Baraka_Guru

So are smokers who smoke near their children. The difference, however, is that "deadbeats" could go to prison, which is dumb because that means the child support won't happen for certain in that case.

I have to disagree with you because there is a difference between being unwilling to pay and not having the ability to pay. If you've tried your best to make payments, but you're impoverished, would you consider it child abuse if you seriously couldn't afford the payments? What if the ruling didn't take into account employment income and living expenses? I'm not sure how the courts establish the payments, but I'm wondering if it's based on ability to pay. If it is, then this is another issue altogether.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot