I wanted to pay six years of child support and I could not, and the reason is the strangest piece of law I encountered in the whole of this.

When the order of filiation was made, a support order followed, as it always does.

That part is simple: an amount, a formula, medical, education, until twenty-one in New York.

What I wanted was the back end.

Six years at what I could have paid, which is a great deal, handed over in a lump, because it was owed.

Sharon Bellweather told me no.

In New York, child support ordered in a paternity proceeding is retroactive to the date the petition is filed.