How do you solve a problem like the CSA?

I have been in battle with my sons father for three and a half years, trying to maintain some regular contact/payment plan in order to support our family, as was verbally agreed upon making the decision to keep the child, again upon the birth of said child and again when we made the decision to split. Unfortunately anybody will tell you that a verbal agreement is worthless in the eyes of the law and my son and I are a living testament to that.

One of the most obvious casualties in the demise of marriage is the family support given to any children that are produced. Our modern society has recently declared that a father can be deemed as almost invalid in a family network, legally declaring that a child can be bought up as the sole responsibility of a mother, with no legal obligation towards any 'sperm donor'.

I can accept that there are circumstances where a mother can provide everything that a child needs, emotionally through the obvious abilities of a mothers love and through the provision of a 'male role model', as well as financially through being an admirable and sensible woman who ensures that she is in such a position as that she is able to meet such financial requirements of a child prior to conception.

The fact remains that such well organised and fortunate women are in the minority, the rest of us being either from a generation that believed in the sanctity of family at the time of conception, or else those well documented 'scrounger mothers' who get knocked up at every possible opportunity and allow the state to maintain their provisions.

During this now long running social debate we have heard many arguments for and against the stark reality that more and more children are growing up without care, attention or quite frequently even recognition from their fathers.

Yet throughout it all it is the mothers who are targeted in the debate.

We hear every aspect of their every decision to choose the responsibility to make another person, from their financial situations to the type of contraception that is used, even though contraception is actually irrelevant, when two people have sex and make a joint decision over contraception, a woman has the same amount of responsibility as a man who wears a condom that may split, and a man has the same amount of responsibility as a woman on the pill which may fail for any reason.

These intimate details about a woman's life are debated and judged on a daily basis, old fashioned English reserve seems to be a luxury that a father can afford and unquestioned many men move on into unaffected life after birth.

I find it quite abhorrent that fatherhood has come to such a historical point, but that is perhaps because it has had a negative impact on my beliefs, expectations, values, abilities, and hopes and has forced me into reassessing my thought processes and the lessons I believed about family.

I am proud of the testament to women who are now legally recognised as everything a child needs apart from sperm, but I am left wondering what then are men left for, what are they up to while us women craftily juggle paid employment alongside home and family duties, keeping the advancement of the human species within the confines of womanly skill?

Where are the men and what is now their role? And since when did it become morally acceptable for a man to back out of a verbal contract that has the potential to create another whole life?

Have we reached a point in society where any woman who does not want to bring up a child on her own, or be reliant on the state for her provision during the time that she would like to be able to spend fulfilling her natural mothers duties, then needs to have a legal document available as pre coital activity?

Ah yes, such a document exists in the form of marriage.
What a pity we aren't all bought up to think that is a happy situation for a family any more.
Our children are being bought up thinking that dads are pretty much useless and that it is normal not to live with mom and dad.

Apart from the kids who actually have one that is, most of them (the ones with fathers who are not abusive, etc.), seem to think its pretty cool to have a dad.

These are the kids who are lucky enough not to have genetic imprints from a man who believes he has little or no impact or responsibility towards the new person he has helped to make. These are the kids who aren't forced to address issues that surround being bought up in a one parent family. These are the kids who feel really lucky because their fathers choose to be part of their lives and well really, dad's don't have to be if they don't want to be, do they?

I started this essay addressing the CSA. I have talked myself into giving up at this point.

Although i hate the fact that this man who agreed to me giving up my job in order to bring up our child has then actually bragged about the fact that 'I am the governments problem now', and who has indeed ensured that the government has financially brought up his child despite earning somewhere in the region of £30,000 to £60,000pa.

I have been forced to battle with my guilt towards not being bullied into going back to work before I wanted to stop looking after my child. It seems that as a society it is also now 'understood' that infants no longer need more than a few weeks care from its mother, a fact that I try hard not to feel guilty about disagreeing with.

Luckily I am now able to go back to work, and after a few years away from the job market (I left during early pregnancy and suffered some post natal depression), I now hope to soon work my way back towards the kind of salary that I was used to and I will be able to ensure that my child grows up without financial disadvantage.

In the meantime, to you taxpayers out there who have paid for my sons clothes, food, heat, shoes and books while his father has refused to either take over the responsibility or reimburse the government (which is what happens if the mother is on benefit, she does not receive maintenance, it instead is refunded to the government through the CSA, which I think is more than fair enough), yes, while this man has relinquished any type of responsibility whatsoever I would like to thank you for allowing him to get away with it and for allowing me to take a small amount of time to bring up my son while you lot out there make sure I have got a roof over my head.

I am not being sarcastic, I really do mean it, thank you.
I do hope that my own taxes will repay some of my debt to society. And maybe if my sons father gets around to paying any (he's self employed, always has been, better for tax purposes..), his will too.

Judge me, I cant stop you. I just wonder why I'm the only one who deserves to be judged.

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