income ?
2. Mom’s who interfere with visitation;
3. Mom’s who alienate the affection of children (well grounded legal doctrine in NYS; custody has been switched to Dads when Moms did this, provided the Dads actually had the money to bring the case);
4. The lack of any social support program for Dads to have visitation / access orders enforced, let alone representation in court;
5. The dirty tactics used by divorce attorneys, such as widespread use of false claims of abuse to deprive the Father of time with the child, and to try an provoke a reaction from the Fathers so they may turn around and get restraining order or the like;
6. The fact that Moms are never prosecuted for bringing false claims;
7. The fact that most Fathers only get to see their children 4 days a month (alternating weekends). Imagine (if you can) the emotional pain Fathers feel not seeing their children 26 days a month. Many Father want to be so much more involved, yet sometimes...Moms claim ‘anxiety’ by the children to keep Dads out, or simply won’t agree to the time leaving the court saying “all we can give you is alternating weekends”.
8. Talk with Dads to understand how disenfranchised they are, through no fault of their own. Learn of their pain; their sleepless nights.
9. And perhaps you may look closely at cases, such as a recent case in Connecticut where the Father was accused of downloading and possessing inappropriate porn, was denied all access to his children, and nearly lost his children. Fortunately, he had enough money ($80,000) to defend himself, and with a very seasoned attorney - Cynthia George http://www.sgcfamlaw.com/Bio/CynthiaGeorge.htm of Greenwich Connecticut - proved to the court that it was the Mom...that downloaded the porn on the computer to set him up. Oh, the Mom was never prosecuted for this…
Most of all - PLEASE do not bash Fathers anymore !!! You want a reality show - then do a reality show. Follow a Dad when he goes to pick up his children, and watch how a Mom ‘isn’t there’ with the kids, or provokes him, or claims the children don’t want to see him.
Women have made great achievements in the past 20 years. Yet in the process, divorced Fathers have become vilified. Your suggested reality show simply portrays Fathers in a false light, and simply adds insult to injury.