Reality Check
by G. Young
(Atlanta)
Take it from someone that's in law enforcement and deals with social services... a teenager definitely would NOT know nor would the uneducated or the underprivileged. They're scared and in the middle of a situation they are not mature enough to handle. When you have a grown man in front of you saying SIGN OR GO TO JAIL, you sign. They do whatever the adult authority figure they're in the office talking with tells them to do with no thought to LAWS or RIGHTS. Then 10 years later realize the court decision was unfair and unbalanced.
There are women who's had a single night with another man outside of their relationship and truly thought the steady man was the father. It devastates both the mother, the child and the father to find out otherwise. Especially if they lived as a family for many years before the truth was known.
There is such a thing as Paternity Fraud where a seemingly upstanding, worthy woman will sleep with several men (one not knowing about the other), get pregnant and tell each one she's suing for support. Many will pay her directly, thinking they're doing the right thing plus the one with the best job she'll rush to court for state ordered free cash. Depends on how well the scam is pulled, the victim truly believes the child is his and doesn't question paternity. Some won't find out until the child gets sick and need medical history or grows up and obviously doesn't look like the father. There's documented cases out there where women got support from old boyfriends, cheating husbands or a service man deployed over seas, and the child not only wasn't his, but wasn't hers either!
This usually happens with people who not only defraud the support system but the welfare system. It's their source of income: Free welfare AND support checks. Section eight free housing. Food stamps and free medical. Fake socials and even fake birth certificates are used for sometimes fake children just to scam the system. They hustle on the side (drug sells or whatever) for additional non-reported income and usually, purposely, stay unemployed. All of which you and I are paying through our inflated taxes. And in case you didn't know, support services receive Federal Funding based on collections. Overpayments and unfair practices make their books look good.
These are but a few examples of what's really going on out there. Not everybody is a dead beat nor a victim. The diversity of situation is too grand to make such a sweeping statement against all the people who has posted on this site.
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