single father

[Benjamin Barrett]

It looks like a mix-up or else that something is missing to me. If he
has custody, he shouldn't have to make support payments.

Possibly, the support payments are back payments that he missed in the
past. BB

On Dec 19, 2008, at 10:58 PM, Victor wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      single father
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There seems to be an evolution of single fatherhood. My assumption has
> always been that the term was, essentially, custodial. So, a single
> father would have been someone whose spouse/partner/mother of child
> either died or left the household, leaving the children behind. This
> would also include more rare cases where the children were placed with
> the father by a court order (for whatever reason). Thus, single
> fathers
> would, generally, have been more rare than single mothers, as it is
> much
> easier for a father to disappear without acknowledging a child.
>
> Not so now.
>
> <http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10122646-92.html?tag=nl.e433>
>
> <blockquote>
> As disappointing as it was for Campo to lose a job that he liked, this
> 21-year-old has more responsibilities than most of his peers working
> retail. He's a single father who recently won joint custody of his
> 2-year-old son. Campo is also putting himself through school, studying
> math with hopes of becoming a high school calculus teacher.
>
> But his priority right now is making his child support payments.
> </blockquote>
>
> Child support payments usually imply shared and non-primary custody,
> a.k.a. non-custodial parent. So, unless I am completely misreading
> this,
> the use here is of two "single parents"--both custodial and
> non-custodial. Is this in common usage now? Or is this simply an
> isolated incident?
>
>    VS-)
>
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