If more people knew this could happen to them, do you really think they would get married and have kids? Child support laws are outdated and need to be updated to reflect modern life in America. Fathers do not need to “man up” or “step up and take responsibility.” We do and we naturally want to.
It is state governments in conjunction with federal government agencies that are making it more and more risky to take the role of father seriously. Many fathers give up fighting for justice once they see how much of an uphill battle it is.
This is just one of the hundreds of thousands of examples of the absurdity that goes on in family court.
I hope this doesn’t happen to you. You might just be yet another “bitter man.”
If something like this happens to you or your friends, you might be someone who finally understands how the war for marriage equality is being waged for the people who are least affected by discrimination in our family court system.
Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer must pay child support for his son of whom he has custody. Here’s the opinion of the California appellate court.
Yes, it’s true. Jon Cryer has almost sole custody of his son with Sarah Trigger Cryer. She has 4% of the parenting time; he has the other 96%. So you’d think she’d be paying child support to him, but no. It’s the other way around. He’s paying her because a Los Angeles trial court ordered him to and the appellate court upheld the order.
As you read the appellate opinion, continually ask yourself that tried and true question “what would happen if the sexes were reversed?”
Jon and Sarah were married in 2000. Both were actors at the time. They had a son, but divorced in 2004 with Sarah getting primary custody and Jon paying child support. By 2009, Sarah’s life had gone from bad to worse. Apparently she hasn’t had an acting job since 2005. Indeed, if she’s had any job at all, it’s not reflected in the evidence before the court. For that matter, she seems entirely disinclined to look for work, for reasons which will become obvious.
Both Jon and Sarah remarried, but it took only a few years for Sarah’s second marriage to hit the skids. She had a son by that marriage too and maintained custody of both boys.
Soon though, Jon filed for a modification of custody saying that Sarah was an unfit parent who left the children unsupervised. His request was denied, but the court admonished Sarah for negligent parenting. In 2009, her child by her second husband was injured while under her care and both children were taken from her and given to their dads.
So Jon did the obvious thing; he asked the court to reduce his child support from $10,000 a month to nothing. After all, he was the custodial parent and custodial parents don’t pay child support, they receive it, right? Well, as the court admitted, that’s usually the case, but not here. Here, Jon must continue paying Sarah $8,000 a month even though she only sees the child 4% of the time.
Why? Because she’s a deadbeat, that’s why. I’m really not making this up. Sarah answered Jon’s request for a reduction of child support by saying it’s her only income, which apparently it is. That’s because she hasn’t had a job of any kind since 2005. Into the bargain, she’s not looking for one. In her last filing, she listed her monthly income (outside of child support) as zero and her monthly expenses as over $13,000.
So, according to both the trial and the appellate courts, because Sarah is too much of a deadbeat to even attempt to support herself, Jon must continue to support her with the child providing the weakest of pretexts for doing so.
How many times have fathers been told that they should stop griping about the countless injustices of the child support system because it’s all for the child? Yes it’s unfair they’re told, but just put a sock in it and pay; it’s for the child, don’t you see.
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