When Courts Break Fathers Financially, the Children Pay the Price

By Tom Marazzo

Walk into any Family Court in Ontario and you'll see a familiar scene: fathers representing themselves, heads down, documents in hand, and hope slowly draining from their faces. This isn’t rare. It’s not the exception. It’s the rule.

Today, over 70% of fathers in Ontario’s Family Courts are self-represented. Not because they’re reckless or dismissive, but because they’re broke. Legal fees in custody and support battles are astronomical — and when you're already being squeezed for child and spousal support, affording a lawyer becomes impossible. The same court that demands perfection from these fathers then punishes them when they inevitably fall short.

This is not justice. It’s a setup.

The Myth of the “Deadbeat Dad”

Public perception still clings to the image of the “deadbeat dad” — the man who walks away, doesn’t pay, doesn’t show up, doesn’t care. But that myth has become a convenient cover for a system that creates deadbeats by design.

Many men labeled as “deadbeat” were fully present fathers — until the courts stripped them of time with their children and imposed financial obligations they could never meet. They didn’t walk away. They were pushed out, squeezed dry, and then branded as failures. What most people never see are the fathers quietly working two jobs, skipping meals, and falling behind on their own rent just to avoid being in arrears.

This isn’t abandonment. It’s financial collapse.

The Court Says It Cares About the Child — But Follows the Money

We are constantly told that Family Court operates under the principle of “the best interests of the child.” But in reality, that phrase has become a smokescreen. What drives decisions in courtrooms across this province is not the child’s well-being — it’s the question of who earns more and how much can be extracted.

Fathers — especially those with higher incomes — quickly learn that they aren’t being assessed as parents, but as payers. The court system isn't concerned with the strength of the father-child bond, the impact of reduced parenting time, or the emotional consequences for the child. It cares about enforceable financial orders.

And everything a man is ordered to do — every dollar owed, every payment missed — is backed by the full weight of the law. He can have his wages garnished, his driver's license suspended, be evicted from his own home, or even face jail time for arrears.

It doesn’t matter if he’s struggling. It doesn’t even matter if the child turns out not to be biologically his. Yes, even if DNA proves the child isn’t his, child support orders can remain in place.

It gets worse. A man can be forced to pay child support for children from a previous relationship — while the biological father is also paying support for the same children. The system does not correct these injustices. It doubles down. It prioritizes financial continuity over biological reality, and bureaucratic consistency over human truth.

The more you make, the more you pay. The less you earn, the faster you drown. The system doesn’t protect the child — it protects the money.

When Courts Break Fathers, Children Pay the Price

The most tragic part of this system isn’t just what it does to fathers — it’s what it does to children. Family Court should be about them — about giving them the support and stability of both parents. But instead, it too often becomes a courtroom for punishing adults.

When one parent is marginalized, everyone loses — especially the kids. They lose time, they lose connection, they lose a relationship that could have helped shape their lives in meaningful ways. A child deserves the full presence of both parents, not just the one who won the legal tug-of-war.

When a father is financially broken — burdened with outdated income calculations, legal fees, and unrealistic support expectations — his ability to stay in his child’s life is eroded. He is punished for struggling, and that punishment is passed directly onto the child.

Why Many Men Don’t Even Try

Men are statistically less likely to seek full custody — not because they don’t want to raise their kids, but because they know the odds. They know they’ll face a system that assumes the mother is the default caregiver, regardless of the facts. And they know that trying to fight for equal time will cost them thousands of dollars while increasing their obligations to maintain their ex-partner’s standard of living.

In short, they don’t believe they’ll be treated fairly — because most aren’t.

And so, they settle for crumbs. Not out of neglect, but out of survival.

The System Won’t Change — Unless Mothers Do

We can call for legal reform. We can lobby for shared parenting as the default. We can demand courts stop bankrupting one parent to enrich another. But none of it will matter until mothers themselves begin to see things differently.

Because here’s the truth: Family Court outcomes are shaped not just by judges — but by what one parent is willing to allow.

No matter how broken a relationship may be, unless there is physical or violent abuse, a father still has a right to be in his child’s life. Not occasionally. Not conditionally. Fully.

But until more mothers believe — genuinely believe — that their children have just as much of a right to a father as they do to a mother, the system won’t change. It can’t. Because right now, too many mothers are encouraged — legally and socially — to view fatherhood as optional, or transactional. And the courts enable this view every day.

Children deserve both parents. They deserve to hear both masculine and feminine voices in their life. They deserve to learn how to love, argue, resolve conflict, and grow by watching the dynamic between a mother and a father — even after separation. That relationship, even in its brokenness, is the model that will shape how they approach their own marriages, their own parenting, their own sense of identity.

And when one half of that model is erased, the damage echoes for generations.

I Know This Because I’ve Lived It — As a Child and a Father

This isn’t theory to me. It’s not something I read in a book or heard second-hand. I know how broken the system is because I’ve lived it — both as a child who watched it play out, and as a father now trying to survive it.

I’ve seen what happens when courts reduce fatherhood to a payment schedule. I’ve seen what it does to a man who wants to love and raise his children but is treated like an ATM with visiting hours. I’ve also seen what it does to children — how they internalize conflict, how they become confused about love, trust, and permanence.

The courts say they act in the child’s best interest. But when a child is separated from a loving parent by a courtroom process that values money over meaning, the result isn’t protection — it’s damage. Deep, invisible, long-lasting damage.

We Owe Our Children Better

Family Court in Ontario — and across much of Canada and even North America — is broken. It is not a system of fairness. It is not designed to protect children. It is a machine that extracts resources, punishes fathers, and forces children to grow up with half the love they were born into.

Yes, we need legislative reform.

Yes, we need courts that prioritize mental and emotional well-being over financial compliance.

But more than anything, we need a cultural shift — one that starts with mothers who are willing to say:

“No matter what happened between us, my child still needs their father.”

Until that happens, the system won’t change.

And children will keep paying the price.