Delivering Love

Here’s a fact many of you , thankfully, will not know . The CSA (child support agency) ceased to exist last year . All its agreements were rendered null and void on December 31st 2017 and its purposes are being taken over by another agency . Meanwhile children all over this country of ours are being abandoned by parents who simply decide to walk away from their responsibilities. I have to say for the most part the perpetrators are fathers . I always struggle somewhat to say that as I have two friends who have moved heaven and earth as dads to try and stand by their children to no avail , sadly they are in the minority .

Recent experiences have seen me witness a father up sticks and leave his two children and pregnant wife with no thought for their welfare or their safety . No roof over their heads , no way to secure anything they needed to be safe and warm. Debts and repayments left to the mercy of a wife who doesn’t know whether it’s black or white or polka dot anymore . This man was seen on several online dating sites mere weeks after this and had included on his profile “open to more children” . Wearing brand new clothes and enjoying the freedoms of living rent free with parents and lavishing his salary upon himself . Meanwhile others did without to ensure his children were safe and had somewhere to live . It’s probably about now that you’re screaming get the CSA on to him , then you remember that this is no longer an option . Limbo at best . Poverty and social stigmatisation at worst for those left behind .

When a woman marries a man it is fair that she expects him to be all he has said he is . If that man is polite , articulate, well mannered, employed .. all the more reason for her to feel content in her choice . Choosing to have children and build a family together is far from a crime . Should they have stayed in this little slice of Utopia then I’m certain they would have been regaled with chants of “a beautiful wee family ” or “isn’t she a cracking wee Mum to her brood” etc etc . All very tidy and lovely and nothing that society needs to concern itself with .

But that Utopian dream ended with lies , secrets , debts and emotional abuse the likes of which most of us would hope to be unthinkable in our lives . Suddenly that lovely wee Mum is now a single parent “expecting the tax payer to foot the bill for her choices”. Meanwhile dad walks away. Lives life . Unbelievably is entitled to legal aid on his lower salary to foot his legal bid to gain some access to his children . His lack of payment or care for them being no factor in this according to the legal eagles. Also not a factor is the eldest child to a different mother that he previously fought to have custody of and won and duly stopped both payments for the child and access to the same . His legal aid bill from this suit remains unpaid and debt worthy . You cannot make this stuff up , but it’s the part nobody sees . So when soap boxers stand emphatic about their abhorrent disregard for “their taxes” being spent on benefits to single mothers , maybe just maybe they could consider the taxes paid to help fathers. Help that benefits nobody bar the ego of said father having his day in court . It is also an insult to every hard working dad who pays many thousands from their own pockets in a bid to secure their parental rights . It causes them nothing but mountainous objections and despair . It weakens the case of every decent dad caught in an acrimonious divorce.

Mother’s in poverty and shame is nothing new to our society . Many years ago we saw the poor servant girl abused by her master ,impregnated and thrown into despair and turmoil . The mother of a clan of filthy starving children forced into poverty by a husband drinking and gambling every penny with no regard for his offspring . The wee girl who simply “got into trouble” and is duly shunned by society for her morally reprehensible behaviour . They ended up ,more often as not , in the workhouse . A place of abject slavery and degradation. Separated from their children most likely never to escape and live whole again . No responsibility was ever truly levied against the fathers of these babes . Assumptions of loose morals and prejudices of a society keen to turn away ensured that men could walk away and be free of not only their burdens as fathers and husbands but of any social stigma and accusation. What has changed ?

In all of this who suffers most? The children of course . Beautiful little innocent children . Maligned by fathers and at times society alike for nothing more than their misfortune to be born of an irresponsible and selfish human being . All the potential of their little lives declared null and void by those who judge them by their birthright not their future possibilities.

Not everyone is this way inclined , not all will judge so readily , but if honesty can be sought in our hearts then perhaps we can truly admit to our own failings in this regard . Only then can we ever see change come . Only then will fathers no longer be allowed to pay nothing at all or the bare minimum for their child’s care and sustenance. Only then will children be given access to both the parents who brought them into this world allowing them to have a more measured and meaningful start to their lives and future relationships . Only then will Mother’s not be forced to live in poverty , not just economically but in spirit and soul .

To every person who tries with ardour not to be like this I salute you . Your kindnesses and words of reassurance and comfort run deep in broken hearts and shattered lives . As I have said before and no doubt will say many times more in my life .. there but for the grace of God go any of us .

I refuse to live in a society that reduces human beings to a status of despair and hopelessness because we cannot keep people in a position of responsibility. If only those men who disregard their children were challenged by those around them to “do right” instead of being supported in their quests for “justice” . So many children would have their lives changed . So many fathers who genuinely have to fight for their children would not have such battles to endure . It is hard. It is frustrating . It is never ending . But it is right . Let us never reach the place again where we dispense of those who have been abandoned and degraded by circumstances out-with their own control . Let us look down only when we are lending a hand up . Let us see every child in our society as our child and love them accordingly .

Story told with permission

A workhouse mother and her babies 1907