"One of the first things (Gabriel) shared about himself was that his dad was in Iraq and that he was waiting for his dad to come home," she said. "He talks about his dad all the time."

From Boy's wrapped birthday gift is dad back from Iraq (Nevada Appeal, 1/30/09):

Gabriel Hurles' sixth birthday party wasn't a surprise, but his present sure was. The kindergartner was so engrossed in the cupcakes his mother brought to his class on Wednesday that he didn't notice the enormous wrapped box off to the side.

"That's one big, giant present," a 6-year-old classmate told him. "See what you got, Gabriel."

Gabriel peeled back the wrapping paper to find the surprise of his young life — his father, an Army mechanic back in Nevada on leave from his second tour in Iraq.

"It's my dad!" he announced to his classmates at Sutro Elementary School in Dayton, a few miles northeast of Carson City. "Hi, Daddy."

Army Spc. Casey Hurles, 23, hadn't seen his son since he left in June. When he learned his leave would coincide with his son's birthday, he hatched a plan to hide out in the 4-foot-tall box.

"It was such a rush of emotion," said Hurles, who said he got butterflies in his stomach while waiting in the box.

After Hurles sat down and ate a cupcake with the birthday boy, teacher Dawn VanSickle presented him with a banner from the class that read, "Welcome Home. Thank you for your service."

VanSickle said she was happy to arrange the reunion in her classroom.

"One of the first things (Gabriel) shared about himself was that his dad was in Iraq and that he was waiting for his dad to come home," she said. "He talks about his dad all the time."

Watch the video of little Gabriel and his dad by clicking here.

There are two other touching videotaped homecomings of fathers and their children which we've had on this blog:

The reunion of Sailor Bill Hawes (pictured), who came home from Iraq and snuck into his little son's kindergarten class--to watch the video, click here.

The reunion of 11-year-old Siri Jordan with her father Dan is pictured (right)--to watch the video, click here.

Thanks to David, a reader, for the Gabriel story.

WHYJUDGELITTLE.com I was sued & lost custody for becoming a firefighter by my ex-wife Dora Heisey. Alabama Judge Loyd H. Little, Jr. has ignored his own rulings & reversed himself 3 times. Judge Little miscounted the number of days he had to rule & would not correct his mistake which has placed my son in a worse custody situation. Many like me have lost complete confidence in the Alabama judicial system.--Chris Hobbs, Dad www.WHYJUDGELITTLE.com

Hundreds of you responded to our Action Alert last week and educated former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum on what fathers go through to remain a part of their children's lives after divorce or separation.

I don't know if Santorum will respond in print or not (his column runs every other Thursday in the Philadelphia Inquirer) but it's important that when anti-father falsehoods are voiced by prominent figures, we're there to respond with the truth. It is said that "80% of success is showing up," and too often our movement has lost because it hasn't shown up. Thank you for showing up.

Santorum's original column was Obama's actions speak volumes. Below I reprint a couple of the letters our readers sent Santorum.

Anthony, a highly-skilled medical professional, wrote:

Dear Mr. Santorum,

I disagree with your conclusion that "fatherlessness" in our society is the fault of fathers. I was forced out of my home and was prevented from seeing my own children because my now ex-wife wanted to move in her boyfriend.

This month, the child support I have paid to her for the past 7 years has a grand  total of $397,000.  All of it is gone--$1,000 a week for seven years.  She has not spent most of it on my children but rather on her house, herself, her new husband and her new baby.

Another reader, Ian, wrote:

Dear Mr. Santorum:

Thank you for taking the time to read my correspondence, I am writing in regards to the article you published on irresponsible fathers. I too agree that we have a major problem within today's society that is caused by the absence of fathers in our children's lives. However, I disagree on the fundamental basis on why such absences are caused.

I too have been effectively removed [from my children's lives]. I fought a legal challenge for my children for nearly two and a half years at the cost of over $35K in legal fees, and probably another 10 or 15K of equivalent work pro-se. My argument was that both parents needed an equal say in our children's lives. My ex-wife's argument was that she wanted sole custody.

Due to a small line at the bottom of the relevant law, since both parents couldn't agree, she was awarded sole custody. Where is the Justice in that?

I have had to launch legal challenges with the local school district, doctors offices, babysitters, and have had to involve the local police on three occasions to enforce my visitation rights to see my children. I have had to deal with my children coming to my house and telling me that mommy hates daddy and mommy hates Grandma too. I have had to deal with many other destructive and damaging behaviors that have real impact on my children.

Why? Because the custodial parent sees fit to engage in them. I try to protect my children from exposure to such behaviors by attempting to provide a safe and non intimidating environment for them at my home. My ex-wife does not. But with such limited time with them, my impact is minimal at best. Irresponsible? I'm doing everything in my power to remain relevant.

Help for Colorado Dads As someone who has personally experienced the heartbreak of divorce and family breakup, Brett W. Martin, Esq. works to advance the interests and concerns of fathers in domestic and family law litigation. Personal attention is given to clients to help them through a very difficult time in their lives. www.brettwmartin.com

I spoke with Olson (pictured) a couple weeks ago and she is a very determined woman. Her ally, Rep. Tim Mahoney (DFL-St. Paul), has taken up this cause, too.

From New law could make fathers' rights come smoother (Minneapolis City Pages, 2/4/09):

In Minnesota family courts, judges decide what's best for the kids on a case-by-case basis. But fathers' groups are pushing to change the law so that judges must favor shared parenting time, known as joint physical custody. Minnesota would become one of two states with such a legal preference.

Historically, the state's courts have not favored this arrangement because of concerns that shuttling between parents could be disruptive for a child. Custody often went to mothers, who tended to be the primary caregivers...

Rep. Tim Mahoney (DFL-St. Paul) has made it his mission to change the law. Divorced twice, Mahoney paid through the nose to get joint physical custody...He says conversations with his constituents convinced him that the law should change. Dozens of men have told him they pay child support but find it difficult to visit their children because of poor relations with the mother, he says. "They don't give a damn about the money. Mostly what they want to do is see their kids."

Over the past five years, Mahoney has introduced bills to change the law. His legislation has included an exception for victims of domestic violence, but advocates for battered women remain unconvinced.

Last year, Mahoney proposed a study group to look at the effect of changing the law. Mahoney's bill passed last spring after Rep. Michael Paymar (DFL-St. Paul) tacked it onto another piece of legislation.

In August, the study group met for the first time. Members included advocates for victims of domestic violence, parents, and fathers, as well as family law attorneys, academics, and two judges.

The study group reviewed academic research on divorce and custody and heard from people on both sides of the debate. The Minnesota Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, several anti-domestic violence groups, and the Minnesota State Bar Association's Family Law Section opposed changing the law, and fathers' advocacy groups favored it.

While there were more than enough people willing to give their opinions on the idea, the study group faced a paucity of information specific to Minnesota. There are no studies that document if fathers are actually being treated unfairly in court. The state's only data shows that joint physical custody decisions increased from 6 percent in 1986 to 23 percent in 1999.

After four months of meetings, the panel could only recommend to the Legislature that more Minnesota data be collected and the issue studied further. Mahoney and co-sponsor Saltzman were sorely disappointed.

"Certainly I think that the deck was set," Mahoney says. "I think there were a number of people that were very uncomfortable with the idea going in." He estimates that about 70 percent of the panel was initially against joint physical custody.

Panelist Molly Olson founded the Center for Parental Responsibility, a group that advocates for joint physical custody. She says study group membership seemed biased from the start. "People are either from organizations that have opposed this, or have opposed this individually," she says, "or they don't work with fit fathers."

But other panelists said the group was open-minded and fair. The problem was not bias, but rather a lack of information, says study group member Jeff Edleson, a professor at the University of Minnesota who researches domestic violence. "There were grievances of both moms and dads who were concerned about their cases," he says. "What I wanted to see and I didn't see, was any data."

One of the judges on the panel, Heidi Schellhas of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, also found the lack of information frustrating. "Shouldn't we figure out whether there is a problem, and if there is a problem, what is it?"

But Mahoney says the issue needs to be addressed, and soon. "My intent this year," he says, "is to move this bill forward."

The issue is being debated in the comments section of the Minneapolis City Pages--to join the discussion, click here.

To write to reporter Erin Carlyle, click here.

As for the opponents' "Gee whiz, we have no idea if joint custody would even work" shtick, see my co-authored column HB 5267 Will Help Michigan’s Children of Divorce (Lansing State Journal, 5/28/06) to learn what research says about joint custody.

While Carlyle's article gives too much weight to joint custody's opponents' weak arguments, it is relatively fair. This is a pleasant surprise, given City Pages reporter Beth Walton's terribly misleading coverage of the Holly Collins parental kidnapping case.

In that case, City Pages served as unabashed cheerleaders for a mother who several Minnesota courts found: medically abused her kids; alienated her kids from their decent, loving father; buried practically everyone around her--including her own mother--in a staggering array of false accusations; and ultimately kidnapped the kids (and another father's baby boy) and held them in Holland for 14 years.

To learn more about the Holly Collins case, see my findings on it here.

Are You Facing a Parental Abduction? Parental Alienation? If you're faced with a Parental Abduction, Parental Alienation, or interstate child custody or child support problems, custody consultant Judianne Cochran can help. Cochran is a specialist with 30 years experience helping reunite parents and children. To learn more, click here, or email her at jbcochran44@msn.com.

Several of you sent me this so-called "Public Safety Emergency" from the University of Connecticut. I suggest readers call the campus police at (860) 486-4800 and ask them why this seemingly harmless non-incident is cause for an Emergency annoucnement to be sent out via email to the campus community.

Kathleen Parker's Save the Males Cultural provocateur Kathleen Parker, who was raised by her father and who mothered a pack of boys, makes a humorous case for rescuing the allegedly stronger sex from trends that portend man's cultural demise. Save the Males is a shrewd, amusing, and sure-to-be-controversial look at how men, maleness, and fatherhood have been under siege in American culture for decades. To learn more or to purchase Save the Males, click here.

From Venezuela's Jews Fear More Attacks As Chavez' Anti-Israel Campaign Intensifies (Associated Press, 2/6/09):

As President Hugo Chavez intensifies his anti-Israel campaign, some Venezuelans have taken action, threatening Jews in the street and vandalizing the largest synagogue in Caracas--where they stole a database of names and addresses.

Now many in Venezuela's Jewish community fear the worst is yet to come.

Chavez has personally taken care not to criticize Israelis or Jews while accusing Israel's government of genocide against the Palestinians. He vehemently denies inciting religious intolerance, let alone violence.

But Venezuela's Jewish leaders, the Organization of American States and the U.S. State Department say Chavez's harsh criticism has inspired a growing list of hate crimes, including a Jan. 30 invasion of Caracas' largest synagogue.

About 15 people overpowered two security guards at the Tiferet Israel Synagogue, shattering religious objects and spray-painting "Jews, get out" on the walls. Most worrisome, according to Elias Farache, president of the Venezuelan-Israelite Association, was their theft of a computer database containing many names and addresses of Jews in Venezuela.

Police are now posted outside the synagogue, and prosecutors said Friday that the security guards "could be involved." Venezuela's attorney general ordered them to court on Feb. 13 _ two days before Venezuelans vote in a referendum that could enable Chavez to extend his rule indefinitely.

One week before the invasion, a Chavista columnist named Emilio Silva posted a call to action on Aporrea, a pro-government Web site, describing Jews as "squalid"--a term Chavez often uses to describe his opponents as weak--and exhorting Venezuelans to confront them as anti-government conspirators.

"Publicly challenge every Jew that you find in the street, shopping center or park," he wrote, "shouting slogans in favor of Palestine and against that abortion: Israel."

Silva called for protests at the synagogue, a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses, seizures of Jewish-owned property, the closure of Jewish schools and a nationwide effort "to denounce publicly, with names and last names the members of powerful Jewish groups present in Venezuela."

Aporrea later replaced the column with an apology that describes Silva's posting as anti-Semitic and exhorts Chavistas to show more discipline by criticizing the Israeli government rather than its people or Jews in general.

The events in Venezuela underscore the wisdom of the Founding Fathers' decision to include the right to bear arms in our constitution.  While there are certainly serious drawbacks to the right to bear arms, this nation's founders correctly saw the second amendment as a way for the common people to resist a tyrannical government, and also as a way for besieged ethnic or religious minorities to defend themselves.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks I wrote:

At the moment, the principal beneficiaries of the right to bear arms are American Muslims, who have come under attack by those who somehow hold them responsible for last week's horrific events. Over the past week Muslims have been the victims of dozens of despicable hate-crimes. Gas station attendants have been shot at, punched, and attacked with machetes. Mosques, temples, and Islamic centers have been fired upon, vandalized, firebombed, and attacked with Molotov cocktails. Businesses have been burned down and fire-bombed. Muslim girls have been beaten, a Pakistani woman was almost run over by a car, and a Sudanese man was attacked with a knife.

At least two victims of these hate-crimes are dead. Muslim-owned businesses have closed and many parents have held their children out of school because they fear harassment and violence. Small groups of Muslims in isolated, rural areas have been threatened and fear assaults upon their communities.

There are many instances in American history of besieged ethnic or religious groups successfully using the second amendment right of armed self-defense. During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, for example, armed Korean merchants and residents brandished weapons to defend their homes and businesses from the angry mobs who had specifically targeted them.

In the late 1950s, Civil Rights leader Robert F. Williams led the black community of Monroe, North Carolina in its struggle to defend itself against the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups. Inspired by armed Native Americans who had recently repelled a white supremacist attack on their reservation, Williams organized armed self-defense patrols which successfully defended the black community against marauding racist vigilantes.

One hundred and fifty years ago this month besieged free blacks, escaped slaves, and abolitionists also made good use of the right of armed self-defense. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, which gave Southerners the right to send slave catchers into the North to capture and re-enslave escaped slaves, the legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass recommended that fugitive slaves and their allies organize armed self-defense. There followed many instances, including the famous Battle of Christiana, Pennsylvania in September of 1851, where white abolitionists, free blacks, and escaped slaves united, took up arms, and fought off slave catchers.

What opponents of the second amendment have never understood is that the prime benefit of the right to bear arms is now and always has been reaped without a shot being fired. The main benefit does not lie in the occasional person who shoots an attacker in self-defense. It doesn't lie in the many attacks that are stopped by warning shots or the brandishing of a weapon. The main value of the second amendment is that anybody who considers attacking a home, a business, or a community, has to fear one thing above all--the people there may be armed.

The full article was Attacks on American Muslims Reaffirm Wisdom of 2nd Amendment (Pasadena Star-News & Affiliated Papers, 9/19/01).

I'm also reminded of Russian dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn's assertion that the Soviet purges on the 1930s--where millions were arrested and sent to labor camps--simply could not have happened if people were armed and police suffered casualties when trying to make arrests. The zeal of the oppressor, whether it be an anti-Semitic mob or thuggish secret police, seldom extends to being willing to be fired upon.

To Hugo Chavez's credit, he "phoned [Jewish leader Elias] Farache...in a conversation broadcast live on state television, and vowed to guarantee the safety of Venezuela's 15,000 Jews. He condemned the synagogue attack." I would also add that criticism of Israeli polices, including misguided criticism, is not the same as anti-Semitism.

Well, it was almost an amicable split. From Jennifer Love Hewitt embroiled in a custody battle over her dog:

Despite an amicable split from fiance Ross McCall earlier this month, neither party can bear to be separated from their boxer Mona.

Jennifer is even believed to be resorting to dirty tricks to win the pooch's loyalties.

A source revealed to the New York Daily News newspaper: "Jennifer is even attempting to change Mona's name so that when Ross calls, the dog won't come."

These pet custody fights seem to be more and more common. A few months ago we cited the article Playboy Playmate fights husband for custody of Chihuahua (Examiner.com, 11/17/08):

The subject of a bitter custody battle between a Playboy model and her husband is their Chihuahua, Bonnie. March 2008 Playmate, Ida Ljungqvist, is being accused by her estranged husband, Joshua R. Lang, of wrongfully taking the pooch when she split on September 11.

"I love Bonnie and miss her tremendously," Lang stated in a sworn declaration submitted to the court, adding that the dog was like his "child." He is asking a Santa Monica Superior Court judge to issue an order forcing the voluptuous brunette to return the Chihuahua to him, or allow visitation rights every other week.

Ljungqvist's attorneys insist that Lang bought the dog as a gift to her, and that she will not be returning it. Born in Tanzania to a Swedish father and Tanzanian mother, Ljungqvist, 27, is the first Playmate to have been born in Africa.

Lang denies that the dog was a gift and claims that he was Bonnie's primary caretaker: walking her, taking her to the dog park, hiking around Malibu with her, and traveling with her to San Francisco and Arizona. He even got a dog trainer and people who frequent the Barrington Dog Run in Brentwood to sign a petition supporting him...

I wrote:

Mixed emotions on this one. On one hand, Ljungqvist's tactics obviously mirror those commonly used by mothers against fathers.

On the other hand, it's just a dog. I guess I can't really comment fairly on this--I've never understood people's obsession with their dogs and cats.

I guess I feel the same way about Jennifer Love Hewitt's apparent attempts to separate the dog from her ex...

Parenting Plan Calendar Software Shared Ground (R) is an easy-to-use software program designed for divorced parents to track their parenting plan schedules over many years. Parents, attorneys, arbitrators and mediators can generate equitable parenting plans, which is especially useful for parents seeking fair division of their children's time. MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. Click here for more information.

"Every time I look in the mirror I see my dad. I think that's why this song means so much to me."--Chet Atkins

I Still Can't Say Goodbye
(Performed by Chet Atkins)

When I was young, my Dad would say
Come on Son let's go out and play
Sometimes it seems like yesterday

And I'd climb up the closet shelf
When I was all by my-self
Grab his hat and fix the brim
Pretending I was him

No matter how hard I try
No matter how many tears I cry
No matter how many years go by
I still can't say good-bye

He always took care of Mom and me.
We all cut down a Christmas tree
He always had some time for me

Wind blows through the trees
Street lights, they still shine bright
Most things are the same
but I miss my Dad to-night

I walked by a Salvation Army store
Saw a hat like my daddy wore
Tried it on when I walked in
Still trying to be like him

No matter how hard I try
No matter how many years go by
No matter how many tears I cry
I still can't say good-bye

SAMSONLAW--Divorce Lawyers for Michigan Men & Fathers If you're a Michigan man faced with divorce, you need SAMSONLAW on your side--SAMSONLAW defends men. Smart Advocacy Means Stopping Oppression Now. INeedSamson.com

In a speech last Father's Day, however, Obama said something important and, perhaps, change-making: "If we are honest with ourselves, we'll admit that what too many fathers . . . are missing - missing from too many lives and too many homes. . . . They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it." Properly, Obama was speaking to Americans of all races...

To Santorum's credit, he does understand the problems caused by fatherlessness:

Social scientists have chronicled the attendant devastation. Rapes, murders, drug abuse, sexual abuse, abortions, and out-of-wedlock pregnancies up; marriages, diplomas and jobs down. The problem is especially acute in Philadelphia, where, for example, the murder rate is about three times the national average, and rape is nearly twice it.

However, he quickly goes off the rails again:

There are as many reasons for this societal mayhem as there are statistics documenting it. At its core, however, is the irresponsibility of fathers.

Tell the Philadelphia Inquirer that many fathers (black and white) want a larger role in their children's lives but are thwarted by the family law system--to write a Letter to the Editor, click here.

Also, tell Rick Santorum how you feel by clicking on rsantorum@phillynews.com.

As Santorum alluded, Obama decided to mark Father's Day 2008 by bashing fathers, particularly black fathers. Obama put all blame for family breakdown squarely on men. This is beyond ludicrous. It's doubtful that many dads wake up in the morning and say to themselves, "My child loves me and needs me, my wife/girlfriend loves me and needs me--I'm outta here."

When a divorced or separated mother does not want her children's father around anymore, she can usually push him out, particularly if the father does not earn enough money to pay for legal representation. Courts tilt heavily towards mothers in awarding custody, and enforce fathers' visitation rights indifferently. In most states, mothers are free to move their children hundreds or thousands of miles away from their fathers, often permanently destroying the fathers' bonds with their children.

Despite the stereotype of the feckless and irresponsible male, research shows that the vast majority of divorces as well as many break-ups of unmarried couples are initiated by women, not by men. Yes, some mothers have good reasons for these breakups. Yet, as Jonetta Rose Barras, the African-American author of Whatever Happened to Daddy's Little Girl, explains, many black fathers are simply being "kicked to the curb."

Another major part of black fatherlessness--which neither Obama nor Santorum mentioned--is that the women often have kids without ever having any intention of having a father in the kids' lives.

Also, the Urban League's 2006 report on the state of black America concluded that the child support system and its abuses often drive African-American men out of their children's lives, and either underground or into crime.

Santorum is correct that the benefits that involved black fathers--even divorced or separated ones--can provide their children are substantial. For example, a recent study of low-income African-American and Hispanic families by Boston College found that when nonresident fathers are involved in their adolescent children's lives, the incidence of substance abuse, violence, crime, and truancy decreases markedly. The study's lead author, professor Rebekah Levine Coley, says the study found involved nonresident fathers to be "an important protective factor for adolescents."

Write a Letter to the Editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, click here. Write Rick Santorum, click on rsantorum@phillynews.com.

Below my co-blogger Robert Franklin has some thoughts on Santorum's article. Robert writes:

We've got an epidemic of fatherlessness in this country.  Most people know that.  A few even know that it's a problem.  They know at least something about the host of problems fatherlessness causes for children, mothers, the fathers themselves and society generally.  Former United States Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, seems to be one who understands a little of this.

Unfortunately, it's only a little.  He's also swallowed the line that "the irresponsibility of fathers" is what keeps fathers from children.  Not a word about family courts and laws that do everything in their power to separate fathers from children, not a word about non-enforcement of visitation, false abuse claims, paternity fraud, women who keep children secret from the dad, move-aways, kidnappings, and on and on.  Not a word about an adoption industry that avoids notice to biological fathers like a lethal STD.  And of course, not a word about a culture that demonizes fathers, since, well, that's what Santorum is doing himself.

Somewhat to his credit Santorum acknowledges that there are "disincentives" to real fatherhood.  He just doesn't mention what they are.

Not all men are good fathers; not all men want to be fathers; some men shirk their responsibilities.  All that is true.  But there's a boatload of social science data on men that contradicts the mythology Santorum is peddling.  According to it men in general want connection to their children.  For some, it's the most important thing in life.

Read the writings of Irwin Garfinkel, Sara MacLanahan, Ross Parke, Armin Brott, Sanford Braver and countless others, and the image of fathers that comes across is one of men who strongly desire an active role in their children's lives.  And that is true, it should be emphasized, in the face of a culture that, at every bend of the road tries to blunt that desire.  Men are immersed in a culture that tells them that they are incompetent to care for children, dangerous to children, uninterested in children and that their only legitimate role in the whole affair is to provide money.  Men look around and see that stuff every day.

Given those "disincentives," imagine what fathers could do with even a little encouragement.  Imagine what would happen if the media had frequent news items, articles, television and radio programs showing competent, loving fathers, men fulfilled by fatherhood.  Imagine if boys weren't born to single mothers.  Imagine if, in two-parent families, the mother didn't shoulder the dad aside and demean his efforts at childcare.

Imagine if governments budgeted real money to teach parenting skills to fathers, if schools and doctors offices and PTAs didn't assume when fathers show up alone with children that they're pedophiles.  Imagine if dads weren't thrown out of their houses and the lives of their children solely on the say-so of an angry wife.  Imagine if former U.S. senators knew what they were talking about when they published op-ed pieces in major newspapers.

Then we might see what dads can really do and, into the bargain, who's actually a deadbeat and who isn't.

Help for Los Angeles/Ventura County Dads Peter M. Walzer, Certified Family Law Specialist www.California-Divorce.com

The story is now out, and while it does slant towards custodial parents' problems, as Higgins originally intended, he does include the other side, too. Some of the more positive sections include:

Debts pile up for a variety of reasons, including classic deadbeats who refuse to pay their share, non-custodial parents who are poor or underemployed themselves, or parents who are in prison. But families not receiving the support due them are a major contributor to poverty and other social problems, advocates for children and families said...

It's easy to rack up a large child support debt, but not easy to pay it off while staying current, said Robert Meyer, a child support magistrate in the Family Court systems of Albany and Rensselaer counties.

Every day, Meyer writes child support orders using a state formula, as well as some of his own discretion, to decide what parents who do not have full custody of their children will pay to the custodial parent. Generally, parents who pay child support must pay 17 percent of their net income for one child and progressively larger amounts for additional children up to 35 percent. There are 10 other variables a magistrate must consider, including health care and education costs, and whether paying the required amount would leave the non-custodial parent below the poverty line.

He said he sees many instances of parents who are trying to pay past-due child support but have either lost their jobs or earn so little to begin with it's nearly impossible to catch up.

One father in Meyer's court room recently was told he must start paying immediately on a debt of $20,000. But the father wasn't working and his only income is disability payments. The amount was set at $15 per month, to stay current with what he owed plus an additional $5 a month toward his arrears. That means he won't be paid up for over 300 years.

Meyer said it's frustrating when it's obvious the parent who has fallen behind will never be fully paid up.

[Scott Cade, the director of the state's child support enforcement program,] said the state system needs to be more realistic when it comes to large arrears in cases when a debtor parent is jailed or has serious health complications, or even in cases of unemployment. When people fall seriously behind, he said, there seems to be less of an effort made to stay current. The ODTA is trying to get a legislative package introduced in the Legislature this year that would give judges greater flexibility to modify support orders, with the goal being to come up with more realistic terms, and, they argue, a more likely scenario under which a parent will pay anything at all.

To write Higgins a letter, click here. To write a Letter to the Editor of the Albany Times Union, click here.

WHYJUDGELITTLE.com I was sued & lost custody for becoming a firefighter by my ex-wife Dora Heisey. Alabama Judge Loyd H. Little, Jr. has ignored his own rulings & reversed himself 3 times. Judge Little miscounted the number of days he had to rule & would not correct his mistake which has placed my son in a worse custody situation. Many like me have lost complete confidence in the Alabama judicial system.--Chris Hobbs, Dad www.WHYJUDGELITTLE.com