By Michael Phillips | Father & Co.
This week, Gov. Wes Moore and Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller proclaimed August 2026 National Child Support Awareness Month in Maryland. The Department of Human Services posted the news on Facebook with two documents attached: the governor’s formal proclamation, and a citation from Acting Secretary Stacy L. Rodgers thanking the Child Support Administration for its “outstanding dedication and service to Maryland families.”
Great. Pay your child support. Nobody here is arguing otherwise. But read that citation next to the actual condition of Maryland’s family courts, and the celebration starts to look like what it is: the state congratulating itself for the one thing it has built a fully automated machine to enforce, while staying silent on everything else that machine was never built for.
The part of the ledger nobody proclaims
Maryland’s support enforcement schedule doesn’t leave much to chance. Under the Judiciary’s own rules, wage withholding is mandatory once a parent hits 30 days behind. Credit bureaus get notified at 60 days. At 120 days, the state can pull a driver’s license, a threshold lawmakers doubled from 60 days in a reform that took effect Oct. 1, 2025, after realizing that yanking someone’s ability to drive to work over a missed payment tends to guarantee the next payment gets missed too. Professional license suspension has run on that same 120-day mark all along; it wasn’t part of the change. Contempt of court, with jail on the table, sits behind all of it.
Now find the equivalent machinery for a parent who’s locked out of their own child’s life. It doesn’t exist. Maryland Family Law § 9-105 gives a judge permission to reschedule missed time, adjust the order, or hand out fees “in a manner consistent with the best interests of the child.” No agency. No 30-day trigger. No 120-day trigger. Just a parent who has to hire a lawyer, file a motion, and prove in court that the other parent’s refusal was willful, then hope the judge feels like doing something about it that day.
That’s the real distance between the two halves of a custody order in Maryland. One half runs on autopilot. The other half runs on whether you can afford to fight for it.
The state built three automatic enforcement tiers for missed payments. It built one optional sentence for missed childhoods.
Whose interest is this actually serving?
“One half runs on autopilot. The other half runs on whether you can afford to fight for it.”
Here’s the question the proclamation doesn’t ask, and the one this state has never had to answer out loud: what does Annapolis actually get out of enforcing support so aggressively while leaving access enforcement to chance? Collected support offsets public assistance costs and keeps families off state rolls. A denied Saturday visit costs the state nothing. A missed birthday, a blocked phone call, a parent who quietly disappears from a kid’s life because enforcing the order costs more than most people can afford in legal fees, none of that shows up on a state ledger anywhere. So it doesn’t get a proclamation. It doesn’t get a citation. It doesn’t get an acting secretary’s signature.
“A denied Saturday visit costs the state nothing.”
This isn’t a uniquely Maryland problem. It traces back to a federal law, Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, that conditions a state’s welfare funding on building exactly the enforcement system Maryland has: automatic, standardized, unforgiving of arrears once they accrue. No federal law does the same for a parent locked out of their child’s life. Congress built one parental obligation a national enforcement infrastructure in 1975 and left the other to fifty statehouses. Most of them, including Maryland’s, built next to nothing.
“Congress built one parental obligation a national enforcement infrastructure in 1975 and left the other to fifty statehouses.”
It didn’t have to stay that way. Minnesota’s legislature didn’t wait for a federal mandate. State law there requires courts, not just permits them, to award compensatory time, cost reimbursement, and attorney’s fees when a parent repeatedly and intentionally denies parenting time, the same mandatory language Minnesota uses to enforce support. Missouri went further and wrote the whole imbalance out of its law entirely: courts there are directed to enforce custody and support orders “in the same manner,” and a judge can reduce support when a parent blocks access without good cause.
Maryland has had years to look at Minnesota and Missouri. It has chosen, year after year, to look away.
“Maryland has had years to look at Minnesota and Missouri. It has chosen, year after year, to look away.”
What we’re actually saying
Nobody at Father & Co. is telling parents to skip a support payment. Kids need to eat, and the parents who dodge that obligation deserve every bit of the enforcement machinery aimed at them. What we’re saying is that a state government confident enough to publicly thank its collections staff should be honest enough to admit it has built nothing remotely comparable for the parent, and the child, on the other side of a visitation order that gets violated with no real consequence.
“A state confident enough to thank its collections staff should be honest enough to admit what it has not built.”
Until that changes, a proclamation like this one isn’t really about children at all. It’s about which obligations put money in the state’s pocket, and which ones don’t.
Sources: Maryland Department of Human Services Facebook post, Aug. 28, 2026, including images of the governor’s proclamation and Acting Secretary Stacy L. Rodgers’ citation to the Child Support Administration (agency-published social media, corroborated by the primary documents pictured in the post); Maryland Judiciary child support enforcement schedule; Md. Code, Family Law § 9-105; Md. Code, Family Law § 10-119 and Transportation § 16-203, as amended effective Oct. 1, 2025; 42 U.S.C. §§ 651–669b (Title IV-D); Minn. Stat. § 518.175, subd. 6; Mo. Rev. Stat. § 452.340. Reporting by Michael Phillips, Father & Co., Aug. 30, 2026.
Keep Father & Co. Free
Father & Co. exists to support parents navigating separation, custody, and systems that are often confusing, isolating, or overwhelming. This work is grounded in lived experience, careful research, and respect for the real stakes families face.
If this article helped you feel less alone, better informed, or more grounded, reader support helps keep these resources free and available to others who need them.
Need help reviewing or organizing court or formal documents?
Father & Co. offers non-legal document review and organization for people representing themselves. This includes clarity, structure, neutral tone, and timeline organization — not legal advice or representation.
Have a story, experience, or resource to share?
Submissions are reviewed with care and discretion. We respect privacy and handle sensitive information responsibly.
Discover more from Fatherand.Co
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
