Father's Rights

RAY SUAREZ, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ray Suarez.

Last week, the cosponsors of the Uniform Child Support Enforcement Act of 1997, Republican Henry Hyde of Illinois, and Democrat Lynn Woolsey of California, appeared on this program to talk about their bill and the need they say for federalizing the collection of court- ordered child support; for using the IRS to collect the money.

A couple of things about the bill raised divorced father's hackles: that the IRS will be able to attach the wages of men who are fully up to date and compliant, or making all their payments; that in public conversations about these matters the number of fathers not making payments is overstated; that the bill represents for many fathers just another piece of evidence that the structure and bias of the family court, custody and support systems is against fathers.

More criticism for the bill comes from skepticism over whether this is the best way to collect from those fathers who are already shirking their responsibilities. Many of the nonpaying fathers have little or no income, are unemployed or in jail.

Enforcing payments among solvent fathers, in the view of the bills' critics, would not move hundreds of thousands of families off welfare as its sponsors believe.

Then there's the matter of that phrase "deadbeat dad," father's rights organizations hate that term, since it's so easily tossed around and tends to color the view of all divorced fathers, not just the ones who work hard to earn that label.

Support payments are often tied in with custodial problems -- father uses money as a weapon, mother uses kids as weapon -- but then, the Uniform Child Support Enforcement Act of 1997 comes down heavily on one side of that battle and not at all on the other.

So, we're revisiting fathers and support this hour on TALK OF THE NATION.

Jeffrey Leving is with us from the Chicago bureau, he's the author of "Father's Rights," and president of the National Institute for Fathers and Families. Welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.

JEFFREY LEVING, AUTHOR, "FATHER'S RIGHTS," PRESIDENT, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR FATHERS AND FAMILIES, INC.: Oh, it's my pleasure to be here, thank you.

SUAREZ: And Marna Tucker (ph) is a partner with Feldesman, Tucker, Fidel, and Bank (ph), which represents both men and women in divorce cases. Good to have you with us.

MARNA TUCKER, PARTNER WITH FELDESMAN, TUCKER, FIDEL, AND BANK: Thanks Ray, nice to be here.

SUAREZ: Our number in Washington, 800-989-8255. That's 800-989- TALK.

Well Jeffrey Leving, when the sponsors of the bill were here, they said that one of the primary reasons they had drafted the bill and were trying to federalize the payment of child support is because the current stated-administered system is not working for too many families.

What's your answer to that?

LEVING: Well, the state system or -- or systems in various states probably aren't working. But the reason the various state systems are not working is not be -- because every father is a deadbeat. The real problem is because of visitation abuse, and that is not addressed in this bill or in any other bill that I am aware of presently.

Now, there is a United States government report from the Census Bureau that I looked at that supports my belief that there's a direct correlation between visitation abuse and support delinquencies. And based on this United States government report, it shows that the majority of fathers with -- with visitation are current in support.

According to this report, entitled "Child Support and Alimony 1999, " this was released in October 11th of 1991, it reported for the first time that fathers with visitation pay 79.1 percent of child support owed, and fathers with joint custody pay 90.2 percent of child support owed, which is almost 100 percent.

So, where is the problem? If you look quickly at this government report, the problem is with fathers without visitation or joint custody, 'cause pursuant to this government report, fathers without visitation or joint custody pay only 44.5 percent of child support owed.

So, if we know that the problem or a major cause of sig -- significant support delinquencies is -- is visitation abuse, then what we really need is not a -- a bill to further attack fathers, but a bill to more aggressively enforce visitation. And if we do that, that'll probably benefit children and mothers financially and benefit children emotionally in the United States, where we are now the world's leader in single parent families.

SUAREZ: Well, let me -- let me just accept for the minute your numbers, 'cause obv -- I don't have any numbers and I -- I can't bring any statistical evidence to bear, but I'm willing to accept your assertion that there is a high degree of correlation between the compliance with the custodial and -- and visitation arrangements made at final decree, and the compliance of fathers with their court- ordered payments.

The intimacy of these issues, when you -- when you look at the stats, doesn't really address whether or not these issues should be lumped together.

Whether a women is fulfilling her responsibilities as mandated by the court in a final decree has nothing to do with the needs of children, who still need to eat three times a day, who still need to attend school, and wear shoes, and read books, and the other things that we want children to do, whether dad is seeing them or not.

And while I can understand why a man would be less likely to pay, and I can understand why a may would be less happy to pay, I'm not so sure that we can justify a man not paying because of the -- the lack of forthrightness of his former spouse in complying with the court orders. Should we be grouping these two very different things together?

LEVING: Yes, we should. And I do agree with you that legally, because I -- I am an attorney, I practice law not just in Illinois, but I -- I have handled cases and do handle cases in other states, even though I'm located in Chicago, however, legally, you are correct.

There is no direct statute stating that if a father doesn't get visitation he doesn't have to pay child support. There is no law to that effect.

But -- legally I agree with you, but psychologically, emotionally, I don't agree with you and I disagree. Because if we know that a major cause of child support delinquencies is based on fathers losing their right as parents, losing the children, then we know that if we want to get more support paid, we need laws that I believe are -- should be fairer and give fathers equal protection in this arena. And if we do this, more support will be paid and more children will be protected.

For instance in the United States, we have a Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act, whereby a non-custodial mother through state and district attorneys offices can chase non-custodial fathers through out the United States from state to state for free, using our tax dollars, to attempt to enforce their court-ordered child support payments, and I agree with that, that's great, fathers should pay support.

But, we don't have a -- a law called the uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Visitation Act, where non-custodial fathers can do the same, chasing custodial mothers that run from state to state to parentally alienate their children from them.

So, the first thing we need to do is we need a -- counterpart to URESA which is UREVA, which we do not have, and we need that. To me that' s important in my mind to -- to fairness for fathers, which is good for children, because there's more to this than just money. I mean, we can't just focus on just dollars, and even though dollars are important, and fathers should pay child support.

But, we have a big problem in our society right now, when we are turning into a fatherless nation, and that is one of the major reasons why I wrote Father's Rights" and I'm really happy with Basic Books, that' s my publisher be -- because I'm happy that they gave me the opportunity to get this book out there.

But if we look at this even further, we're turning into a fatherless country and a lot of people say, so, what? Fathers are biological necessities but social accidents, who cares? They should pay support. We don't need them in parenting. Well if that's true, why are children from fatherless homes more likely to end up in prison, more likely to commit suicide, and more likely to drop out of school?

And these aren't statistic I'm -- I'm making up. For instance, the Center of Disease Control, based on information I have from them, 85 percent of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders came from -- come from fatherless homes. From the Bureau of Census, 63 percent of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.

So if we know we have a problem in this country based on fatherlessness, than that's another good reason -- a -- to have stronger laws to enforce visitation, because it not only protects children emotionally, educationally, and psychologically, it protects them and their custodial mothers financially.

SUAREZ: Jeffrey Leving is with us from Chicago. He's the president of the National Institute for Fathers and Families.

Marna Tucker is here with me in Washington and as a -- an attorney in these kinds of family matters, do you agree with Jeffrey Leving' s basic point that too much stress is being put on one side of this problem and not on the other?

TUCKER: Well, I would broaden the issues somewhat. I think by saying that visitation abuse is what leads fathers not to pay their child support is an overstatement of what happens.

I think if you really look at why parents don't pay child support, it goes to the problem of conflict; the parents don't get along. And whether its I'm not going to give you visitation, or I'm not going to pay you the money, or I'm going to do this, or that, the problem is conflict. And what I've found in representing both fathers and mothers in this is that they need someone to help them through the conflict in a sane way, and courts have tried to do this.

Courts -- by saying you must pay support even if you're not getting visitation -- the courts purposely don't link the two together because, Ray, just as you've said, children have to eat three meals a day or more; my teenager eats more that. But, children must eat and you' ve got to have money to pay the bills.

Now, if there is a court order that says a mother must -- a parent is entitled to time with the child, the mother, if she is the one that has primary care of that child, must obey that order, just like the court must -- just like the father must obey the order to pay child support.

The courts have purposely kept them separate, because money is one thing; the kids must eat. But parental involvement, which the courts hold with -- my experience has been -- in great regard -- with great regard and they don't deny a father visitation easily.

The cases where a father is denied visitation by a court are cases of abuse of the children, or abuse of the spouse. Those cases are very extreme. If anything, courts take great care in -- in enforcing against mothers and fathers their requirements to let the other parent get involved.

But, back to what I said a little earlier. The problem is conflict. And what we need are -- are parenting plans, and people in the community -- religious groups, community groups, governmental groups -- to help people work out plans and know how to get along when a family splits, or when a family may never have been a family, but there is a parent -- there is a father and a mother who may never have been a family.

Studies have shown that children do the best with input from both parents, no question about that. But studies have also shown that it doesn't matter what you call it. As long as both parents participate in it, that's what's important. And we need to have the kinds of programs and assistance to help well-intentioned parents focus on how to avoid the conflict. Kids suffer with hostility, not with titles like custody or visitation.

SUAREZ: Well let me tell you, we had a little bit of an unusual moment when Congress Hyde was here. He was talking about how state enforcement of support payment has been a shambles -- when fathers move from state to state; when they decide they don't want to pay; when these various things happen; when mothers move away from their original home state; and the father no longer has contact that the support falters, and -- and I submitted that in a lot of these cases one of the root causes is a fight -- an ongoing fight over visitation; an ongoing fight over custody and he said, well, they have recourse to the state courts.

So, that he was willing to put the IRS at the service of support payments, and just say, well, just go to state court if you've got a beef about whether you kid is spending his properly-specified weekends with you.

So, the state courts are not good enough for support, but they are good enough for enforcing visitation. An interesting thing, as someone who's not involved up close with this business, but reads a lot about it and tries to follow it in the news, is that there's -- there's a zeal now in the culture for going after the fathers and -- and going after the money, some of it perhaps encouraged by -- by the feeling that we are losing control of the family, losing control of -- of our children, but no similar zeal about keeping fathers in contact with their family.

TUCKER: Well, it's easier for the law to deal with money. The law always deals with remedies through money much better. You can't force someone, by law, to be a good mother or a good father. You can force someone to pay bills; you can force them under threat of sending them to jail.

But I think, in terms of state courts enforcing child support, state courts enforcing -- or crafting the orders for visitation they're close to home. It's important that they be able to do this.

I don't really have an opinion on the best way for -- if -- if child support should be federalized to that extent, we have several federal laws on the books right now that haven't been working well enough, because we're really beginning to focus on child support and visitation in this last decade in a way that we haven't really done before.

And I think the law's very slow; the law's very cumbersome.

We're not doing such a great job, but we're moving in that direction.

SUAREZ: Marna Tucker is an attorney, a partner at Feldesman, Tucker, Fidel, and Bank, a lawfirm that represents men and women in divorce cases. She's here with me in Washington. And from Chicago, we're joined by Jeffrey Leving, the author of Father's Rights, and the president for the National Institute for Fathers and Families.

800-989-8255, our number. Laurel joins us from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hi yam Laurel.

CALLER: Hi, yeah I would like to say that it's a myth that the family courts discriminate against men, that's -- actually it's the mothers who are discriminated against, partly because they don't have enough money, generally, as their husbands to pay for a real costly court battle.

Also, there are a lot of phony psychiatric disorders floating around there like Richard Gardner's (ph) "Parental Alienation Syndrome" where women get labeled with these phony psychiatric illnesses, and it's used as a way to keep them from having custody of their kids.

The fact is, when fathers want custody of their kids, when they seek it in court, they usually get it. And I would like your guests to comment on that.

TUCKER: Well, I...

LEVING: Well -- go ahead.

SUAREZ: Jeffrey go ahead, and then we'll hear from Marna.

LEVING: First -- first of all, I'd like to comment on Dr.

Gardner.

I lectured at a seminar he lectured at in Detroit, and I was very impressed by him and I thought he was extremely, extremely articulate and intelligent and he has -- and -- and I read one of his books on parental alienation, which I thought was an excellent book.

Secondly, fathers that litigate custody, many, often are litigating because they believe they have no choice. I talk to fathers from all over the country, and generally when a father wants to hire me or my firm to litigate custody, many times it's not 'cause they want custody, it's because they mother's on drugs, the mother's has -- is suffering from serious psychiatric disorder, or the mother is attempting to hide the child from the father, and the father basically is in a position where he either litigates custody or he causes damage to his own child or children, or he ends up losing his children.

So, many fathers that come to me that want to litigate custody basically are in superior positions to mothers, because of what I just stated.

Now, fathers that come to me that are in a position where it would be about a 50/50 chance of winning custody at trial -- many don't want to litigate custody, because they believe what society has taught them, and that is that fathers are not primary parents.

So many, many fathers that actually litigate custody are litigating in superior positions not because of the legal system, but because of issues in their own specific case.

And in reference to what this woman stated about the system no being biased against fathers, I could talk for hours about examples and problems that I have encountered in representing fathers. And one isn't -- is something -- is an excellent example of a problem I encountered in Chicago representing a minority father, it was a paternity case, and the mother, while under the influence of cocaine and alcohol smashed up her vehicle with their little boy in back causing permanent brain damage to that little baby boy.

Now, that boy now will grow up with permanent brain damage and become a permanent brain-damaged adult, that boy lost the ability to walk because of this accident. While I was in court the judge -- asking for custody, I thought the judge was going to tear my head off, she basically said something to the effect, "Leving you are not getting custody for that father." Now, here's a good father, hard working, a good parent, he's not -- doesn't use drugs, he's not an alcohol abuser, he could provide a good home for the -- for that child based on my analysis of the case, and here we have a women on drugs and alcohol who just caused permanent brain damage to -- to that little boy, and the judge was ready to tear my head off.

Basically, what happened was -- and also the mother was charged with driving under the influence because of that event. What happened there, the judge finally stated that she would give the father temporary possession without prejudice.

She said, Leving you are not getting custody in that order; this is a temporary order without possession. And basically what she wanted from my analyses of -- of this whole fiasco was the mother in rehab, the mother getting better, the mother getting off drugs and alcohol, and then the child goes back to mom. And that to me is -- is something that I consider gender bias.

Now, if the gender rules were reversed and the dad was a -- was on drugs and alcohol, caused permanent brain damage to that little boy, do you think a judge would want him in rehab get him better so the child could go back to him?

SUAREZ: Let's go to Marna Tucker.

TUCKER: Well, I think that there has been gender bias in the courts in terms of custody decision. But it's -- it's gender bias on both sides, so it's something that hasn't been -- our courts' finest moment but they are really making great strides to try to improve it.

I -- in about 60 percent of the states, Ray, we have gender bias commissions who have issued reports on what has happened in custody cases and it is true, just like Jeffrey said, that in some cases there is a prejudice against men in terms of custody; there is this feeling that somehow they don't know how to do right because they hadn't been the one to bear the child or be the primary caregiver.

The other side with women, women who have gone to work, sometimes that's held against them as they're not being full time mothers, that they have to work and -- and most women work outside the home; they have been treated with bias in that -- in some cases if they are involved in sexual relationships -- they are held to a higher standard, and that's held against them as mothers.

So, there's more gender bias than we need going around and what we need to do is look and educate these judges to the stereotypes, and so they are aware of when they have these prejudices.

SUAREZ: Laurel in Ann Arbor, thanks for your call. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.

Jenny's with us now from Everett, Washington. Jenny, welcome.

CALLER: Yeah, hi Ray. I'm glad you're back.

SUAREZ: Thank you.

CALLER: I did over five years of research on a book "The Almost Painless Divorce: What Your Lawyer Won't Tell You," and I do agree with Jeffrey Leving that there is a correlation between visitation abuse and support. But the problem starts before the final decree, and that is that at the outset, many times, divorcing couples are set at each others throats, sometimes by lawyers, sometimes by their relatives and the -- particularly in the final decree is -- leaves fathers resentful and angry and feeling deprived of their rights.

And my suggestion is that the whole approach needs to be changed at a local and state level, certainly not sent to a federal bureaucracy that's just going to foul things up more.

SUAREZ: So, you're saying, Jenny, that the -- the winning and the losing starts to take on a -- a -- a life of its own and -- and the kids...

CALLER: Oh, right...

SUAREZ: ... get lost in it...

CALLER: ... they view -- they view each other as the enemy.

Incidently my thesis is that the almost painless divorce is mediation, in which both the husband and wife have to take part, and have to involve themselves. And when that happens, there's a whole different attitude towards each other and towards their children.

They've invested, you know, their blood sweat and tears in this agreement, and for that reason I think -- I -- I don't have any statistics at this point to support it, but it appears that they are much more inclined to work with each other, and the support is there.

TUCKER: I think Jenny's absolutely right. Jenny, I've -- I always encourage my clients to try to work out their own arrangement, either to use mediators or the lawyers can help them if they are the kinds of lawyers who can help people understand their anger and work through it for the best interest of the children.

I think there are some places where you can't mediate, like when someone has been a victim of domestic violence, or there's child abuse involved.

But mediation -- where parties work out their own agreement, it's been shown that they can work it out and they don't keep coming back to court; the kids thrive; they both have an investment in it. And frankly most divorce cases -- most cases, actually, are resolved by the parties.

These cases we're talking about where there court orders that order people to do things in visitation, those are really a very small minority of all of the divorces that occur in the country.

SUAREZ: But, they get a big chunk of the attention.

TUCKER: Certainly.

SUAREZ: Well, we're talking about fathers, divorce, and support this hour on TALK OF THE NATION.

My guests are Jeffrey Leving and Marna Tucker, who you just heard. We're going to take a short break now, when we return we'll take more of your calls at 800-989-8255.

To contact us here at TALK OF THE NATION, you can send us e-mail at totn@npr.org, or the old-fashioned kind with a stamp on it: TALK OF THE NATION Letters 635 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20001.

At 33 minutes past the hour, it's TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.` SUAREZ: Welcome back to TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ray Suarez.

We're talking today about child support and the rights of fathers. My guests are Jeffrey Leving, author of Father's Rights and President of the National Institute for Fathers and Families; and Marna Tucker, a partner with the Feldesman, Tucker, Fidel, and Bank lawfirm in Washington.

If you want to join us, our number is 800-989-8255. We'll go next to Newton, Massachusetts. Carl, welcome to the program.

CALLER: Welcome, Ray, thank you for this program. I tried to get through last time. Anyway, I'm in a sort of different situation.

I -- I'm divorced from a previous marriage which had three in the union. The strange thing about it was there were only two when the separation occurred, and I received custody, strangely enough.

I since moved out of state, but the third child came since then, during the time of the separation. And the courts are making me pay support for the third child. Now, it's -- to me, it looks unfair on the surface, but then again I don't expect anyone to take care of my child. I understand that. I'm the biological father.

But the thing that bothers me is that there's no -- it's nothing being done about getting the mother to go out and work. Now to me, I wasn' t the one who wanted out of the marriage, first of all, which to me is a double whammy. And then you have other issues like I'm a taxpayer, first of all, I'm paying for people on welfare and then I still have to pay support.

So I don't -- to me, from all angles, it looks like I'm getting the shaft, and I just wanted to know how you felt about that or your guests or -- do they hear of similar situations like -- what's in the law for me? To me, it doesn't seem like anything's gonna help me.

SUAREZ: Well, Carl, after the last program, we got a lot of letters from fathers who wanted to talk more about the economic behavior of the mothers of their children. Jeffrey, you go first.

LEVING: Well, this caller is raising a very interesting point because what I'm hearing substantiates my fear and belief that in our society, we basically stereotype fathers as payers of support and not as primary caretakers. So, here's a father who is both a custodial and a non- custodial parent, yet he pays support, but it appears he doesn't receive any from the mother. And if that's correct, that raises a red flag.

But it's not that unusual. I represented a father in Illinois.

I tried custody. I won custody. The court awarded my client sole custody of his little boy; didn't order the mother to pay him a dime of child support; and ordered him to pay alimony to the mother who was working.

Now, figure that out. My opinion is that there's a possibility that the judge could have felt guilty about giving my client -- i.e. a father -- custody of a child of tender years. That's my opinion. The real problem is we need gender neutrality in our system, not just to protect fathers and not just to protect children, but to protect our family unit, which is the basis of our society that must happen.

And it outrages me to hear what this man has just stated, but it's not -- it isn't something that I consider unusual.

SUAREZ: Well, custody having been awarded to Carl in the case of the first two children, I don't imagine that a lot of people would say: "boy, good for him" if Carl decided not to work and stayed home to raise those children. Yet often in these kinds of debates, you hear that decision supported when women make it.

But at the same time, there is no legal standing for Carl to coerce another adult to whom he is not married, has no relationship, to behave in ways other than the way she's behaving. I can understand what strikes him as odd about the situation, but Marna Tucker, he -- who can tell Carl's ex-wife to go to work? Nobody, I would think.

TUCKER: Nobody can tell her to go to work. Is -- has he tried to get child support from her?

CALLER: Hey, I've tried everything. The court just totally ignored me. And the thing about it is that makes it so sad, I've since remarried. My kids have had a stable stepmother in their lives for seven years now. She -- my wife cannot work because my job requires me to leave on business sometimes, and I don't know what day I'm leaving, so she cannot work.

So I have a -- now I'm married and I still -- and I have five mouths -- I have four kids all together, and one that I'm paying support for. So that's six dependents with myself. They do not look at any of that. I tried to show them where I was paying bills. They did not care. They said you make this amount of money, you should be quiet because you should be paying more.

I felt like I had no rights. I just walked out of there with no dignity. I felt like I should go out and get on welfare myself, but then what does that do? That just makes -- makes more people in the system. That doesn't work.

LEVING: It's hard for fathers to have dignity when there are a lot of people in our society that believe that punishing fathers is in the best interests of our family unit, which unfortunately just often causes nothing but conflict. But a question I have: when you were in court, did your lawyer file a motion for a job diary asking the court to order the mother to keep a job diary and report back to the court on a periodic basis with her job search?

CALLER: She was not working, first of all. And when I -- we asked that question, they said no, well, we're not concerned with that. We're concerned with this is your child, you should pay support.

LEVING: Well, my feeling is there are cases that I've handled where I have filed petitions for child support against mothers who were unemployed, and also at the same time filed motions requesting them to keep job diaries, and then come back to the court periodically to report with the results of their job search. Did anything like that happen in your case?

CALLER: No, nothing like -- I never even knew that was, again -- I thought I was sort of -- it seemed like I been in a dead end. I been to court maybe three times about this. I'm the one who went to court and filed, you know, brought her to court for support.

But the -- and the worst part about it is that I can -- if right now, the situation that she's in -- I can go in and get my daughter because I have a 20 times a better setup than she has. She has no bedrooms. She has two children, no bedrooms, except one for her, and two children.

I have a house with five bedrooms. I could easily get my daughter. But the thing is, I'm running the risk 'cause if I lose, my whole life is exposed -- my salary, every -- what I make -- government, if they they come at -- I know a guy's who's giving half his salary to his ex-wife, and he has custody of all his kids.

LEVING: Well, I've had fathers come to me paying a lot more than that in support. My question is: do you feel at risk that if you try and litigate custody of one child you could lose custody of all of them?

CALLER: I gotta assume that's what -- even after seven years of them being with me and her not making -- lift one finger to make an effort to get them, I still feel like the courts are just not in my favor.

LEVING: Another thing, too, that would concern me, and I've -- in cases similar to yours, 'cause obviously I don't know specific facts about yours other than what you're telling me now. But I'd personally have concerns about separating siblings. Generally, I think it's better that siblings be together...

CALLER: Exactly.

LEVING: ... under one roof, and here we have a situation where siblings have been separated. So...

CALLER: I would -- I feel like -- I grew up this way: I feel like the children should be with their mother just naturally. I just feel like children should be with their mother.

LEVING: And, well, a lot of people believe that.

CALLER: But the thing is, the mother is not mentally sound. She does not have -- lights are being turned off; phone bills are running up. It's like no -- she has no concern about nothing, like it's just whatever.

SUAREZ: Well, Carl, of course, you can understand the disadvantage this whole conversation puts us at, because we don't have her here and we have your version only. But your predicament does bring up some interesting questions. Thanks a lot for your call.

CALLER: Thank you.

SUAREZ: You know, I don't want to litigate family cases on the radio with one -- with just one side getting to testify. But people's - - and the problem with anecdotal information is that it presumes to stand in as an exemplar of a whole range of family cases, when it really can't do that.

And I don't want to now get 9,000 letters from people telling me I hate women or I don't understand the family dynamics of divorce.

But -- this is difficult and a situation that often brings out the worst in people, I guess it's fair to say.

Fairhill (ph), Maryland is next. David, welcome to the program.

CALLER: Thank you, and thank you so much for this show, Ray.

Just two quick notes if I may, related, and regarding last week's show with Representative Woolsey and Hyde. I just would like to say I've been divorced almost three years, and from day one I've had true shared custody. The kids are equally with me and equally with her.

And from day one, long before a separation agreement was signed and negotiated, and then incorporated into a divorce decree and while she still had checkbook and credit cards, I've been paying her a five- figure monthly alimony/child support payment.

I've taken full responsibility for my children emotionally and financially, and I just want to say that if Representative Hyde and Woolsey are successful and are able to mandate that I be treated as a deadbeat and that my employer be forced to take my child support and alimony from my paycheck before I even get to see it -- if they take away my dignity of allowing me to meet my obligations honorably, I will then rebel. I will resist. I will fight paying any child support or alimony, especially since the children are already with me half the time and very well taken care of.

So, I just think that Woolsey and Hyde are way off track when they try to put us all together in that way. We're taking the soul out of our society when we begin to treat people that way.

One last quick point on custody. I am very much a gender activist -- not a feminist and not a males rights person. I believe, in fact, that in the end, we are all human beings before we are men and women. And I just want to make the point that women are not the natural nurturers.

Human beings are natural nurturers, and the only reason women have traditionally been and still are treated or considered by the courts to be somehow more inclined and more equipped to be natural -- or be nurturers is because of the social conditioning and the social concepts that have been so prevalent and still are.

The bottom line is that when men are given the opportunity and the freedom to love and nurture their children and embrace them, they are every bit as capable of doing that as women, but the courts are still very strongly favoring women in that regard. And I thank you.

SUAREZ: But David, you know, you bring up that social conditioning, and part of the kind of society that we've ended up with is one where men are often more economically able in the workplace to generate income than women. We have families where women had -- just by out of custom or practice or because it seemed like a good idea at the time, have stopped building resumes; have stopped building careers and become primary caregivers while men made the income.

But a marriage -- the dissolution of a marriage -- ends all that; changes all the economic realities, but we still have two people who are not standing on a level field when it comes to producing income for the continued sustenance and maintenance of the people that they' ve produced in their marriage.

So often, probably just out of just as knee-jerk a habit as those other habits of the heart you've described, the men continue to be seen as more able to fill that role as income generators.

CALLER: Well, and I agree with you and that's one of the reasons that I willingly negotiated with my ex-wife a five-figure income for her, even though I take equal emotional and financial responsibility for the children, right down the middle.

You know, and they're half her children and their half mine, but I am still the one giving her a big chunk of money every month, and that's in recognition of the fact that although frankly I never asked her to, never encouraged her to stay home and not have a career, that' s what she did.

So I accept that responsibility. The only thing I'm saying is that if Representative Woolsey and Hyde step up to me, a good, decent, loving father who's taken full responsibility as a divorced man, and tell me that I'm going to be treated in a way that basically says I am not trusted to carry out my obligations on my own, then I will begin -- it's like the teachers used to say in school: "act like a child, we'll treat you like one." I used to tell them: "treat me like one, and I'll act like one." TUCKER: David, I'm not an expert on that bill. I've read it just briefly. But I think for people like you, and by the way, I commend you for working out a voluntary agreement, because the law is a blunt instrument. It doesn't work real well in all of these cases, and you can craft something much better for your family. And I congratulate you.

But I -- as I understand that bill, they take voluntary agreements and that's not covered by that. If you worked it out and you pay your child support, their bill doesn't even deal with that at all.

SUAREZ: Yes, but if the wife -- the ex-wife -- opts to use this device in order to collect by other means, even when a husband is paying, if you're dealing with one of those marriages where the war did not end with the final decree, men and some women have written in the past week or so to say that: yeah, sure, there'll be a lot of people who -- where the circumstances don't even warrant taking that option. They'll just, you know, it'll just be another thing to dig -- get a dig in or with.

I'm Ray Suarez. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

David in Fairhill, Maryland, thanks a lot for your call. Leif is in San Antonio, Texas.

CALLER: Yeah, my big question has to do -- is a really different focus. And that is: I wonder whether this law's gonna withstand scrutiny by the Supreme Court. A couple of years ago, the Supreme Court came out with a decision that suggested that cases -- that statutes like this passed by the federal government, which are under the commerce clause -- that passed under the authority of the commerce clause - - are gonna have to withstand a stricter test.

And I think after that decision, there's a real question about whether or not this statute's going to withstand constitutional scrutiny. Does it have a substantial impact -- economic impact -- on interstate commerce? That's the test. And I don't think this law's been tested yet, and my guess is that if it is tested, it won't withstand scrutiny.

SUAREZ: Jeffrey Leving?

LEVING: My concern about this bill is I don't like it. I don't think we should federalize child support collection efforts, but if we are going to federalize it, then let's federalize the enforcement of visitation too. If we're gonna make it fair for one side, make it fair for the other. Equal protection and due process -- those are red flags I see right now. And we don't need a bill like this.

Another problem with a bill like this -- this bill could force certain fathers into the underground economy, and reduce support payments that are being made. You take a bill like this, and you take -- you could force fathers that are paying support to quit jobs, to go into the underground economy to avoid this bill if it becomes law, because the IRS is not going -- is not gonna likely be able to take money from tax returns if tax returns aren't being filed.

And that's wrong. That shouldn't be done. But this bill can cause that because when you have a bill that is perceived by many, many fathers to steal their dignity, what do you think they're gonna do? And you -- it's going to possibly cause more problems. I mean, we have so many laws already right now that I interpret as anti-father that are hurting our society. What do we need this for? For instance, there are many, many states where fathers who are delinquent in child support can lose their driver's licenses. Do you know of any laws anywhere where mothers can lose their driver's licenses for visitation abuse? I don't know of any.

Have you ever seen any "wanted" posters with pictures of malfeasant mothers who have denied visitation? No, but I've seen -- I've seen wanted-type posters with fathers' pictures on them who allegedly are delinquent in support.

We need to effectively collect child support and to do that, it's not gonna be effective if we're gonna focus primarily on punitive measures against dads because it takes two parents to make a child.

Children need two parents, and both parents are entitled to dignity.

And that's my concern -- dignity -- and I don't like this bill.

SUAREZ: Leif in San Antonio, Texas, thanks for your call. Henry Hyde himself, when he was on this program, said that he has a steep hill to climb in passing this bill because not only does it bring up the constitutional questions that you mentioned, but it also runs smack into the face of the momentum of bills coming out of the current Congresses in Washington, which are to put responsibilities back to the states and take them away from the federal government -- not the other way around.

Raleigh, North Carolina -- our last stop this hour. Dana, welcome to the program.

CALLER: Thank you, sir. My major problem with the whole situation is first of all, is it's all about the child, irregardless of what the mother and the father's problem is. But according to the law here in the State of North Carolina, I have the same parental obligations to my child as if I was still married. But yet, I have to pay single taxes which cost me an extra $6,000 a year.

When you figure that out, I've gotta work an extra two months just to pay those taxes, the same taxes I would have had to pay when I was married. That takes away two months from my daughter, which doesn' t do her any good and it doesn't do me any good.

She lives in the State of Maryland, and I live in North Carolina, so it's a full day's drive and I'm averaging 1.08 days a week off, if you figure that out, excluding vacations. So that gives me no time to drive up there and visit my daughter. And you know, if it' s all about the child, then why aren't we given the same tax breaks -- the same tax credits -- that everybody else who supports their child is given?

SUAREZ: Well, Dana, should I assume that as a dependent, your daughter appears on your wife's federal income tax return?

CALLER: Yes, she does, even though I pay 58 percent of her support.

SUAREZ: See, the problem is the same human being can't be the dependent of -- on two different returns.

CALLER: Right. But if you look at the federal return, if a person lives with you and you provide over 50 percent of that support, you' re entitled to the deductions and tax credits that are for that child. Now, if I'm required to pay 58 percent of her support, then I should be given 58 percent of her tax credits and deductions, and I should also be allowed to file head of household, rather than single, because I'm not single. The only way I'm single is that I'm available for marriage. That is the only way I'm a single man. They discriminate against me in housing, but they say it's not against the law.

SUAREZ: Well Marna, the tax bill, when described this way by Dana, would seem to disadvantage men who are non-custodial and paying.

TUCKER: Well, the law as I understand it is: if he's paying over half the support of the child, he does get the dependency exemption.

CALLER: Not unless she signs the federal form handing her over to me.

TUCKER: And, well, I'm not sure how you guys are working it out, but it -- I think you ought to look at that a little more.

In terms of your being head of household, which would give you some break, if you spend -- you can be a head of household if she spends half the time with you. If you're in different towns and you only spend a little while there, that's -- that creates a problem.

The tax laws have a lot of problems in terms of inequities for families and certainly in the divorce situation. But I can't really respond to your specific return without seeing ways that you can maybe -- there may be ways you can work it out if you have someone who knows this area look at it real carefully.

SUAREZ: Marna Tucker, thanks for being with us this hour.

TUCKER: Thank you, Ray.

SUAREZ: And Jeffrey Leving, thanks for joining us on TALK OF THE NATION.

LEVING: Thanks a lot, Ray.

SUAREZ: Jeffrey Leving is the author of Father's Rights and president of the National Institute for Fathers and Families. He joined us from NPR's Chicago bureau; and Marna Tucker is a partner with Feldesman, Tucker, Fidel, and Bank, a lawfirm. She joined us in Washington' s studio 3A.

Tune into TALK OF THE NATION at this time tomorrow for a discussion about high-tech new trends in U.S. banking.

In Washington, I'm Ray Suarez, NPR News.

Transcribed by Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. under license from National Public Radio, Inc. Formatting copyright (c) 1997 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information please contact NPR's Business Affairs at (202) 414-2954

Content and Programming copyright (c) 1997 National Public Radio, Inc. All rights reserved.

Ray Suarez, Washington, DC, Father's Rights., Talk of the Nation (NPR), 09-03-1997.

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