Mercer L. Sullivan
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This section of the report is based on focus group interviews conducted with a total of 42 noncustodial fathers in New York City by Mercer Sullivan and Terry Williams. Three of the groups, interviewed in August 1990, were made up of residents of predominantly low-income neighborhoods of New York City. Most of the men had low levels of education and many had persistent employment problems. Many were the fathers of children receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and all were African-American adults. The 17 members of two groups organized by Terry Williams were residents of Harlem and ranged in age from 19 to 39. Most were in their mid-twenties to early thirties. The 14 members of a group organized by Mercer Sullivan were residents of Brownsville (in the borough of Brooklyn) and had a similar age distribution. Several of the participants in these groups had more than one child, often by different mothers. The Brownsville group included some steadily employed men along with others who were unemployed, some on a long-term basis and others temporarily. In the Harlem group, fewer men seemed to be steadily employed and some openly claimed to have illegal incomes.
A fourth focus group interview was conducted by Mercer Sullivan with 11 white noncustodial fathers in February 1992, and was supplemented by brief individual telephone interviews with the participants. Most of these men were from the borough of Queens. None were college-educated and all had low to moderate incomes. Several were recruited through a research center in Brooklyn, near the Queens border, that offers free testing for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), the virus that causes AIDS. Many of the men who come in for these tests are current or former users of intravenous (IV) drugs. However, to broaden the focus group membership, several men who were neither current nor former IV drug users were recruited through those originally contacted at the research center. Of the 11 participants, five were receiving methadone treatment. The other six were neither methadone nor IV drug users, although some had at one time in their lives abused drugs or alcohol. The men ranged in age from 23 to 49. They were all noncustodial fathers, and their children ranged in age from 2 to 24.
The questions asked in all four New York City focus groups concerned the fathers' relationships with their children and with the mothers of their children, their own personal histories (especially their work histories), and their knowledge of and contact with the child support enforcement system.
The following discussion of the fathers' attitudes and behaviors is divided into two parts. The first reports on the interviews with the Harlem and Brownsville men, all African-Americans. The second reports on the white men from Queens. While the employment experiences of the two populations differ -- with more job-holding among the white men -- their views of fatherhood and child support are similar.
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Contrary to prevailing stereotypes, the men in these focus groups expressed powerful feelings about men's responsibilities toward their families. These expressions came both in response to direct questions, such as "What does it mean to be a father?", and spontaneously in the course of discussions of more specific topics, such as how many children they had and where they lived. It was quite apparent that the men's own emotional lives were intensely bound up both with their own children and with other family and household relations, including their own families of origin and other children with whose mothers they maintained relationships. Such expressions of paternal feeling as "I love them" and "that's your blood" recur throughout the focus group transcripts. One participant spoke of his feelings on the birth of his child: "I was proud to be a father, I was really excited and I said … God bless the little kid."
Some of the men seemed to be explicitly addressing a perceived stereotype of African-American men as lacking in paternal feeling. One said, "Black men today do not like to lose their children." Another said, "A black man is supposed to support his black kids … you are supposed to take care of that because that's yours."
These same men, however, also acknowledged freely that they and other men in their communities, including their own fathers, were often separated from their children. One said:
Whether I'm with the woman or not, that's mine and I'm gonna take care of mine because I didn't like the way mines did us.
Another, asked to rate the importance of a man's taking care of his children, on a scale of one to 10, said, "I say the full 10 because it don't go that way but that's the way it's supposed to be." Another expressed his own sorrow at separation: "I love my children very much. I miss them now. Sorry me and their mother couldn't get along." Many see their children frequently. Others do not. One was a primary caretaker of one child and a noncustodial parent of another. Some are primary caretakers for days and weeks at a time.
The men had lived all their lives in communities where fathers are often separated from their children, which seems to color their views of family responsibilities. Discord in their romantic relationships with the mothers of their children (most were not married). For some, involvement with drugs, crime, and incarceration also affected their views. A number of their stories and discussions illustrate these themes.
For example, some of their feelings of manhood and attempts to support their children appeared to be closely tied to their own experiences of having grown up separated from their fathers. One spoke of "knowing that yours didn't do right by you, so, if you make a family, you gonna want to do right." Another said, "I don't know my pops, so I always wanted my son to be with his, to know his father." Another focus group member expressed the relationship between child support and manhood directly: "A dog can make a baby. A man can take care of it."
Several of the men were in complicated family situations in which they felt responsibility to multiple households, not just those in which their own biological children resided. Some lived with their own families of origin and said things such as, "I'm staying with family and I got to pay rent there." One man said that when he received his meager paycheck, he first gave some to his mother, with whom he resided. He explained, "I hit Mama first, you know how them elderlies are, living on SSI [Supplemental Security Income] type of thing." Others said they lived with women who had children by other men and made their first contributions to those households.
Complicated family situations were also reflected in conversations about sexual and romantic relationships. One topic discussed at length in one group was whether having more than one woman increased one's feeling of manhood. Another reason for their multiple relationships with women emerged when they talked about their difficulties in attracting and staying attractive to women. In both groups, some men talked about how interested women are in money and how a man without money cannot attract them:
They are greedy, man.If you don't got money, they don't want to deal with you.
If they see you with gold, they want to deal with you. Then, if you don't have it on, some girls don't want to talk to you. It depends on the way you dress.
Another man, who is married, said that not being able to find work made him not want to go home and face his wife and children. He concluded that it was easier to have a brief fling with someone new, because that only required "a little money in your pocket" at the time, not a steady income. He said, "On the outside, you can maintain an image; inside, nothing there."
One of the most common reservations expressed about making child support contributions concerned situations in which the mothers of their children were living with other men. Such circumstances appear to have powerful inhibiting effects on their desire to make contributions to their own children. One said:
[A man] feels he may not be supporting the children alone but the mother and the next man. That is why the man is holding back the money.
Others said, "You are worried about the next man," and "Another man might be there to take care of your child and getting the money."
Feelings that a biological father's support obligations are attenuated when the mother is living with another man may be fairly common among noncustodial fathers in all walks of life. Such feelings may be even Ber in poor New York City communities such as Harlem and Brownsville, however, where marriage rates are low, households split and re-form frequently, and poverty enforces a day-to-day coping attitude toward survival. Some men's concerns about where their money was going had to do with fears that the mothers were spending the money on drugs. Several men had faced this problem, with different results. One man said the mother's drug use had caused him to discontinue payments:
She's on crack right now … the money I used to give her to get some Pampers and stuff and I'd come back a little later on, no Pampers, she's not there and what not. That's basically what made me stop going around there, you know.
Another encountered a similar situation and reacted differently. He called a city agency and initiated proceedings to have four children, three of them his, taken out of the mother's custody. Because he was not employed at the time, the children were placed in foster care. He later gained custody of one of his children. At the time of the focus group interview, he was still trying to get custody of his two other children as well as another child of the same mother by a different man. Another focus group participant also had custody of his child as a result of the mother's drug problems. This man also had another child, by a different woman, who lived with the mother's mother. In both these cases, the men had previously been absent fathers making irregular contributions but had obtained direct custody when the mothers' drug problems grew more severe.
When asked whether they thought women should be primarily responsible for taking care of children, focus group participants generally disagreed and said that it should be 50-50. Although they were all separated from at least one of their children, several reported providing substantial direct care for their children. One man was providing child care while the mother worked. Others spoke with feeling of their enjoyment of children, including taking care of them.
When asked what a father's responsibilities to his children should be, several stressed that money was not the main thing and was in fact less important than spending time with them and teaching them proper behavior. One man explained: "It takes time more than money. I have time to take with that. That compensates more than money." Outside observations confirmed that this man did in fact spend a lot of time with his children. He had also been making regular contributions until a recent job loss. Other men were quick to support his point of view, with several stressing teaching, instilling respect, and religion as areas of paternal responsibility that are as important as financial support.
The values expressed about fathers' responsibilities were far more uniform than the men's behavior, by their own assessments and by outside confirmation in some cases, although gauging their actual contributions requires some caution. When first asked, most claimed that they were making payments. Upon closer questioning, it appeared that many of these initial claims were exaggerated. (Additional information was available for the Brownsville group because the person who had recruited the participants knew most of them personally.) The exaggerated claims about payments for child support were generally associated with exaggerated claims about income. Most of those in the Brownsville group reported some form of employment, but in many cases they were talking about jobs they no longer held. Many of these men were unemployed or sporadically employed. Some members of the Harlem groups reported regular income from the underground economy (referred to as "hustling" or "scrambling"), but under closer questioning and the scrutiny of their peers, they appeared to be not very successful in illegitimate endeavors either.
In fact, even the men's own reports of their contributions for their children contain many qualifiers, such as "when I can." When pressed, most of those with children by more than one mother admitted to contributing more to some children than to others. In some cases, this was because legal paternity and child support had been established for one child but not for others. More often, it resulted from the fact that there was a closer relationship with one mother than the other(s), either romantically or on the basis of friendship and trust:
I don't see the first one because he is with his mother. She got married to some other guy and they want to keep me out. The other one, I always see him all the time. I buy him things.Whatever I can make I try and send to them, especially my daughter's mother because my son's mother is remarried.
If I am not in the best of moods with their mothers, it does have an effect.
Some men also admitted fluctuations in support over time, related to their own shifting income levels and the demands of the courts, as well as to the ages of the children, the state of their relationships with the mothers, and the extent of their direct contacts with the children. Some had been involved in court cases over support payments and visitation rights, though most had dealt with these disputes outside the legal system. Only one man reported having been legally denied visitation. He was bitter that his inability to earn a decent living had cut him off from his son:
She won't let me see him, won't open the door. Maybe when he gets older, he will want to see me. Maybe if I get a good job, some sense will get into her. Maybe the courts will let him see me.
The focus group participants from Harlem and Brownsville had quite limited ability to make child support payments. Four of the 14 members of the Brownsville focus group could be confirmed as having steady employment and making regular contributions to their children. As many as three other members of that group may also have been contributing regularly. The others did not work regularly; several of the men spent substantial portions of their sporadic income on drugs and alcohol.
Much of the discussion in these groups dealt with the fact that many of these men have difficulty supporting even themselves. Four of them received public assistance in their own names. One of those who was employed described his finances: $125 a week take-home pay, $65 a week for rent, plus carfare, clothes, and food. But he expressed pride in the fact that he had held his job for over a year.
Some of the men's comments on their inability to support themselves and their children included:
You can't work for your child and not live too.It ain't enough money for me to support her and support me.
If you cannot take care of yourself, you cannot take care of your kids.
Most of those who appeared to be making regular payments were working two jobs. Among those who did not have steady employment, it appeared that several were being partially supported by women. One, who was living with his child and the mother, was taking care of the child while the mother worked, though he said the situation had been the reverse previously. Others were living with women on public assistance, which they supplemented either through sporadic legitimate work or occasional street hustles. There was some animated banter in the Harlem group about "pimping." They used this term to describe accepting material support or taking money from women, not supervising prostitution. The tone of the banter indicated that this practice is a recognized way of getting money, partly shameful and partly to be boasted about, depending on the setting.
The other side of pimping, however, concerned the relationship between having money and being able to attract and retain the interest of women. One described the situation as follows: "If a man is with a lady … and he can't find a job … you know what happens to that guy? He wilters, folds up."
Another discussion centered on the relative emotional vulnerability of men and women. The group agreed that men were more vulnerable and were prone to deep depression and suicide when relationships that they cared about fell apart. One man, who had been married, told an extended story of how his inability to support his family led the mother of his child to leave him and move out of the state. He said that this had driven him to heavy drug use. He said:
My heart got touched, and it hurts. See, men go out there and flip. I was doing drugs. They drug themselves to death, be ready to kill themselves.
The economic difficulties of some of the men were also apparent among those who spoke of getting money by selling drugs and other forms of crime, which they referred to generically as "hustling." In contrast to the usual portrayals of drug-dealing, the hustling experiences of the men who participated in the focus groups had not led to quick fortunes. Hustling was for them a highly unreliable source of income, attractive mainly in comparison to their poor opportunities for legitimate employment. Despite some boasting about prowess in street hustles, it was readily apparent from the mens' appearance, the evaluations of their peers, and their own statements that those who participated in the focus groups were no more successful as hustlers than they were in the legitimate job market.
One man said that he was currently hustling and that "when I come off big, that's when I send something to my ex-girl." At the same time, he admitted that his hustling income was insecure and that "at least working's a steady check." Another hustler openly wanted to quit what he was doing, saying, "hopefully I can leave this hustler gig and get a honest job, you know, 'cause what I do now … it's gonna run out."
The men saw substantial difficulties involved in the prospects of getting steady, decent jobs, however. One said that hustling created problems between him and his girlfriend:
She didn't want me to be out in the street hustling, and it was something I wanted to do, the only thing I really knew how to do to make money.
Another said that he had learned this from his family since adolescence:
I've been doing it from like, most of my family is in the business, like my uncle. I'm down, you know, since about 16.
Not all of the men in the Harlem and Brownsville groups were involved in criminal lifestyles, but there was a recognition in the discussions that many men in their communities lead lives that are cut off from the mainstream. For example, in talking about possible programmatic initiatives, one man noted that many men he knew could not get into various programs because they had never registered with Selective Service. Other comments and data indicated that some were working "off the books" or under false Social Security numbers, many were not working at all, some were involved with drugs and crime, and some had no fixed address.
Both the men with substantial employment histories and those without spoke about their lack of access to decent jobs and the underlying reasons for this. They mentioned low levels of education and the instability of jobs they did find. Some complained of having learned skills that became outdated. The most frequently mentioned problem, however, was racial discrimination in the job market. This came up several times in the Harlem and Brownsville groups without being specifically elicited by the focus group leaders:
The jobs is what's wrong. They hire you for two weeks, get your hopes up, squeeze in a white boy. I don't want to go home and face her and the kids with no work. I don't want to go to jail.I see a little racism in the agencies, but I still go down.
I resented white loaders who got to be loadmasters. I felt I could be a loadmaster.
These men had very little knowledge of the specific workings of the child support system. Those who had been through the system, including at least five of the 31 men in the Harlem and Brownsville focus groups, knew more than the others. These men tended to be older and to have more substantial employment histories. Indeed, none of the younger men (in their late teens to early twenties) had ever been in the system. Even those who had been in the system, however, knew very little about it.
Most of the men were unaware of the requirements for establishing legal paternity, for example. Several men in one of the groups said that they were the legal fathers of their children because they had been present at the birth and signed papers. Some of those with children by different mothers said that they were legal fathers of one but not others, also on the basis of whether they had signed papers at the birth. Then one of the group members informed the others, correctly and to their surprise and disbelief, that this was not a sufficient basis for establishing legal paternity, saying that he had learned this in the National Guard.
Members of this same group were also unaware of the highly accurate methods of blood-testing now used in disputed paternity establishment cases. They thought that men with the same blood type were equally likely to be the father of a child with a compatible type on the basis of tests. One said:
If I had one blood test and my best friend had the same blood type and she was fooling around, who is to say he didn't do it too?
Another expressed the same erroneous belief that current tests are based only on blood type:
You have people that is no kin to you, have the same type of blood; that is not exact, they cannot take you to court to produce some money.
When asked whether their children would be entitled to Social Security and benefits for military dependents if they were not married but had established legal paternity, they all said that they thought this should be the case but were not certain whether it was. (Legal paternity does confer these benefits upon children born outside marriage.)
Several were also unaware of the existence of AFDC benefits for two-parent families (in the AFDC-U program), even though New York State has had such a program for years, as well as a Home Relief welfare program for poor families that do not qualify for AFDC. They thought that marriage automatically entailed a cut-off of a woman's AFDC benefits: "Once you are married to them all legal, the welfare cuts her off." Similarly: "The public assistance, a woman can't get it if she is with a man. She can get it if they separate, or the sneak trip [that is, concealment of the relationship]." When one member told the others that they and their children could get welfare if they all lived together, he encountered expressions of disbelief. But an even more surprising aspect of the focus group discussions was the revelation that several of the men who were in contact with their children and their children's mothers did not know whether their children were receiving public assistance.
Even some of the men who had received court orders for child support were baffled at how the system worked. One said he had been puzzled when his paycheck was garnisheed, until he realized that it was the result of a child support action. He said they were "getting it out of my check. I couldn't figure it out. I find out it is for the child support payment. That is the only thing they could take it out for." Another focus group participant had the same experience with a deduction from his income tax return: "I was supposed to get a check for $900, got back $127. I flipped."
One aspect of the child support system that the Harlem and Brownsville men did understand, however, was the fact that court-mandated support payments to children on AFDC go primarily to reimburse the state.
The men in the Harlem and Brownsville focus groups expressed a variety of negative attitudes toward the current child support system, ranging from a generalized but uninformed suspicion among those who had not experienced it directly to a much more specific set of grievances among those who had.
Most of these men had never had child support orders, despite the fact that all of them were noncustodial fathers. There are a number of possible reasons for this. Some of the men had not established legal paternity; not all of their children were enrolled in AFDC, which theoretically requires custodial parents to cooperate with paternity and child support establishment procedures; several had made informal arrangements with the mothers of their children; and several had very little income for the mothers to seek. Three of 14 members of the Brownsville group and at least two of the 17 members of the Harlem groups did have child support orders.
When asked why some men fail to establish paternity at all, they offered two sorts of answers. First, they said that men may be "afraid of responsibility." For one focus group participant, that fear was clearly related to the child support enforcement system. He said:
The first thing they want you to do is make sure that baby has your name on the birth certificate. If anything happens, right, she can get some cream out of you. Legally, she can say that I am the father.
Specific fears of the child support enforcement system, however, were not usually cited as the main reason why men do not establish paternity.
Second, they maintained that the women did not want child support. One man stated that "women nowadays, well, the ones I meet, they don't want your last name for the simple fact that they want to control the child." Another said that he had filled out all the necessary papers for establishing paternity and that the mother had told him she would file them but she never did. He did not discover this until she disappeared on a drug binge and he found himself unable to get custody of the child. In view of the low incomes of many of these men, it is perhaps not surprising that some women prefer not to share parental rights with them, even at the expense of forfeiting child support claims.
Those who did have child support orders resented the whole process, and all felt overwhelmed by their inability to make the required payments. Their resentments can be divided into two categories: (1) a general feeling that the courts should not interfere in their families and (2) a more specific resentment of the insensitivity of the system toward their precarious and shifting circumstances.
The generalized resentment appears to be simply a matter of not liking to submit to outside controls. One man, the father of five children by three different mothers and a veteran of many child support battles, was adamant in his dislike of the system. During a lengthy discussion of different ways in which the system might be made more fair to men, he declared unequivocally:
I don't want the court in my life, they have no business messing with my relationship… . I don't want the system to come up with a way to make me pay.
The self-interestedness of this position, however, was apparent to the other men in the group. When asked whether they thought women would agree with their attitudes that the courts should not interfere, they laughed and said "no."
When discussing their own experiences with the system, however, the men were more specific about what they considered to be the ridiculous aspects of the way the system operates. They reported that the system frequently put them in impossible situations, hampering rather than encouraging their efforts to provide support, and that it provided very little incentive for them to cooperate. Those who had child support orders said that they simply could not pay what was being asked. One complained:
They sent me a court order to pay like $600 a month. I don't even make that much every two weeks, and I wasn't planning on paying something I don't have.
Another faced a different but related problem. He was married and wanted a divorce but felt he could not get one because he could not afford the 17 percent of his income that he had been told would be required (on the basis of the state's child support guidelines). All of those with support orders were behind in their payments, with arrearages ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.
Besides feeling that they were simply being asked to pay too much, these men were particularly bitter about what they viewed as the courts' insensitivity to their precarious circumstances. One complained: "These agencies, they don't listen to you. All they want to know is 'How much?' and 'Give it up.'" Another told of his unsuccessful attempts to get his support order adjusted when he went from a higher- to a lower-paying job:
I am making less money than the first time. I went and said: "Can you cut it down?" I showed them papers: these are my expenses. All they said was, "you still have to give this amount of money." … It could have been difficult to eat, and these people knew exactly what I was making but they still wanted money.
Still another expressed his incredulity that he accumulated arrearages while incarcerated. He said: "The court should know that you are locked up."
One man also said that he thought that the court process itself produced further unnecessary strain between him and the mother of his child. They had negotiated an agreement between themselves, but he felt the judge had prodded her to try to get more money out of him. He concluded, "The court wants you to hate her so much." Another man agreed, saying:
The court system, in my opinion, is extreme, a bit too extreme. You can make a bond with your wife for financial needs or whatever the case but the court system will double it.
Still another man protested that court-ordered child support created bad feelings on the part of his son:
My child should not have to grow up with something in the back of his mind: "Somebody had to force dad to give me. If only he would have freely given."
These men generally felt that the demands of the system were entirely unrealistic, given their low levels of income. Their experience of accumulating arrearages added to their sense of not being able to survive financially. One man, who had a relatively stable history of employment and child support contributions but had recently been unemployed, said in response to a question about what a child support program should offer in the way of employment and training:
I have bills above my head. If I got a little job, my whole check can't even pay … all the bills. So I would never be able to pay back unless I am talking about an extraordinary job.
These men were keenly aware of the fact that court-ordered child support payments to children on AFDC do not go directly to the children. Most seemed to think that none of the money went to the children; they did not seem aware of the provision for a $50 "disregard," which could increase their children's benefits as a result of their contributions. One man clearly was discouraged from paying. He said: "She wasn't seeing nothing. And my son wasn't seeing nothing. So I wasn't paying nothing." Another complained: "It's not going to the child's mother, has to be going to the system." A third said:
Say welfare has been taking care of the child for the last three years until they caught up with you; they caught up with you now. Your wife wouldn't see the money on the welfare check … they are just getting their money back.
One of the focus group participants, however, thought the system not entirely unreasonable, saying:
I still have to send $50 a week to the court. They are not getting that $50 you know … [but] … they are still getting because welfare is getting it. I don't really mind.
Other men talked about the fact that the welfare and child support system rules induced many couples to conceal their relationship in order to be able to combine income from welfare and work. One described this situation as:
She goes to the welfare: "My husband left me, I can't find him. Boom, he ran off and left me." But he is still there. You know what welfare do? They put her back on public assistance.
A member of another group described this strategy in almost identical words:
The husband ain't never left, but the wife goes to the welfare and says that he has after 30 days and the welfare puts her back on.
Others nodded assent at the familiarity of this situation. It was unclear how many of them were doing this or had done it, although all of them were living apart from at least one of their children. However, they did not seem to think that men fail to establish paternity in the first place in order to be able to combine welfare and work illegally. This was characterized as a strategy of women, to respond to the unsteady support from men.
When asked about possible changes in the child support system to encourage their cooperation, the men's opinions included some generally favorably to interventions being explored in the Parents' Fair Share Demonstration.
In discussing the current system, they expressed some of their feelings about fairness. For example, one discussion concerned what it costs to support children of different ages. One man said contributions should be higher for older children:
I believe it is an age bracket thing. If you have a newborn baby, it is going to be cheaper to take care of. As a baby gets older it costs more.
Another discussion concerned the setting of payment levels as a fixed percentage of income. Some thought this completely unfair. One man complained:
When the money that I was giving previous to that great job was sufficient enough and when I got more, suddenly I need more. Which is, like he said, totally unfair.
This opinion proved highly controversial, however, and provoked a long discussion. Some participants supported this unfairness point of view and others agreed with a man who said: "If you are making more money, you are supposed to give more to the child."
The men liked the idea of mediation, a service planned for Parents' Fair Share. They said that they had been involved in misunderstandings with the mother of their children which might have been cleared up by a third party, and that disagreements had been perpetuated because of anger when solutions could have been found. One said: "I would be happy with the counselor part of it." Another said:
Any time you have someone that is neutral that is willing to explain things from a different point of view, both mine and hers, it has to help because this person in the middle might be able to tell me something I don't understand.
The notion of changing the child support system so that arrearages did not accumulate while the men were taking part in a program received a solid endorsement. The men also responded favorably to the possibility of being offered employment and job training. When asked what changes should be made in the child support system, one man immediately replied: "I'd key in to the system and get people jobs, help them out, on they feet, see what they do then."
Although the idea of getting good jobs clearly appealed to them, some also offered cautions about training programs, based on their previous experiences. Several had already been in employment and training programs, and most of these said they had been helped by such programs. Still, they continued to face recurrent employment difficulties. Some said they had learned skills that had become outdated. One of these said: "It depends on what you are going to be trained in, if you train in something that the country needs." Another asked: "What is it going to lead to? You have to have a career, something that you want to do."
Others pointed out that existing programs have difficulties recruiting and retaining clients, concluding that the problems lay in the motivations of those who need the programs as well as in the effectiveness of the programs. On the whole, however, they seemed to feel that, if the courts were going to demand payments from them, they should also be given jobs. They also mentioned specific skills in which they were interested. These included working with computers, auto mechanics, aviation mechanics, refrigeration, printing, carpentry, electronics, cooking, and photography.
The Harlem and Brownsville men also offered some thoughts on what would make mediation and employment services effective for them and those like them. These comments reflected their feelings of being the victims of racial discrimination. Some said that they would feel more comfortable with counselors and program staff who were black and male like themselves. One described a previous experience:
A lot of counseling services that is here for us is not properly staffed. I went down for family counseling. I am not racist. I have white friends … [but] … it is hard for a white guy to understand my particular family structure.
Another commented similarly on the staffing of programs for them, saying: "If it just has white guys, it may not work. If it just has women, it may not work." The men also noted that racial discrimination in the labor market could make the acquisition of skills useless unless they could get hired to use those skills. One man's curt response to the prospect of getting training was: "No jobs. What's the sense?" They also mentioned other services they needed, including psychiatrists, mental health services, and drug treatment. One man from Brownsville said he would like to be able to meet with successful men who had grown up in areas like his:
In a lot of black neighborhoods, the drug dealer is the man, economic man. And there are a lot of people who achieved big. Those who have high financial status or businesses or whatever, I feel that [there should be] a special program where they could come back and teach people like they do in Harlem and give them sufficient sense of individualism that you can make an individual achievement.
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As in the Harlem and Brownsville groups, many of the white men from Queens expressed B feelings for their children and considerable regret at their physical and often emotional separation from them. The one apparent exception was Frank,(7) father of a 20-year-old daughter, who had had only a brief and casual relationship with the mother when his daughter was conceived:
It was like the weekend I was drafted into Vietnam. She got pregnant, she chose to keep the child, not to abort it, and I respect her for it … I wasn't there for her in any way; I wasn't in love with her or anything. I respect the mother, she lives within walking distance.
In response to a question about whether his daughter knows that he is her father, he explained:
No. I give her [the mother] the respect of the choice since I had no feelings for her and I wasn't there as far as financial or whatever. Until she chooses to say, "Yes, this is him" … as far as I'm concerned, it's part of a thing of respecting her wishes. She just wishes me not to say anything until she's ready herself.
Frank did not openly express regret about the situation, other than a shrug that seemed to indicate a sense of water under the bridge.
All of the other men in the Queens group had more substantial relationships with the mothers of their children and either had been married to them or had lived with them at some time, except for Ken, age 23, who maintained a close but no longer romantic relationship with the mother:
I was not married. Me and the mother had a good relationship; we still do as friends. I got her pregnant at 19 and the family despises me now. I had no problems with drugs or anything. I've been working. I'm unemployed now. The parents basically told her they would disown her if she stayed with me. I didn't want that, but I've kept distance for two years and she basically brings the kid to see me. We remain good friends; we know it's not going to work out between us and she brings him over when she has a chance.
Five of the men had been married to the mothers of their children, and a sixth said he had been in a common-law marriage. All had had substantial contact with their children during the children's early years. One of these older men had since lost contact, but the others who had been married all still saw their children on a regular, if not always harmonious, basis.
George and Tony, both age 38, said that their relationships with their children had improved since they had broken up with the mothers. Both said they had been "out there running," meaning involved with drugs, and that this had contributed to the breakup of their families. At the time of the focus group, Tony was on methadone and George had been completely clean for some time. As they had withdrawn from "running in the street," their relationships with their children had improved. George's 16-year-old son was living with the mother's mother:
First eight years, I lived with her. When we broke up, her mother took care of the kid. We were both [himself and his wife] getting high at the time. If you are running around, trying to cop, you can't be doing right … are you going to hang out with your kid stoned? I don't want to hang out with my kid when I'm stoned … [Now] I see him once a week; sometimes once every two weeks. Like on Saturday and Sunday, mostly on Sunday. I pick him up, we would have dinner with my mother, a family dinner … I get along with the grandmother better now than when I was married.
Tony lived with his children for 10 years before splitting up with his wife:
I have two daughters, 14 and 13 years old … I got a dynamite relationship with my daughters. The past three years before that, it wasn't. I was always on drugs, in and out of the house. I didn't know how to be a parent, how to be a father. Being around kids got me jumpy, jittering. I got nervous and mad.
Will, in contrast, had been close to his children when they were growing up but then went out of their lives. Will was 49 and had three grown children. After 13 years of marriage, he began drinking too much, split up with his wife, and subsequently lost contact with her and the children:
They are all living in Wisconsin and Iowa, so I don't get to see them much. I'm now married a second time.
Hal, age 41, had an 18-year-old son whose mother he had divorced when the boy was three. He attributed the breakup primarily to marital infidelity on his part. Since then, he had had minimal but regular contact with his son. He saw him only twice a year, on Christmas and the boy's birthday. Hal said he had made regular and substantial support payments for 15 years. Mickey, age 40 and on methadone, had been married twice and had one daughter from each marriage. He was estranged from the first child but very close to the second:
Like the first child, the 17-year-old, I see every couple of months. She doesn't want to be bothered with me because Daddy is a dope fiend. I started out very, very close with the little one. She is a gifted child. They say she is a genius. We sent letters to the special schools. There is monthly support … I buy sneakers for her and buy clothes when I get my checks the first of the month … forget it, I buy her anything. I spoil her because I'm afraid of losing her like I lost my first daughter. It's a very uncomfortable feeling to have a 17-year-old daughter treat you like you're not her father. I am a dope fiend but I deserve to be treated better. I rocked her to bed, I deserve to be treated better … I got a disease but I was a kind, generous person … I would be devastated and I will go out of my mind if I lose my second daughter.
The other men had never been married and varied in the extent of their attachments to their children. Bill, 24, also said that he had gotten closer to his three-year-old daughter recently since getting on methadone. He had been living with the mother when she became pregnant but:
The reason we never stayed together, I was locked up when the baby was born. I got out four months later. When I came out, she didn't want me there. So, for like the first year, I didn't bother with either one of them. I started to recently, a year ago. They needed money. When I cleaned up, when I got on the methadone program, I started seeing them. I got a real job. I wanted my daughter in my life. I tried to see my daughter as much as I could, but they are going to be moving out to Long Island this summer.
Bill said he had seen the child at least twice a month over the past year.
Stan, 27, had at first lived with the mother of his seven-year-old daughter and still maintained regular contact with the child, though he did not get along well with the mother:
If I want to take her out for weekends, we are pretty cool. She will let me take her out. I get to see my kid but not as much as I can. If she [the mother] is mad, she screws me up. If I make plans, she don't be home or . . . I call the house and there won't be no answer.
Two of the other unmarried men had lived with their children and the mothers at first but had only sporadic contact since breaking up with the mothers. Rick, 29, said his wife had gotten involved with another man two years before, when his son was three. Since then, he had only seen the boy at Christmas and on the child's birthday. Sal, 39, had a very bitter breakup with his common-law wife. He had not seen his 13-year-old son in five years and had completely lost touch for the past two years. He reported missing his son intensely.
Most of the men in the Queens group had grown up with their fathers in the home. Only Mickey and George said that they had grown up without their fathers. George said he did not think he had been affected by it "one way or the other," but Mickey, who did know his father, was intensely bitter toward the man and his refusal ever to give Mickey credit for any positive accomplishment. Sal, like Mickey, was very bitter that his father never gave him credit when he performed well in school or sports. In discussing their relationships with their fathers, the other men revealed a variety of hostile and ambivalent attitudes toward them, despite the fact that their fathers had been present. Tony said:
Just the way his generation, how they were brought up. Well, my father may eat, sleep, go to work, that's it. They didn't know what the family thing was. All they knew was holiday, Christmas, Thanksgiving. Just once a year to get close to one another. Just because Christmas is coming, everybody is happy now. It should be like that every day.
The other men then started nodding agreement about the distance of their fathers. Hal was the only one who said he had a warm relationship with his father: "Not to interrupt you … we were not just father and son, we were friends." After Hal spoke about his friendship with his father, Mickey said: "That's a very rare thing." Several of the others nodded agreement.
When asked what kinds of relationships they would like to have with their children, the men talked about their shame at the some of the mistakes they had made, their desire just to see the children, and their feelings that fathers should be teachers.
As noted earlier, George and Tony felt guilty about having been involved with drugs while their children were born. Even though none of these men were currently intravenous (IV) drug users, sometimes their children still heard negative things about them from others. Tony had been in prison:
It is like a Peyton Place in certain neighborhoods … I'd rather tell them myself. If my daughter asked me, what is your career, I'd say I was a tractor-trailer driver … before that, I went away. I did something wrong. I told her I was in prison.
Mickey also spoke very emotionally about having to explain to his adored younger daughter, then 8 years old, about why he had been in the hospital so often:
She thought I was working in the hospital. I was in detox every couple of months. Finally, I broke down and cried that Daddy has a problem.
Others reported much more positive experiences of being with their children, sometimes more so in the recent past than while they were breaking up with the mothers. Stan said:
You have to take your kid out, get close to your kid. You take him to the movies, whatever, and play with them, stuff like that, brings you close to the kid. You don't get to see him, try to make up for all the days that you miss.
Tony said he wanted to "bring up my daughter, teach right from wrong." Sal said he was upset at being separated from his son because the boy especially needed a father during his teenage years:
I miss, like, playing, teaching him how to play baseball and things like that. He is growing up. This is the time he needs a man, not a woman, telling him what's right, what's wrong. At that age, they are so mixed up, they need both.
Some men also talked about the obstacles they faced trying to get close to their children. Sal, Will, and Hal had all lost contact almost entirely after early bonding with their children. George said that when he has little money, it interferes with his relationship with his 16-year-old son:
I see him, to try to have quality time. I notice when I am not doing too good, I'm out of work and things are rough with me moneywise … it puts a little cramp on the relationship. It shouldn't, but I'm down on myself.Q: Does the kid know that or does it come from the mother?
George: I think he knows that. A couple of times, I tell him for the week he was out of school, that my unemployment check didn't come. I wanted to take him to the movies when he was out of school during the daytime, and I couldn't do it.
Stan said his child's mother sometimes blocks his visits and that she gets disappointed when he has nothing to contribute.
Some of the men talked about the problem of other men coming between them and their children. Ken said that, despite his warm current relationship with the mother:
The only thing that is going to bother me in the future is if she moves in with somebody else or marries somebody else. That's the only thing that scares me about that. If she finds somebody else and gets married, that guy is going to be raising my kid.
Rick had been through that experience and subsequently had had very little contact with his daughter:
Like the first three years of life she knows me as Daddy. Another guy moved in and he was there as daddy … We [he and the mother] didn't get along. She found somebody else she was interested in and it seemed like that's what she wanted. She didn't think I was good enough for her.
Despite the fact that many of the men in the Queens group had experienced personal problems, most of them had substantial work histories. Although most of them were out of work at the time of the focus group, only Will, Sal, and Bill were not looking for work. Will had been disabled for a dozen years and was supported by his second wife. Sal was living with his family and on methadone. Bill had been employed until a recent injury and was receiving public assistance in his own name.
Many of the others had recently been laid off. They were collecting unemployment and seeking work. The fact that a stipend was offered for participation in the focus group may explain, in part, why a high proportion of the participants were out of work. Also, the kinds of jobs these men had held in the past were primarily in manual labor and construction, which have recently experienced severe contraction in New York City. The neighborhoods in Queens where these men live are currently full of unemployed blue-collar workers.
Although most of the men were in the labor force, the stability and quality of their employment varied. Mickey, Tony, and Frank told similar stories of having been steady workers for many years, despite having drug problems. Frank said:
I got laid off almost a year ago. That particular job I worked at 18 months straight, 7 days a week, 60 to 65 hours. It was in a restaurant/bar; I did prep work … I had worked for 19 years. I am registered with Social Security for 18 or 19 years worth of paying into the system. I worked all my life; it's only been the last year that I was out of work. The last time was 18 years ago when I came out of the service. I was a functional addict all my life.
Despite his steady employment, Frank had never contributed child support because the child was never publicly acknowledged as his and did not even know he was the father.
Tony had lived with his children for 10 years, before going to prison for three. He supported them while he lived with them and had made regular voluntary contributions since his release. He was one of the few whose children had been on welfare, though that was only while he was incarcerated. He said:
My problem was I thought I loved the girl but I didn't. [But] I got pregnant with her twice. I'm not going to say "the hell with the kids, the hell with that girl."
Mickey had also been steadily employed for years, despite drug problems that sometimes drove him into detox. He made regular contributions to his younger daughter, though not to his older daughter, who did not want to have anything to do with him.
Another of the older men, Hal, had also been a steady worker. He had worked for a construction company for many years. He derived a good income from that, and he also had made money on the side from occasional robberies. He had once done prison time but claimed to have paid $800 a month in voluntary child support steadily for the past 15 years. Even when he was incarcerated, he had hidden enough money to provide for his son.
Several of these men said that they were in the labor market, were usually employed, and made voluntary contributions to their children when they were working. Most of them described similar relationships with their children's mothers over money: The women had never taken them to court for child support payments and basically knew what and when they could contribute or not. Stan was working at a job that was "off the books":
With a kid, you want to avoid problems like that. You love the kids as much as she does. If you and her don't get along, fine; your kid is something different. You want to try to look out for the kid and give him the best of everything. You don't want to be dragged through the court just to do the right thing. She [the mother] understood. I mean, like a couple of times at Christmas she was really upset. I seen it on her face but she didn't come out and say anything. She pretty much understands. She knows what I have and don't have. At this point, I'm trying to do it on my own, without her asking.
George's son had been living with his grandmother since his parents split up:
Her mother took care of the kid. At that time, I wasn't working or nothing. Anyhow, she didn't get any money from me. Once I cleaned up and started working again, I bought him his clothes and gave her money. Up until a month and a half ago. I just lost my job again, just last month. He just got braces a couple months ago. I was giving money for that besides. When I see him, I give him $10, $20. I didn't give her nothing for January; February it will be the same thing. She never asked me for money anyhow. Never asked me for money, so I always gave it on my own.
Ken only saw his child when the mother brought him over secretly because the mother's family did not want her to see him:
She is still at home and her parents are supporting the bill. She is still in school and going to college. She understands I am collecting unemployment. I haven't given them [anything] the past three months.
He said he had been contributing about $25 a week voluntarily when he was employed:
Basically, I had the money to give to them, I gave to them. I was working at my last job two years. I got laid off in November. The work was slow. I worked in the binding business. I became a manager. As far as the kid, money was never an issue because it was another issue between us. I don't have a sad story like these guys. I still get along with her.
Ken said he had no drug problems. His main problems were youth, a slow economy, and having fathered a child to a young, middle-class girl whose parents hated him.
Two other men in their twenties, Bill and Rick, were in more troubled circumstances. Bill had no contact with his child at first, having been in jail when the boy was born, and then began making small weekly contributions when he could:
The first time, I was in jail when the baby was born and I think her family talked to her. They didn't want me as part of her life. When I got out, I started working. I gave the money, you know. And then it stopped because, like I said, they didn't want me near the kid and I started to get high again. I started to [give money] recently, a year ago. They needed money. If I was working, I would give them money. If I was not working, I didn't. I gave what I could. She hasn't taken me to court or nothing. If they need something, I give them what I can. And, like I said, I'm not getting high either, so I have money.
He said he had contributed $50 to $70 a week when he was working and that he had worked over seven months out of the past year, although he had been receiving public assistance since an injury a few months before.
Rick had had very minimal contact with his son since the mother left him for another man. Although Rick had never been involved with IV drugs, he said that using other drugs and alcohol had caused him to lose several jobs. He only saw his son or gave him anything on Christmas and birthdays.
Only four men in the Queens group had ever had any contact with courts over child support issues. All four of them had been married. George said his wife had tried to take him to court at first, but "she couldn't get anything anyhow because I wasn't working." It is unclear how the case was disposed. Subsequently, the mother, who had her own problems, relinquished custody to her mother, who never sought money from George. Mickey paid child support to his first wife in an agreement worked out in court during the divorce:
My first marriage, my wife was on welfare and I was unemployed. I was facing prison, so I guess she more or less felt sorry for me. The judge felt like, well, we got along: "You come up with your own conclusion of what you think," and she said, "$20 a week."
He paid that for two years, but that had been many years before. Currently, he only gave occasional presents to his older daughter and concentrated his resources on the younger one.
Only Tony and Will had ever faced orders to pay child support arrears. Will had not seen his first wife or children in several years, when a joint bank account that he maintained with his second wife was unexpectedly garnisheed. At that point, Will had been disabled for some time and had no income of his own. The money all came from his wife's earnings. The incident angered his current wife, but they subsequently took his name off the account and had no further incidents. Tony's wife had received welfare when he was incarcerated:
When I was doing time, there was no other means for my wife with the kid. At the time, to get support was to go to welfare, and that's what she did. A certain amount of time went by, 10 years or better, I got the letter from welfare stating that I owed them so much money. I never answered their letter. It was a couple of thousand dollars and until today I haven't gotten bothered yet. When it does happen, I don't know what to do.
It appears that the main reason Tony has escaped further legal action to recover welfare payments is that he "never had a job on the books so far."
Tony's case reveals a crucial part of the context of these men's lives that explains why, even though they are noncustodial fathers and many have substantial work histories, most have not been taken to court for child support. Only Mickey's and Tony's children have ever received Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Without the prompting of the welfare system, the decision to initiate court proceedings was left to the mothers of their children, and in most cases the couples arrived at their own informal arrangements for support payments.
Of course, it is likely that the women would tell different stories about how satisfactory they found these informal arrangements. Still, the fact that most of these 11 cases have never been in court is striking. The men's contentions that the women knew what they were capable of paying and were not interested in pursuing them when they could not pay seems plausible, as does the notion that when some of them were "running," the women and their families wanted to have as little to do with them as possible.
The men in the Queens focus group had only hazy and incomplete knowledge of how legal paternity is established outside of marriage in New York City. Because many of them had been married, they had never been concerned about this. Some of the unmarried men, however, thought that they had established legal paternity, although they may not have done so. Both Sal and Ken expressed confusion on this issue, in response to questions about whether they were the legal fathers of their children:
Sal: I believe so … I took her to the hospital, I signed papers, I paid for the hospital bill and she claimed I was the father.Q: You have to go to court and go through a separate hearing for that.
Sal: Then I guess I'm not the legal father.
Ken: No, the baby has my name [but I didn't go to court].Q: So you thought you had legal paternity?
Ken: Until you said something, yes … Once my name was on the birth certificate, I thought it was mine.
Since it is not clear exactly what papers Sal and Ken signed, it is not certain whether they were or were not legally the fathers of their children. Once the question was raised, however, they were thrown into doubt.
The paternity status of the other unmarried men was not clear. It seems highly unlikely that either Bill or Frank had established legal paternity, since Bill was incarcerated during the birth and Frank was in Vietnam. The paternity statuses of Stan and Rick are unclear.
If none of these men had in fact established legal paternity, this would help to explain, along with the low incidence of welfare receipt among their children and the mothers, their lack of contact with the child support enforcement system. In contrast to the Harlem and Brownsville focus group members, most of these men were aware of the high degree of accuracy of blood tests for establishing paternity. Only Bill and Rick thought that blood tests were of doubtful accuracy. Bill mistakenly thought the tests only matched blood types of parents and children. The rest of them correctly stated that the tests are 90 percent accurate or better.
The men also said they were aware of a number of benefits available to the children of unmarried fathers, such as private health insurance through employers and Social Security death benefits. They were not, however, aware that benefits from the military can go to the children of unmarried fathers.
Discussion of benefits legally available to the children of unmarried fathers triggered a great deal of interest among the unmarried fathers in the group. First jolted by the knowledge that they may not have been legal fathers when they thought they were, and then stimulated by finding out about these various benefits, they began asking about and discussing the steps needed to establish legal paternity. A spin-off discussion then addressed the difference between child support and alimony. Tony apparently was not clear about the difference until Hal explained it to him:
Tony: She gets remarried, she can charge me for child support?Hal: My last wife had a daughter [from her former husband]. Here's the deal. The husband was paying her alimony and child support for the daughter. When me and her got married, her alimony stopped but the child support continued.
At this explanation, others in the group nodded and sighed in what seemed to be both agreement and relief. Stan expressed his sense that this is just: "Child support I don't mind."
Two of the men who had had limited contact with the child support enforcement system, Will and Tony, were bewildered by its operations. Will had been completely surprised when his checking account with his current wife had been garnisheed, since he had had no contact with his former wife in years. Tony had heard from the system twice, both times after his wife's welfare had been terminated. The second time, years later, the amount of child support arrears had tripled:
I seen that letter, I say, $6,000, what are they crazy? They should have the wrong guy.
The final discussion with the Queens group concerned possible elements of a program for noncustodial fathers. They were told that the focus group was being held to help in setting up a program for noncustodial fathers especially to induce fathers to pay regular child support through the formal system. They were asked their reactions to employment and training, a peer support group, and mediation. They responded most strongly by far to the possibility of employment and training:
Q: Some of you guys have grown children now, [but] thinking about the young guy who might want to get into the program, what would make him want to sign up?Sal: To better himself.
Frank: To better the child.
Sal: If he betters himself, he is going to better the welfare of the child.
Q: Employment and training, do you think that would tempt you guys? If they say, "We're going to train you to get your GED or get a job or get a better job than you have now"?
Hal: That goes without saying. Anyone out of work would be happy to go along with that program.
Ken: If I were to get a nice decent-paying job, I would go through the court system. I would think guys would go through the court system and not mind paying the child support.
Sal: I think that if they come up with the starting salary of $10 an hour or more. Especially if they have the chance … to guarantee a certain level of pay, they can afford it to pay his own apartment and still send his child $50 a week or something.
Stan: The kid is going to benefit and the father is going to benefit. He is going to help himself.
When asked about what kinds of training or jobs they would be interested in, they tended to name things that they had once done or tried, their best past opportunities. Tony had once had a successful contracting business, painting and moving, and would like to return to that. Sal once worked with racehorses and wanted to return to that, though he was also interested in learning about computers. Tony wanted to resume work as truck driver. Stan had taken college courses and would like financial aid to continue in higher education. Hal said he is currently in a training course to become an Emergency Medical Technician. Two of the younger men mentioned fields they were interested in but where they had no previous experience. Bill was interested in computers and Ken in "accounting … or something with figures."
Their reactions to possible peer group support meetings and mediation were much more equivocal. Hal spontaneously mentioned the possibility of parent education: "I think, for a single parent, how to relate and deal, you know, with your child." Others, however, were more leery of the notion of a support group:
Tony: That's my problem. I wouldn't want to talk about my family affairs … You have to be honest if you are going to be in a group. You are going to come into the group and you have got to talk about a female or what you have done with her or whatever … if you are not going to say anything, don't waste your time, and leave.
Ken differed:
Push comes to shove, we all have something in common in a way. Nobody in this room is going to see the people we're talking about. It's basically for support. I can open up …Q: So you would feel positive about that?
Ken: Yes.
Sal and Tony compared this idea to their experience with the group therapy they had received in connection with their past drug problems. Tony said he had just learned how to say what was expected in the group, but Sal said that he had eventually opened up and that the experience had been helpful. He cautioned that it took a long time.
In response to the possibility of having mediation available to fathers like them, Ken said it might be a good idea, but, in his case, "thing is, that would open a can of worms." He had no hopes of establishing communication with the family of the mother of his child. Mickey talked about a priest in his neighborhood who did this kind of work, and others began nodding as that example made the idea clear to them. However, no one spoke out strongly and positively for mediation.
After the group broke up, several members provided further evidence of their interest in employment and training by coming up to the interviewer and asking if they could enroll in the program if it came to their area, specifically mentioning their interest in jobs.
[ Go To Contents ]
These New York City interviews suggest important challenges, possibly formidable ones, for the Parents' Fair Share Demonstration. Many of the men who shared their experiences and opinions were highly disadvantaged. They represented a group that has not been effectively incorporated into the child support enforcement system. Although negative attitudes and behaviors conforming to popular stereotypes of absent and nonsupporting fathers are readily apparent among the 42 men who participated, so is a much richer context. Many had B, positive feelings for their children and spoke of multiple frustrations they have encountered in trying to support and care for them. In part, their inabilities to fulfill their impulses to be responsible fathers are rooted in their own behavior, such as use of alcohol and drugs and multiple, careless sexual entanglements. Other barriers to adequate fathering, however, are rooted in the structure of the labor market, racial discrimination, inadequate urban education, and contradictory, bureaucratic, and insensitive aspects of the child support system itself.
The labor market difficulties of the men interviewed, including unemployment, underemployment, and nonparticipation in the labor force, present policymakers and program designers with both the greatest difficulty and the greatest opportunity. Many of these men, including those with the Best and weakest employment histories, are barely able to support a family by themselves, even when they are living with their children. When they are separated from their children, and thus called upon to support more than one household, they are often overwhelmed. Given the abundance of paternal feeling expressed in the focus groups, programs that could upgrade their employment experiences would seem to have considerable potential for increasing their levels of child support, particularly if employment services are explicitly tied to child support enforcement.
There are broad similarities among the groups from all three communities. Most of the men interviewed from all three places are deeply concerned about issues of fatherhood. They care about their children; they suffer from separation from them; and they are often bewildered about how to deal with being noncustodial fathers. In addition, they are all in a precarious position in the labor market. Although the white men from Queens have more substantial work histories than their African-American counterparts in Harlem and Brownsville, they are still threatened with being unable to adapt to a changing labor market. They are increasingly unsure of their ability to support not just their children but themselves.
The need for education in the workings of the child support system how to establish paternity, the resulting benefits for children, how the system works in practice is also apparent among all the focus groups conducted in New York City. Besides educating the men about the system, there also appears to be a need to educate the system about men such as these. The inflexibility of child support agency responses to their precarious and changing employment situations discourages these men from cooperating with the system.
A final similarity across all these groups is that a substantial proportion of these men have had serious problems with alcohol and substance abuse that have interfered with their ability to support their children and themselves. In the absence of treatment or counseling to deal with these problems where they exist, it is difficult to see how other services such as job training or mediation could be effective.
Beyond these similarities, the men in the Queens, Harlem, and Brownsville groups present distinct demographic profiles that suggest the broad range of circumstances and issues that are likely to be encountered in designing and operating programs for noncustodial fathers. The labor market difficulties of the African-American men are more severe than those of their white counterparts. The African-American men report suffering from racism in the labor market as well as from lack of education and skills. Since several have not had recent, steady work, they also lack the experience that counts strongly with employers of adult men.
Besides having Ber work histories than their peers from Harlem and Brownsville, the Queens men had a higher rate of marriage. Men who have been married have automatically established paternity, thus dispensing with one major barrier to incorporating noncustodial fathers into the child support system. Still, a number of the white men were unmarried and apparently had not established legal paternity. The distance between them and the child support system was entirely comparable to that of their minority peers.
Another factor differentiating the African-American noncustodial fathers interviewed from the white fathers is the economic level of the communities in which they and the mothers of their children live. AFDC enrollment levels are much lower in the working-class, white neighborhoods of Queens than in Brownsville or Harlem. Only two of the white men reported that their children had been on AFDC, and in both those cases the duration of enrollment appears to have been fairly brief.
This raises the question of whether programmatic interventions for noncustodial fathers should be driven entirely by the social goal of offsetting AFDC expenditures. In many respects, except for costing taxpayers money, the men whose children were not receiving public assistance appear to be appropriate candidates for programmatic intervention: they have troubled personal histories, they have problems in the labor market, they care for their children, and they often provide support when they can. Their financial and emotional support for their children is profoundly affected by their employment problems, and they have personal and social needs that influence their ability to be effective parents.
The discussion of disincentives to marry in the Harlem and Brownsville groups suggests that combining AFDC and "off the books" employment may be more widespread in communities where employment rates are low and AFDC enrollment levels are high. In such situations, the issue of uncovering "off the books" jobs may be a salient one for programmatic intervention. The men from Harlem and Brownsville were keenly aware that payments to children on AFDC do relatively little to improve the children's welfare. Thus, efforts to explain the $50 "disregard" (money passed through from child support payments by noncustodial parents to custodial parents on AFDC) might help, and expanding the disregard might help even more.
None of these community differences are absolute: employment, marriage, and AFDC enrollment all vary within as well as across these groups. All these differences, whether within or between groups, present distinctive challenges for progammatic intervention to increase involvement in the child support system. To the extent that programs serve particular communities, however, sensitivity to the specific needs within each community could heighten program effectiveness.
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Everett, J. "An Examination of Child Support Enforcement Issues." In H. McAdoo and J. T. M. Parham, eds., Services to Young Families: Program Review and Policy Recommendations. Washington, D.C.: American Public Welfare Association, 1985.
Stack, C. All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
Stafford, W. Closed Labor Markets: Underrepresentation of Blacks, Hispanics, and Women in New York City. New York: Community Service Society, 1985.
Sullivan, M. "Absent Fathers in the Inner City." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 501 (1989): 48-58.
Sullivan, M. Getting Paid: Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Sullivan, M. Patterns of AFDC Use in a Comparative Ethnographic Study of Young Fathers and Their Children in Three Low-Income Neighborhoods. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1990.
Testa, M., et al. "Employment and Marriage Among Inner-City Fathers." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 501 (1989): 79-91.
7. The names used in this section and in the remainder of the report are fictitious, and some of the details of the parents' lives have been changed to protect their privacy. [Back To Text]
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