let me rant for a moment, please.

I do not understand a child support system that is set up in such a way that payments that are supposed to be automatic get lost in the shuffle. Case in point: I know that payments are automatically deducted from a particular person's (heretofore known to some as "the silent partner") paycheck 2x/month. Why & how on earth does said payment not make it to my "automatic" deposit as it should be with any amount of regularity? Why, for example did I get only 1 child support payment in April? And when I called "Child Support Enforcement" why was I told that there was nothing that could be done; maybe I could call myself to inquire? Yeah, right. Speak to someone who yet refuses to acknowledge his own child? Argh. That is the whole reason for the child support system to be in place, is it not? You know, to make sure that absentee parents take care of their share of the burden of raising a child. The absentee parent pays to get out of being physically, personally, intimately responsible for his/her child. Well, at least that's what I thought was the reasoning behind the system. Ha!

So I have had no child support payments in October & find myself behind the eightball, so to speak. I mean, WTF. Why is this a continuous worry, never to leave the back of my mind, and often occupying a semi-permanent space at the forefront of my thoughts as well. I expect that this should be a well-oiled machine. Aren't your own automatic deductions set up for credit card payments, etc regular like ex-lax? Why does child support not work in the same predictable manner?

Personally I have imagined my own conspiracy theory (which may actually not be too far off the mark, if you think about it). The money comes out, it has to go somewhere, right? But to where does it go? It's one of those government money making schemes -kind of like the way the government banks on social security. The money sits somewhere collecting interest that I will never see. Eventually the actual payment makes its way to my account. Imagine this, if you can: thousands of child support dollars in an account somewhere collecting interest for a week or a month. Never the same child support cases & never 100% of the cases all at the same time; that would be too suspicious. Who will investigate this theory? Who indeed, of the many women & men who rely on child support to ,what?, support their children, can afford to litigate this curious fraud? Exactly. None. And so the cycle continues.

Then there are cases such as my own where the two parties don't even communicate. He thinks things are going swimmingly b/c the money is deducted regularly from his account. I, on the other hand, know that there is something incredibly wrong with the system. Damn the man. (ah, a refreshing & all too rare disparaging monicker NOT related to being a woman -the proverbial government system known as "the man". Word.)