I totally think the system is messed up when it comes to broken homes and children. First of all, the children are almost always left with the mom, which is how most men and women prefer it. But in alot of those cases the women then uses the child/children against the man, simply because "hell hath no fury, as a scorned woman." This does nothing except further the diorder in the childs life, it gives the woman a certain amount of control over the man and his life, endes up making him resent the whole prosess, causing even further chaos and disorder for the child and usually makes them feel torn between their parents. Both parents should be evaluated, the children should be ask where they prefer to live, and child support should be monitored as to how it is spent,each parent should have equal time with the children. Now how to get this all going, instead of the system we have, I haven't a clue. I only know that when a relationship between grown people fails, and there are children involved, both parties first concern should be their childs well being and happiness. If adults were really adults the problems that exist now would be few. I am a single mom and have never recieved the first child support check from either of my girls dads. With my first daughter when my marrisge failed, me and my husband didnt divorce then a yr. later he went to prison and stayed there the majority of the time until she was 18. But when he was out and I ever needed any money to help with her and ask him he was always good to give, Right after she turnrd 17 he got out and he gave her the 50 a week that he had been ordered to pay once we finally divorced. My youngest daughters dad and I never married, but in 2003, he was ordered to pay $20 a week, because he lied in court and said he paid $130 weekly for his other children. No one bothered to even check this. The way I felt was if my kids fathers was to sorry to care if they helped take care of their children, I wasn't arguing to make them pay, but I still never kept them from their dads. I didn't do it for the dads, I did it for my girls, the youngest mainly, when she gets to missing her dad and wanting to see him, we go to his house, if she wants to stay the night, I stay also, whether he has a girlfriend or not, because I have never felt he had a stable enough enviroment for me to leave her with him. But she loves him just as she loves me, he's her dad, and thats my fault. Her happiness and well being is the only thing that matters to me. She is twelve now and time has shown her kinda who he is, and as she gets older she will see even more. She asks less and less each year to see him, and I am not the villian who wouldn't let her see her dad. He and I have formed an ok friendship, through the years, and that being all, a friendship, never having anything to do with one another once we split, believe that or not, it really doesn't matter to me. In the long run, my daughter is a fairly happy, confident, teenager, who hasn't had the weight of her mom and dads problems left weighting her down. This isn't for everyone, I'm sure but it has worked for us.