Congratulations on being a dad — welcome to child support payments.
Dad, Pop, Father. The words we use to describe our male parents all evoke feelings of security, protection and safety. That’s your job as a parent.
But as an unmarried male parent, you are in a dangerous place when it comes to your rights, and when it comes to your responsibilities. The law recognizes mothers immediately for the obvious reason that a child was brought forth from her, but not so with fathers. A man must take some action to secure his place in a child’s life. He must make sure that the mother puts his name down as the father.
Depending on your relationship with the mother of your child, you may find that co-parenting is the greatest pleasure in the world. It can also be an exercise in war. Some unmarried couples work very well together as co-parents. They have no problems with money or visitation, no disagreements about medical care or schooling, some get along great in dealing with religious issues. Other couples might not have as easy a time. It is for those fathers, that this article is written.
There are five main areas that people fight over: Money, visitation, medical care, schooling and religion.
MONEY: Child Support This is the area where most men protect themselves the least, get into the most trouble and yet it is probably the easiest to handle.
The law works this way. If the mother of your children goes to court to get a child support order, and you do not have a custody arrangement with her in writing, she can tell the judge that you make however much money she wants, and the judge will decide how much child support you must pay. The court does not listen to your side of the story. Period. She wins and gets a judgment against you.
Now she takes that judgment and goes to the district attorney’s office. They take the judgment and garnish your wages, tax refund, driver’s license and lottery winnings. Additionally, if she has said there is back child support owed, they will charge you for that. All of this will accrue interest, meaning you are paying interest on a child support award you did not agree to and there is nothing that can be done to stop it unless you go back into court, get an agreement with her for child custody, show how much you really make and then hopefully get her to reduce the amount of money she claims was owed her.
MONEY: Welfare If at any time she should go on welfare and collect relief for herself and your child, you will be forced to repay that money. The district attorney will open a child support case and come after your paycheck, tax refund, driver’s license and lottery winnings. This money must be repaid and no one can waive the repayment or the collection of interest on it.
The best way to avoid all of this is to be a responsible dad, have a written custody agreement with a realistic child support payment that you can make and be sure to keep a payment history with supporting documents.
VISITATION, MEDICAL CARE, SCHOOLING AND RELIGION.
The remaining four areas people fight over are decided for the most part by a negotiation between the parties and their lawyers. Only in extreme cases is the court forced to make decisions in these areas. Most people are able to work out a peaceful settlement in the best interests of the child.
It is only in the worst cases, where the parties cannot come to an agreement, that outside people are called in to do evaluations. In the case of visitation and custody, a Child Custody Evaluation can be ordered by the court. This involves a person who meets state mandated criteria for qualifications to make an evaluation and recommendation as to what is best for the child, where they should live based on the housing conditions, the quality of home life, stability of the parties and the emotional maturity of the parties.
Decisions regarding medical care is likewise determined by going to outside sources only in the rarest of cases. When one parent refuses to acknowledge, or treat a known condition, or perhaps the attending physician isn’t doing a good job, the court may order independent evaluations by new doctors.
Schooling and religion are two areas the court avoids getting involved in as much as possible. The parties should try to work out a reasonable solution, otherwise the court is likely to make a decision that no one wants.
As a father you have many responsibilities, but as an unmarried father you must protect your rights, otherwise the mother is in control and you can find yourself left out in the cold, or, worse, having no rights but a very large child support payment. (David Pisarra is a partner in the Santa Monica law firm of Pisarra & Grist. He by e-mail at)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 27, 2003. Read the original PDF.