More to the story about deadbeat dads

The DuPage County Daily Herald’s front page article (“County targets deadbeat dads,” Feb. 15) touted the success of DuPage County’s sting plan executed on Valentine’s Day dubbed “Operation Love” where police arrested 6 men and are pursuing 36 more today. Fathers falling behind on court ordered support payments will serve jail time as “deadbeat dads.”

Many fathers are currently out of work or have reduced incomes due to the change in the economy and cannot maintain payments based on salaries they no longer receive. Opponents of the county’s “crack down” initiative are asking how jailing these fathers does anyone any good.

Many fathers cannot afford to fight in court to reduce debt obligations because of the high cost of legal fees in DuPage. Activists state that “children need food and shelter” — yet none of the men arrested were identified with children who are starving or homeless. Under court-ordered support garnishment, fathers are levied a fixed debt amount for support established not based on the children’s actual needs, but by a dollar amount calculated as a simple percentage of the father’s income at the time the divorce decree was entered and does not automatically change with the father’s change in employment without a court hearing, and without regard to whether or not the mother actually works (mothers are not required to have a job in DuPage).

Moreover, fathers often pay the non-working mother’s court costs and the ultimate travesty is that mothers need not account for how they spend their child support payments (the father’s payments to the mother can be used for the sole purpose of paying her attorney to harass the father or obstruct visitation with his children).

It’s time to overhaul Illinois antiquated family laws. Until then, Happy Valentine’s Day, DuPage fathers.

Mark Hayden

Medinah