"My oldest daughter used to look at me, 'you're not paying child support, you're a bad dad.' Now it's totally different"

Mike Peterson

Getting child support payments has long been a challenge for mothers (or custodial parents) on welfare. When a non-custodial parent is out of work, family economics and relationships suffer.

Part of W-2 is the so-called Fatherhood Initiative. The program tries to develop job skills in non-custodial parents so that they can get jobs, pay child support, and avoid the legal consequences of non-payment.

Steve Horne, Dane County Coordinator of Children First, works with non-custodial parents. We spoke with him and Mike Peterson about Mike's experience in the program.

Mike Peterson:
For a while, I didn't have a lot of confidence in my job abilities. A lot of my jobs were two months here, two months there, they were short-term. They didn't lead to anything.

Steve Horne:
Mike had been beaten up in the system a lot. Yeah, a lot of it was Mike's fault. He was trying to run from the program and he was not really taking his fatherhood responsibilities seriously.

Mike still had the mentality that it's a system, "I'm gonna come in here and I'm gonna play the system" instead of trying to figure out how you're going to make the system work.

Mike Peterson:
I think I kind of got under his skin for a while.

Steve Horne:
I really had to have a match with Mike and just sit there and explain to him in some pretty harsh ways that he's gotta grow up, and he's gotta be a man.

I think when he started to realize that I was gonna put all of my time into his case, I think he started feeling that somebody out there was giving a damn.

Mike Peterson:
He put faith in me when I didn't have faith in myself and kind of showed me that people do care.

I'm working in a warehouse now and I would like to really get into it and, possibly get my own warehouse, be a warehouse manager. I figure working where I'm at, I can get the experience. I'd like to do that eventually.

Steve Horne:
It took a lot of work with Mike. But again, to see how happy he is and he's gonna be getting the promotion and the raise and all that. You know, just to see him smile. This is the best I've seen him look in a long, long time.

Mike Peterson:
I kind of feel better about myself. I'm happy. I'm more bouncy. At least that's what everyone tells me.

Steve Horne:
He had such a cool look in his eye when he was talking about that he was going be able to start getting rights to be able to go see his daughter....I think that's a big part of a lot of guys' bottom-line goal.

Mike Peterson:
My child support comes right out of my check...I don't mind it at all. I'm obligated to do it. I should do it.

My oldest daughter used to look at me, "you're not paying child support, you're a bad dad." Her mom put it in her head. Now that it's being paid, it's totally different, it's "Hi Dad, love you, when you coming to visit?" She looks on me as a father, instead of just someone who's there.

She's my daughter and I just love her to death.