The Great Divide: A Dose of Reality We Can Do Without

Tell Lifetime TV Not To Insult Us with Deadbeat Dads the reality show

What could possibly be more satisfying than watching Survivor contestants eat rats or cheering on Simon while he decimates the fragile ego of a pop star hopeful?

Ah, yes, watching a bounty hunter shake down a deadbeat dad. That's what Fox had hoped would make for great reality television because who among us wouldn't thrill at the idea of humiliating not only a man who is behind on child support but inadvertently shaming his children, who would get to watch him collared on national television?

Fox put its tail between its sensationalist legs after Fathers & Families, a national fathers' rights group, led a campaign against the show, originally called Bad Dads. Waiting in the wings was Lifetime TV (sometimes called the 'men suck' network) which picked up the pilot and renamed it Deadbeat Dads. The ambush reality TV show follows private collection agent Jim Durham as he tracks down and confronts dads who are behind on child support - a sort of Dog the Bounty Hunter for men in arrears.

After Fox handed off the show to Lifetime, Fathers & Families led a second protest. Lifetime received more than 5,000 calls, letters and faxes opposing "Deadbeat Dads". Fathers & Families in a September blog posting declared victory, at least for now, because the pilot did not air in the fall lineup.

Fathers & Families -- and anyone who is outraged by this planned reality show -- should celebrate cautiously. "The pilot is still under consideration," said Lindsay Drewel, a Lifetime spokesperson.

It wouldn't surprise me if Lifetime went forward with this because television executives know how to tap into divorce-related zeitgeist in the crudest and most cartoonish way. Deadbeat dad. Two words to describe something that seems so simple: A man who doesn't (or can't) pay child support doesn't love his children. A villain.

Google "deadbeat dad" and you can scroll through 9,720,000 results if you've got the time. The prolific use of this phrase by journalists, screenwriters, divorce attorneys, law enforcement and angry women is polarizing a nation that is already suffering under the perverted hand of the family court system. Women who repeatedly tell their children they have a "deadbeat dad" shouldn't be surprised when these children are later incapable of marriage or reluctant to have children.

It's too bad we've found a handy little phrase like "deadbeat dad" because it reduces the burden of acknowledging a complexity that often begins when a biased judge renders a ruling that will cripple a man financially. We all know men -- and women -- who have been given unfair support obligations that set them up to fail. In prosperous times, a dad with an undo burden may strip himself of every comfort and dignity just to keep up with payments. He may try to go back to the court to reduce his obligations but he knows the deck is stacked against him. This man, a decent man who loves his children, may slowly realize he's bleeding to death but he feels too paralyzed to do anything about it because he doesn't want to go to jail.

This man who has breathlessly kept up with child support, which is only the tip of the financial iceberg if he has joint custody, will become a deadbeat dad when his company downsizes and he is collecting unemployment. He could be the guy Jim Durham hunts down when unemployment runs out.

This Great Recession forced the health care debate to bubble up and become a national conversation. President Obama wisely tied our health care crisis to our economic woes. I wish the president and our legislators would take a look at the broken family law court system. Judges slap fathers (or the higher earner) with inflexible obligations. Divorce attorneys get rich because the system sets up people to falter and leaves little room for adjustment. Co-parenting is near impossible and toxic when divorced couples wrangle over money. A man who is laid off or gets ill is not able to provide. Mothers poison the children when the payments stop. These children learn to use the phrase "deadbeat dad."

Call or write Lifetime. Tell them not to air Deadbeat Dads. Tell their producers to create a pilot called Upbeat Dads, a reality show about dads who do their best to survive divorce.

 

 

 

Comments

[wolfguide]

07:25 PM on 10/01/2009

In 2002 I lost my job in NY after 9/11 gutted the constructi­on industry. My ex-wife, an attorney, had remarried and was living with her new husband who was also an attorney. They lived on a horse farm in Florida. I was out of work and worried about my next meal. My ex-wife had my severance package garnished, and hauled me into court because I was late on my support payments. The Court said I had no ability to pay, but held me in contempt anyway, because the judge felt I had not been trying hard enough to get a new job in post 9/11 New York (where unemployme­nt ran over 10%). Lifetime TV would call me a deadbeat and parade me on TV. That would be nothing compared to what my ex-wife did. She had a pay-to-par­ent mentality and made it impossible to see my child. With no money to appeal my contempt citation and no money to hire a lawyer to enforce my visitation rights, my relationsh­ip with my child was destroyed. It's been almost 6 years since I've seen her. How's that for good TV?

[riona]

09:04 PM on 10/01/2009

If you are in NYC, the Family Court has a very helpful office for pro se litigants. Additional­ly, you could seek full custody of your children for alienation by the mother and violation of the custody order which gave you visitation rights.

[WorkingClass]

04:27 PM on 10/01/2009

This show sounds like a winner. There is a huge audience for pain and/or humiliatio­n and (as a bonus?) an additional group who hate men. Include in each segment a man being kicked in the nuts and you will have a masterpiec­e.

[riona]

04:24 PM on 10/01/2009

This commentary on the actual real life problems surroundin­g child support obligation­s and enforcemen­t are grossly off the mark. First of all, the whole reason for a Family Court system was to ensure that those responsibl­e for a child's welfare are held accountabl­e for paying for that child, so the state doesn't have to. Surprise, surprise, some guys, some of which make commitment­s to the mothers of their children and some who just knock them up, feel that if they don't want to pay, they shouldn't have to. Sadly, this is more common of a problem than the poor dads who are getting allegedly getting harassed by the system and bitter, crazy moms. Well, there is a reason uniform acts were passed so custodial parents could enforce judgments over state lines-a large number of non-custod­ial parents (mostly dads) don't pay. You can easily research this subject at your local law library. And sadly, sometimes we are talking about very rich guys. I am speaking from experience­, as a divorce attorney who has represente­d several families on a pro bono basis, where deadbeat would be a nice term. And not all jilted women poison their children's minds. Believe it or not, some girls understand the need not to. Furthermor­e, in every jurisdicti­on in this country, if a noncustodi­al parent has a changed circumstan­ce that prevents compliance (loss of job), he/she can file a petition for the modificati­on of a child support order with the relevant court.

[insiderinfo]

01:36 PM on 10/01/2009

I am a woman & I second this comment. The Bradley Amendment, the federal law that jails fathers for not paying CS even if they're homeless, unemployed or held hostage in Iraq, is odious and needs to be fixed, but there is little chance of that because judges love to threaten unemployed men who can't pay support with jail! I myself had a deadbeat dad father - or what would be considered one now. He abandoned our family when I was 17 and my sister 13 and my mother got nothing -- and we'd lived a pretty posh life before then. But he had nothing - an alcoholic on a bad downward slide, and his life was miserable too. I spent a lot of my life suffering because of him, and I have the therapy bills to show it. BUT as hard as that life was - and it was brutal, esp. for my mother - I would NEVER wish that he had been in Jail. NEVER. YOu can't get blood from a stone, and it's hateful to try, as family court judges love do. In MA and FL, they do this with men who can't pay alimony because of lost jobs or businesses failings. They regularly jail men in these states for inability to take care of an adult human being, long past the age of child support. Let's call it Lazy Ex-Wife Support, and Corrupt Lawyer Support, because the lawyers are more dependent on bitter alimony fights than