HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Love Your Kids event hosted by the Office of the Attorney General wrapped up on Saturday, stressing the importance of parents coming together for their children, even after splitting up.
“Obviously we are dealing with broken homes. Loving your kids is important because the AG’s office is responsible to deal with broken homes, children who are subject to their parents no longer being together but the financial need continues,” Attorney General Douglas Moylan told The Guam Daily Post at the event.
The AG’s office sought to stress that financially supporting a child is part of loving the child.
“Instead of punishing one parent to pay their child support, we are focusing on both parents, the custodial and non-custodial moms and dads, to try to make the kids a success in life. I think they both agree they love the children, they just have differences amongst themselves,” Moylan said.
It’s about giving children from broken homes the resources to become successful, he said.
“Not just talking about money, talking about the time, the functions, the sharing, who they are as parents, grandparents, so forth. It makes the children stronger, better adults when they become parent themselves,” Moylan said.
The Love Your Kids event was started by Moylan during his first term as attorney general 20 years ago and when he became the AG again, he made sure to bring back the event.
“We’ve now reinstalled the Love Your Kids program and we’re now amping it up. We understand that, nationally, the Region 9 has started adopting this as well, getting away from the fighting that normally accompanies a breakup in a relationship,” Moylan said.
The program entails various aspects, like the access and visitation program, which seeks to get the non-custodial parent more involved with their children.
“Also, the guidelines do give benefit when there’s joint custody, the financial numbers go down for the non-custodial parent. But, again, we are trying to focus on the bigger picture,” Moylan said.
Often times when the AG’s office is mentioned in custody or child support, it carries a negative connotation, a perception that Moylan aims to change.
“The guidelines control child support. You’re not going to get any better vantage point by fighting with the other person because it’s a numbers-crunching game. It’s like taxes; you punch in the numbers and come up with a figure,” Moylan said.
The Love Your Kids event sought to educate parents about supporting their children to the standard of living they were accustomed to when the parents were together, while also helping relieve the burden on taxpayers.
“So that we are not having to pay for the support of children with welfare benefits and then the hardship. That’s why we go back to love your kids. Do you really want your kids on food stamps and all the welfare assistance when you could be providing the support?” Moylan asked.
This is the first year the Love Your Kids event has been held as part of Child Support month and Moylan plans to bring the event back throughout the year.
“I am working with Ray Ilagan, who is the Child Support deputy, to find what federal resources we can (tap to do) the outreach assisting parents. We are trying to do the Accessing Visitation program so that they can give out movie tickets to the non-custodial parents so they can take their kids to the movies, spend that time together. You know if the noncustodial parent wants to be involved, we want to help them. It’s not about the money,” Moylan said.
Youth dancers from Inspire perform during the Office of the Attorney General’s Love Your Children event on Saturday at the Micronesia Mall Center Court.
