What is a Deadbeat Dad?
"Deadbeat dad" is the gender-specific slang term used to describe a father who willfully ignores and evades a court order to provide financial support for his children. Unlike typical slang terminology, deadbeat dad is a term that is used freely in and out of court. The term is predominately used by those employed in child support enforcement agencies throughout the United States. Its important to consider that even deadbeat dads understand the term's connotation and attach no pride to its stigma.
It's also important to realize that some dads earn the term "deadbeat dad" unfairly. Child support and family law is often emotionally charged, and even a well-intentioned parent can get labeled as the "bad guy" in an emotional situation. Deadbeat dad exceptions do exist and might include, for example, a father who would like to pay child support but, for some oddly legitimate reason, can't hold down a job; or a doting dad who meekly makes weak but timely $100.00 US Dollars (USD) payments on a monthly $400.00 USD court order; or the weekend dad who, although he can’t scrape up those payments, always shows up on Friday for the kids. Though this behavior is difficult for all involved in the family, it doesn't necessarily make a father a deadbeat dad.
True deadbeat dads are notorious for more than their huge support arrearages. Stereotypically, they are devoid of any kind of emotional remorse or resolve, and they tend to maintain rather sociopathic excuses for the financial noncompliance. Deadbeat dads simply do not like the rules and many will move, remarry, change names, and work for cash to avoid any and all parental responsibility.
California’s 1992 precedent requiring companies with five or more employees to report names and social security numbers of all new hires was the first major step toward actual child support enforcement ever made at the state level in the United States. In 1996, the US Congress followed suit, making the California program national and requiring all states to create same-standard systems. The Internet provides lists, state-by-state, of the most wanted deadbeat dads, and most states will suspend driving privileges and hold state tax refunds to offset unpaid court ordered support.
Child support enforcement agencies in the US also work together in a no-tolerance, no-immunity program to catch child support offenders of every caliber. Deadbeat dads can no longer cross state lines in hopes of hiding from child support orders and federal deadbeat dad databases also help find serious offenders.
Written by Zari Ballard
