Joint Custody: Congressional Fatherhood Hearing
Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 9:28PM [Judge Recommends More Co-Parenting (Joint Custody)]
A House Subcommittee held a hearing Thursday June 17 on Fatherhood. Chairman Jim McDermott (D-WA) of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support explained that the $150 million a year-for-five years fatherhood grants ($750 million total, most of which went to marriage preparation) expire this September 30. As Congress looks to re-authorization, the Committee wanted to assess the grants awarded so far and to discuss the importance of fatherhood.
It was clear during the hearing (and in lead-ups to the hearing), that marriage will no longer be the focus of any new grants. The Obama Administration, Rep. Lanny Davis (D-IL), sponsor of a bill on fatherhood, and advocates for low-income fathers, who will receive most of any new grants, want the money to be for fatherhood regardless of its form -- especially for never-married fathers. The testifiers could find no direct correlation between the existing grants and any increase in marriage due to the grants.
The hearing emphasized jobs and the ability of fathers to pay their financial child support if they have jobs, and then being better able to connect them to their families.
Committee member John Lewis (D-GA), a hero of the Civil Rights Movement, asked Ralph Smith of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the largest family foundation in America, why the foundation has been funding fatherhood initiatives for the past 10 years. Smith said that the importance of fathers to children could not be over-estimated. Smith urged that Congress "stop the clock" on child support when a father is in jail, calling the argument that jail is "voluntary unemployment" an "oxymoron." Smith also said that non-custodial fathers who pay child support should be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, currently available essentially only to low-income custodial mothers.
Ron Mincy of Columbia University, considered the academic "guru" of the never-married movement, said that when he was with the Ford Foundation prior to Columbia, he was able to secure funding for organizations that reached out to low-income fathers. He said that about 80 percent of never-married fathers are involved with the mother at the time of the child's birth, and America must do more to ensure that those fathers remain involved in children's lives.
Judge Milton Lee Jr. of the District of Columbia discussed the "fathering court" that graduates up to 40 fathers a year with jobs and relationship training. After the 2-hour hearing, he told me that even though Washington, D.C. has a presumption for joint custody (physical and legal), co-parenting and shared parenting are just an afterthought because of America's legal emphasis on paying child support. He said that Congress needs to change the emphasis for America so that co-parenting (joint custody) receive more attention
Other testifiers included David Hensel of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),.Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute, Kirk Harris of the National Fatherhood Leaders Group in Chicago, and Nathaniel Rauschendorfer, Parenting Services Program Manager, Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Unless TV cameras are present, usually only one or two members of any Congressional committee show up for a hearing, but at one time, there were five subcommittee members present for this fatherhood hearing.
Written statements may be submitted for the record. Go to "House Ways and Means Committee," and click on "Recent Hearings -- Hearing to Review Responsible Fatherhood Programs." You can listen to the hearing (probably by next week) and obtain instructions on how to submit up to 10 pages of testimony by July 1, 2010. The more testimony that is submitted, the better. "Divorce" was mentioned only once during the hearing, by Chairman McDermott, who, although he is a medical doctor, referred to the many upsetting cases of divorce he is aware of. Explain in your testimony why low-income divorced fathers also need a mix of services to help them be better parents to their children.
Reader Comments (4)
I do believe that this law should be much more flexible with regard to financial aid. We have seen a large number of families being affected by the financial disaster and they just can't give what they used to provide their kids. As long as you can rationalize in court that you're trying to provide as much as you are able to for your kids then that should be responsible enough.
In my opinion, marriage preparation in the form of premarital education and counseling must be a part of this mix. The fact that someone fathered a child doesn't in any way make him a "father." In fact, most of these "fathers" probably would not embrace true fatherhood no matter how it was legislated. Perhaps a better direction would be to fund more programs that offer help to children through surrogate fathers.
In any case, there certainly is no easy solution through legislation unless the hearts of the fathers are turned toward their children - something only God can do.
This is a tough one, but just being there for conception does not make a man a father. Unfortunately, the ones that ultimately suffer for it is the children themselves.
A man getting a girl pregnet does not make him a dad. It is vesting in their and their mothers lives, loving, caring, sharing, and providing.