I May be Going to Debtor's Prison

[sabrina 1]

318. First of all there should not be a 'custodial' or 'non-custodial' parent.

Who gave the court the right to remove a parent's and a child's rights by declaring one parent more important than the other?

This is not the fifties. If two adults make a decision to end their marriage, that does not end their responsibilities or parental rights. So right there is where the problem begins.

Parents who have made that decision should work out how they intend to take care of the children. Only when they cannot come to an agreement should the courts be involved in their business. And generally most parents are doing that today. Many states now have no 'custodial' parent. Both parents bear the responsibility of raising the children.

Next, if one parent, either the mother or the father, loses a job, becomes sick, or for any other reason finds they cannot contribute to the financial needs of their children, there should be a social services agency to which they can go to get assistance. Courts, lawyers and jails cost immense amounts of money, and family court is among the worse areas of our judicial system rarely acting in the best interests of families, ruling on the 'law' rather than on the needs of the family.

Job training, not jail, temporary relief from struggling with payments and facing jail if they cannot, should be available, for the sake of the children mostly. The state SHOULD step in if necessary. However if one parent can support the children while the other is working on the issues they need to, the state has no need to pay.

Iow, doing everything possible to keep families working, not doing everything to ensure they will fail, which is what is happening now.

When custody is shared, both parents are legally obligated to provide for their children. All parents are legally obligated to do that, regardless of separation, most of them do it without interference from the judicial system, don't they?

The whole structure needs to be changed, and all the money spent on our for profit prison system which incarcerates so many people who should not be in jail, needs to be invested in PEOPLE, not in private prison corporations.

If we think like progressive Democrats and not like 'law and order' Republicans, we can create a better world. Other countries have.