In her article on the Smart Stepmom When Kids Believe a Lie, Laura Petherbridge says,
“However, many stepmoms believe once dad gets remarried and takes on a second family, that the other children should have compassion and understanding about his financial strain and receive less.”
“This is incorrect. He brought those children into the world, and he is still fully responsible to provide for them. And he signed a divorce agreement making a vow that he would deliver. It is his duty and obligation.”
In a short article like this, Laura Petherbridge cannot be expected to go into the kind of detail needed to do justice to the subjects of child and spousal support payments. However I think a little more “truth” is in order. So, truth be told, we have to understand right up front than everyone needs a little more “compassion” when a new family comes along. This is true in intact families — if new children come along there is less to go around for the other children and for the parents; there is no reason it should be different in separated families, be they blended families or any other type. This is also true if a new family member such as a elderly parent or an unemployed family member comes into the family. Furthermore, it is totally contrary to fundamental equality that children should be subject to different standards just because they were first or were not first or because of a divorce or of separation agreement or because of laws for so-called child-support. We need also to remember that all current alimony/spousal-support and child-support agreements are made under duress. Any father facing family court in America or the rest of the Western World knows he is dead meat before he even starts, and that the children he considered to be his children are no longer his, but are nothing more than tokens for misandric peonage that clearly work contrary to any concept of the child’s best interests or any kind of realization of parental rights, justice or equality. The level of fatherlessness in America is clear proof that family law and the family courts in particular are working against children at every turn. The long path to fundamental justice that we thought had been established or soon would be established in the beginnings of the civil rights and gender equality movements have detoured around family law which has now submerged itself into a morass of deceit and avarice that deserves universal contempt. And that contempt should continue until fathers receive the restitution of family, finances and dignity they deserve for the systematic and systemic injustices they have been forced to endure.