John Hattaway

In the movie Across the Universe there is a discussion between a college student and his uncle where the uncle says, “What you do determines who you are,” and the college student states, “No. It is who you are that determines what you do.” There is no clear resolution to this question in the movie and yet, one gets the impression that the writer and director intended for the audience to side with the college student.

I am currently working in a call center. With that said, I am about to give some hints as to what I do, or more accurately, what I will be doing. Just sharing some of this makes me wonder if what I do defines me or if what I am is defined through the kinds of work I find myself doing?

There are two kinds of people when it comes to children in a divorce. There is the custodial parent and the non-custodial parent. The reason this is important is that the courts often lean toward the custodial parent when it comes to awarding money and slapping, on the wrist, the other party when a divorce or separation takes place and child support becomes necessary. Heck, if a single mother were to file for state assisted support (e.g. welfare) the state opens a child support case for the mother and then attempts to find the father and collect money. The same is true if the custodial parent is the father, they attempt to find the mother and collect money from her.

When you begin to work within a bureaucracy the outcome is, quite frequently, the internal desire to side with one party or another. The outcome is a bias toward either the custodial or non-custodial side. For example, when people talk about custodial parents they are really saying, “the mother,” and ignoring the fact that a father can be a custodial parent as well. In the news, when child support is talked about this becomes almost synonymous with, “deadbeat dad,” and as a result, we, as a people, have a tendency to forget that you can also have, “deadbeat moms.” Yet, the political and social ramifications of applying deadbeat to the female half of a relationship negates the tendency toward using it.

What is mistaken, most of the time, is who the state represents: the children. Part of what makes child custody and child support cases all about the custodial and non-custodial parent is that the children are often encouraged to not attend. The cases, the court, becomes a matter between husband and wife, ex-husband and ex-wife, or partners that have separated. As a result, the tendency, between these two parties, is to fight over who is going to cause the other person the most pain. The outcome is a series of court filings and appearances where the objective is to hurt the other person.

In reality, it is only the children being hurt.

The idea behind child support is to make the father (not necessarily biological) responsible for his children, or in the case of a mother who has taken off, make the mother responsible for her children. Instead, the two parties just want to hurt each other. The outcome is that the non-custodial will do whatever he or she can to avoid paying support with the mistaken belief that it helps the custodial out. There are reasons why the couple broke up and yet, when it comes to the real reason for the payments and subsequent responsibility, people have a tendency to not care and fight each other in court entirely forgetting this isn’t about them, it’s about their kids.

I am not sure what to take from this job.

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