Doing Right Thing Less Optional Now
There have always been parents who abandon their children emotionally, financially or both.
James Cagney said of his father, “After he died, my mother found an old checkbook among his effects, and the stubs read as high as $150 and $200, all to his bookmaker. That money would have seemed a fortune to us if we had seen even half of it.”
On both ends of the political spectrum today, it’s financial support that looms most important. But to children, emotional abandonment hurts worse. Ask any elementary school child. Many know of a classmate who clings to a treasured stuffed animal, a tattered photograph or a mythical tale about a dad who has disappeared, a mom who is missing.
Often the two forms of support - financial and emotional - are linked.
Washington has launched a new effort designed to give deadbeat parents stronger incentives to start paying owed child support. At the same time, state workers also hope, perhaps a bit wistfully, that their efforts might result in more emotional connection between parents and children.
This state’s 55,000 delinquent parents will soon receive letters warning them that they now risk losing a wide variety of state licenses. For parents who treasure a new car more highly than their own children’s needs for food or clothing, the state can revoke driver’s licenses, giving these parents a chance to stay home and reconsider their priorities.
For parents who prefer spending money on a deer hunting expedition or steelhead fishing weekend, the state can revoke hunting and fishing licenses. For parents who rely on a professional license to keep working as a plumber, cosmetologist or surgeon, the state can pull professional and business licenses.
Other states, including Idaho, have already found this approach successful. A Wallace doctor has become the poster boy for Idaho’s system. He wouldn’t pay court-ordered $1,000 monthly payments for his two teenage sons but did manage to buy a sailboat.
Nationally, other states have started posting most-wanted lists on the Internet, with names, photos and descriptions of deadbeat parents. Washington is watching that idea closely. Doing whatever it takes to bring irresponsible parents into line will be good for both the state’s taxpayers - who in nearly half of the cases finance the family’s public assistance checks - and for the children themselves.
Andrew Lloyd Weber describes a father as “the first man you remember, the last man you forget.” A parent’s legacy is long, wide and deep.
Washington’s new law will help more fathers - and mothers - create a legacy with some meaning.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jamie Tobias Neely/For the editorial board