Friend or foe

Friends of the court. Whose friends are they? The department, without apology, is a sexist device that was developed to help single mothers who were forced to bear the burden of raising a child on her own. Yes I said sexist. The foundation of the department is honorable, yet where does it defend the participating father?

Sure, a young lady has a baby with a young man who decides to toss his obligations to the wind, then the FOC is a handy tool to get some assistance with the raising of that child financially. The key word here is "assistance". Somewhere through the years, the single mother has decided that her income would be for her and the absent father's income would be for the welfare of the child. In defense of the young ladies who truly are in need of assistance because of a "dead beat dad" the system is definitely built for them. However, the legitimate fathers who spend time with their child, pay for their educational needs and after school activities, but are still being financially raped by the FOC with no remorse from the single mother - are victims of the system. In the end, the system almost suggests to the single father that there is no advantage - financially - for the single father to be a good father as opposed to reducing his presence to a monthly check. Where's the justice in that?

In 1919, Michigan law created the “friend of the court”, which later was defined in the Friend of the Court Act (1982 PA 294) as an employee/position within each judicial circuit court across the state. The friend of the court is defined by Michigan law as being “an employee of the circuit court…” [MCL 552.503(4)]. Every person who holds the position of friend of the court across the state is given an office and a complete support staff (including an ‘assistant’ friend of the court) to assist them in carrying out their legal duties as required by Michigan law.

Each local friend of the court, while overseeing their office of support staff, performs their duties under the direction and supervision of the chief judge in each judicial circuit. The legal duties and responsibilities of every friend of the court and their office are essentially derived from Public Act 294 of 1982 (commonly referred to as the Friend of the Court Act), and from Public Act 295 of 1982 (commonly referred to as the Support and Parenting Time Enforcement Act). Along with these laws, additional responsibilities of the friend of the court and their office are also derived from many other sources (such as court rules and administrative orders) which influence their activities as well.

The FOC is often referred to as the “investigative and enforcement arm of the circuit court.” One of the fundamental responsibilities of their office is to investigate matters concerning custody, paternity, and child support. Using the information gathered during these investigations, the FOC then makes recommendations to the court to use in creating orders for custody and for how much time children should spend with each parent after a divorce, paternity, or custody decision is made - and correspondingly, how much child support should be ordered as well.

In Michigan, as in other states, the amount of time a child spends with their parents is a key factor in determining how much child support is collected by the FOC and processed through the state’s welfare system.


Unfortunately, once a child is concieved out of wedlock, the man loses claim of any sort regardless. Take this for example. When a parent finds out that a young man has gotten their daughter pregnant and the young man says he's not ready for a child, then he's "immature" and "should've thought about that before you laid down and had sex". He gets the most negative response for not wanting to keep the child. Now on the other hand, the young lady says that she doesn't believe she's ready and is contemplating abortion or adoption and all of the sudden she's getting praised for making the same decision. How is that possible?

Its an unfortunate situation for the male. Another instance is when a young mother is unemployed, why is the father not allowed custody of the child instead of being charged child support? If the issue is really about the welfare of the child and the mother has no source of income while the father is working and willing to take on the responsibility of raising the child, doesn't it seem obvious that the father should have custody of the child? Of course not, The FOC would rather make the father pay child support and take care of the child whose mother is unemployed and not even willing to ease some the financial strain on the father. I wonder how many women would have these babies if they knew that there was never a chance to get child support from the father of the child. Just a thought. Catch ya' on the FLIPSIDE.