When people ask me how I can be divorced with two children and pay no child support, I tell them I took a cue from Nancy Reagan; I “just said no.”

I took the road less traveled.

I’ve been fortunate to be a full-time musician for the past twenty-three years. Since our daughter’s birth in 2003, I have been at home with her during the day and working at night. Three years before my marriage ended, my wife and I agreed to switch roles. I was overly ambitious to make this arrangement work and found a way to work a day job, teach, perform in an Off-Broadway show at night, and play drums at weddings and corporate events. I paid all the bills while she took care of our daughter.

After two years of trying to fit back into the corporate world, I noticed a lack of communication between my wife and me. My focus was on our family; her attention appeared on the social calendar. My frustration with what seemed to be a lop-sided allocation of duties in our homemade for several stress-filled months. Not only was I the sole breadwinner, but I also took care of many of the responsibilities at home. The birth of our second child only intensified the tension.

Working a full-time job, playing several gigs, and doing much of the housework burnt me out, so I quit my corporate job. Meanwhile, my wife was unwilling to continue the therapy sessions we’d set up to find a way to repair our marriage. She hired an attorney and filed for divorce.

Our custody battle began in Family Court. I received a court order for spousal support during our first hearing since she wasn’t working. It stipulated I must continue paying all of our bills until our case went to the Supreme Court. On top of paying the household expenses, I had to pay my ex an additional $500 cash each month. I was furious. I questioned why I was responsible for everything financially, and my wife was only accountable for childcare.

Soon after filing, my wife began using the children as pawns. She filled the kid’s schedules with play dates, and after one of our many heated arguments, she took the kids to her mother’s home in another state for two weeks so I couldn’t see them. In addition to the attempts at alienating me from our children, my wife called the police after several arguments in futile attempts to have me vacate the marital residence and be thrown in jail. Luckily for me, she was unable to use the silver bullet effectively.

When a parent lies to law enforcement during a domestic dispute while a custody battle is at its peak, it practically guarantees child custody and optimal parenting time. The accuser rarely, if ever, needs evidence to support the claim.

A typical contentious divorce with children often starts with one parent falsely vilifying the other. A new case may include false child abuse claims, and they may even proclaim it will be repeated. No evidence or corroborating witnesses are needed, and the concept of due process is not applicable. Depending on the county and jurisdiction, it might only take an affidavit of a couple of pages.
More often than not, police will arrive and haul the targeted parent out of the marital home with protective orders.

When these incidents occur, there is scant access to immediate legal recourse. The accused is unlikely to see their children again for days, weeks, months, and sometimes years from this point forward. What is said in their defense is rarely of any significance. This almost happened to me.

My ex-wife called the authorities to our tiny apartment eight times in the first few months of our divorce. The calls to the police stemmed from arguments we regularly had at the time. After the first few of these visits with law enforcement, I understood what was happening. I realized she was trying to get me thrown out of the apartment. It dawned on me that I had just as much of a right to call the police on her. Officers who stopped by our home realized there was no need to take anyone to jail. We were never violent towards one another or the children. What we had were intense and heated arguments.

I’ll never forget how dismissive one NYPD officer was during one of the first few visits. As my ex was allowed to take our daughter and son out of the house and away from our home, the policeman said it was allowed because, “Well, she’s the mom.”

I began to call the police on her during the same episodes she attempted to take my liberty away. I realized that fighting fire with fire in specific battles is a valuable tactic. I wasn’t allowing that or my time with our kids to be stolen without fighting.

Things began to change when our case was transferred to New York State Supreme Court. A few months into our dispute, I received an unlikely source of inspiration. My family gave me a father’s day gift certificate to a men’s spa. Here is where I received life-changing advice from a female staff member who’d gone through a divorce several years before. She and her former spouse had agreed that the father should raise their son. She informed me that couples had the option to “opt-out” of paying child support upon dissolution of a marriage in New York State. I immediately called my attorney and told him I wanted to do just that: opt out.

I must acknowledge one piece of the puzzle that gave me a slight advantage at that time. In 2008, New York was the last state who hadn’t adopted no-fault laws. I had leverage no one can use in court today. My ex-wife, at that time, would have to prove I constructively abandoned the marriage. Constructive abandonment is one example of abandonment where a spouse has refused to engage in sexual relations for at least one year. That wasn’t going to be easy for her to prove. It was laughable.

In October 2010, New York became the last of the 50 states to enact legislation allowing for no-fault divorce. The legislature did not repeal the existing grounds but instead added a no-fault ground for divorce. Spouses can now end their marriage without citing specific grounds, admitting any instances of wrongdoing, or waiting for the one-year separation period.

Most people have no idea that your spouse can file for divorce for any reason and not prove why they want out of the marriage. Everyone is at the mercy of their spouse due to no-fault laws. In a no-fault divorce, a spouse need only testify that the marriage has been “irretrievably broken.” The statute describing the new “no-fault” ground for divorce in New York State now permits anyone to allege in their divorce complaint that “The relationship between husband and wife has broken down irretrievably for a period of at least six months.” This provision means couples no longer have to endure court battles over who is to blame when a marriage is broken.

This is a real disadvantage for the monied spouse in my state because a custodial parent can benefit from the state child support guidelines. The spouse who makes more money is often ordered to pay the non-custodial parent.

At the time, my attorney and I decided to contest my ex’s grounds for divorce. We were willing to compel her to tell the truth under oath. My ex would have perjured herself in court since there were several inconsistencies in her sworn deposition. Her attorney decided it would be unwise for her to proceed. This was the turning point that forced a settlement.

After 11 months of being in court, we agreed that my parenting time would take place during the day, hers at night. Neither of us would pay child support. We chose to opt out. I refused to pay her, especially after what had occurred in the previous ten months. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Why should I pay my ex when we would be sharing the children equally? Why was there even the assumption she would be the custodial parent?

In a typical case, if a non-custodial parent can convince their ex-spouse to opt out of receiving child support payments, that parent will not be required to make them. The custodial parent may choose to opt out of child support if they understand it will be a burden for the co-parent. When parents agree on staying out of the state system and don’t want to put each other through the resulting legal and financial obligations, opting out is possible.

It’s not common for parents to opt out of child support. A custodial parent will typically want some financial assistance in raising a child once there is a separation. If parents think rationally and less emotionally, an agreement on the actual expenses of raising their children can be reached. It’s not very difficult. Usually, a situation that involves both parents opting out of a child support arrangement is an amicable situation in which no hard feelings are between parents. Even if it’s a high conflict divorce like mine, reasonable decisions can be made.

After we settled in July of 2008, I walked out of the court secure in the knowledge that I could financially support our two children in a way that made much more sense to me. I did not succumb to the societal pressure to pay an ex-wife, child, or spousal support because men have historically done so.

It’s a shock to suddenly realize the person you married and had children with wants to use the state to take your kids away and ruin you financially. I was determined to get the court to understand the seriousness of my desire to be a fully committed parent. I certainly thought of giving up the fight during our legal drama but never did.

During our custody battle, I understood how the court system worked and how the law applied in my particular case. I persevered by demonstrating that I was rational, reasonable, and always focused on our children’s best interests. Instead of relying solely on historical precedent, I saw the bigger picture and thought long term. I was willing to go through the financial expense of seeing it through.

I used several tactics to my advantage:

• I never left or was forced out of our marital residence.
• I managed to avoid physical altercations by keeping my emotions in check as much as possible.
• I avoided being taken to jail by the NYPD by calmly explaining my side of the story and kept my focus by remaining devoted to our two children.
• I always took the high road and never talked badly about my ex to our children, no matter how tempting. I still don’t. She is the mother of our kids. They love her just as much as they love me.

Child support should be ordered only when a spouse chooses to abdicate the responsibilities of raising their children. There is rarely an excuse for a parent to abandon their offspring. I know the stories of fathers who get taken advantage of by unscrupulous attorneys who don’t offer alternatives and other potential options their clients can pursue.

I have discovered that many fathers do not want to leave their kids in my subsequent research. Many times they are forced out of the house. Many years ago, mandatory arrest laws were passed to protect mothers who have been abused. They were often used as a weapon to force fathers from their homes straight into jail. Punitive child support orders and the threat of imprisonment, if it isn’t paid consistently, have been a few reasons for the increase of widespread fatherlessness over the past 50 years. The threat of divorce, child support orders, or jail shouldn’t stop a devoted father from having a healthy relationship with his children. I feel no one should have the right to deny that vital relationship unless there are serious criminal matters and there is due process.

Too many parents intentionally abuse a system set up in the 1960′s and 1970′s that was designed to protect mothers from abuse and assist them with the necessary expenses of child-rearing children. Today, women have joined the workforce in unprecedented numbers, and birth control frees them from the constraints they were otherwise under. It makes little sense to use the same guidelines a half-century ago when we no longer live that way. Why do we talk about “rolling back women’s rights 50 years” yet keep a system where fathers live by similarly archaic rules in family court?

I have seen many cases where spousal and child support are assumed to be part of a divorce, even though it may be unwarranted. Most attorneys rarely discuss potential options for their clients, like opting out. I truly feel that men who desire to be a part of their children’s lives need not pay their future ex-wives at all.

More often than not, my ex-wife and I peacefully co-exist without a state-ordered child or spousal support order. I must emphasize this particular point: if anyone chooses the road I took, it requires a lifelong commitment to taking care of your children – something that, unfortunately, many fathers aren’t allowed.

I feel each child custody case’s default option should be joint legal and physical custody, with no court-ordered child support absent a compelling reason. The default should be a 50/50 split of parenting time. If that can’t happen and money needs to be transferred, the person receiving the funds must be held accountable for how the money is spent. As it stands now, there is no way to account for how child support funds are used.

The more often we keep the filthy claws of state and federal government out of our lives, the better. Once they get in, they never let go. The formation of the family court system, the state and federal offices of child support enforcement, and all of the affiliated positions associated with it, have created a massive state-controlled Industry whose sole function is to affect the enormous transfer of wealth from fathers to mothers.

The increase in state intrusion in our personal lives, coupled with the culture of entitlement and unreasonable expectations currently embedded in our public consciousness, creates a system that feeds upon itself. This former government safety net has turned into a spider web. Eventually, it will bleed fathers dry, and the victims are children.

There is no evidence indicating fathers are incapable of parenting and mothers. Fathers are biologically tied to their kids via the same hormones as mothers. The notion that mothers can’t – and shouldn’t be asked to – support themselves after a divorce violates the most basic concepts of gender equality. Overwhelmingly, fathers aren’t equal parents because they’re acquiescing to mothers’ wishes. For far too long, we have been told that mothers are the primary parent and fathers the secondary.

Our culture is due for a drastic paradigm shift. It’s time to stop seeing one parent as the default and the other as just a visitor. These assumptions are often sexist and outdated. If the parents can no longer live together, the next best thing is to have equal time with each parent.

Family courts usually pick one parent to “win custody.” However, in the long run, the children are the biggest losers. When one side of their family suddenly is cut off, children have a strained relationship with the non-custodial parent and the extended family. For example, they may rarely see their aunts, uncles, cousins, or grandparents. Extended family relationships are often a vital support system.

Child custody cases can last for weeks, months, or years. Children are frequently denied both parents’ best while a judgment is determined during this time. Setting a rebuttable presumption of equally shared parenting for temporary orders, with room for exceptions if one parent is demonstrably unfit, will shift the starting point to what’s best for children. It will also free a judge’s time to review and consider more challenging matters.

Children fare better when they don’t lose one parent to divorce. With a shared parenting presumption in divorce proceedings, neither parent is forced to work long hours at work and bear the complete burden of child care at night. With shared parenting, children of divorce will also manifest fewer dysfunctional behaviors that demand resources like prisons and drug and alcohol intervention programs.

When parents equally share responsibilities and financial obligations, it’s a win-win for all involved. Parents can have more time to focus on their careers, care for one of their parents, be more physically, financially, and mentally fit. There is also room to possibly start new relationships.

When two loving parents want to be actively involved in their children’s lives after divorce, there is no need to travel down the expected family court path – mandatory child and spousal support. You can opt out just like I did. It does take time, money, strategy, the right circumstances, and perseverance.

Most divorces are settled. That means anything and everything is negotiable, even child support. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. I am living proof that there is another way.

Thirteen years later, my kids are doing very well. They have both of their parents in their lives regularly. While it isn’t in the same home, they have the same amount of love. Just because mom and dad no longer love each other, the children probably do.

When people divorce or separate, it doesn’t end the family; it just rearranges it.

I originally wrote this essay way back in 2013. It was titled: “Why I REFUSE To Pay Child Support.” I figured I’d revisit the essay, update it to include my thoughts on shared parenting, and show that yes, you indeed can opt-out of paying child support. It’s interesting to look back at what I was thinking. My experience in court permanently altered my thinking about equality, justice, and the inner workings of all levels of government. Not much has changed since those days. What has changed is how I work with my former court adversary.

Today, my ex-wife and I worked together in ways I never imagined. Our roles as parents are evolving. They aren’t babies needing diapers and breast milk any longer. They have outgrown their toddler phase, “graduated” from elementary school, and are now thinking about careers. It’s fascinating to see them turning into young adults.

I’ve had numerous conversations with divorcing fathers since 2008. I’ve been a sounding board for them. When they reach out to me, they have a person who will listen to their story. I’ve helped many of them by just keeping my mouth shut and being that person who understands what they are going through. Some had to give up and pay their ex-wives, and I get it. Others are still in the fight. I want to continue being a living example of how anyone can beat the system.

 

Clayton Craddock hosts the Broadway Drumming 101 Podcast and Newsletter. He is the founder and publisher of the social and political commentary newsletter Think Things Through and the host of the Think Things Through Podcast.

Clayton has held the drum chair in several hit broadway and off-broadway musicals, including Tick, tick…BOOM!, Altar Boyz, Memphis The Musical, Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar and Grill and Ain’t Too Proud.

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