I frequently read and hear anecdotes about non-custodial parents (usually fathers) being ordered to pay outrageously high child support – amounts that are impossible for anyone with an ordinary income to afford. No doubt some of these anecdotes are exaggerated, but I’m convinced that some are not. Unaffordable child support payments don’t benefit anyone – not even the children – and should not be imposed. Furthermore, some measures to help non-custodial parents pay child support – such as a tax deduction of some sort – would be reasonable.
However, some men’s rights activists (MRAs) use rhetoric which suggests that child support payments are often or typically outrageously high, or that child support has made single motherhood a profitable situation for women. Neither claim is true.
According to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report (pdf link), the median child support payment in the U.S. is $280 a month. The average child support payment is a little higher – $350 a month. That’s a noticeable amount – similar in scope to payments on a new car – but it’s hardly the crushing, slavery-like burden some MRAs seem to describe child support as.
Although the Census Bureau report doesn’t provide detailed income breakdowns, what information it has indicates that child support amounts are sensitive to income. For instance, among fathers who are below the poverty line, the median child support payment is $125 a month, compared to a median of $300 a month for those above the poverty line.
So despite the terrible anecdotes that we hear (and if you think about it, it’s those who are mistreated by the system who are going to talk about their experiences the most often), the evidence shows that typical child support payments are not ridiculously high. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about those outliers who are being ordered to pay unaffordable amounts of child support; however, I think the weight of the evidence suggests that while the system may need some tweaking, on the whole it’s not broken.
* * *
So the typical child support payment is $280 a month – put another way, half of custodial parents who receive child support get $280 a month or less. How does that compare to the costs of raising a child?
Again, the federal government compiles some good statistics on this (pdf link). For a single parent with an income of about $17,500, raising a single child for 17 years will cost about $10,125 a year, or $840 a month.
Of course, a single parent who earns $17,500 a year is pretty poor. What about single parents who aren’t poor? For better-off single parents – those earning an average of $65,000 a year – raising a single child for 17 years will cost almost $21,600 a year, or a little over $1,800 a month.
All told, the typical child support payment in the USA covers much less than half the expense of raising a child. Custodial parents – usually mothers – are taking on not only the majority of the work involved in childrearing, and the majority of the opportunity costs – they’re taking on the majority of the cash expenses, as well.
Therefore, I’d support a two-tiered reform to child support. Child support payments should be made more sensitive to individual situations, so that noncustodial parents are not saddled with irrational and impossible-to-pay child support orders, as has happened in some outlier cases. At the same time, typical child support payments are simply too low, compared to the cost of raising a child; therefore, most non-custodial parents should have their child support obligations increased. (This will also have the side benefit of reducing unwed motherhood.)
NOTE FOR COMMENTS: Please don’t post about how you have an income of $500 a month and the judge ordered you to pay $2000 a month in child support to your ungrateful lazy ex-spouse who spends all the child support money on dresses she can wear to the track and she earns more than you do anyway and the judge won’t even reply to your motions. Unless I know both you and your ex-spouse, and can verify for myself that she’d tell me the same version of events that you’re telling me, I don’t think anecdotal evidence of that sort is more useful than the federal data.
Oh I know. I’m not saying I agree. I really think there should be only RARE cases where someone doesn’t have to support their kids.
In fact, if someone doesn’t work because their new spouse supports them, I think the new spouse should also support the non custodial kid.. because you know what, taking on that person and their bills/expenses should include ALL of their obligations.
I’m not sure I would be against that, Jenn. The Big Dude takes on all the responsibilities for the little lady – he should take them all on. That’s not going to work in reality, though, because you can only pin child support on someone who was involved in making the child OR someone who was married at the time the baby was made (“presumptive paternity”).
But you realize that if he is responsible for all of her debts, then it would only be fair to have her … ask him … before she takes on yet another debt that he has to pay.
And then you are right back at something called “coverture” that feminists are dead set against. Already been done.
@mythago
In a thread that has been dominated by female posters complaining about not receiving their law-alloted child support from their feckless and petty exes, you say that no one is talking about the men who refuse to live up to their responsibilities.
And, besides, I grew up in a literal ghetto. There’s nothing that you can describe to me (child abuse, wife abuse, etc.) that I haven’t seen with my own eyes. I’ve seen a “deadbeat dad” get shot by his ex over missing a $75 payment. Sure, the guy was homeless and the woman in question used her drug dealer boyfriend’s gun to kill him, but your talking points in this thread remind me of a Mitt Romney supporter (“Well, if he didn’t want to get shot, he should have just gotten a better job than the one he had before!”)
I’m just saying, I don’t get it. Somehow, in the minds of way too many people in this thread, there’s this massive throng of middle-aged men who just throw their wives away and quit six-figure jobs to avoid paying child support. And somehow, these same six-figure earning men suffer such a low loss of reputation that they manage to still get work “under the table”, allowing them to return to their six-figure lifestyle while their kids live on government cheese and hate. Or, conversely, these six-figure earning men live in states where none of the welfare-government assistance authorities would even consider flipping on their desktops and searching for a few minutes to find the name of the last person who served as a non government-designated “father figure” for the children receiving assistance…
MaMu1977 – I’m envious of your telepathic powers. I normally have to limit myself to responding to what people *say*, and not to what’s in their minds, especially since, if you’re right, what people here are saying and what’s in their minds really don’t have much to do with each other.
you say that no one is talking about the men who refuse to live up to their responsibilities
Sorry, no. Please go back and read what I actually said.
What you actually said, on the other hand, was: “I’d sooner believe that someone managed to train a cat to walk on it’s hind legs and shake paws than believe that a court would choose a man over all but the most dysfunctional of women.” In other words, anyone whose anecdata differs from yours is not only wrong, but probably lying. Why on earth would anyone try to have a meaningful discussion with you if your position is “You’re a liar, and by the way, I’d rather fabricate arguments you never made than talk to you”?
Penelope, you asked for attorney opinions on imputed income. If what you wanted was a specific opinion, maybe you should have said so. Does it surprise me that judges are stuck in the same sexist ‘women should stay home and raise babies and men should work’ mindset a lot of people are – including couples pre-divorce? Nope. As one acquaintance of mine who practices family law put it, in so many divorces, women think they own the kids and men think they own the money.
Isn’t that part of the complaint though? If you’re in a relationship, no-one would stop you throwing in the towel and giving up lawyering to become an artist. Parents are normally given substantial autonomy over their career choices, so long as they avoid neglect and meet minimal standards of support. But if you separate you’re expected to keep on working and pulling in the cash.
James, your comment isn’t really addressing mythago’s explanation. There’s a difference between “I seriously do want to become a starving artist,” and “I’m going to stop working while child support is hashed out and then go back to my higher-paying job.” If child support orders are totally accommodating to the first, they open a giant, screaming loophole for the second. And yes, screwing over your own children is something that should be prevented.
@mythago
Once again, I’ve seen (with my own eyes) drug addicts, felons and the mentally unstable given custody over small children on a regular basis. I’ve worked with men with no criminal record or substantiated history of abuse who were awarded the standard “two weekends a month” of custody, while their exes were given all-but-full custody despite having an array of issues. That woman who I mentioned in my earlier post, the one who let her meth-dealer boyfriend rape her child? The courts (Michigan, then Louisiana) mandated that her ex-husband continue to give her child support (even after he received probational full custody for her to enter into a rehab program.) Do you think that a man with full custody of his children would be able to avoid jail time if his child showed up at school with a bloody anus (and if that child told the school officials that “Daddy does it to me.”) Yet, ha ha, her post-rehab CS was upped in order for the mother in that case to provide a “comfortable environment” for her children during her unsupervised visitation (and during that visitation, the mother allowed her boyfriend to molest her child again to save money to use to buy crystal meth.)
If you’re trying to tell me that there are women with jobs in America who:
Lose custody of their children to drug-addicted men,
Then are unable to regain custody of their children even after they show up at school with blood leaking from their asses (while freely telling school officials and policemen about what Daddy does to them),
Then are still unable to earn sole custody after their rapist/drug addict husbands somehow manage to avoid jail time
Then are forced to show up in court again after their jobless, drug addicted ex-husbands use their renewed visitation rights to allow the children to be molested again (while shelling out a thousand unaccounted-for dollars per month to aforementioned drug addict)
I’m calling bullshit. If I hadn’t worked with the man in question, I wouldn’t have believed the case myself. If I hadn’t seen the cancelled checks with my mother’s signature and the years of court documents, I would have believed my mother’s claim that my father never gave a damn about me and wanted us to live poor (although seeing the checks worked to explain how my mother could always afford nice clothes and weed.)
But, I’m done with this. This is one of those topics that is built for long evenings of arguing (it’s a step below religion, that way.) You have your viewpoint, which is basically “If a man makes a child, he should give as much of his money to the mother as possible, even if he ends up in the poorhouse or jail to pay his share as she uses her own money.” My viewpoint is, “Human extinction can’t come quickly enough. Let me spread as many stories about the dangers of procreation as possible in order to reach my goal of 0% population.” Now, I’m hoping that this thread won’t send updates to my E-mail account any more, I have to go argue with a woman who revealed her bright idea to save the world: selective abortion of male fetuses/castration of any “unfit” male fetuses that are carried to term. Obviously, this new topic is worlds juicier than our stalemate.
All I can say is that i wish i could only pay $500 or less a month for my child. The system just didn’t make any sense.
You know, the best part about MaMu1977’s flounce is that the ‘abort all male fetuses’ poster is probably also a trolling MRA looking to argue against the strawfeminists in his head rather than the person to whom he’s actually speaking. I’m just glad they won’t be feeding their adrenalin fix here.
@Ed, the system is trying to deal with situations where two people don’t get along anymore and are trying to negotiate emotionally charged issues of money and children; and the system is administered by humans, not all-seeing computers.
As my hero says, “Kill all humans!” As the logical conclusion of feminist ideology, I’ve got to support that.
Please excuse the long post. I’m catching up. Been too busy at work to play on the internet. Lol!
@ Max: I think it’s wonderful that your daughter is doing so well. It’s also great that you were able to be employed and stay near her. I don’t know the ends and outs of your situation and you probably did the best you could, BUT a lot of your comments do discount the difficulty (emotionally and financially) that a custodial parent, particularly a mother has to go through.
I was going to not say anything about the deadbeat dad comment, but heck why not? Here’s my take on it. I don’t think there is a term “deadbeat mom” simply because it’s not catchy. In my eyes, women who don’t support their kids are just as bad as men. In fact, I think they are worse, but that’s a whole other forum. For this blog, because I want to be respectful of the moderator’s wishes, I have committed to not using the term “deadbeat”, BUT I do believe that terms like whore, dummy, and the n word are offensive for different reasons. For example, I volunteered at a home for teenagers who were trying to get out of prostitution and they literally called each other whores (well hoes) and had no problem with it because the actual definition of a whore is someone who sleeps with someone with money. Seriously, if you call a prostitute a whore, she is not offended. If you call a non-prostitute a whore, she will be offended, rightfully so. The “n” word is clearly offensive and it’s not like you do anything to earn the horrible term, but be born into a particular race. If someone is actually intellectually challenged for the most part, it is not a life choice that they made to be that way, again, it’s rude and offensive to call them dumb or retarded, BUT in the case of a deadbeat, the man or woman literally has not paid their bills, so why should their life choice be sugar coated when they have made the decision to not pay their bills/child support. To me, the term deadbeat is more akin to the term murderer. A murderer may be offended by being called a murderer, but if they killed someone, I don’t feel the need to be concerned by their offense. They weren’t concerned by their victim’s offense. In my opinion, a deadbeat’s victim is their child/children. I wouldn’t say, “Kelly is a person who killed another person” just to protect the murderer’s feelings, so I think it’s a form of enabling to reconstruct a term for a person who does not pay their child support. BUT, AGAIN, for the purposes of this blog, out of respect for the rules, this will be the last time I use the term here.
@MaMu1977 I think that the fact that it bothers you just to read a differing opinion from your own might be indicative that your world view is skewed and you may not know the whole story. If your mom lied to you about having money and bought clothes and weed with money that should have gone to enhance your lifestyle, then she truly was a bad seed and you didn’t deserve that, BUT please know that that is not the norm. It really isn’t. Also, I would like to know how you got to see the canceled checks, out of curiosity – if you read this.
My mom never asked my father for one single dime my entire life. Not a freaking penny. She is one of the few women who will actually admit that she feels that if a woman has a child, she should solely be responsible for the child and further, she actually told me that she thinks that it is unfair to men to make them pay child support because they can’t “get ahead”, but women always find a way to make it. I was clearly annoyed by her point of view and though I love her, I have animosity toward her because I feel that it was selfish of her not to insist that he help out. We were not rich and I saw her struggle. I thought it was very unfair. I’ve said it before on this blog and I’ll reiterate that I believe that any custodial parent, man or woman, who is not independently wealthy, who does not seek child support is being stubborn and selfish because they are allowing their feelings to stop them from receiving money that could help their child. Because of MY upbringing, I absolutely refuse not to seek child support even though I can make it without my ex’s money, but his contribution will help out – if he ever decides to pay.
I write all that to say, that since my upbringing made me be adamant about receiving child support if I ever ended up in the unfortunate situation of being a single mom, is it possible that your childhood situation could make you seek out the most bizarre, unlikely and negative aspects of single mothers?
@Max: Yeah, see. That’s what I mean by it’s not about the kid. I think that a man, who has high moral character would, instead of wishing he could pay less to support his child, would wish he made more, so he could pay what he pays comfortably and possibly do more for his child/children. Just my two cents.
I believe that child support should only be rewarded to parents that have been married and recently got a divorce and can only be held responsible for the child if the child was concieved during the marriage. This means that in order to be held resposible for chlid support the parents in the marriage must have been married for atleast 24months. Even if the non-custodial parent is offering, the guide lines must be met upon before the custodial parent can be approved for childsupport. The DNA test would only establish paternity, visitation and would be evidence in a custody hearing.
Mr. Forward, that would still apply to me then. I wonder why my ex doesn’t feel he should have to pay… :/
@MrForward, do you also believe that those guidelines should apply to custody and parental rights?
Mr. Forward, I endorse your view and policy suggestion on one condition:
Any woman not eligible to be the custodial recipient for child support for a given child, can apply to have custody over and responsibility for said child, transferred to the child’s father. If the father declines the honor, the child welfare department flips a coin; tails, he’s taking care of the baby anyway. 24-7, and naturally, without child support from the mother.
I’m just glad that none of you are policy makers and that everyone has to follow the law even if he/she disagrees with it.
When I was in college, I was a student senator. I drafted a bill that would make grades from the first semester of freshman year not be added to a student’s final cumulative GPA. I had strong arguments, logical data, and research to support my proposal. The reality of the situation is that I had gotten a “D” in an economics class my freshmen year, the only one on my whole academic record, and I wanted it erased.
I use this example because while the arguments are presented in a logical, rational fashion, just like my bill, the heart of the opinion is narrow-minded and selfish. It doesn’t consider all of the options and basically would punish women for having children. I don’t think our justice system desires that. Just my opinion. :)
I took in my nephew & my sister & her husband think $200.00 a month is enough for a 17yr. They are middle to lower class making at least 14.00 an hour…I don’t think it’s enough. What do you think is a fair amount?? I want to provide the basic & not have it come out of my pocket. FYI: they kicked him out bc he was breaking the rules & getting into trouble
Robert; I”m sure a lot of fathers would love to be on that hypothetical bandwagon, give me liberty or give me my child. :-)
Theresa, in my state if someone is making 14/hour and working full time and had to support one child it would be closer to $360 a month. That doesn’t take into account other kids or liens or anything like that.
Possibly, but I suspect the person I was responding facetiously to would reject it, since he(?) basically seems to want unmarried mothers to just take care of everything. No ring, no support. I can at least theoretically support a marriage-incentivizing arrangement like that (marriage good)…but it needs to have broadly equal financial and lifestyle impacts on the parents. So, 50-50 chance who gets stuck with 100% of the burden.
Theresa –
Since its a nonjudicial arrangement and all you’re wanting is the real net cost of the kid, do this.
Track what you spend on food for a month. At 17 he’s eating an adult male portion; I don’t know if you have a partner or other kids or whatever, but assign him a fractional value of that cost. (IE if you are married and have no other kids, and your husband eats twice what you do and the kid eats about the same, then charge 2/5 or 40% of your basic food budget to the kid’s account. Don’t count beer or anything else that he’s not consuming.
If you’re heating and cooling another room of the house that previously was going unused, then assign him a flat fraction of your total utility bills. (3 in the house, 1/3 of the bill is his.) If his presence isn’t really making a difference in the heating/cooling bill, then just charge him that fraction on your water, sewer, and garbage bills, and your cable/Internet bill if he uses that.
If you have special expenses that are genuinely required and not just your choice, those can fairly be assigned to him. (Had to board your pet because the kid is allergic, he should pay that. You decided to subscribe to 400 cable channels because “teenagers need distraction”, he only pays his share.)
If you are driving the kid to school or to activities, then whatever gas is additional expense can be fairly accounted to him. (If you drop him at school on your way to work and literally just have to slow down at the intersection, don’t charge him.) If he is on your insurance or driving your vehicle then 100% of the difference in your insurance premium from when you DIDN’T have a 17-year old in the house is fairly accountable to him.
If he has school activity fees, clothing expenses, or medical bills – including increased insurance costs – that you’re paying, that’s all fairly accountable to him.
Off-hand, those are the things I can think of that can fairly be attributed to the presence of the kid in your house. Basically if you wouldn’t be spending it if it weren’t for him, then that goes on his bill.
Unless you live in a mud hut in the 19th century, I will eat a bug if that totals anything south of $200 per month. Calmly record all of these expenses, itemize the totals and save the receipts, and go over to your sister’s house to show her what the prodigal son costs to feed and maintain. If she balks, say OK and inform the kid of his new rent payment (your cost minus the $200 mom is kicking in). 17 is old enough to get a job. If he balks, problem solved. Put his stuff on the curb and change the locks.
(I am assuming here that you are also working for a living and that his expenses represent a significant chunk of money. If your real name is Ann Romney, then you could maybe cut the kid some slack for a few months if his mom won’t pay. If you’re choosing between his food bill and your car payment, then time for Teen Tiger to learn the valuable lesson entitled “root, hog, or die”.)
Thank for the response everyone. I added his car & my insurance sky rocketed-$64.00 for his car & it will be $202.06 to him alone! Totally $268.06 a month for just him & his car-min. Coverage. I do have my own 16 yr. old boy at home already so that maybe why it’s so high-2 teenage boys. I forwarded all the emails to them directly from my agent & they don’t believe the cost & keep telling me to look for another company. However, they don’t ask their agent what the cost would be for two teenage boys. Plus, now they are saying yet will NOT cover any insurance difference since they don’t think he should be driving. I have 3 kids of my own -16, 14 &8yr plus I am a guardian of an 18yr girl who is a senior in High School. I can not be everywhere at once & I feel it’s up to me if he drives or not he is living with me. My kids play sports , they have jobs & practices to get to beside others things….. I did explain $200.00 wasn’t enough lunches at school are a min. Of $57.00 a month if the month is less than 31 days & that leaves me with $ 143.00 a month. My water bill has gone up & it was high before roughly $240.00 a month before he got here-crazy water bills & lights I know!!! It upsets me they want to give them itemized deductions & don’t believe me about car insurance & telling to get another company. Common sense $35.75 a week isn’t enough.
OK, I’m gonna side with the sister on the insurance thing if they don’t want him driving. If you want him to drive, that’s going to be your expense. Nothing wrong with collecting it from him, however, and if he declines to pay it, then take him off the insurance and don’t let him drive. You can drive your other kids around; if he complains, explain the finances and say that when he or his mom pays for the cost of transportation you’ll be happy to add him to the family system.
(You might want to embroider “TANSTAAFL” on a lovely throw pillow for his bedroom and refer him to it if discussions grow heated. It stands for There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.)
Them asking for itemized deductions is not unreasonable if you are asking for additional funds; although they ought to know what it costs, showing costs on the books is not out of line. Them telling you to change insurers is completely out of line, however; will they tell you to take shorter baths and move to a cheaper part of town next? It is not your obligation to accommodate your lifestyle (including insurance choices) for the convenience of your sister’s children; when she is insuring the child, she may have a voice in what company you go through, and in the meantime she is perfectly entitled to a nice hot cup of Shut The Hell Up.
Honestly, though I do not know the boy in question, I suspect your best outcome is going to be to go to him directly, say, “look kid, your mom is not paying your freight here. I am not gonna let you starve, but I’m not gonna shell out $270 a month so that you can have a trouble wagon. You want to drive, you’re getting a job and you’re paying me 270 bucks, month in and month out, and on time. One day late and you’re uninsured, and kid, that is a thousand dollar ticket or thirty days of county hospitality. Up to you; work and drive, or sit and take the bus, let me know, I got other shit to do.”
If he has issues, point to the pillow. Good luck.
Thanks again feeling better.I can get a statement from my bills & divide it by 1/6 th. However, they did say they would pay the difference until they found out the cost & got mad at him then it was “no” not paying it…. I already had the car deducted from my account. He is not perfect but neither are they. I am gonna suck it up get reports of all my bills & show them. The grocery bill will be a littler harder to do but I can get something together. This will be my goal on Wednesday & if they don’t agree to shell out some more then I will file an order for child support & I don’t think they will be a frugal as me. I am a frugal person & pride myself on that. If it comes to that route….Do you think I should tell them we can let the courts decide an amount or just “surprise” them??
I could be wrong but I thought if you have teenagers at home your insurance goes up regardless if the drive or not…just goes up because they live there & have a drivers license?? I don’t know my son just got his license. Anyone know if this is the case??
I don’t know about the insurance. Your company can tell you; call their 1-800 customer service number.
On child support, I am not a lawyer and maybe your state is unusual, but I don’t think you can go to the courts for a support order under the circumstances you have described. He’s not your son, you’re under no obligation to take him; his mother still has legal custody. She’s just booted him out of the house for acting up. Maybe one of the lawyers here can give you some free advice (not that they will, skinflint bastards) if you let them know your state of residence. I will at least Google around and see if it’s relatively obvious, if you let us know where you are.
She asked me to take him. He has been living with me since 2nd week in Aug 2012. She signed paper so I could enroll him in my school district as we live an hour & 1/2 away sign papers so I can get him medical attention….but She doesn’t want to go thru the courts to give me legal guardianship & doesn’t want him back & won’t let him back. Plus I don’t think he should go back if that was even an option & it’s not. Family drama, she has drinking issues & he had his issues there. Just not a good situation for all & she asked me if he could live with me….
If you don’t have court-ordered custody, you’re not going to get a support order. That’s my understanding of the law, anyway, in my state. YMMV.
True, what I was trying to say if they dont want to give me more after I show them my documentation-bills. I will file for legal guardianship & child support.
If she is not willing to give up legal guardianship, then you face a long, expensive, and most likely futile battle to take guardianship, particularly given the boy’s age and the short duration for which the guardianship would operate. But again, not a lawyer. Good luck.
Thanks I will keep you posted.
Theresa; Robert is correct, you have an expensive/uphill battle toward trying to get legal custody. If you have no legal guardianship over him and you are still getting support money, then take it and run. He’s going to be 18 and most likely will not be eligible for support after that. Put your efforts into getting him on the right track toward a good education. There are a lot of state/federal funds and grants that he is eligible for, this is a win win battle that won’t cost anything but time.
@Theresa: you should talk to a lawyer immediately. You have no legal authority whatsoever over a child whose parents are shirking their legal obligation to take care of him. If he gets in trouble, who do you think they are going to point the finger at? If, god forbid, he suddenly runs up huge medical bills, who do you think is on the hook? And if he were to have a bunch of money – inheritance, job, whatever – do you think his parents would leave it alone?
I don’t think it would be much of a battle. When I filed te guardianship for te child I do have living with us now I did it myself & it was pretty easy. Plus they fact they don’t want him & have made that very clear. The other thing is he maybe 17 but if he don’t graduate on time he would have another year & legally in Wi you have to pay until they are 18 or if until they graduate High school if they are 18+. I can not afford the extra expensives & they both work full-time. I didn’t realize that he was gonna add that much more to my bills & I have told them the $200 doesn’t cut it. I just believe any reasonable person would see that doesn’t cut it. Like I said school lunches are $57 that leaves $143 a month-$35.75 a week isn’t enough. I know they don’t want him back & I know the courts roughly go by income in WI 17% for one kid. Now I don’t think I need $700 but I do know when they placed him in a shelter for teens they were court ordered to pay support to te State & I am sure it was closer or more than $700.
I would think even 300-400 would be ok with me but the 200 isnt doing it.
$280.00 a month? How about $2800.00 a month in NY ! Leaves me with $ 200 a week to live on!
@Theresa: you should talk to a lawyer immediately. You have no legal authority whatsoever over a child whose parents are shirking their legal obligation to take care of him. If he gets in trouble, who do you think they are going to point the finger at? If, god forbid, he suddenly runs up huge medical bills, who do you think is on the hook? And if he were to have a bunch of money – inheritance, job, whatever – do you think his parents would leave it alone?
Yes, this exactly. And “shirking their legal obligation to take care of him” may also equate to “neglect/abuse of a minor.” Involving Child Protective Services (or whatever it’s called in your state) may be helpful – they can formally remove him from a home that refuses to care for him and give you at least temporary custody in a more legally-binding way.
Parents cannot put a 17-year-old out on the street. Not without consequences.
@Theresa,”how do I get parents who have abandoned their child to pay more money to support him” is a lawyer question. Whether you have done family-law things related to this is the past doesn’t change that: it is a lawyer question. And by “lawyer question” I mean that you should talk to a lawyer in your state who practices family law and is knowledgeable about these issues. Asking random Internet people is not a substitute.
This.
And BTW, Mythago and I are both lawyers.
Well, he’s not out on the street, so let’s not say that he is. And I don’t particularly see why you can’t put a 17 year old out on the street, depending on his behavior. (If that behavior is caused by illness then obviously the hospital or inpatient clinic or halfway house is the place he should be.)
17 year olds are perfectly capable of gainful employment at a level which will keep body and soul together, even half time. There are (alas) no public high schools in the United States so challenging that a 17-year old of dull-normal intelligence and adequate work habits cannot pass its coursework, even with the distraction of a part-time job. $800 a month in income is not going to style Young Elvis, but it’s a lot more than his mother was getting to meet his material needs. Its’s $60 a month for school lunch and another $140 for Ramen, crackers, apples and rice at night, and $500 for a horrible flop somewhere, and $100 for a bus pass. It’s just for a few months.
Now, is a loving parent (however frustrated) going to jump to that scenario the first time Holden mutters something about everything being “phony”? No. And in this scenario, we see that a mother who has her own behavioral problems and life issues is nonetheless trying – a bit too QueenOfReality-ish, perhaps – to see that he’s in a home with a real grownup to supervise.
But I don’t think there’s a darn thing wrong with it being the last resort. My former housemate’s son turned 18 this year and was a senior, and he slid off a behavioral cliff. Wouldn’t do chores in the house (and by chores I mean, clean up after his own mess, plus let the dogs out once a day). Smoked pot in the house with his buddies, despite his mother’s extremely fervent forbiddances, all. the. time. Stayed up all night, in a house with one person who worked at home in the evenings and another who worked a 5 AM shift at the hospital, loudly playing video games. Stopped going to school, to the level of the school calling mom and saying “he is two absences away from it being physically impossible for him to graduate even if he has straight As…and he doesn’t.” Called in sick to work more often than not. A real capstone to his Year of Fail, went out with his friends and drove around in traffic holding up signs (and facial expressions) that said they were being kidnapped. Which did in fact lead to the Highway Patrol shutting down a couple of square miles, at rush hour.
My housemate was 5’2″ and 110 pounds soaking wet. The kid is the Hulk. She’s not going to beat him into acceptable behavior. He’s actively and explicitly rejecting her knowledge of life (“go to school, for Christ’s sake”) and how one transitions from being an elderly adolescent into a young adult, so she’s not going to reason him into submission. She’s already won the arguments, the kid’s acting like a moron and he knows it. He just Doesn’t Wanna. He’s capable enough, and she’s sufficiently busy, to make a “well then you won’t eat” Galtian strategy ineffective; he works, when he goes, at a restaurant, and she can’t guard the refrigerator; she has to go to work.
So she called the parents of the most stable of his friends, worked out an arrangement with them for school and food and bills, and told him one (schoolless, welcome-to-another-semester-of-HS) morning “pack your shit and get out. Randy and his folks are expecting you; I won’t make you go there but you can live with them if you want to, you’ll be welcomed. I’m driving over there in an hour if you would like a ride to their place with your stuff; I am not driving you anywhere else, and in an hour I call the sheriff if you aren’t moving out the door.”
(The last pure bluff as I don’t think the sheriff will evict your minor child for you…but as he was still awaiting trial on the kidnapping thing, he was law-enforcement shy.)
So he packed up his shit and got out. Frankly, I don’t see how she could have handled it any other way. Maybe humanitarian considerations would require a little more notice at other times of year, but this was May. Three good months of comfortable camping weather at that point in this state.
In what world is the cost of raising one child $840 a month? I raised my kids for several years before divorce and never spent that kind of money, I call shananagins!! that kind of figure belongs to a household who eats out every night and has a bedroom for each child and a closet full of abercrombie. In a world of $10 per hour jobs, most fathers losing $350 can’t afford to live anywhere but there parents basement on food stamps.
I think it really depends on your geography and lifestyle. I’m a single mother and I don’t live an extravagant lifestyle, BUT here are some calculations that directly relate to my child. Daycare = $250 per month (mind you that is with a MAJOR discount), Food = $300 per month (that’s just his food of course, not mine and I’m only including groceries, not any eating out, which we do), Rent = $200 per month (the difference in rent from my one bedroom apartment that I had before I had my kid vs. the rent I currently pay to live in a small 2 bedroom). Now, I’m up to $750 per month and I haven’t calculated clothes, shoes, pictures, school supplies, health insurance, co-pays, gas, electric, toys, books, dvds, medicine, diapers, wipes, birthday parties, Christmas gifts, school holiday parties where you have to bring a gift or donate something or other miscellaneous things that come up when raising a child. My humble conclusion is that it’s THIS world that a child cost that much to raise and non custodial parents who don’t contribute or complain about the contribution they make simply live in denial because they have the luxury of doing so. Or even worse, they believe that the children who don’t live with them don’t deserve the “extras” of life, they only deserve the basic necessities. There is never really a good reason for that thinking, usually just a baseless gripe about how unfit the custodial parent is a how they misuse money. SMH.
In what world is the cost of raising one child $840 a month?
The world where children consume more food, housing, clothing and medical care than a single adult living alone. Do you not live in that world?
@mythago & Jeremiah: Where do you live? Seriously. What city? I’m curious.
Child Support issue’s are different in all situations. Sometimes the father is paying too much and sometimes the mother isnt receiving enough or any at all for the child. But overall it should not have to come down to the Child Support system. If a couple breaks up, then its that parents obligation to support their child when they have them. I think all the system should be doing is setting up the visitation’s. If the mother cannot afford to raise her child or children as a single mother, that is not the father’s fault. At that point he should be awarded custody. If you get the kids 3 days out of the week and can provide for them when you have them, or get them what they need when they ask or want something, then thats what matters. One parent shouldnt have to be giving money to another, of course unless its something they just want to do. Of course in the situation of Child Support, you are never going to have anything in place that is perfect but what they have in place now is flawed and most of the time the Father gets the short end of the stick. I understand there are plenty of woman who have it bad as well. The bottom line is, whatever parent it is, stop looking for the other to support. If you dont have it in you to work your butt off and FIND a way to make a good living for you and your children, well you shouldnt have become a Mother or a Father.
Skeptic, how does that work when a parent doesn’t see their kid?
@Skeptic: I”m glad you’re not a judge.
I can see Skeptic’s point, though I don’t see how to implement a system that would satisfy him/her without doing immense harm to children. (On the flip side, our system now arguably does immense harm to children in other ways.)
I do think that our system ought to move in the direction of a system akin to what Skeptic sketches out, at least to the extent that there ought to be a presumption of paid work by both parties to a divorce, and an imputation to both parties of the income that they could reasonably achieve with their given talents and skills, rather than an imputation solely of historical income patterns. Those historical income patterns are based on a status quo ante that is no longer operative, and which very likely had a great deal to do with what was attainable.
As an example, I used to make $X per year; when I was making $X per year, I had a wife who was taking care of an immense quality of non-paying but nonetheless crucial life management crap. I don’t have a wife anymore; $X is no longer attainable because I’m now spending half my time on stuff my wife used to do. My ex used to make $0 per year, but now half of her time is freed up because she’s no longer managing my crap; her historical record doesn’t reflect her prospective potential. But the court imputes X to me and minimum-wage to her, and is uninterested in what she made five years ago during a brief spurt of paying work, and is uninterested in what I made this year until I go to court at considerable expense and relitigate the whole damn issue.
I am also inclined to agree with the presumption that in the case where NCP A works outside the home, and CP B does not, and A wishes to be a CP, and B does not have some fundamental disability that prevents them from working for pay while simultaneously leaving them fit to full-time parent, and A is a fit parent, and B is requesting material support from A, that A ought to get significantly more custodial time (up to and including shifting the balance of who is the CP) so as to reduce the burden on B which apparently he or she is not able to manage solo.
LOL
You’re right in your evaluation, Robert, but I have to laugh because you ARE AN MRA in that evaluation. Those hated MRAs. I guess you don’t really keep up with what the reasonable ones say.
Quite correct. Don’t know, don’t care, uninterested in which label may apply.
What’s an MRA?
Why is everyone so against the way it is done now? The NCP pays a percentage of his or her income plus incidentals (childcare/healthcare) to contribute to the child’s financial well-being and custody is a separate issue. I think that’s pretty fair. I think the trouble comes in when NCP don’t pay or when people try to tie custody to child support. They are and should be separate issues.
In my case, I don’t want my child’s father to pay all of my bills. I’ve never had a problem doing that alone, I simply want him to contribute because I didn’t make my son alone. I also think that the argument that if you can’t take care of the child without help, then you shouldn’t have it is a rude, thoughtless statement. The reality is that when you are married, you expect your spouse to help you with your child and if you have a child out of wedlock, it still takes two people to make the child, so two people should share financial responsibility. The ONLY way that I think a man should be released from his financial responsibility is if he agrees to be castrated because then I would believe he sincerely has decided that he is willing to give up sex and his ability to spread his seed.
I don’t have many objections in principle to the way things are done now, but I end up observing a lot of injustices (to both parent and to kids as well, though as a divorced man I am a bit more sensitive to/aware of injustices to ME, naturally) that flow from the practice.
Broadly, I agree that both parents owe all of their children material support. (They owe them a lot more than that, but emotional and personal support are very difficult for courts to manage, and impossible to impose on the unwilling, so our system wisely limits itself, mostly, to material questions.)
However, I think that for high-income families, a significant fraction of the support being mandated by the courts is related to an expectation of a maintained standard of living for children and, as part and parcel, a standard of living for ex-spouses. In the cases (relatively rare) where the divorce was initiated by the higher-income partner in a marriage I have no problem with that expectation. I don’t get to have children with a low-economic-potential woman, decide I’m bored with her, and kick the kids and her out of our nice house and into the trailer park.
But the majority (Wikipedia says 2/3 overall, and 90% in college-educated couples – seems about right from my circle of friends) of divorces are initiated by women, and in the cases where you have a high-earning partner and a non-earning partner (the homemaker), the homemaker is usually a woman. Just as I don’t see it as just for me to kick Marge and the kids five rungs down the ladder when I get bored, I also don’t quite grasp what justification there is for Marge and the kids to stay where they were when it was Marge who decided to end things and Marge who sued for complete custody. If it’s you tearing up the tracks, I don’t think you ought to get to keep riding the train.
Again, this is for relatively high-income couples with lopsided custody arrangements – I am not fretting over the lower-middles where Dad is being asked to contribute $200 a month out of his $1000, or the uppers where Dad has the kids half the time.
But (to dip into my own sad state of affairs), I’m seeing my daughter about five weeks out of the year, while the court indulges mom in a series of BS explanations of why she can’t work, counts her income item as expenses, and expects payments from me that, about one month in two, exceed my gross income. (I have a very up-and-down income stream, which the court seemed to view as a personal insult.)
I can conceive of broken families where the arrangement wouldn’t be unjust; if I didn’t want a kid or didn’t like the one I had, I suppose I could see having a clear conscience about being a 10% dad and paying big bucks for my sins. But I wanted a kid, rearranged my life to spend maximum time with my family in fact – and now don’t enjoy either my income OR my kid. It’s pretty shitty, and it follows quite naturally from a set of assumptions that don’t feel particularly just. Again, not sure what’s to be done about it that wouldn’t screw over the kiddos – I’d rather see a system screw me than one that screws my kid.
But it doesn’t feel much like there’s anyone in the system who would like it to not screw anybody.
@Robert: Yes, that does seem unjust – depending on the age of the child. How old is your daughter? Again, I think child support and custody should always be two separate issues. Unless the mom feels threatened by you, it seems like a mom would want the biological dad to have more time with the kid, even if it’s just for a break, which is why I’m always a little speculative of situations like yours when I don’t know both sides. And I don’t just mean the dad’s side. Unfortunately, I do know that some women fool themselves into thinking their reason for not letting the kid spend more time with the dad is justified when it clearly isn’t when you get the entire story.
Is your payment just child support or does it include spousal support?
She’s 10. Yeah, I understand that it’s very difficult to get both sides of the story when you are only hearing from one side’s representative :)
I have a child support payment as well as a marital support payment; the marital support is about half the amount of the child support. The marital support is totally unjustified, but this thread is about child support so I try to avoid going on and on about it.
I appreciate your sympathetic approach and you seem like a fair person, so I hope you won’t take it amiss if I note that some of the things you say are, in my view, symptomatic of the underlying problem. “[mom] not letting the kid spend more time with the dad”…why’s Mom involved in that question at all? Or at least, why is she the one “letting”? If the court is deciding the custody, then the court should be deciding, and overriding both mom and dad.
Feminist Irony Alert: the patriarchal identification of woman=primary parent oppresses women in the family relationship, but oppresses men when that relationship breaks. I spent as much time with my daughter as my wife did; everything my wife said was taken as gospel by the judge, if I said the sky was blue everybody looked out the window to check.
Why should custody be a separate issue?
People didn’t always used to think of it like this. An obligation to support your children used to be an actual obligation to physically provide for them. If you were willing and able to do this, but someone stopped you, say because your wife had taken them to live with her and her lover, then you were thought to be willing to discharge your responsibilities. And it was thought to be their fault that the children weren’t being supported. Why should you have to subsidize your separation from your children when you were able, willing and capable of doing that, but were prevented from due to circumstances outside your control?
The idea of support has been marketised and turned into a cash transaction, which you discharge by handing over money. Rather than a duty you have an obligation to physically perform and payment being a punishment for negligence. I don’t expect you to agree with that, but surely you can see it’s a coherent and reasoned view?
If it’s you tearing up the tracks, I don’t think you ought to get to keep riding the train.
Ah. So if I want to kick Marge and her kids back to the trailer park, I just need to be an intolerable asshole, knowing that she’ll either a) be forced to suck it up or b) lose everything if she can’t stand it any more and leaves. Constructive discharge, as it were, and I can go to the judge wide-eyed and say it’s her fault the marriage ended so can I keep all my money please?
I get that you’re pissed at your ex, Robert, but the point of divorce is not to punish the other person for being a douchebag, nor to divide up the money based on who was virtuous and who wasn’t. Marriage is a joint economic enterprise and either person can unilaterally call it off.
Marriage is a joint economic enterprise and either person can unilaterally call it off.
Certainly. I would like for calling it off to actually mean calling it off; “I want her gone but her checkbook can stay” is not calling it off.
Parenthood then becomes the joint economic enterprise, and as matters stand people’s economic choices are massively constrained and distorted because of an expectation that they will continue making the same material and economic choices that they were making before, under a radically different family environment.
I am delighted to make whatever contribution I can to my daughter’s physical material well-being; I am undelighted at a system which evidently believes that my wife getting a job is something to be done at her leisure, once her marital support runs out, and that colludes with her in fraudulent accounting practices to metagame the purportedly-neutral financial calculations.
The maliciously manipulative will find ways to “win” whatever game is presented; “bad people will fuck over their exes” is not a reason not to make changes in the direction of equity in the family courts. Bad people fuck over their exes now.
And you want to hand them a tool to fuck over their exes, by apportioning spousal support not on “you two used to be married and we need to unravel that”, but “which of you got to the courthouse first”.
I live in a no-fault state where Mr. Mythago can’t get a divorce on the grounds that I am having 24/7 coke-fueled pool-boy orgies in Vegas every weekend. If he eventually gets a little concerned about the diseases and other risks I might bring home, do I get to tell him to fuck off without my money because he “tore up the tracks”? I mean, since the only criterion of importance here is whether the person who filed first makes the money?
In your situation, as you’ve said, the apparent problem was that the judge treated you unfairly – not that an impartial, reasonable judge listened to you and alloted reasonable joint parenting and support but failed to take into account that it was your wife who filed.
Your description is fairly accurate.
Your description also provides me no remedy; a divorce appeal costs many multiples of the sums involved and is unlikely (to put it mildly) to even proceed, let alone triumph. There is literally nothing that I can do about an unfair judge.
A procedural check, wherein filers are on notice that economically unproductive people who file for dissolution are likely to be looked at stringently rather than indulgently, would provide me with a remedy. (More to the point, it would provide the not vast, but not insignificant, number of people in similar situations with a remedy.)
If it’s handing a tool to the bad folks, it’s just another tool in a box already crammed with them. There are a LOT more unfair judges who look with soft sympathetic eyes at the poor oppressed SAHP and hand out other people’s cash, than there are vindictive sociopaths who WOULD fuck over their spouse but aren’t doing so because the legal system is just so darned barren and useless when it comes to ways for sociopaths to fuck people over.
It’s not about “who gets to the courthouse first” – your phrasing makes it sound like I want to give an advantage to the first mover. Quite the contrary; I want a system where the first mover has a higher hill to climb before they get to craft new deals where they get to keep the income but skip the work.
Oh, and if you are in a no-fault state, then Mr. Mythago can get a divorce any time he wants. And having done so, he should then start supporting himself. Why not? Your coke-fueled pool boy orgies do not create a right to continued financial support; if he cannot tolerate your horrible behavior (you do kind of suck as a wife in all these examples ) then he is free to leave.
If he wants to take the kids with him, and cut you out of their lives, and have you continue to hand over the bulk of your earnings to his newly-decoked household, then he ought to have a very high hill to climb to establish that you should become a Purse Parent and a Purse Parent only. Again, why not? The fact that he changed more nappies than you did is not particularly material to the question of who ought to pay what *going forward*.
If it’s handing a tool to the bad folks, it’s just another tool in a box already crammed with them.
So, it’s OK if the rule is problematic or unworkable or has no sensible rationale, because it helps Robert’s individual situation. Gotcha.
Your argument was that the person who tears up the rails doesn’t get to ride. You define ‘tearing up the rails’ as the act of filing for divorce; who actually destroys the marriage doesn’t matter. This is silly, and ignores that we already recognize the concept of constructive discharge in other contexts.
You’re also mashing up a lot of issues in your attempt to justify the railroad analogy: unfair judges, custody division, fair spousal support. If Mr. Mythago gets tired of the pool-boy rotation, then spousal support and child custody are separate issues. Why should his economic productivity matter as to how much I get to see our children? Why should the fact that he filed before I could throw him over for the doe-eyed Reynaldo affect how we split up the money? You’re not really giving me any answers other than “I got screwed in my divorce”, which, okay, but the solution to that is not making the system less fair. Seriously, you think an unfair judge would have shaken his head and said “Ex-Wife, I would love to continue draining Robert’s wallet, but the heavy hand of the law says I have no choice but to recognize that you filed first”? (Spoiler: No.) This is like the family-law equivalent of the old polyamory joke “relationship broken, add more people”.
who actually destroys the marriage doesn’t matter
I did not invent the no-fault divorce model. If who destroyed the marriage matters, then let’s bring back fault and let the courts rule on these things openly and with due process, instead of surreptitiously and quietly in the judges’ internal imaginations.
But we can’t have it both ways. If Miranda can file for divorce because she realizes that Ted’s hair extensions clash with her drapes, then fine – but then allocate child support by a *fairly calculated* formula, start with a presumption of 50-50 custody, and look at requests for spousal support from initiating partners the way we look at a Catholic priest who requests lots of alone time in the toddler gym.
Why should his economic productivity matter as to how much I get to see our children?
Get to *see* the children? Why is it you *seeing* them, instead of you doing half the parenting?
Why should the fact that he filed before I could throw him over for the doe-eyed Reynaldo affect how we split up the money?
Because the judge can accurately ascertain who is the party seeking a dissolution, but cannot accurately ascertain what the hypothetical actions of either party in a parallel universe would have been.
If you mean, “why should the party seeking a dissolution of a relationship but a continuation of the economic support provided by that relationship be looked at like they were a Catholic priest asking for more alone time in the toddler gym”, I can’t help you. It’s either obvious or it isn’t.
You’re also mashing up a lot of issues in your attempt to justify the railroad analogy: unfair judges, custody division, fair spousal support.
The main thing I have concretely suggested is that people seeking divorce, but wanting a continuation of the economic benefits they derived from the relationship that they want to terminate, ought to be starting out at a serious deficit in the weight given to their request. You characterize this as me wanting to increase the unfairness of the system, by giving abusive people a weapon.
I fail to see how thinking that the termination of a relationship means the termination of a relationship, constitutes abuse. Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but it seems as though that you want the benefit of the old ‘fault’ system – wherein a Bad Guy might have to pay for years and years and years – without the sole exculpating grace of that system, the opportunity to prove that one was not in fact a Bad Guy and thus escape the financial penalty.
Robert, again, “Robert got screwed on spousal support” does not mean “some form of spousal support is always bad and is at odds with the idea of a joint economic enterprise”. (How much, under what circumstances and how long spousal support should exist is a different issue than when it should exist at all.) I’m with you on fairly dividing custody, but you knew that.
And yes, you are misunderstanding me. You’re actually arguing for bringing back fault, and assigning fault based on “who filed” – that is, you want a ginormous legal presumption that the party who filed for divorce is the cause of the objects of matrimony being irretrievably dissolved, or whatever the formula language is these days. If you’re going to go there, then I don’t get why you’re shocked, shocked that we would want to actually look at whether “fault” stretches to more than whose name is on the top of the pleading paper – just as, in the employment context, we look at more than just whether the employee said “I quit” vs. the boss saying “you’re fired”.
So no, it really isn’t obvious to me why spousal support should depend on who got fed up when; if a spouse was an economic drag and refused to make himself employable, why should that be less relevant than which of us was the plaintiff in the divorce action?
re kids, the short answer is “because I wasn’t being overly pedantic”.
@Alex: I don’t think it’s a coherent view at all. I think it’s very narrow and single-minded. I watch a show called “Spartacus”. In the era depicted, people thought it was “coherent” to watch men fight each other to the death for sport. My point is that just because people agree doesn’t make it coherent or well thought out. Before you write it, I completely know that that same argument can apply to how it is done now. Ten years from now, the prevailing law may be different either incoherent to me and coherent to others.
I think its really hard to for people to have empathy. I’m assuming that you are a man that has to pay child support and is unhappy about the amount. I get that people should have empathy for you too, but I think that if NCP could see the day to day struggle it is to be a single parent, there wouldn’t be so much complaining about child support. The arguments of “just give the child to me” or “I didn’t cause the break-up, so I shouldn’t have to pay” are usually the last retorts after a series of failed excuses about why “the amount is so unfair”. It gets old after a while.
@Robert:
I didn’t mean “let” in an feminist way. I think my child’s father gets bent out of shape by that word too, but the reality is that the CP has to make the decision about whether or not the NCP is fit to be around the child whether the CP is a man or woman.
Additionally, which is another issue, I think that woman are usually (not always) considered the primary parent because the child uses our bodies as hotels for 9 months and then literally depends on us for nourishment. I mean, we are LITERALLY their food supply. They LITERALLY don’t need their dads as much as they do their moms. I don’t think that that is feminist. It’s biological. Yes, some women suck and are horrible moms with no connection to their offspring, but I would bet that that is more an exception than the rule – unless the pool came from men upset about their CS payment, then it would most likely jump to 98%.
New Topic: It must be different in the state that you live in because where I live in California, my child support is based solely on the income of the father. When I went to court, they didn’t even look at my income and I do make more money than him. When I asked why, the mediator said that I would have to make a TON of money in order for him to have to either not have to pay or for it to offset his amount.
Now, I’m not rolling in dough by any means, but I have 2 degrees and I work in California, so I would bet my bottom dollar that even if your ex-wife worked, she wouldn’t make and ton of money, so it would not affect your child support payment.
If your state were like mine and this was true, would it alleviate your resentment towards her, at least for the child support portion of your payments?
@Another Alex
I forgot something. I think that custody being separate from child support helps both parties.
I’ts good for a NCP, so that them not having money or simply being financially irresponsible doesn’t affect them being able to bond with their child. For example, my son’s father has not paid a dime in child support. I know that morally, I shouldn’t keep him from his son because of it, but it helps me keep up with my visitation schedule because legally I have to do so. It’s good for him because I can’t tell him that he can’t see his son because he hasn’t paid child support.
It’s also good for CP. If the NCP was abusive or a crackhead or simply someone who wants nothing to do with their child, its good that legally he/she is still required to pay child support without the requirement of having interaction with the child.
Mythago, I’m not arguing for an absolute rule. I don’t want to bring back fault, but the system as it is is IMPLEMENTING fault, but doing so in an extralegal way. If there’s going to be fault, then let’s have formal rules and a process so that people can get due process out of the system, instead of it being entirely a matter of luck in drawing a judge who’s bitter(er) against one gender or the other.
So let’s either have fault, and put it all down in black and white, and give judges some justification for their power to set these economic arrangements…or let’s get real about no-fault. And if it’s no fault, then it doesn’t MATTER who broke the ineffable bonds of matrimony. And since it doesn’t matter, nobody gets paid for work they’re no longer doing.
“if a spouse was an economic drag and refused to make himself employable, why should that be less relevant than which of us was the plaintiff in the divorce action?”
It should be highly relevant. It’s highly relevant now. Except that it’s highly relevant in the direction of “the party for which I, the judge, feel sorrier for, is a lazy sack who never works, therefore free money for him/her” instead of the other direction.
I’m not saying that being the initiator of the dissolution should be an absolute bar. I’m saying that, in a state where divorce is putatively no-fault, that being the person who breaks the relationship ought to have some consequence in the area of asking for free shit. “She’s dumping me and I have nothing and I don’t know what to do” ought to be far more compelling than “I am tired of living on someone else’s labor and having my nose rubbed in it every time she goes to her so-called job, so could I just get the checks and not have her around anymore?”
The judge thinks him/herself wise enough to ascertain who’s the better parent on the strength of a ten-page therapist’s report; surely he/she has sufficient wisdom to be able to figure out whether someone is a goddamn leech or not.
Chrissy –
“the reality is that the CP has to make the decision about whether or not the NCP is fit to be around the child whether the CP is a man or woman.”
Uh, what? Assuming that there isn’t some bona fide, outsider-assessed issue of fitness…since when is this true? I’m putting my kid back on a plane to her mom’s house on Sunday…if I don’t think mom is fit, but have no evidence or backing for that view, do I get to decide not to put kiddo on the plane? No, no I don’t…so why would anyone care about the other parent’s view on this?
On child support – I don’t know the details of your situation, but my ex’s first divorce was in California, and the difference in their incomes was a huge factor in child (and marital) support. Huge. Our divorce was in Colorado; same deal. (There was a four-figure range in the possible monthly outcomes, depending on how the courts decided to assess her income and mine.) So send that bottom dollar along…I can use it.
My ex working for a living at any productive, or even just remunerative, trade would alleviate resentment. I don’t see any formula or arrangement wherein I work and pay her bills and she’s a “full-time mom” (from 4 pm to 8 pm) as being resentment-free; I can see a wide range of possible formulas that I could be perfectly happy with, if she was working for a living.
That said, only about 20% of my resentment is based on the (large-ish) child support payment; the vast majority is based on the spousal support payment.
Mythago, I’m not arguing for an absolute rule.
Yeah, you are. The rule you’re arguing for goes something like this: “There shall be a rebuttable presumption that the party filing for divorce is at fault for the destruction of the objects of marriage and is not entitled to spousal support. The filing party may rebut this presumption by showing clear and convincing evidence that the filing party is not at fault.”
Your reasoning for this is very weird: some judges will do what they want anyway, so let’s give them an additional rule that doesn’t prevent them from doing what they want, while setting up people in courtrooms with law-following judges to get screwed.
If the problem is an economically unproductive partner getting support, then I really don’t get why we remedy that with “who files” rather than “can this person make a living now, even if they don’t wanna”. Because it should be pretty obvious to you that an unfair judge operating under your rule could have looked at thin evidence and said “yeah yeah, that’s clear and convincing” if that judge wanted to get a particular result.
Robert, since this is all so important to you, why do you live in states where the laws make it happen? Why have you not researched the law and moved to a state that is more fair? E.g., in Oregon child support is partly based on number of nights with each parent.
Just because women file for divorce more often doesn’t mean women cause the divorce more often.
Statistics have shown over and over that men often just don’t file – doesn’t mean that don’t leave their marriage, or abandon their vows. My ex husband left me (while I was pregnant with our second child). He had better things to do (if you get my drift). I filed for divorce. For years he liked to throw at me that I’m the one that wanted the divorce… I filed after all. He doesn’t remember me begging him to stay… he only remembers I filed.
I know just as many men who are “proud” their wife doesn’t have to work as men who are mad they have to pay their ex spousal support. I also know a ton of women who have followed their husbands career around the US.
In my case spousal support would have never made sense. But child support most definitely make sense. As of today its been over 2 years since my ex has seen the kids. I don’t remember the last time he attempted to call or anything. I can tell you it wasn’t Christmas. We did try to call him on his birthday (about 6 months ago) and found his number was disconnected.
I guarantee you my ex would use any comment on here saying judges favor women and typical child support is too high to make himself feel better.
Sadly, my situation is NOT unique. Are any of you shocked by the outrageousness of a man not seeing his kids for years and not paying child support. yeah I didn’t think so.
Kai – In fact I did move to a state where the divorce laws seemed reasonably fair to me, though it wasn’t the #1 thing on the priority list.
In 2005, there was a Colorado Supreme Court decision that made us the one state in the union where a divorcing custodial parent has a near-absolute right to leave the state, regardless of the interests of the child. All of the problems of my divorce either stem or have been greatly worsened by this unique (and uniquely bad) legal regime, which I had never even heard of before the divorce. (Neither had my ex.)
I can do research, but I can’t in practical terms continue to keep up with the entirety of the law to make sure that things have stayed the same. The change came years after my move, marriage, and parenthood.
I agree with this article in that child support payments should consider all the circumstances. I have fared well in my journey to pay child support. As a private in the Army I was told to pay $300 a month in 1997, and I gladly did. I increased it voluntarily over time, I am paying $650 now, almost ready to boost it to $700, and I don’t make much more now than when I was in the Army. While I have not suffered, I have made my sacrifices. My current wife and I never had children, not really having enough money to support any more kids. Why should non-custodial dads be forced to stretch what little money they have to support their resident family, when their ex-wife get a tax free pay check each month? It does not seem right, but there is no other solution.
So let’s not focus on what we can’t change. Instead, let’s focus on what we can change.
Some things I would like to see happen are:
1) Have some level of involvement from social services to check in and make sure the child is being cared for by the custodial parent. If not, fine them! Dads go to jail for not paying up, I think moms need some accountability also. Many dads worry that their child support payment goes towards a newer car, expensive cell phones, dates, movies, popcorn, drugs, Applebees…whatever. The sad thing is, very often it does!
Child support is not a free paycheck and therefore it should come with terms and conditions.
2) Look at the non-custodial parent’s situation on a month to month basis. If there is hardship, the child support should not be so hard to defer or even dismiss, especially if the child and mother are faring well. We forget the purpose of this money is to make sure the child has what they need. Child support should not be considered a “right” of motherhood, its not for them anyway.
3) Make child support tax detectable. The IRS allows parents to deduct certain child care expenses, yet not a single penny can be deducted for child support. A huge chunk of income, some 20%, is allocated to help raise a child and the custodial parents gets it tax free while the non-custodial parent pays taxes on it. So why can’t there be a small credit or deduction for it? If the government cares so much about children, maybe it is time to step up a little and do what is right. Even a small deduction would sway more fathers to pay up, even during hardship.
Why is it assumed that the CP is living off the NCP’s CS? If I was to live off my CS, my kids and I would be dead. In SC, the CP’s income is considered just like the NCP’s.
My ex makes 3x’s what I make!! He is ordered to pay $250/wk for two kids. Daycare is $170/wk! This would be fine & dandy if he actually paid his CS. The court has a rule that the NCP has 8 consecutive weeks of non-payment before any action is taken. What does this mean? My ex can pay $1 every 8 weeks & be free from court action. I make $340/wk!! I pay my bills & take care of ALL of my kids’ needs. I have to sacrifice things that I could afford to do for myself, IF I was to get the CS that is ordered. However, this isn’t considered.
I can promise you, that if a check was in the mailbox & I used $20 to treat myself to “Applebee’s”, I would be viewed as living off the CS. The argument would be made that the check is for the kids! My point is this, if I as the CP am questioned about how I spend the CS on the kids, then the NCP should be questioned on what they DON’T spend on the kids. I have read so many comments about how the court is railroading the NCP with CS, but I haven’t read too many comments about how the NCP fought tooth and nail for FULL CUSTODY!! I guarantee that if the NCP had to have full custody & make due with the CS that they are paying, the tone would be much different. Electric, daycare, clothes, FOOD, medicine, grooming items, and transportation. Oh, did I forget about the extras such as field trips, book fairs, school pictures, co-pays, sporting pictures, sporting registration fees, sporting equipment, dance fees. Yes, those last items are extra, but you see how hard it is to say “No”. Or would the better response be,”No, you can’t do these things because Daddy/Mommy doesn’t pay their child support!” Or better yet, “No, Daddy/Mommy doesn’t view that as a NEED, so they aren’t paying for it.”
Too many people are upset because of what the CP has. I have nice things, but it sure isn’t because if CS. I wirk hard & I take care of my kids, which is why I am blessed! I don’t think of ways to provide my kids with LESS! I don’t want the bare minimum for my children. I want them to have more than what I had & to live better. It is the sacrafice I make as a PARENT! I don’t believe in Safe Auto Parenting…minimum coverage and keeping you legal for less!!
Dan @1073, I can only imagine how you’d react to a custodial mother saying that social services should check dads’ homes during visitation to make sure their lifestyle matches the income their child support is based on (don’t want dad blowing his paycheck on Applebee’s instead of his kids, right?), or that child support should be examined “on a month to month basis” so that it could go up if the custodial parent was having a rough few weeks, or if the custodial parent – only – got to deduct the cost of buying things for the kids.
I agree, social services should show more accountability. Too many MOMS worry that the CS they are not getting is based on the DADS spending their income on dating, more exspensive cars, and Applebee’s. Sad to say, that this is the case most of the time. Why doesn’t social services look at the case on a month-to-month basis and if the CP is having economic hardships because dad isn’t paying (or isn’t paying enough, because it is apparent to some that Mom shouldn’t be able to afford these things w/o Dad’s CS payment) then dad should be asked to pay more!!
To riff off Dan’s comment a little bit, it would be nice, in some perfect world, if the person paying child support got to deduct money spent on the kids (above and beyond the normal costs of agreed-upon visitation). I’m thinking of a friend of mine who paid child support to her husband while he was making (on his own) twice what she and her husband combined made, and not only were the kids often at her place anyway, but she was buying things like winter coats and dress shirts for band concerts.
It would’ve been really helpful for her (and probably resulted in fewer months scouring couch cushions for grocery money) if there had been a way to say, “My child support amount expects me to have the kids 8 days a month, and this month they were here 17, and I bought them all new sneakers.” and have that deducted.
In practice, it would be an unholy mess, with parents arguing in court over the every nickel spent, appropriate cost of shoes and winter coats and how much it’s reasonable to spend feeding 3 teenagers.
This much I know… my father never spent 20% of his monthly earnings on me in a single month. My parents spent, on average, approx. $200 on groceries. Mind you, that was for a family of four. They shopped wisely and we ALL had full bellies. We ate well.
The average child support payment is $280. I’d like to know how much the average married father spends on necessities for his kid(s) each month. After all, child support is supposed to be about the necessities, right?
One child can easily be fed with just $50 a month. Enough cans of quality vegetables to last the month will cost you around $25 depending on where you shop, $10 can easily cover breakfast food for the month, the rest can be used on meat, fruit and juice. You’d be surprised how good (and cheap) you can eat each month if meals are made at home instead of fast food joints. Restaurant dining is not a necessity.
As for the rest of the $280 average… under current law the custodial parent can use it on rent/mortgage and utility bills. In fact, a lot of custodial parents openly claim that is where the child support goes. I have a few thoughts on that.
In the case of mortgage… I don’t think child support should be used to pay on a house loan UNLESS the child is granted ownership of the percentage that came from his or her child support. The child should not be expected to help pay for a home… unless he or she, when of legal age, has claim to a percentage of that property. (Note: It should be the same for vehicle loan payments).
As for utilities… the amount of child support used should reflect a percentage based on the living situation. In other words, if the custodial parent has an adult partner living in the home… shouldn’t that other adult be responsible for a large percentage of the utility burden? Instead, we see custodial parents using the monthly support for their child to pay the ENTIRE utility bill! That, in my opinion, is abuse. Two adults living together should be able to pay the utility bill. Period. There is no excuse. (In fact, I would suggest that the other adult should be expected to reimburse the child support if he or she benefits from it).
Obviously the two suggestions involved would involve the custodial parent keeping track of how child support is used. It would involve keeping receipts when child support is used, or documenting much is used on specific expenses… such as a percentage of the utility bill. Oddly enough, custodial parents tend to not want to document how child support is using… even going as far as to suggest that it is an invasion of privacy. Why? Why is it an ‘invasion of privacy’? Is making sure that the ‘best interest’ of the child is served truly a negative thing?
Finally, $280 may not seem like a lot to a custodial parent. BUT we all know custodial parents would throw a fit if the government decided that they must pay a percentage of their income toward child support just as non-custodial parents do (that has actually been discussed). Custodial parents go ballistic when that scenario is raised. Why? I thought it was about the ‘best interest of the child’???
Funny how $280 is ‘nothing’ until YOU are the one paying it.
As for the custodial parent complaining about the extra expense of being a custodial parent. There is a solution to that, dear. Hand full custody over to your ex. Problem solved. I’m certain he would have no problem raising the child you share… and he would most likely not want your ‘child support’.
@ mythago
To answer your question, no I would not like it, but I don’t have to. SS would keep me on my toes, the same would happen with the custodial parent, and that is good for the child. They would not have to examine my spending since I am not receiving any money…I am paying it remember? And I want to make sure it goes to supporting my kid…remember?
@ kellyK
Yes, knowing our system it would be a nightmare, but it does not have to be. It should come as an easy tax deduction, just like earned income credit. We pay millions to reward women for getting pregnant, yet pay nothing to all the people out there paying child support.
The tax credit would be “positive reinforcement”, and this works better than any other incentive or punishment. Then again, the government probably thinks this is not their problem.
Brian, I don’t even know where to begin on your post…
Yeah, I can usually find something to sympathize with in the posts of any shrieking feminist harridan or brutish child-beating MRA (note comedic exaggeration for effect); divorce is usually hard on everybody. If Gandhi and Hitler divorce, Hitler is probably going to have a couple of legitimate beefs.
But that was like a telegraphed message from the alternate universe where women live it up at the Ritz on the multi-hundred dollar largesse that comes flowing in from The Man; meanwhile, a house without electricity was good enough for Abraham Lincoln and it’s good enough for other people who aren’t me, too. Bitches, amiright? Oh sorry, amiright, dear?
First I do want to say I’d have no issue reporting what I spend child support on. I think it’d be silly, but I have no issue showing what I spend it on, and you will see below.
I do want to address this:“One child can easily be fed with just $50 a month.”
You think you can feed a child on less than $1.75/day? Day in and day out? really?
You realize a can of soup and a pack of koolaid and a few sugar cubes would use up your $1.75 for the day? I don’t even think my dog eats on 1.75/day. lol
That doesn’t address non food items from the grocery store: (children’s Tylenol, toilet paper, tissue, lotion, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, laundry detergent, or diapers/wet wipes if they are of that age ..etc) is that part of the 1.75 too?
About the utility bill:
“Instead, we see custodial parents using the monthly support for their child to pay the ENTIRE utility bill! ” if the money is all put into the same pot, how can you say what money is what? Maybe she spent “her” money at the grocery store…
What I can tell you when my kids are gone for a week (summer camp) my power and water bills drop significantly (reliant sends me weekly power use summaries). we aren’t just talking about the price of a couple more lights being used…. we are talking about less hot showers, less dishes, less laundry, less fridge being opened, less computer, less tv, less EVERYTHING, in fact I don’t even half to vacuum their rooms for week. less of the house being air conditioned (we seal off their rooms and their bathroom that week). Less of everything. We can use that percent if you want. I’m fine with that.
“I don’t think child support should be used to pay on a house loan UNLESS the child is granted ownership of the percentage that came from his or her child support”
Who do you think is my beneficiary on everything? My kids. In addition Id like to point out there’s no way I’d live in a three bedroom home 1 mile from the best schools in our district if NOT for the kids. I moved here for them. I could get a nice little condo on the other side of town for half this cost… but I wouldn’t want to put the kids in those schools.
~~~~
No where in your list did I see daycare or afterschool care, school supplies, field trip fees, school pictures, a yearbook, the never ending cycle of clothes, shoes & coats. I think one good pair of shoes and a coat would blow your monthly estimate for how much you think is reasonable…. birthday party gifts (for their friends), hair cuts, sports uniforms and fees.
I pulled my debit card transactions online (where I get my child support) to tell you what my recent costs were (I have two kids, I work full time, my ex does not see the kids. I’m responsible for figuring out what to do with them when school is not in session) * fyi for those following me, I am finally getting child support after a long lag *
$300.00 = 2 x $150 Deposits on one my kids summer camp I got a better deal for registering before the new year – . 12/28/2012
I paid for the xmas camp – I worked the entire time when they had two weeks of school:
$121.60 for Jan – 12/31/2012 (I prepaid)
$107.80 for Dec – 12/28/2012
$41.95 for my daughters lunch account at school. – 12/14/2012
$57.68 my son has asthma/allergies/eczema – the majority of this was over the counter things for him (zyrtec, a bath soak that helps, eucrin) – 12/09/2012
I spent 629.03 in December. Some of that was a carry over from last month. I guarantee you my ex feels that $600 is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much to pay.
The first payment I got went to my daughters gymnastics uniform ($327.20) (she competes, this was her practice outfits, competition outfit and the sweats that go with it, and will last 2 years, yes it’s pricey, but this is her thing), and the kids Chess Club registration $(150.00). My son got a haircut: ($15.99), OH and I see I took the movies for ($28.00).. I guess someone might complain about that movie. That totals $521.19.
I don’t think I’m using child support to support MY LIFESTYLE…
For just one dollar a month, you can feed this starving child…
And Robert: If Gandhi and Hitler divorce, Hitler is probably going to have a couple of legitimate beefs.
I totally AGREE!!!
Ok I have some pretty lame typos up there, sorry. I no longer “half” the option to edit my posts. That’s what I get for multitasking and trying to get a point across. ;)
But, Jenn, children of divorce deserve no more than subsistence level. Your daughter would be just as alive without the gymnastics supplies or the good schools or her own room or lunches bought at school (bought at school!!!!) just as long as she didn’t starve or freeze to death.
Movies are for people who can afford it. They’re not for everybody, you know. Your son can survive without cutting his hair. Lord knows I did. Chess is a privilege, not a right and the NCP shouldn’t have to pay for that if they don’t wish to.
Any expenses beyond the cheapest grade “Edible” food and heat to provide an above 45 degrees F life is an exorbitance and, since you’re making the decisions on those luxuries, your responsibility. Not the NCP’s.
That last comment was meant to have this at the end:
( /sadly, sadly, not even a parody thought I tried. I don’t think there’s anything I could write that would actually parody the position. Perhaps this has been a clarification. I’m going to lie down now and cover my head with a pillow… )
Jake, I got ya. I’m sure my ex could have a beef with gymnastics and chess… then again, flip those amounts to mortgage and power.. he’d still have a beef. ;)
You think pillows grow on trees, mister? You can put wear on the household pillows when you finish paying us back for all the coal we burned keeping your room to 45 degrees, you ungrateful hedonist.
I, unsurprisingly, am not a child of divorce and therefore deserving of pillows.
(Note: I may yet become a child of divorce as that idea has been bandied about for 5 or 6 years by my septuagenarian parents. In that case you may be assured that I will, from that point on, forego pillows, foods other than rice and insects, furniture and climate control beyond survival standards. I will no longer spend money on clothing as I notice many burlap bags, cardboard boxes and shrink wrap blowing around which can be put to the same use but at little to no expense. I shall be the example that NCP’s everywhere point to. Until then, I’ll do what the fuck I want with my rightfully accessed pillows.)
Rightfully accessed? You mean the pillows you bought on a market lubricated with the blood of a million child laborers, from wages earned at your job as a servant of the capitalist death machine, and kept fluffed and warm in your home built on the land your grandparents murdered the Indians to get?
Enjoy your Hitler genocide blood pillows, monster.
(If your parents get a divorce, it’s your fault.)
@Brian: How much is that $200 in 2013 dollars?
@Dan, but you’re the one claiming your income is a certain level (which helps determine your CS), remember? So don’t we want you to have a full audit of your financial situation every month to make sure that you’re telling the truth about your income, you’re not making any unreported money on the side, and that if you claim your expenses are X that those are legitimate expenses, so that you’re not shaving money from your kids in order to spend it on hookers and blow?
It’s a stupid idea, goose and gander notwithstanding, because (1) it would add an additional cost and layers of bureaucracy into the system (who do you think pays for all this, the Infrastructure Fairy?); (2) asking parents to justify whether an Internet connection or gym shoes or their level of rent doesn’t help the kids, unless you think government intrusion into every aspect of their lives is “help”; and (3) it’s a fantastic way for someone to use the system to play little control-freak games with their ex.
(And #3 is the real point, isn’t it? I mean, if you were truly worried that your children were so mistreated that Mom was blowing the state-mandated child support on canasta instead of canned vegetables, you’d call CS anyway.)
Hey, I needed those hookers and blow for research. That was a totally legitimate household expense.
@ Jenn: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Seriously, Thank you!!!!!
The real problem with the accounting idea is the government bureaucracy-who would pay for it? Do you want to pay additional child support to pay for it? Less for the kids.
And that’s not how intact families work. I didn’t have to account for every cent I spent on my kids when I was still married to their father, and we didn’t have to credit them with a percentage of our assets. Why is that different now? The credit the children get is having been raised in a household without want, with enough food and clothing and other resources to grow up healthy and with the possibility of becoming a self-supporting, happy adult. As a person who grew up with fewer resources, who went hungry some days and other days only ate one meal (the free school lunch), that’s a lot.
Kai @1095, I’m sure you’re going to get some variation of “but it’s not an intact household”. Which is also why we don’t let parents look over receipts, or demand an accounting, or insist they know exactly how every time is being spent — you know, the kinds of things that can and do happen all the time in intact marriages, where people share budgets and financial planning and the money is in common, not in separate households.
@Robert, you gotta fill out the *form*, man.
There will always be folks on both sides who will abuse the system. But you can’t stop them, unless you make the system so expensive and intrusive and unworkable that it causes much WORSE problems.
For example, one common thread is that someone who thinks they’re getting jacked by their ex should be able to get immediate and prompt court/government assistance.
That sounds all well and good. Until you realize that most people don’t live next door to the courthouse, and until you see the process being used by both CP and NCPs to harass the other person. Frequent filings in Boston when the NCP lives in New York… well, you may lose those just because you can’t take off work, or can’t get to Boston, and so on.
It’s a messy situation and it will always require a messy system to try to fix it as best as we can.
Bottom line, no lawyer in their right mind would risk tarnishing their career fighting the DSS child support division for structural change. The DSS is a multibillion dollar business with Directors earning salaries in the six figures. How dare we try to change a system that is meant to be ” for the welfare of the child”. I mean how can a state that has a cap to pay foster parents $375.00 per child/month, but expects an NCP to pay 17% of their, let’s say $100,000 salary that equals a little over $1,400 a month per child, ever be wrong….
Structural change comes legislatively.
Many lawyers challenge the DCSS support figures, and often win, despite the DCSS director’s salary and risk of ‘tarnishing their career.’
BTW, ‘tarnishing their career?” By losing a case, I guess? I’m not sure why you think that would be such a mortal blow to an attorney’s career that ‘no lawyer in their right mind’ would risk it.
—Myca
@ mythago
Hah, I would not call CS just because my ex is blowing money like no other, unless the child was truly going without. But see, this is very subjective. My opinion of what it takes to care for a child is different from other dads, which is why it might be nice to have some sort of standard. We are partly there, but the standard only involves picking the best of two parents and taking roughly 20% from them. That’s it, case closed, now lets wash our hands because the kid is going to have a wonderful life now….pfffft. This standard is not enough, that is all I am saying.
A simple CS visit to check in on the child and make sure they are being taken care of (maybe randomly twice a year) is not too much to ask, and if they are lacking in something then take a closer look at the financial situation and find out why. Maybe it is because there is not enough child support who knows, but I bet in most of these cases good’ol mom is simply just mismanaging money meant for the kid. It’s called…um…whats the cliche…”taking things for granted”. Receiving a tax free child support check in the mail is a huge responsibility, and it should not be taken for granted.
I am not knocking on any good moms out there, responsible moms, moms that do more than just the minimum. For those moms, I salute you seriously.
I guess I am worried about the trash out there, the moms that spend it all on nordstroms, cigarettes, margaritas, dining, and boyfriends while their kid needs something. And these moms know who they are.