A plan for deadbeat dads

I AM writing to you as a last resort because I just can’t seem to get any help from the courts with regards to my children.

I divorced my husband because amongst other things he was not living up to his obligation to provide for the two children he helped create.

Since then he has done everything to avoid paying maintenance.

He even walked out of employment, thereby choosing to be unemployed.

The court does nothing.

The maintenance officer seems to not remember what he has said from one meeting to the next, which just serves to prolong things with postponement after postponement.

I have a proposal that would certainly improve the epidemic of deadbeat dads infesting our country at the moment.

This is not something that affects one race or part of society – it affects us all.

I look around at our state hospitals, state department buildings, police stations, roads and pavements and islands, just to mention a few. These places are run down and dirty.

Many need garden services, cleaning, maintenance of sorts.

These deadbeat dads, who claim to not have jobs and therefore cannot support their children, should receive community service sentences for which they would be remunerated.

However, a percentage of the remuneration could be held back and paid over as maintenance for their children.

This would drastically improve the state of our state buildings and institutions and might serve to encourage these deadbeat dads to find work in an attempt to avoid such community service.

Many of these fathers have a wide range of skills that the state could utilise.

Why are we allowing these dads to hold their hands up and say they can’t? Mothers, or at least the custodial parent, certainly do not have this option! — Name supplied, via e-mail