My entire life, I've seen the costs and consequences of parents who don't want to pay to take care of their own kids. My father abandoned me when I was child, and to my knowledge, paid zero or close to no child support. Over the years, I had two relationships with women who had children with men who'd had forgotten that their kids existed. That led to me paying child support for my own child, in addition to the children of other people who were ignoring their responsibility. In fact, to this day, most of my "adopted children" need money from me every other week to pay for things that their parents should be paying for. I admit that sometimes, it's draining.

I'm not the only one who goes through the challenge of paying for deadbeat parents. All across America, quite a few people have either been abandoned by deadbeat parents, paid the price for deadbeat parents or become a deadbeat parent themselves (you know who you are). It occurs in every community, so we cannot pretend that black people are the only ones who do this. But for some reason, there is a code of silence when this kind of behavior occurs in the black community, especially when the father is the perpetrator of this heinous crime. I say it's time for this to stop.

Most of us have a deadbeat dad or mom in our own family who has been allowed to be comfortable in the bliss of pretending that their child isn't real and doesn't have to eat every day. Some of us are dating people who've chosen to ignore their own children and for some reason, you share your body with this person with the expectation that they would take care of your own seed. All the while, there is some child out there struggling day-by-day without the ability to pay for school supplies, a winter coat or new shoes, and is forced to beg someone else's parent to do the things that their own parent has decided not to do.


Just for the record, I'm not only talking about the men who are doing this. I am also not simply referring to non-custodial parents. In addition to the irresponsible "baby daddies" out there, we have mothers who deliberately alienate the father from the child by insisting that visitation can only occur under a strict set of rules (fathers have a right to decide how to raise their children also). We have parents who feel that getting the child support check is more important than preserving the relationship. We also have those parents who are allowing the world to turn their kids into walking stereotypes with a direct path to early prison or pregnancy. I'm talking about all of us who know we can do a better job and are simply not doing it, including myself. Almost no one is immune to this challenge.

This is a serious problem that all of us can play a role in helping to solve. When we see that person who's not doing what they are supposed to do, there's nothing wrong with speaking up about it and letting the person know that their behavior is unacceptable. If your son has turned himself into a baby-making machine, impress upon him the absolute importance of a man doing what is right by his children and being responsible with his personal choices. In my own life, I told one of my "adopted kids" the other day that I was going to help her hunt down the man who impregnated her to ensure that her boys don't end up becoming one of the hundreds of thousands of black men who end up in the cycle of prison, poverty, miseducation and death. We must engage in the immediate, impactful and determined intervention into the lives of our kids and those around us if we want to make our community better. If you were a child who'd been abandoned, you'd want someone speaking up for you too.

When you raise your sons and daughters teach them to remember that when they share their bodies with another person, they must ensure that this person would be a good parent if a child were to come from the relationship. Sure, kids don't always listen to us, but we can at least try our best when telling them how to choose appropriate mates. If you let a smooth-talking bum have sex with you and then he doesn't take care of your kids, you are not only destroying your own child's future, you're also making a mistake you should have known to avoid.

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One-by-one, we can make a difference on this issue. Part of the concept behind my "Fatherhood Bailout" initiative is that all black fathers who are willing to help children should impress upon themselves the importance of mentoring any child that comes into our path. You don't have to be a full-time parent to the child, but taking that time to provide positive words of encouragement, a compliment or two, a little bit of financial help or just some good advice can make the difference between producing another felon and building a Barack Obama.

As the late Michael Jackson once said, "It's time to make a change." The change we can make right now is to let deadbeat parents know that this kind of behavior is not going to be tolerated. Speak out and speak proudly to redefine what it means to be a parent in America. Let's start marching for our children today.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.