The Deadbeat Dad List – How to Stay Off of It
By Vanessa Blais

Stay­ing off the dead­beat dad list doesn’t have to be, and cer­tainly should not be, a covert oper­a­tion to escape child sup­port debts. In the harsh eco­nomic cli­mate of the United States right now, it’s under­stand­able for any­one to suf­fer the effects of lay­offs and fir­ings, but whether a cou­ple is together or apart, once kids are involved, you pull together to make sure those kids are pro­vided for.

#1. Get rid of the neg­a­tive mind­set. The first indi­ca­tion that a father is a ‘dead­beat dad’ is when he utters the words, “I am not going to pay her bills.” Sim­ple math. Mom makes $24,000 a year, Dad makes $36,000 a year. That’s a com­bined income of $60,000 year when the fam­ily is ‘whole’ and the money goes into a ‘col­lec­tive pot.’ Divorce ensues, and IF Mom is awarded and does get, 1/3 of Dad’s income for ‘sup­port’ that only equates to $12,000 in addi­tion to her $24,000, now giv­ing her only $36,000 a year on which to raise her chil­dren.

This may seem like enough money to raise a child on, but when you con­sider that the fam­ily based their mortgage/rent, car pay­ments, etc, on what they could afford BEFORE the break up, and you see that there is a $40,000 loss to the fam­ily as a whole, dev­as­ta­tion like fore­clo­sure and repossession become a loom­ing real­ity, and unex­pected and unforeseen cat­a­stro­phes no longer have the ben­e­fit of that addi­tional $40,000 year. You are not pay­ing “HER” bills, you are pro­vid­ing for your child.

It could be argued that Mom, or Dad, who­ever the cus­to­dial par­ent is, can down­size to a more afford­able home, and in some cases, that might be in everyone’s best inter­est. BUT, if the chil­dren are in school and have friends in the neigh­bor­hood, it might not be in their best inter­est to cre­ate yet another upheaval in their life. After all, they have just suf­fered a loss from the divorce and they are grieving and have had enough turmoil.

#2. It’s about the kids. It’s not about her, it’s not about you. It’s about THE KIDS. See last para­graph of #1. If you can’t find a job, and she can’t find a job, you make arrange­ments to help each other with child care trade-offs, and with help­ing each other find ways to make money with­out a job.

#3. Goes back to rule #2, find cre­ative ways to make money. The United States is one of the eas­i­est places in the world to become an entre­pre­neur, and the Inter­net has pro­vided no short­age of oppor­tu­ni­ties to do so. One father, who pays his child sup­port on time, had to move to another state for his job. He went out and started col­lect­ing stuff that peo­ple were giv­ing away on Craigslist and sell­ing it on Craigslist, hav­ing garage sales every week­end, and even sell­ing stuff on eBay, just to have the extra money he needed for gas just to drive to exer­cise his vis­i­ta­tion with his daughter.

#4. Don’t pun­ish. Often­times, a par­ent will attempt to do things to ‘pun­ish’ the other par­ent. Look you prob­a­bly both did a lot wrong in the rela­tion­ship. Get over it. The kids deserve the best life that TWO par­ents can give them. They don’t deserve to suf­fer the wrath you have against the other par­ent. It not only hurts them, it makes you look like a sociopath.

#5. And this goes to both par­ents… you need to work together. I real­ize that if you could do that, odds are, you wouldn’t have split in the first place, but think about this… because of your imma­ture deci­sions to divorce, you chil­dren are already suf­fer­ing. Don’t make it any worse. They deserve so much more.

The deadbeat dad list is one that no one, man or woman, should ever be on. When you are lying on your deathbead, about to meet your maker, you are not going to be thinking, “I wish I could have done my kids other parent more harm.” You are going to think to yourself, “I wish I had been a better parent.” Be the best parent you can be. Take care of the kids. It’s more than not paying support that can make you a deadbeat dad.

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If you have some smaller children, especially once they get to the age when they first start crawling and walking around, there are some definite home safety awareness things you should be looking at. These can include all sorts of things, from gates, to plug protectors, and child safety locks. All of these things need to be done in conjunction to make a truly safe house.

The gates are some pretty simple things you can do right away. If you have stairs, than this is a definite must. The last thing you can afford to have happen is your child fall down the steps. I had this happen to me when my child go to the last step while crawling up (it was only like 4 steps), and as he stood up, he fell backwards. He was OK, but man is it a scary thing.

Another quick thing you can do is to place all of your chemicals in a high location. This would be anything you might use to clean with. The will eliminate the chance for any curious child to get a hold of something extremely dangerous.

Electric outlet plugs are also a must. Since kids think anything with a hold in it should have something jammed into it, like a finger, this will keep them safe. And, just walk around and look and see what else they might be able to get in that hole. The awareness is what should be looked at. Sometimes we just don’t see things at first glance.

I also had an instance where my kid dropped a penny behind the night light, while it was plugged in. Imagine the look on his face when there was a big flash and he shorted the electricity across the terminals of the night light. There are just things like that you should be looking for.

We walk through our house often, just to ensure we have stuff taken care of. We make sure things are out of reach if need be, or at least we discuss and educate the kids on what can happen if they mess with any of the items we talk about. Overall, cross our fingers, we have been pretty luck so far. But, it is mainly because we have raised our home safety awareness.

Home safety awareness is something we can all improve upon. Your child is one of the most important things in your life, so take some time and make sure they are safe.

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