Father’s Receipt and Good Deed Go Viral After He Saw ‘Completely Empty’ Refrigerator

A stock photo of a fridge (Pixabay)

A young father’s Facebook post went viral after his kind deed.

Brandon Carpenter uploaded a photo of a long receipt that was so lengthy, it didn’t show the price at the bottom.

He wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post that the mother of his child had told him that “our daughter isn’t feeling well and needs some Tylenol.”

When he arrived at her home, he saw there was some food for their girl, but he noted that her refrigerator was “completely empty,” reported Good Housekeeping.

Carpenter further explained that “she pays rent and all her bills plus she is paying off a car..so today I went shopping to make sure she had food for the rest of the week.”

The young father wrote, “Some of y’all think I’m only going to provide for my child” and not the mother.

He described that notion as “thinking like a child,” adding that it is “time to grow up and take responsibility in all aspects of life.”

“Just because we aren’t together doesn’t mean I can’t provide for her if she needs it,” Carpenter also said.

According to Good Housekeeping, some people asked whether or not Carpenter, as a young father, would be able to afford that many groceries. However, it was confirmed that he made the purchases.

“We’ve received several emails from readers expressing concern over the validity of this story. We have also received messages questioning whether Carpenter used his own credit card to purchase the groceries, among other allegations,“ it said, adding: ”Carpenter responded to our comment request and confirmed that he used his bank account used to make the purchase.”

$10 Billion in Child Support Goes Uncollected

A U.S. Census report stated that about 43.5 percent of custodial parents get the full amount of support that they’re legally entitled to.

But more than 30 percent don’t get anything at all.

“It’s not easy to get the money,” said Illinois attorney Nancy Chausow Shafer, CBS News reported. “Many people don’t want to pay and find a lot of ways to get around it.”

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) stated that some $33 billion in child support was paid for more than 15 million children, or about 20 percent.

That means, according to CBS, about $10 billion at the very least in child support is uncollected.

Those payments can cause a problem.

The poverty rate for custodial-mother families, as a result, is about 29 percent, CBS reported.

Also, filing a lawsuit to get missing payments can cause even more problems and is costly.

“As an attorney, I tell clients that sometimes the cost outweighs the benefit,” said Shafer of the legal fees.

California law, meanwhile, stipulates that a “court cannot enforce this obligation until it makes an order for support,” according to the California Courts website.

“When parents separate, a parent must ask the court to make an order establishing parentage (paternity) and also ask the court to make an order for child support. Child support payments are usually made until children turn 18 (or 19 if they are still in high school full time, living at home, and cannot support themselves),” the website says.

In the state, a parent who falls behind in payments will have to also pay interest on the balance.

It’s “10 percent per year for child support that was due on or after January 1, 1983 … or 7 percent per year for child support that was due before January 1, 1983,” the court website says.

Woman Gets $150K in Child Support ... 50 Years Later

A woman from California won about $150,000 in child support her ex-husband—for her 52-year-old daughter.

Toni Anderson said her ex-husband, a man she described as her “deadbeat ex,” left her with their 3-year-old 50 years ago, reported 10News in San Diego.

She said her ex went to Canada rather than paying court-ordered child support in the 1970s.

“I kind of put it on the back burner and just kind of forgot about it over the years,” said Anderson, adding that she supported her daughter while working as an interior designer in Los Angeles.

“I’m not negating the fact I was able to send my daughter to college, Paris. We traveled and had a good time. But the money runs out,” she said.

Anderson said that she is renting part of her home, and she is now running low on funds. That’s when it donned on her to file a lawsuit against her ex-husband for not paying child support.