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.
I couldn’t agree more. This should be done for all children, not just children of divorce/single parents receiving CS because we can’t know that the still-married mother (or father if he’s a SAHD) is managing the child’s money properly and making sure that the child’s needs are being taken care of. Lord knows how many awful married parents there are out there. That’s without even taking into account how many married parents are selfish and use money that should be going towards their child’s needs for hookers, blow and sports cars.
The fact of the matter is that we can’t trust any parent to take proper care of their child (look at just the cases of neglect and abuse we do somehow discover) and we need CPS to check in on every single child at least twice a year.
[ / See? You just can’t make this shit up and assume people will know it’s parody]
The real reform would be to eliminate the notion of ‘custodial’ and ‘non-custodial’ parents where both bio-parents are willing and able to equally share physical custody and parenting time. If a kid spends 50% time with each parent, such that each household therefore has to provide suitable housing, clothes, food, and entertianment during their time, why should either parent pay the other anything? This is especially true where the parents were never married and had no prior arrangement (e.g., if one worked while the other stayed home to watch the kid and gave up earning an income).
Absent special circumstances, re-distributing income among parents and calling it ‘child support’ just provides incentive for parents to fight (“I need more visitiation,” “I need more money”) rather than accepting that each shares equal responsibilty for raising the child they created. Equal parenting time and equal responsibilty for providing for the kids should be the norm, not assuming that one parent or the other is ‘more fit’ to raise the kid unless there is some real evidence of that (violence, drug abuse, etc.). Do we really want to incentivize fighting over money, rather than encouraging both parents to step up and be fully active and involved in their child’s life? If so, our priorities are all wrong. Sad reality is, the state child support collection units stand to lose too much money this way, as do the ‘custodial’ parents, so there is no incentive to make this sensible reform.
Twice a year, eh? So what you’re saying, “Jake”, if that is your real name, is that you are totally fine with 363/365ths of the abuse of children that happens in this country, just totally fine with it, and think it’s more important that CPS have leisure to play Angry Birds year round and leave children to die, rather than visiting them frequently enough. How much do the Diamond Divorcees pay you out of their fat C/S checks to take their side, “Jake”?
JP, that requires the parents to live not just in the same general geographic area, but within a reasonable drive of the same school and/or daycare. Which, depending on their individual jobs, may not be possible. It also totally discounts the fact that that much back and forth can be really disruptive for the kids.
Myca- I’m referring to restructuring the system, not knocking a few dollars off an individual case. To request legislative change, you need to know the law, hence you need a lawyer. Child support laws NEED revising. I think a large portion of our society views all child support cases as 100/0 custody cases and that biases their opinion incorrectly on 50/50 custody cases We have so many double standards; a system that punishes parents who have sought out a better workplace or education and rewards parents that haven’t; a system that makes a profit off of money that’s supposedly “for the kids”; a system that treats obligors of child support as non-custodial parents regardless if they share custody 50% or not; etc., etc.
If you asked me, I’d tell you that the best interest of the children is for the parents to work out their differences and stay together. Failing that, the next best thing for the children is for each parent to get off of their ass and work, provide a proper home for THEMSELVES as well as their children, and try to find a living arrangement where each parent can spend maximum time with their children (even if it means receiving less support money). The children should be able to spend maximum time with each parent and each parent should be able to spend maximum time with their children.
Also, I’m not a large fan of welfare. Although I don’t have a problem with helping people in need, I believe welfare is very easily abused and is abused way too much. My opinions on child support don’t wander far from that same opinion. The best interest of the children is to have a healthy and happy home. Allowing one parent to squander money and ‘leach’ off of the other parent is not, in my opinion, in the best interest of the children. It not only shows a bad example to the children on how to live, but it also puts both households in financial hardships.
I feel that parents with 50/50 custody should not pay each other child support, because when they do:
1. There is very little incentive for the lesser earning parent to earn more.
2. The higher earning parent gets ‘trapped’ into continuing to be the higher earning parent.
3. Both households suffer from the CS transfer. (One household operates on lower finances, other household gives up a portion of finances, thereby affecting both)
4. More income earned by the lesser earning parent is most definitely “in the best interest of the children”.
We need to stop this standard we’ve set where lower-income parents in a 50/50 custody situation are able to use their children to obtain free money from the other parent even though the other parent is providing the majority of the support!
I had a friend in high school whose parents were divorced and had roughly 50/50 custody, and both parents lived in the same small town. The kids would walk or ride their bikes from one house to the other when it was time to switch houses. My friend once calculated that, with the amount of walking back and forth she’d been doing a few times a week for over a decade, she could have walked to Alaska.
JP: If children are being neglected that should be reported (regardless of your CS situation). There’s already a system in place for that.
And,
Courts can’t enforce custody. My ex and I legally have shared custody. but he lives… 3 states away (I think).. Under your plan my ex could propose we have shared custody and therefore share expenses… no child support is necessary. In reality the last time he saw the kids was in 2010. and that was just a few days in all of 2010.
I have a question about the 50/50 parents.. and “no child support” idea.
so if the kids need something, parents are supposed to share costs? I know just a few people with this arrangement and they seem even more unhappy than the child support paying ones.
How do you decide on what to split? I have a friend who went to court over daycare costs (among other smaller fees), the ex refused to pay his half. he claimed his girlfriend (of one month) could watch them instead during “his” time. the judge threw out their 50/50 expense situation and ordered him to start paying child support.
What about all the clothes? I don’t know too many men who take their kids clothes shopping. I know some do, but they still aren’t doing the bulk of it? Does the exwife have to give him a bill? Will he then just blanketly agree? From what I’ve seen “shared expenses” leads to way more fights/disagreements IN FRONT OF KIDS than child support.
My kids have no clue what child support is.
In what other area of your life are you willing to give government (strangers!) this much power over your private life and your decisions?
Imagine that the court reviewed both parents’ incomes and the child(ren)’s needs and assessed each parent an amount to contribute to those needs. You would pay your share into court and a court auditor would make sure those monies were spent on the children. Would this really be better? You’d have to pay for the auditor one way or another-maybe as a higher child support bill, or in higher taxes. Or maybe the filing fees for your divorce or custody matter would include the price of the auditor’s time.
I don’t understand the reluctance to give money that might also improve the other parent’s life a little. I want my children to have good lives–even when they’re with the other parent. That might mean giving the other parent enough money that his life is better, too–so what? Would it be better if he couldn’t afford to take them to a movie, or out to dinner, because my money would have been used to pay for his movie and his dinner, too? That’s my children’s father! Do I want them to see him suffering, living in poverty while they are fine, or struggling to afford the basic necessities? Of course not! That causes them emotional damage, and even if I cared nothing for him as a person, I care about him because my children do.
@Dan: I notice you’re oddly unconcerned about the kids’ living situation during times when they’re with the non-custodial parent. Surely we also want DSS making a couple of random bad checks on the kids when they’re visiting Dad? After all, while there are good dads out there, responsible dads, dads that do more than just the minimum, surely there are also dads who neglect their children during visitation – and caring for children is a much bigger responsibility than getting a check in the mail.
I’m not actually surprised, because your ignoring the financial burden and intrusion of DSS visits and wheeling and dealing about ‘just a couple of times’ makes it pretty obvious that this isn’t about protecting children, it’s about control-freakery. If your kids are being starved because your ex-wife is blowing your enormous child-support check on Nordstroms and high-grade blow, then pick up the phone and call DSS. If they’re not, then you’re advocating harassing all those “good moms” with random intrusions in their lives and finances (at taxpayer expense) because it chaps your ass to send money to your ex-wife.
@max, I’m still waiting to hear you explain your rant about how lawyers are all terrified to take on DSS and how it would “tarnish their reputation”. Lawyers every day in this country represent GTMO detainees, serial killers, child molesters, giant evil polluting petrochemical giants, religious groups that argue unborn children are precious except when killing them might cost said religious group money, etc. Lawyers every day in this country go after targets ranging from the Catholic Church to the Boy Scouts to the Department of Justice to the BIA. And you really expect us to believe that the entire legal profession is terrified of your state’s child enforcement bureau? Seriously, pick a different tinfoil hat, that one’s got some holes in it.
That’s crazy. You’re wildly exagerating because your position so indefensible.
At the moment money is owned by the custodial parent and can be used with complete discretion. If I can prove with 100% certainty the custodial parent has been in the Bahamas for the last two years, hasn’t seen the kids, and has spent the cash partying – it doesn’t matter. Equally ridiculous cases have happened, and no sensible person can pretend that is reasonable.
The alternative is simply that money would be owned by the child and managed by the custodial parent as a fiduciary. That’s incredibly moderate. The only difference is the child would have the right to restitiution if it could be proved money wasn’t spent to benefit them. As in every other court case the burden of proof would lie upon whoever is laying charges – so no pre-emptive audits, no taxpayer expense. If a NCP objects they don’t get the money back, it’s not their money, the child has the right to enjoy the benefit from money provided for them.
I just can’t see why that’s so outrageous. This thread is full of people saying children have the right to be supported. I honestly don’t think most of you genuinely believe it, it’s just a BS rhetorical move to justify the current system, otherwise why the hostility to making it an actual legal right enforceable against the custodial parent?
How does the NCP have standing to challenge the CP in your scenario, Another Alex?
Another Alex, in your scenario where the custodial parent hasn’t seen the kids in two years, where have the kids been and who’s been taking care of them? No matter what the issues are with the other parent, if the person who is supposed to be taking care of the kids isn’t taking care of them, then this seems like something where CPS should step in.
If I can prove with 100% certainty the custodial parent has been in the Bahamas for the last two years, hasn’t seen the kids, and has spent the cash partying – it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter to the child support enforcement bureaucracy, because they are not charged with determining a just parenting outcome or deciding who is a better parent; all they are charged with is making sure that a judicial order of support is being complied with.
I’m no great fan of the judiciary in the family courts, but I am reasonably sure that if I went back before the judge who handled our custody arrangement with 100% proof that my ex hadn’t seen our daughter in two years and was doing blow with Mythago and her pool boy in the Bahamas, I would have a new custody order in about eight seconds flat.
It seems to me that you want to keep continuing a battle over the child’s interests via the child support process, after the court has reached its decision there. I understand the desire, but must come down with the general concept in our system that once things are adjudicated, they are adjudicated; it isn’t an ongoing, eternal evaluative process. Genuinely gross, Bahamas-level misbehavior might lead to appeals and reversals, but the financial enforcement bureaucracy is unconcerned with issues of justice, fairness, etc.
They are concerned only with seeing to it that orders of the Court are being obeyed. That’s their only job.
Now, with that said, your post did contain a germ of an idea that I could see working out without unduly burdening custodial parents. Right now, I send a check to the bureaucracy in Colorado, and they send a check to my ex. They could instead issue her with a debit card that would function just like a credit card, and she could do whatever she wanted with that card – much like the cards that unemployment benefits now come on. She could withdraw cash at ATMs, use it as a credit card at stores, etc.
Each month I could get, or could have online access to, a statement of what the money went to, without burdening her to report it. Sure, she could just get cash and spend that on blow and plane tickets, but honestly, I think my ex would be OK with me knowing where the money went, particularly if it were going to foreclose arguments about ‘you did not either spend 300 on clothes for school’ etc.
Further, the cash access feature of that card could be something that the judge could turn on or off, in those cases where there really is a dispute about the child’s interests not being upheld by the CP.
I have to read all of these comments in order to fully catch up, BUT just from a brief scan of some of the ridiculousness I’ve been seeing. I must respond:
There is already a perfectly sensible system in place. The NCP give a portion of his/her income to support their child financially. It’s really not rocket science. If the NCP makes 1 billion dollars a year, he give a percentage of that 1 billion, If the NCP makes $500 per year, he/she gives a percentage of that $500. It’s only complicated because people don’t want to support their kids. I’s mostly unfair to CP because a lot of NCP blatantly lie and/or misrepresent their incomes. NCP don’t like to pay for something they can’t see. That’s just tough. Parents sacrifice. That’s just what we do. We sacrifice sleep, time, sometimes sanity and especially money! That’s just a fact.
All of these lame imaginary circumstances where the custodial parent spends all her time in the Bahamas and spends absolutely no money on the kids are RARE instances of people who would abuse any system developed.
Bottomline: The CP did not create the child alone and we live in a society that says that you have to take financial responsibility for your children, whether they live with you or not.
People always complain about things that adversely affect them. The other day, I was watching a show where this girl got raped and the mother of the boy who raped her, said her son should have a lighter sentence. I have no doubt that if it was someone else’s son accused of rape, she would say “Rape is bad. That boy needs to do his time”. God forbid what her point of view would have been if the girl had been her child.
The same is true here. All of you (mostly men) get on her to complain, but if you didn’t have a kid to pay child support for and some stranger complained that he was mad that he had to spend 25% of his income on his kid, you would probably think he was a loser. You’d probably think about how horrible he was to complain because he had to take care of his own kid that he created and you would think that he was only complaining about his ex because he was mad that he had to pay money, further adding to your opinion of his low moral character and irresponsibility. She was good enough for you to marry her, but all of a sudden, when you get divorced and have to pay for your kid, she becomes a substandard mom. Hmmmm . . . convenient. You wouldn’t buy that.
I say all this to say. I’m not buying it. You made a kid. Pay your itty bitty money. The CP provides way more than you do and these red herrings are laughable!
P.S. If your were not married to your ex, please don’t try to use that as a reason to invalidate your responsibility in response to this post. I see it coming. It’s just a red herring. The point is that you are a parent so stop being so mad about taking care or your kid financially.
My understanding is that some, but not all, NCPs have parental rights and legal rights to act for their child, they don’t automatically lose this with physical custody.
Remember the difference between legal and actual custody. Custody is the *right* to have a child live with you, not that the child lives with you. You can still be the custodial parent if you let the child live with grandparents. If the legal CP gives the legal NCP the kids and goes on a 3 month vacation, they’re still the legal CP. You don’t stop being the CP if you suddenly fall into a coma. Etc.
Robert;
What bothers me about this is that we have two legal mechanisms in place that go out the window when we talk about child support: 1) the basic notion of trust law; and 2) annual accountings.
Child support fits the basic definition of a trust: A transfers property to B for the benefit of C. We don’t treat child support like trust property and we should.
Then, you look at trusts, guardianships or conservatorships and one of the fiduciary duties is an annual accounting. So, I do not see it so much as an attempt to adjudicate things over and over. It is more a mechanism to provide accountability where, now, there is no ongoing oversight.
Yes, this might be a burden on the CP and the Courts, but accountability might actually improve child support enforcement. If the NCP actually sees that the child’s “cost” is much greater than the support ordered, or that the money really is going to the child for clothes, schooling, extra-curricular activities, etc., I think the NCP might be more likely to stay engaged and pay promptly. But, without any accounting, NO ONE can counter the statement “for all I know, I am paying for her house and car.” No wonder people get bitter about paying. They do not have to be shown the benefit of their contribution.
(Note: the people to whom you were responding may not have been making this argument, but your comments gave me the chance to go off on my own private rant-now made public, I suppose.)
-Jut
Why do you think it’s sensible that child support be based on income?
That was absolutely a political call made at the beginning of the century out of deference to the rich. The alternative would be to base CS at least partly on capital. The decision was made that if you had $1m in capital and a kid, there’s no reason why that should cost you any your wealth. But if children really have a right to be supported then they certainly have a right to be supported out of capital.
To best maintain the standard of living that the child had before the split/would have had were the parents together as a couple?
Right, but if Bill Gates wants to, he can set up is income stream so that he makes $30,000 a year for ten years running but still live high. Then Melinda divorces him and gets the kids; he goes to the judge with ten years of ironclad $30k income statements, and gets some nominal amount.
I am not sure what Alex is getting at, but it is a fair point that income is the be-all end-all in the system, which has distorting effects.
At the point where the couple gets divorced, isn’t there a division of property?
@Robert: Why must you keep coming up with these examples that virtually never happen. Yes, if Bill Gates sets up something where he gets 30K income a year, then yes, the child support amount will be based on that. It’s the breaks. Here’s another irrelevant argument for you: Bill Gates would not do that because he is a humanitarian with high moral character, so he wouldn’t want to have his offspring neglected – he loves his kids. NOTE: Please don’t start debating the virtue or lack thereof of Bill Gates and/or other millionaires. That’s the red herring that I was speaking of before. It doesn’t matter.
Further, @Jake Squid provided a very sensible answer as to why child support should be based on income. Additionally, it’s really not a conspiracy. Most sensible people think that both parents should provide for their children. I’m morbidly curious as to what you would have child support payments based on – wait, I know from above, you think that the child support should be based on how much the NCP THINKS the child needs to survive based on poverty guidelines from 1927.
Thank you for entertaining me. :)
Amp – yes, but that is usually subject to a premarital agreement. The other partner gets some of the capital (maybe) but the interests of the child are not usually addressed in those agreements.
Chrissy – I think you have me mistaken for someone else. In any event, the reason I came up with a contrived scenario was to demonstrate one way that income-only could be ‘beaten’ as a standard. That said, I don’t think ‘that guy is a humanitarian’ is much of a bar to human behavior, especially in the aftermath of divorce. I haven’t opined really about what child support ‘ought’ to be, other than to take issue with the idea that adult people should be thought of as entitled to a particular standard of living.
In any case, I certainly agree that, in cases where there is significant or great material wealth, wealth should ideally be taken into account.
But I’m sure that if it were, there would be many “father’s rights” types who would find giving up part of their wealth to support their children, just as great an injustice as they currently find giving up part of their income to support their children.
My personal experience is that in WI it is just percentage based. Have busted my tail to get a company going good I have now found myself under the support shoe. 17% is the standard for 1 child. I have child support payments equating to just over $1900 a month. I have my child on my insurance due to the other parent not working that also is another expense on top of support. Yes I am working to do things different to lower the amount paid to her that doesnt make me a bad person just means im trying to watch out for myself. I could bad mouth but Im taking the higher road her and not going to explain why it is she might not be working. I just feel as though the system hurts just as many as it helps :-(
Don, $1900 is 17% of $11175. With all due respect, it doesn’t seem at all unfair for a parent who makes over $11,000 a month to spend $1900 a month on child support.
$9300 a month. Subtract $5000 for taxes and health insurance, and you’ve got $4300 a month to live on. That is far, far, FAR more than I live on, or almost anyone I know lives on.
I realize and respect that you “bust your tail,” but come on! Do you really think we’re going to feel sorry for someone who has only $111,000 a year to scrape by on after paying child support?
Haha. I just did the same math. My state has a cap right around that income.
He’s mad his ex isn’t working. Instead she’s probably driving the kid to and from school, making dinners and lunches. The horror.
@Don: Just so I’m clear, you make over $10,000 per month, but you are trying to get your child support of 17% of your income lowered and your (i’m guessing rhetorical) question is if that makes you a bad person?
I don’t know you and maybe you’ve never thought of it this way, but if I made $10,000 or more a month, instead of focusing on how I could lower my child support payment, I would focus on making even more money. In my opinion, that’s what good people do. They are grateful for their blessings and their ability to handle their responsibilities.
I actually know a man who pays out $30,000 in child support per month begrudgingly. `Mind you, he makes over $500,000 per month. To me, he’s not a good person, but I know other things about his personality that add to my assessment.
I can say with complete confidence knowing that I’m not saying it for the sake of argument that if I made 10,000 per month and God forbid my son didn’t live with me, I would happily contribute $2000 per month or more to his financial well-being. I love my son and I want him to live an abundant life. I think that is what is missing to me when I see people complain about the amount of support they want to give. What happened to the joy of not just supporting but abundantly supporting our children? What happened to wanting the very best for them? Does that dissipate just because you a NCP? It wouldn’t for me. You have to decide if you are a bad person. In my opinion, you’re selfish, but again, your opinion and your child’s opinion of you counts way more than my opinion.
@Robert, if you wanted to track your ex’s spending on the kids and she didn’t mind, you can do that right this very moment. She sets up a dedicated account for kid expenses, attaches Mint to it (which is view-only) and then you deposit CS into that account. Voila, you can see every expenditure. Of course, it won’t tell you WHAT she bought, only WHERE she bought it – so you won’t know if that purchase from Nordstroms was kid clothes or mom clothes, and you might accuse her of blowing money on books at Amazon when it turns out that’s where she buys gym shoes.
The debit-card idea is not well thought out because either you can clean it out in cash – defeating the purpose of avoiding cash in the first place – or you can’t pay for any kid expenses other than those that use debit cards. Not too many landlords where I live take rent off a debit card. Nor does the school for field trips. It also means being unable to spend any money on the kids without being directly present (“Mom, can you pick something up for the kids at Safeway while I’m at work?).
It’s especially poorly-thought-out because it buys into the idea that child support can and should be micromanaged (but only when the custodial parent spends it) and that the government should bless that micromanagement.
Yeah, there are practical issues with a debit card, I’ll concede.
Accountability does not have to be “micromanagement”; micromanagement can certainly find ways to use accountability as an excuse or a cover. But in and of itself, it is not unreasonable for an NCP to receive information about the use of child support, if that information transfer isn’t burdensome to the CP.
Similarly, it is not unreasonable for the CP to be able to go to the court periodically and say “I want you to look at the NCP’s financials and see if he or she is making a bunch more money, and if they are I want an adjustment” – and then the NCP has to go through a fairly onerous process of preparing, submitting and sometimes defending financial documents. And that happens all the time.
I think the main concern has to be reasonableness and burden. Information that it is reasonable for each party to have and is not excessively burdensome to produce, ought to be available in the interest of transparency and accountability. We’ve set a relatively high bar for what’s too burdensome by what we expect of NCPs in their financial disclosure.
How to practically implement such a system is of course not easy. In my case, and in the case of most acrimonious post-dissolution relationships, child support goes through a third-party state agency and there is no way for us as private parties to replace that with an account system such as you describe. Maybe those agencies ought to serve as banks as well as payment processors, so that outflows can be looked at without it putting a workload on the NCP; landlords do take checks, and so does Mom.
True, some unscrupulous CPs could just take cash out every month and avoid any kind of transparency at all. Which, in cases where there are allegations of wrongdoing or misappropriation, would undoubtedly be of at least facial interest to any investigating authority.
Ampersand:
Clearly, Amp, you have never known the shame of driving a mere Honda Civic when all your peers drive a Lexus. My God! Cloth seats! CLOTH SEATS!
Robert:
My professional sample is very skewed, since I deal with child custody disputes as a police officer. However, within than sample, in my jurisdiction, child custody is very often one of the things you find in the divorce decree.
Grace
In my experience when someone complains their child support is so high, it’s usually they are paying arrears. I had a friend met a guy who was complaining his child support was 40% of their income for one kid and it was SOOOOO fair. .. this friend does not have kids, and wasn’t divorced so she just believed what he said and agreed “yeah, the child support system is so bad…. and unfair to the NCP”
well it was actually 20% but he was years behind so he was being garnished the max possible.
Grace Annam:
The divorce decree, yes, but I think Robert was saying custody is not addressed in the premarital agreement, which can affect the property division at the time of the divorce.
-Jut
@ Amerpsand and @ Chrissy, and anyone else responding to Don:
So because Don went to school, got a good job and works hard to make a high income, that means he should have to fork it over to his kid’s other parent so she can elevate her financial status at his expense (and the expense of his current family), even if it’s far more than what is needed to provide for the kid?
Assume Don and the CP were never married and she therefore never had an expectation to share his money or live in a well-off household. Both parents have equal responsibility for the child, and as long as basic needs are met, that should be enough. With CS, she can sit at home and not work (or have some low income job) and rake in the tax-free CS money (at least in NY) to raise her and his child the way she wants, with a new man if she wants, and she gets more $ cuz she banged a guy who was well-off. CS arrangements incentivize low-income parents (usually the mom) to fight for primary custody so they get the $ to elevate their own standard of living. The child may benefit some from this, but not as much as if they lived with the higher income-earner as the CP (assuming that parent is willing/able), who can provide a better quality home in a nicer area, superior education, day care etc. without siphoning off $ to the other parent. All else being equal, this is the best solution, but mom would lose out on her 1st (or 2nd) income so has to assert her claim that she is the best CP. I just don’t see this being the optimum solution.
Ok that’s a BIG assumption.
Don, are you home every night? Are you able to take the kid to school when it starts (lets say 8:30am)? pick the child up when it ends(3:30pm)? do homework every night (lets say an hour)? if the school called because the kid is sick, could you go pick this child up? what if the kid comes down with strep, can you miss school for a week? (years ago both my two kids has strep, each out a week, one week after the other.. that was fun). The dental appointment is at 1:15 on a Monday, can Don attend without issue? What about that parent teacher meeting at 10:30am? provide care and attention at the level of someone who is not working outside the home?
Do you really think a parent working full time can provide care at the same level as a stay at home mom?
Why is being a stay at home mom Nobel and a “full time job” UNLESS you are a single mom? (I can’t believe I wrote that, because personally have criticized people for sulking about having to get a job before).. I do think custodial parents “should” work… but a lot of times they have to work non full time, or somewhat flexible (lower paying) jobs to deal with these things.
Jenn – you just undermined one of the major premises of workplace equality between the sexes. If there is something peculiarly beneficial about having a stay at home MOM, and if to a lesser or equal degree there is something peculiarly beneficial about having a stay at home parent of either sex, then the (rather old-fashioned, nowadays) conservative critique of mothers in the workplace is valid. If having specifically Mom at home is better for children, well, that doesn’t mean that no mom must ever work – but it moves the decision out of the relatively light-hearted lets-see-what-happens-if-I-work-for-$ area and into the Majorly Serious Life Choice area. A lot of feminists are pretty invested against that being the case.
If on the other hand there is no such peculiar benefit, then you are being terribly sexist in your ‘can you make a meeting EVERY TIME’ diatribe. I’ve been a working-for-$-parent, and a stay at home parent for some intervals, and I assure you that I can get my kid to the doctor and to school and still manage to hold down a job and get the laundry done too. The same way that working women with the same set of responsibilities manage to do it.
There are some behavioral exceptions (kids with profound special needs), familial exceptions (19 kids in the house), and temporal exceptions (from 0 to about 5, they really need looking after 16 hours a day). But caring for children who are in school is not incompatible with working a full-time job, particularly if one has flexible hours or is self-employed.
Even if the person doing the caring is a man.
I wasn’t asking if any man could bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. I am by no means sexist.
I will admit to being CP-ist. LOL I think there are many elements going on the NCP doesn’t consider when suggesting the CP is being lazy, or not working hard enough…. the following options I have turned down at work: going out of town, working late, promotions that involved such, projects that would require off work hours (like dealing with people in significantly different time zones)..etc.
Someone suggested Don’s child would be better off with HIM (the higher earning parent).
I was wondering if Don was prepared to do all this today? :)
OR – if Don and his ex set up “precedent” when they were married, where he worked and she stayed home. Was it ok then?
By no means does that means does that mean precedent stays in place forever. …. but at the same time, I don’t think that means the CP is syphoning off some unfair system.
And Robert, I never said the mother was better suited to stay at home. I said that a stay at home parent was better able to attend the childs needs than a working parent.
And – I say that as a working parent. If I could fund a parent to stay home with my child, I’d be ok with that.
I wouldn’t call it particularly compatible either?
See what I mean? Parody is impossible.
I can’t believe that this was written so soon after my comment @1086. And I quote:
One cannot do parody of the angry, selfish NCP position. It’s just not doable.
Mythago- Sorry for the belated retort…
Yes, any lawyer will misrepresent their client for the right amount of money.
Not to get in a pissing contest because you picked out a line in my string that may have offended you, but! What did you think about the differences between what the state pays for foster parenting and what is expected of an NCP? Why are we still enforcing Soviet-style, anti-American, unconstitutional child support laws, like the “Wisconsin Child Support Model”. Why don’t more states adopt the Melson Formula, instead of the Percentage of Income Model.
What about the little known Federal Child Support Reimbursement Incentive Funding to the States, under Title 42 Section 658(a). Where the Feds give the state hundreds of millions of dollars each for total child support awards and enforcement (which just happens to increase each year) with no strings attached. The states put this money immediately into their General Treasuries to “balance” the budget. It doesn’t really go towards child support. It goes to paying the salaries and pensions of judges and state employees (e.g., child support officials, etc.). So the more support judges order (and it now includes alimony, which artificially inflates the numbers) the more that goes into their pensions, salaries, bonuses, stipends, bounties, etc.
Maybe that’s why I don’t see a long line of attorneys providing Pro bono publico toward making changes with the NCSL! I will now insert that feather into my hole riddled tin foil hat.
Wait, Jake Squid, Are you quoting yourself ? :)
@JP: I didn’t get a chance to read all of your post because I was so outraged at the first sentence. I will read the rest and the replies and I’m sure that I will have something to say about it.
– FYI: I have two degrees and I work part-time. Mind you, I make more working part-time than most people make working full-time because I worked hard and got myself educated, BUT I have a child now, so I can’t work 14 hour days like I did when I didn’t have a child and I have to raise him ALONE. So, yes, since Don has a job/business that gives him a good living YES he should provide for his child. I have to provide for my child. Why shouldn’t he? Because he makes more money? That’s just as ridiculous as these continuous red herrings.
A CP does not make a child herself, so he/she should not have to take care of the child financially alone. Why is this such a far fetched idea? It doesn’t matter if you are/were married or not! If you share a child and you don’t live under the same roof, you must legally give a percentage of your income (high or low) to provide for the child that your sperm created.
Again, I don’t know Don, but as a person who worked long hours and reaped wonderful financial benefits because of those hours, I can say that logically if Don had to take care of his child everyday, it would be much more difficult and possibly untainable for him to have created his wealth given the time/money limatations that a custodial parent has when caring for a child. So, since Don had his wonderful night/day or afternoon of sex with his ex that resulted in a child, YES he should have to fork it over to her to provide for his kids because, sherlock, caring for children is a job too.
Chrissy, exactly my point… thank you! :)
@Jenn: I’ve said it once and I’m going to have to say it again, “Thank you!”
@Jake Squid: Amen!
I really hope that these men are on here arguing for the sake of argument because any man who truly thinks that it child should only recieve the bare minimum or the basics is not really a deserving parent at all and it is a blessing to all involved that they are NCP. Isn’t it horrible/unnatural for someone to want anything less than the best for thier children?
SMH . . .
I am quoting myself! I am very, very quotable. But mostly, just to make sure that the people making my satire into journalism have actually read my parodies.
I’m leaning more and more towards the idea of training and testing requirements in order to maintain one’s fertility. Good job, angry NCP’s!
well that will never happen!!
if you think about it, its interesting. You need a license to fish. YOu need to register with the city if you want to put up a fence, you need to not only have car insurance, but proof of that if you drive. But almost ANYONE can have a kid and carry a gun (oh, no, I did NOT go there!!) :)
Jenn:
Every state in the union (except that hotbed of crime, illiteracy and infant mortality, Vermont) bans the carrying of a concealed weapon without a permit, and most ban open carry, too. And many of them don’t issue permits at all. In those states, you can carry any gun you like as long as it’s not an actual gun and doesn’t look too much like one.
But totally with you on the notion that in an ideal world having kids would require licenses. Alas, historically that notion went downhill really fast, so clearly we do not live in an ideal world…
Grace
Well, apparently this is true of dogs. I’ve been trying to adopt a chihuahua-beagle mix, and the dog rescue group just emailed me to say that I couldn’t, because I have a job and won’t be home with the dog often enough.
I have a rescue dog, I was asked my working hours too!!
and the expense of his current family
JP, his child IS his “current family”. The child doesn’t stop being his “current family” because he’s no longer sleeping with the child’s mother, or has decided to have more children with someone else. The child doesn’t cease to exist because he’d rather pretend the prior relationship never happened.
But thank you for illustrating a particularly ugly and selfish argument behind some of the complaints about CS.
@Jenn, seriously, anyone who thinks “people should have a license to have kids!!!” is either true or funny needs to pull their head out of their privileged butt and spend thirty seconds looking at the history of eugenics and the reproductive abuse of poor women and women of color. And to consider how smart it would be to allow governments that put the Ten Commandments in the local courthouse or run a school-to-prison pipeline for profit to make decisions about who is and isn’t allowed to have children, and how that would be enforced.
@Robert, okay, you don’t send her a check, but she could take the support she receives and put it into a dedicated account to which you have view-only access, etc. As for symmetry, no, it really isn’t the same as petitioning for a change in support (which can be done by the support-paying parent, as you know, if there is a change in circumstances). Having to account for every penny of spending is more burdensome than having to show one’s income and major expenses – the form in my state requires a couple of pay stubs and stating major expenses, not proving how much one spends on groceries – particularly if one is not simply saying “here’s what I spent” but trying to prove that the expenditures were “appropriate”. I mean, if I were pissed that Mr. Mythago finally got sick of my pool-boy-and-coke-party ways, wouldn’t that be an awesome way for me to mess with him, to ask the court to determine whether he should have bought the kids’ coats at TJ Maxx instead of Target, and whether buying a video game as a birthday present for a kid is a waste of my CS? (Raoul has expensive tastes, my friend.)
I definitely don’t think people need to have a license to have kids… to begin with at least. I do see how people end up at the conclusion when they forget they are talking about people.
What about that guy that had kids with 11 different women… should he have more? :P
I don’t know what guy you mean. Is he caring for and/or supporting all of those children? (By which I mean, if he’s their primary caretaker then obviously that’s different than whether he’s paying someone else to be the primary caretaker.) By “should” do you mean morally what we think he ought to do, or what the law ought to force him to do?
Wow, that has to be really frustrating. Having both adopted and fostered dogs from a rescue group, I can see their concern. It *is* a problem for dogs to be left alone for a whole 8+ hour workday every day, both for their bladders and because they get bored and lonely. *But* most people work, and very few people wish to be stay at home parents to Fido and Fluffy. And most dogs can manage just fine if you arrange things right.
Personally, I think the real question should be, how will you make sure the dog gets appropriate toilet breaks, exercise, and attention, given your work hours. As long as you can say (for example) “I’m close enough to work that I can run home at lunch time and let the dog out to pee,” or “Spouse and I can offset our work schedule a little so the dog is only alone for 7 hours,” or “I plan to hire a dog walker to let the dog out at lunch time,” or “I have an 8-foot fence and a dog door; the dog can go pee whenever he wants,” you shouldn’t have a problem.
What my husband and I do with our two dogs (one of whom we’re fostering) is take them to “doggie daycare” every 2-3 days, so they get lots of running around and socialization with dogs and people both. (Admittedly, that’s only suitable for dogs who *like* people and other dogs, and you have to do some checking to find a good one.) On days when they don’t go to daycare, we try for a long walk in the morning and make sure they have chew toys and water available throughout the day. Diamond has free roam of the house, but both our current and previous foster dog have needed to spend the day in a crate. Which works fine. We usually set them up with a Kong toy full of peanut butter and turn off the lights, so that they eat and then sleep.
If you work full time and can’t get home during the day at all, that probably means that a dog with separation anxiety is a bad idea, and that an actual puppy would require a lot of either hired assistance or favors traded with friends to get you through their first few months. (The rule of thumb is that the max time for a dog to go without peeing is one hour for every month of age. So if you get a four-month old puppy, someone has to let them out at lunch time every day for the next four months. And teeny tiny ten-week puppies really are just about a full time job.)
Another reason some rescues are really picky is that most rescues will always take a dog back if anything goes wrong (and usually insist that you return the dog to them rather than giving it away or taking it to the shelter). It’s a lot harder to get a dog adopted again after they’ve been returned. It may also be harder to find a spot to put them, if their previous foster no longer has space. So, I think the ones who are hesitant to adopt out a dog who’s going to be alone all day are worried that the dog is going to come back to them after getting bored and eating the couch.
At the same time, I totally agree that some are way too picky, and I wish more people would look at an application with concerns, and instead of immediately pitching it, say, “You mentioned X, which might cause Y problem. How are you planning on handling that?” and go from there.
The good news is that there are lots of rescues out there, and you should be able to find one who will work with you and can match you up with a dog who would be a good fit.
@ mythago
Why do I have to be “oddly” concerned? Can’t I just have a concern?
Why do I have to be ignoring the financial burden of my own idea? I did not know you cared so much about it to think that far ahead. Why thank you!
Social services needs restructuring anyway, they need more money from the government, money that is being wasted in other areas. Most people do not realize how little money they have to work with. This is a whole other problem.
Since you keep giving opinions about me personally, and not the discussion (as if you know me), I have a couple I will direct towards you.
YOU are a silly woman if you think the current system is not broken. YOU are the type of mindset that prolongs a failing system. YOU are the reason boys should be taught lessons regarding child support and condoms early in grade school. Lastly YOU have no solutions whatsoever, and only criticism for other ideas. So please, go join a women’s feminist blog.
@mythago
Sorry for the shorthand… by ‘current family’ I meant NCP’s significant other and/or kids with whom he currently resides. That is to say, the person with whom NCP chose to make a home with, as opposed to having had sex with a woman he was never married to or in a committed relationship with resulting in a child (that is the perspective I am concerned with for purposes of this thread).
@ Jen and Chrissy:
My problem is that ‘NC’ dads often get screwed over, even with the pretense that family law should not discriminate against either parent. In my state, custody and support proceedings are kept separate. This is an artificial distinction, because custody must be established to know which parent should pay ‘support.’ By default, temp custody goes to mom b/c she has biological ‘possession’ of the child at birth. There has been proposed legislation that would presume shared parental time (50-50 where possible) as the standard, with the parent seeking sole custody having the burden of proving why that is in the child’s better interest. With no marriage or prior precedent of either parent caring for the child, that seems logical, but the current system lets mom keep the kid. Dad has to fight for access, and by the time the court hears the case mom’s established months-long ‘precedent’ of being primary care-giver, using dad’s money to fund her efforts. She could share or give dad primary custody from the start, but then she loses out on the desired role of being the primary parent, and dad’s financial support of that role. This prevents fathers from bonding with their kids, prompting resentment at the obligation vs. the opportunity to develop a meaningful relationsihp. NCP fathers may become great dads but are treated as income-earners with visiting rghts almost by default, which is a shame and not the intent of the family court system.
I don’t deny that bio-dad has financial responsibility for his kid. He can’t choose whether an unplanned pregnancy is carried to term, so he takes the risk of parenthood at the time of sex. I feel bad for the one-night-stand dads, but they rolled the dice. When the kid arrives, though, I don’t think setting a fixed percentage is appropriate in all cases. Federal law required the states to homogenize CS calculations (fixed percentage and pro rata contribution based on income). Now, birth mothers have a financial incentive to be the CP, even if the other parent is more fit, or equally so. Of course, CP’s spend time and effort caring for the kid, but they willingly took on this role. If you want a kid, why not try to make one with a successful person whose money you will be entitled to by law? If they had to step up and provide a full 50% of child-rearing costs, I think some would-be moms would make different choices (again this is directed to non-marital situations where there is no expectation on their respective roles before parenthood occurs).
*NEWSPAPER WHAPP!* *NEWSPAPER WHAPP!*
NO! Bad Dan!
This is a feminist blog, Mythago was not out of line, and you are out of line. So cut it out.
Also, this isn’t open for discussion. Just stop.
—Myca
@ Myca
My apologies. It all makes sense now. Clearly feminist influenced logic here.
Whoops!
@JP: I get that you are trying to be logical and fair, but you leave out so many essential elements of nature with your arguments. First, I think it is very clear why a woman should be given primary custody of the child when it is first born. In fact, the fact that you brought that up puts SO MANY of the thought processes of a lot of men on this blog into perspective. All of you forget the pregnancy aspect of it. I have written it on here before, but it clearly needs to be repeated: Children biologically need their moms in order to survive. Yes, we can give them formula, but there is SOMETHING undeniable about the FACT that if we were in the wild and had a child, a MOTHER could feed her child with only her body. A father couldn’t. Please don’t give me hypotheticals about milk not coming in blah, blah, the point is the men have not gone through pregnancy or childbirth.
Here is my personal example: My ex begged and pleaded for me to get an abortion and then tried to force me into in it psychologically of course, by telling me I was going to be alone and I could afford a child (even though I was a grown woman making SIX figures), I would be a horrible mother. Yada, yada, yada. I thought I was alone, until I started meeting women and the stories seemed almost identical. THEN, he had the audacity to sue me for custody for the child that he wanted aborted. He didn’t do that because he cared about our son. He did it out of spite. What man really want to care for a new born 24/7 or even 12/3.5? Come on? Be real. Now look, I get that all men aren’t douche bags, but a lot of men are when it comes to their children and money.
Further, you are making the mistake of putting things together that don’t mix. I know there is a better term for it, but I can’t think of it right now.
Because YOU and most men like you, see your child as a responsiblity/burden instead of a human who grew inside of your body and bonded with you for 9 months, you think that a woman wants to be CP for financial reasons – for most, the finance aspect is secondary and simply fair. In my opinion, any good parent, who is not independently wealthy should/would make sure to take advantage of every resource available to his/her child. This is why I’m so annoyed by men who say, “I wouldn’t ask for child support if I had custody”. Well, you should! All that does is tell me that you are selfish and prideful and put your need to be independent ahead of your child’s well-being and stability. I think that the only reason that a woman should not seek child support is if the man is abusive and such a cancer to her life that it’s just better to make no contact with him at all.
Me and every woman I know in this situation, EVERY SINGLE ONE, wants to be CP because we want the best for our children and we don’t want them hurt physically or EMOTIONALLY and we want to hug them and see their faces everyday and feed them and choose what they eat to make sure that they get a good mix of healthy food and goodies and we want to see them laugh and do all the cute funny things they do. I know that you are not supposed to parent out of fear, but I think a lot of moms think that if a man supports his child begrudgingly and shows malice towards her, how will he treat the child when she is not there to watch. It’s a real fear for single mothers. Most of us really love our kids. The only women who I know who go to the Bahamas without their kids or spend CS money on themselves are the women I read about on these blogs. I don’t know any personally. And I know a lot of women.
Anyway, I say all that to say that I really didn’t think having my son through completely, I mean, it’s hard to think clearly when you are pregnant. But, I know now that I made the best decision and when I look at him and think that I would have aborted him because my ex didn’t want to have an extra “bill”, it scares me, but I also feel extremely lucky that I was smart enough to trust my gut not his selfishness.
Would I have made a different decision if I knew that I would not be able to take him to court and get child support? Possibly, but it wasn’t a financial incentive. That’s your mistake in logic.
And, I do provide WAY over 50% of the child-rearing costs for my kid because that little child support check is not my golden ticket, but I am grateful to receive it finally and every little bit helps. Additionally, if I find out that his income increases, we will be back in court for a modification because while I did make my choice alone, I did not make a my son alone. I can and have absolutely care for my child without any support from his father, but I choose not to. I like having the extra money and that does not make me opportunistic or a bad person. I have to follow the law, he has to follow the law, you have to follow the law and you’re only complaining about it because you don’t like it. That doesn’t make it unfair; it just makes it something you don’t like.
I think I am more typical of single never married moms than you want to admit.
Chrissy, I largely agree with what you say (I’m the person who wrote the original post), but you keep on making broad-brush statements about men – like “what man really wants to care for a newborn 24/7?” – and then later walking them back a bit, as in “I get that all men aren’t douche bags, but a lot of men are.”
I appreciate that you do walk those statements back, but I’d appreciate it even more if you’d avoid making totalizing, sexist statements about men in the first place. Just say “a lot of men” or “many men” or “child-support hating men” or something like that, which makes it clear that you’re not talking about all men.
Thanks for participating on this thread.
@ampersand: I think that most intelligent people know that it’s virtually impossible to get a 100% subset of humans that act alike in any given situation or view it the same way. But, anybody, and I mean that anybody, who has cared for a newborn knows that it’s sort of crappy. All they do it eat, poop, sleep for two hours stretches and cry. Of course, I could say that “some or most” people who have cared for a newborn baby, but I would hope that anyone/most/some who reads would know that I’m sure there are 224 people and/or men who absolutely love cleaning baby poop and would disagree. My posts have been pretty long, so I didn’t think I needed to clarify every single thing to say that I’m not talking about every single person.
I will respect your blog by staying off of it. It’s one thing to ask me to choose my words and be respectful to others, but it’s another to ask me to choose my wording to take into account what should be general knowledge.
@Dan, a tantrum isn’t a counterargument. When you’ve stopped the former and put together the latter, get back to me.
@JP, you’re doing it again. If the NCP instead left his wife and infant for a new woman with whom he “currently resides” and had children with her, isn’t it true that child support paid to the ex-wife comes “at the expense of his current family”? Why should how many times they had sex or how long their relationship lasts matter to the child, or whether there are younger siblings?
@Chrissy: You hold several misconceptions about me (i.e. that I’m a child support paying man, when in fact I am a childless woman), but that aside..
1. Help me on this… if you couldn’t get support (or as much as you thought you could), you might have aborted… but it wasn’t financial? This is an inherent contradiction. Yes, I know there are other factors, but you seem to concede that $$ is one and hence, IS AN INCENTIVE.
2. Yes, I get the breast-feeding concern, but that goes away if the mom chooses to formula-feed, as many do. Both mom and dad are equally capable for bottle-feeding a child, and changing/clothing/bathing an infant. So if mom is not breastfeeding, this ‘argument’ fails (not that dad cannot choose to formula-feed on his time, or mom pump and supply milk, but let’s keep with the simple example). Next…
3. Clearly your ‘ex’ did not want to spend his life with you, but your having his kid forces that relationship (both financially and, if you’re responsible parents, in all matters concerning your child). There is NOTHING terrible about him asking to abort the child and avoid that ‘life sentence’ with you (no offense, I’m sure youre’ a lovely person just not for him), but then after the kid arrives, wanting to step up and be a dad. What’s done is done and now the ex wants to make the best of it, so stop with the ‘ its just for spite’ — it sounds like you harbor a fair bit of that yourself (i.e. you don’t really ‘need’ the extra CS, but you’ll be damned if you don’t drag him back to court for that mod when he gets a raise). You stress how special and magical a bond it is to have a kid growing inside you… the man doesnt’ get to experience that, so give him a break. He only gets to bond after birth, and only if baby momma lets him, or the court makes her let him. In fact, sometimes he doesn’t even know whether it is his until after birth, and it makes no sense to emotionally (or otherwise) commit until that is determined. Don’t knock him for trying to develop a relationship with the child he will be forced to financially support for 18-21 yearsand enjoying all those ‘funny cute things’ the kid does on a daily basis You wouldnt want to fork over a chunk of your 6-fig income and never get to see your precious kid, right? Of course not…
4. As an attorney, I assure you the law is NOT always fair, just, efficient, moral, or ‘right.’ Fortunately the legislature is empowered to change bad laws or pass new ones. I will support what I see as beneficial modifications to the system, and there are already several proposals pending in my state. Let’s not pretend the law is stagnant (at one time, women were property.. yay, they changed that law).
5. I never said most CP moms don’t love their kids, just that they have financial incentive be the kid’s CP, love aside (see conceded point #1). If you have sex with a man, you know he could become your baby daddy. Just as you say the man can’t whine about chipping in for support, you can’t cry about some vague ‘worry’ that dad will mistreat a child just b/c he initially wanted to cut ties, abort and avoid that stressful and difficult lifestyle, which affects the child as well as any future spouses and children who may be desired. Yes, abortion can be a responsible, valid choice in spite of your emotions about it, so let’s get off that high horse.
Now, if there is domestic violence, drug use, threats, etc., the court will not allow custody, or only supervised visits. Otherwise, YOUR EX IS JUST AS CAPABLE AND ENTITLED AS YOU TO PARENT HIS/YOUR CHILD. To paraphrase you, ‘just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it unfair.’ Of course if you really worry but just can’t demonstrate anything the court finds compelling, you could forego asking for support and have him sign away his rights if he’s willing (as you noted). Any loving CP mom would prefer a living, healthy child even if she has to struggle more financially if she were *truly* worried dad may mistreat the kid. But, she wants the best of both worlds — the money, the reward of parenting and having control over how to do so. Then she bitches about how hard it is when he has the ‘audacity’ to want involvement in his kid’s life. Since you chose to involve your ex with support, he made the equally valid choice of choosing to parent the child he supports. So, enjoy 18 or so years of shlepping your kid back and forth between 2 households, worrying about crazy stepmoms, unhealthy snacks, late bedtimes, inappropriate TV shows, lack of discipline, and whatever the hell else you think your ex does not do as well as you parenting-wise.
@mythago, marriage is a separate animal. It is different to have a social contract with someone where you understand your roles in the family than it is to have no preset expectations about division of household or creation of life. A child should be supported if born outside of marriage of course, but both parents should give 50-50, eliminating any financial incentive to being CP (or to carry to term in the first place if you are the lesser-earning parent).
@JP, Do you, by chance, have a boyfriend or husband who pays child support? :/
And @Amp I totally understand your desire to not having sweeping statements about “people”…
But I also totally get where Chrissy was coming from.
I KNOW there are great dads out there. I know some of them… but tell me,
Is it more shocking to hear about a dad who a year off work to care full time for a new born baby… or
To hear about a man who just left his wife and kids for a girlfriend?
Which do you hear of more often?
@ampersand: I said I wasn’t going to post anymore, but I will, unless of course, you ban me from posting, which would be fine. Now you can see how much refrain that I have been using when responding to the idiots who post on this blog. But, please know that seriously when I write “all” or make reference to men, I do not mean everyone on earth. I clearly have wonderful men in my life and I know men who are superior fathers.
@JP: The fact that you are a woman is truly disappointing. If you have children, it makes me sad. Let me guess: Your “man” pays child support to a lazy women who doesn’t take care of the kids, doesn’t work and does nothing but sit around on the sofa all day and collect a child support check. The only time she leaves the house is to spend it all – on herself of course.
1. I have no problem helping you. When you buy a shirt, you buy it because you want a shirt. The fact that you have a job helps you in making the decision because it would be a more difficult decision for you to make if you didn’t have a job, given that you wouldn’t have reliable income. However, if you didn’t have money coming in, but still had the means to get the shirt, you might still get the shirt, even if you didn’t have a job. So, you having a job played a part in your decision to get the shirt, but there were other factors that contributed (style, color, price, frequency that you would wear it, does it match the other clothes in your closet, do you have shoes to match, etc.). Ergo, having a job would not be an incentive for getting the shirt. As an attorney, you should know that the main elements of an incentive are “encouragement” and/or “motivation”. Again, just because something is a factor in the decision does not make it encouragement or motivation, therefore child support is not an incentive to have a child. If that were true, then having a job would be incentive for buying a shirt. Sounds silly, huh? It’s because you’re trying to force your point.
Additionally, there a slew of women who have kids by men who will never pay child support either because they can’t or because the women don’t file. How do you explain these women? Never mind, I’m sure you would find a way. So, do NCP want primary custody because of the financial incentive? If your answer is “no”, then its shows that you are clearly biased. If the answer is “yes”, then this is just a moot argument.
2. It ridiculous that you actually made this point. I asked you not to because I knew you would in the event that you missed the point of me even mentioning it. Yes, you clearly missed the point or you just want to be right, so you ignore the big picture. If you want to ignore biology and think that there is NO biological logic whatsoever for women having custody of newborns, you go ahead.
3. Here is a place where you are 100% correct. My ex did not want to spend the rest of his life with me, nor did I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Actually, I broke up with him 3 days after the last time we had sex, so the sentiment was mutual. Who said I didn’t need the extra child support money? I am not independently wealthy. Just because I can care for my son’s basics and some extras does not mean that I don’t need the money. How ridiculous do you sound? Who doesn’t need extra money? I put 50% of his payment in a savings account for my son. I can afford better lunches, clothes, haircuts and a higher level of health insurance for him because of that child support payment. Again, that doesn’t make me spiteful, that makes me a mom who takes advantage of any available resource for my son – as EVERY mother should and every father should want his kid’s mother to do. I’m not knocking my ex for trying to spend time with his son, but trying to get custody of any kid that you haven’t bonded with at all is lunacy and shows selfishness. I mean, can you visit with him consistently every other weekend for a 6 month period and get to know him before you try to get custody? A reasonable person would, not a loser like the men who criticize their “baby mamas” but complain about their “bill”. I don’t have a 6 figure income anymore, I work less to take care of my child, but would I create a child and complain about supporting him because I don’t get to see him as long as I know he was being cared for? Is that your question? You picked the wrong woman to ask. I paid the meager child support for one of my cousins for a niece that I barely see for an entire year until my cousin got back on his feet because I know that the “baby mamma” needed the money and that my cousin actually wanted to pay, but couldn’t. Guess who I didn’t bad mouth? The child’s mother. Guess who I didn’t let my cousin bad mouth? His child’s mom. So, no, I don’t have a problem caring for my family members. I’m not a selfish loser. And no, I didn’t wait until my cousin was threatened with jail to start making payments – in case you’re trying to find a reason why I would do it. Some people just don’t suck.
Part 2: There is nothing terrible about him asking me, but him trying to force me and verbally abuse me into the decision is terrible and the fact that you think it’s acceptable to defend that shows me very clearly that you lack morality and are probably a horrible person in your everyday off-line life. NOTE: There is no need to retort this by spouting off all the good things you do in life. There are plenty of great coaches, pastors and humanitarians, who ended up being child molesters. Based on your comments and you being a woman, I think you suck. There is no need to defend yourself. My opinion of you will not affect your everyday life in any way.
4. I didn’t say the law was fair. I said that you, me and everyone else needs to follow it. I don’t need your assurances. The fact that you are an attorney is irrelevant. So am I. In fact, all that admission did was show me why you choose to ignore facts that happen to not fit into your arguments. I hope we don’t know each other. I have a feeling that if we met in person, you would pretend that you thought deadbeats were atrocious. I hate that I’m probably surrounded by hypocrites on a daily basis. Sorry, I digressed.
5. Who conceded point one? Did you concede it for me? Because, I didn’t concede it. The point that I conceded was that I’m going to let you continue to pretend to think that carrying a child for nine months doesn’t give a woman any kind extra biological intuition when caring for a newborn. That’s #2. What high horse are you referring to when it comes to abortion? I considered having one, so at what point did I say that it wasn’t a viable option? Oh yeah, I forgot you can’t be outraged by me and make me into the villainous baby mama who had a baby out of spite to collect a child support check if you don’t create extraneous fake arguments. You decided that since I’m glad I didn’t make the decision that I don’t think it’s a viable option for some women. Not true.
Yes, I can. Because now I have a child that I have to protect and when you become a mother, you learn to trust your instincts. Again, asking someone to have an abortion is one thing, but he did more than that. He did enough for a judge to order supervised visitation based on actions during and after the pregnancy and e-mail correspondence. Children have to be protected by someone and for most children born out of wedlock that person has to be their mother. You cannot be expected to hand your child over to anyone who has displayed venom towards their very existence without some sort of evidence that the venom is gone. NEWSFLASH: Refusing to pay and “complaining about a reasonable child support order displays a lack of concern for the child’s well-being”. FYI: That’s a QUOTE from the judge in my custody case. SHOCKER: He loss!
There you go whining again. First of all, this is a child support blog and I have stated over and over that I believe they should be separate as they are in my state (although, your attitude toward CS does matter in court). Further, why should I have him sign away his rights? Because you say so? He may have a relationship with his son when he’s older. All I have to do is go in front a judge with evidence and my “worries” and let him/her make the custody/visitation decision. If the court would have given my ex what he wanted, I would have been surprised, but I would have complied because I think that family court judges actually do have the best interest of the child in mind. I comply with a lot of laws that I think are unfair.
So, I’m greedy for “wanting my cake and eating it too”? That’s your position. And to be clear “my cake” is having supervised visitation, so that my child and his father could get to know each other instead of handing my son over to a stranger. Really? It would have been better for me to abort my child, so he could have had his cake and ate it too. Funny. I’m not going to explain the problem with your logic. Also, I’m sure you don’t specialize in family law or you would know this, but for future reference, in most states signing over your rights does not eliminate your financial responsibility. There are ONLY two ways that that responsibility can be eliminated. One is to have your child adopted by someone who agrees to take over the responsibility and I’m not going to share the other one publicly because there are too many deadbeats on-line and I’m not giving them any assistance on how to ignore their responsibly.
Again, I love my child and I don’t think of him as a burden, so I don’t mind schlepping him anywhere, nor do I mind him having a relationship with his dad. I clearly live by a different life code than you do, so the things you just mentioned probably won’t have a detrimental effect on me or my son because of our lifestyle and mindset. Again, you missed the point of that whole section of my response, but I’m sure that you’ve conceded this whole response for me anyway. :)
@Chrissy, no I do not have a bf/husband paying CS, but that would not change the validity of my prior post — nor does your anecdotal personal experience with a ‘douche bag’ ex void the rationale behind my general statements.
1. Thank you for proving my point. You want a shirt (for whatever reason), but cannot easily afford it (job or not), so do not buy it. But, enter someone who legally has to give you $ so that you can afford the shirt. You buy the shirt you wanted. So yes, that money is an incentive for your ultimate choice. See how simple that is?
2. Saying “that is ridiculous” and never answering the rationale I offered, is not an argument. So a mediocre mom who formula-feeds should get custody over a stellar dad b/c he doesnt have lady parts to carry a baby for 9 months. Ok…
3.
Initially, you were knocking him. Regardless, I’m not sure how a dad can bond with his kids absent spending time with them, which doesn’t happen if mom won’t let that occur. Why can’t a WILLING, CAPABLE father who does NOT exhibit any threatening/concerning behavior (i.e., not your ex apparently) visit his newborn EVERY weekend, and weeknights too for a few hours? That would create a better bond, allow them to see milestones (first words, steps, etc.) and develop and demonstrate their capability as a care-giver. Many women just want to retain control, or do not want their own routine ‘disrupted’ by the child’s other parent trying to be a parent to their mutual child. But, too bad. If dad wants this time and mom refuses it for NO GOOD REASON (aside from her vague concern that someone aside from her is watching the baby), I think that speaks to her inability to foster the father-child relationship and should weigh into the ultimate custody decision, and courts tend to agree.
3.2
Ha, OK. I don’t know you, your ex or your circumstances except the limited info you shared, nor does it matter much to me. There are plenty of decent guys who urged their baby mamas to abort before becoming wonderful fathers (and moms who agonized over the choice and became great moms). Too bad if your ex was tactless or abusive (just don’t take his calls…?) If you want to impute personal judgment or ill intention simply from my general understanding of why would-be dads request abortion, go ahead. What that makes you is your issue. Go ahead and compare me to Hitler if you want *shrug*
4. My only argument on this point was that bad laws should be changed. By the way, parents can come to reasonable agreements that deviate from the ‘formula’ set by the law for CS, and agree to their own custody/visitation schedules, so there is room to maneuver within the law. But by all means, keep hurling personal insults at a perfect stranger on a blog because you want to ignore the validity of the point she makes, or because you would rather assume they are entirely directed at your situation and therefore become personally offended. That dilutes the purpose of these dicussions.
5. I answered this above, but you will retain your unsupported theories on the ‘magic’ behind the mother’s biological bond regardless. The high horse was, you criticized your ex for urging an abortion while considering one yourself. Fine, he was a dick about it, whatever. I don’t care about your personal situation and have said nothing to suggest ‘outrage.’ My point is, men can certainly express their opinion and desire about their unborn kids if they want, even if you don’t like them (and if not, ignore them, as you did). Some women may not want to bring a child into the world knowing s/he will be sentence to a life of living in split household. As much as parents may not mind shlepping their kids back and forth, it takes somewhat of a toll on the kids as compared to their counterparts in intact families, to the point where some opt not to create a child that has to endure the stress and hardship of the 2-family lifestyle. Again though, that is a personal choice for women to factor into their decision.
5. Your next rant is really a red herring. I said if there are REASONS (i.e. threats, DV, drug use or other demonstrable malevolence), then moms can express that to a judge to get supervised visits. You did, so good for you — you just made my point with your own anecdote that these things were present in your ex’s case. When that is NOT present, moms can’t simply say “but I don’t wanna let my child’s father see MY baby” (well, they can say it, but it makes them selfish parents who put their own desires ahead of their kids).
As to signing away rights, I’m aware of the parameters/limits and again, I don’t care what you do/did. I was saying, if moms simply want the control over their kid w/o having to worry about the ‘disruption’ the other parent will cause, or have a willing new husband with whom they can jointly raise the kid in an intact household, then that is an option (if the bio-dad is also willing). Unfortunately some woman exhibit the ‘have cake/eat it’ mentality by selfishly trying to prevent meaningul and regular involvement by otherwise willing, caring and capable fathers. I could reference all the moms who fabricate stories about their ex sexually abusing or neglecting the kids, found to be contrived after investigation (and often damage to the father-child relationship). There are men who just give up because mom fights them tooth and nail on every issue, and does not want to help dad get up to snuff on the childcare routine or keep him informed about the kid’s day to day because she thinks he may actually do a good job as a parent and she will lose custody of her precious child or *gasp* have to share it (not considering that it is his precious child as well). It happens, frequently, and often times leads to the ‘deadbeat’ problems of dad not being involved, b/c mom pushes him away and he doesn’t have the money or will to fight it out. Great if that is not your situation, but it’s the situation I was addressing. My ultimate point is, if custody was more even-handed, it would probably reduce arguments over CS $ and be overall better for everyone – mom, dad and kid.
I’ll end with the fact that neither this blog nor my opinions shared herein revolve around you personally, although you have attempted to make it so. I get that you must speak from personal experience, but every situation is different (e.g. the perfectly capable and willing fathers out there who just want to enjoy parenthood of the child they have to support financially).
But what do I know, I suck as a person. :-P
JP, this is an interesting discussion, but if possible please dial back the snark a notch. (I.e., instead of “Your next rant is really a red herring,’ say “Your next argument is really a red herring.”) Thanks!
@Ampersand, While I appreciate your desire to preserve a level of decorum in this thread, I believe your chastisement is misdirected and your suggested censorship is inappropriate in this instance. Please consider the following:
Merriam Webster defines “rant” as follows:
1: to talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner
2: to scold vehemently
My point was that the referenced post did not make an “argument” (reasoned discourse intended to persuade), but rather offered contrived statements and personal insults, to wit:
and
and
Based on the foregoing, I would say that several elements of what you would term an “argument” are in fact a “rant,” or worse. In fact I don’t believe the criticized term makes my reply “snarky” (sarcastic, impertinent, or irreverent in tone or manner), as I meant it sincerely to address the vehement scolding being passed for ‘argument’ in the previous post (i.e., the “rant”). Moreover, I fully expect that Chrissy as a fellow attorney is able to rebut my characterization of her post, if she so chooses.
Finally, some might say that the vitriolic statements quoted above were uncalled for (and certaintly unhelpful to the discussion, as I noted in my post). I do find it curious, however, that you would overlook those scathing remarks blatantly intended to be personally insulting (along with cloaked references to my being on par with child molesters, etc.) and impugn my word choice (which, if changed in the manner you suggest, would undermine my point for the reasons offered above) as being the more noteworthy breach of decorum to call out in a comment. If I am missing something though, I am certaintly willing to continue the discussion in a manner that is respectful and appropriate while still conveying my intended meaning, as I have done thus far.
JP:
1) I am not able nor obligated to closely moderate every comment. I don’t do this for a living, and I have limited time and mental energy.
Therefore, my moderating is mostly done on an arbitrary basis; I moderate the comment I’m reading, if it says something I want to push back against (usually, it’s just a matter of tone), and if I have the time and energy at the moment that I’m reading it. It is not a perfect system, but it is better than no moderation at all.
If you’re looking for perfect fairness, and a moderator who calls out every single comment that could be called out, then this is not the right forum for you.
2) I don’t agree that me asking you to be civil is censorship, for two reasons.
2A) This forum is not unique, nor is it government-owned; there are a zillion other blogs and forums available to you if you don’t like the way this one is moderated. You are not entitled to space on our website, and if you were denied commenting privileges here, that would not in any way constitute “censorship.”
2B) I didn’t even delete your comment, I just criticized it. Being criticized is not censorship.
3) The “truth” defense for rudeness cuts no ice with me. “It wasn’t rude of me to call him a thieving whore, because he really DOES steal and have sex for money!” Being truthful (as you see the truth – what is or is not a “rant” is subjective) and being rude are not mutually exclusive. If you can’t find a way to state your argument that is both truthful, and said in a reasonably kind, civil tone that communicates that you’re treating even those you disagree with in a respectful manner, then this is not the right blog for you.
4) By the way, I think I moderated Chrissy on something just a dozen comments or so ago. I’m not just picking on you.
@Ampersand
Understood, you have no obligation to fully monitor all posts, but in some sense your ‘arbitrary’ monitoring seems more harmful, in that things like calling other posters ‘terrible people’ will slide and therefore are perceived by forum participants as being acceptable, but such things as characterizing a prior post as ‘ranting’ are not. That is the danger of selectively moderating, but of course this being your blog it is your prerogative to do so.
“Censoring” is the process of examining speech for objectionable content in an effort to repress or alter such content (which you admitted to doing selectively to my post above). It does not mean just deletion — censure or recommending changes also qualifies (“instead of saying X, you could say Y….”). Your post met this definition. You subjectively found my comment ‘rude’ or uncivil and called it out. I disagreed with you, as may others, and that difference of opinion indicates the subjectivity that makse censorship such a tricky thing. Yes, I saw you’ve moderated other comments also, and no, I do not feel you ‘picked on’ me to the exclusion of others, but it is censorship nonethless and you as the moderator have the right to engage in it (albeit selectively, given your limited time). That’s just how it is.
Saying ‘being truthful is no reason to be uncivil’ sidesteps the issue where the truthful statement is central to the argument at hand (unlike calling someone a ‘thieving whore’ or ‘terrible person’ purely to denigrate them as an individual). If I purposefully posted a demonstrably untrue statement that someone called out as a “lie,” setting forth their rationale for doing so, they have not been uncivil — they have simply made their point that what I said was a lie and therefore cannot be used to support whatever proposition I am arguing. It is generally an unpleasant thing to be accused of lying, but if I invite the criticism by wilfully engaging in said conduct, I can’t complain about hurt feelings (after all, isn’t it ‘rude’ to lie in the first place?) Note above, I did not resort to calling Chrissy a ‘ranter,’ I just said her specific post was a ‘rant,’ in a concerted effort to be as ‘civil’ as possible and not assume that she is a person characterized by such objectionable behavior (notwithstanding that I did not get the benefit of that assumption in her post to me). People arguing opposing points often use words that their opponents (or others) may crticize as too harsh a characterization of their position, but it is not rude unless it is done as an insult or ad hominem attack.
The fact that you did not even read the post to which I responded before condemning my characterization of it underscores my concern. Certainly, you would agree that there is such thing as ‘ranting’ and that people do it from time to time (see above example re: lying). Had you read the post, you may have similarly concluded some of it constituted ‘ranting,’ unless you really feel that such a behavior does not exist. What I think you said is the word jumped out because of the negative connotation typically associated with it, which you would prefer to change out of hand regardless of the validity of the criticism, hence the censorship effort. Again, it is your forum so you can do as you wish, I am merely expressing my view on the matter.
Of course, if the terminology or ‘tone’ I employ in rebutting others’ posts (which I frankly found to be quite restrained given the vitriolic tone of the post to which I was responding) is so objectionable that you feel it warrants my exlucsion from your forum, by all means, boot me. You pegged it, I have no “right” to be here… but I do not see how you could credibly assert that THAT is anything short of censorship of my speech based on your perception of the content of my opinion and manner in which I convey it.
Anyway, if I need to find another forum where people are more receptive of my speech and tone, I’ll do that. Thanks for entertaining the diversion into this issue.
@mythago
You don’t have an argument as far as I can tell. Nothing I need to counter-argue.
By the way, you sounded so smart when you said that. You’re a big girl now! I’m so proud.
Hey, Dan. You’re banned for ignoring moderation and being an asshole.
—Myca
Oops opps. I was mixing up Dan and Don.
Until now I didn’t realize they were two different people. I’ve been waiting for Don to answer my questions in #1135.
@JP: You’re still couching the obligations (and rights) of the father in terms of his relationship to the mother – not the child. I don’t understand the comment about parents giving 50-50 to eliminate incentive to get child support.
I suspect that she means the court, taking into account living situations and ability to work of both parents, decides that little Billy ought to get (say) about $3000 a month in kind or in cash to support his living expenses, and that each parent is then responsible for around half of that total burden. So if Billy lives with mom, then mom’s expected expenses of Billy’s maintenance and upkeep (rent/mortgage/utilities, food, clothes, doctor bills) go onto her side of the ledger; say dad keeps Billy on his insurance plan, then that premium goes to dad’s side of the ledger; say both parents contribute $200/month for his private school, they each get that credited on their ledger. Then whichever parent isn’t providing at least half in kind makes a cash contribution to bring their half up to par.
Seems reasonable to me, though difficult to administer, and I’m sure a thousand horrible nightmares just lurk waiting for some state to implement it. I could see it working very well for amicably-divorcing people who can still get along and who can negotiate one on one without third parties, and have periodic (annual?) sit-downs to figure who ought to be writing a check and for how much.
@mythago — yes I am still couching it in those terms for reasons I get into below…
@ Robert, kind of, and yes I agree the administrative burden of counting every expense would be prohibitive. So now, CS for 1 child is let’s say 17% of the parents combined total income up to a certain cap ($136k in my state). If mom makes $20k and dad $80k total support is 17% of $100k ($17k), and they each are apportioned their pro rate share of taht (dad at 80% is $13,600 and mom at 20% is $3,400). The court could simply take the $17k and allocate half ($8,500) to each parent. Non-CP’s would then pay the lesser of their allocated half or the pro-rated amount. So, if dad got custody mom would just pay $3,400 (less than the $8,500)–the same result as the current law. However, if mom gets custody, dad pays $8,500 (lesser of his pro-rated $13,600 share). In cases where income is equal, the allocated half is the same as the pro-rated amount so the outcome would be the same as under the current law.
Because a lower-earning CP will get a higher pro-rated share from a higher-earning non-CP, s/he has incentive to be CP (or become a parent in the first place). If by statute, the CP must contribute the same amount of support as the non-CP under a 50% allocation, this incentive is minimized (the effect is as if both CP and non-CP both had the same income under the current law, so neither one is artificially enhancing or diminishing the living standard they would otherwise enjoy — less of course the 50% CS they must pay).
In a marraige, parties have undertaken to divide household finances and tasks, whereas these considerations are not present out of wedlock (particularly where the parents are not and never were co-habitating). CS law wrongly assumes a relationship akin to marriage and applies the same formula in an effort to keep the child’s living standard the same as had the marriage not dissolved — but if there was no marriage, there is no such expectation. The non-CP should pay a support amount equal to the CP’s obligation, allowing both of them to maintain their own households approximately as before (this is not necessarily advserse to the child’s interest, if the child will spend significant time with the non-CP as well, not to mention future children of non-CP’s household are not disproportionately affected). If both undertook equally to create the child, they should also equally support the child. Marriage is different in that, e.g., maybe one parent forewent an education or lucrative career to raise the kids while the other worked so this assumption wouldn’t work there.
In reality, this scheme will never pass because the purpose of the law is to maximize what the child has in whatever household s/he ends up in, even if it means creating incentives to have kids you otherwise wouldn’t, and disincentivizing the CP from getting a better education and job (which would ultimately increase CP’s own financial obligation and decrease the % non-CP must pay). However, the least we can do is create a countervailing incentive for non-CP’s to become involved parents by adjusting their CS to the extent they exercise significant parenting time with the child, as some states do. In Non-CP’s who take on substantial parenting time incur added costs compared to those who visit once a week (or never).
Unfortunately, my state is not one of those that feels an adjustment to CS is warranted. This actually hurts families because, if a non-CP is willing and able to be an active parent, but is less able to buy nice things during the time he is with his child, he must forego that time or offer a less enriching experience during it (i.e. cut back on taking kid to museums, movies, sporting events, dinner out, and other bonding/educational events that cost $). You will hear CP’s complain, “you only want the kid b/c it will reduce your CS payment.” OK… it SHOULD reduce the payment for the reasons above, and CP should be glad her the child’s non-CP is willing to step up and be there as a parent.
Thoughts?
For instance, among fathers who are below the poverty line, the median child support payment is $125 a month
Being below the poverty line means you don’t have enough money to afford essentials. Taking an average of $1500 from someone who is food insecure is not a good thing.
Oh, and I must admit, that growing up as a child of divorce, there were no child support payments to the parent who raised me. Of course, he was a man who lived off about $35,000 a year, unsecure, as it was the proceeds of his basement-run home business, where he was a software engineer, who typed with two fingers, and my mother, who worked for the province, took home a paltry $35,000 a year, or thereabouts.
I don’t speak to either of them (they both disowned me for being a trans lesbian… probably the being a girl thing more than the liking girls thing.) but mom was in line for early retirement and dad was selling his house to make ends meet, when last we talked finances.
Okay, I’m 18 now, but my sisters are still younger, and my parents have a joint custody agreement. My dad complains to me lately about child support and then how he also has to pay for other stuff (like school lunches when we stay with him), but I really don’t feel bad for him. My mom works more hours than him, and has less free time. But he makes a whole ton more money than my mom, because she worked to support him while he got his masters degree and climbed the ladder of success or whatever. (He worked, too, through college, but she worked presumably more and paid for parts of *his* education.) She had ambitions, but then they had a life planned out together, which happened to involve her taking care of us. So now that they’re divorced, she isn’t at that standard of living that my dad is at, even though she worked just as hard (or harder) *with* him at setting that up. And so she worked as a secretary, then went back to get her masters at 40ish, to start her career pretty much now. And he complains about being “punished” for making more money…
Meanwhile, my mom and maternal grandmother (who helps out) pay at least double what he does for child support, especially if you include the extras she pays for (gymnastics, acting and singing classes, books, computers, etc.)
You can tell he’s not really hurting based on the fact that he goes out to eat a good portion of the time, constantly buys his fiancee gifts and such, and vacations when he can. While my mom at times has to borrow money from me to pay the bills. I really didn’t have a good idea about their financial situations until the past year, when they started cluing me in and treating me more or less like an adult. Am I missing something here? Why exactly does he feel sorry for himself? I don’t dislike my dad, really; he’s great to talk to (when he’s not around his fiancee). I just don’t know whether he’s being unreasonable or I’m missing something. I’m leaning toward the former, clearly.
I think that this is not an unusual situation either, given the inconveniences after the divorce of people who planned a life centered on the man moving up in his career to support the family. I’ve heard similar things from my friends with divorced parents.
I’d be curious for someone to put this in a different perspective if possible…
KatEl-
I think it’s some of column A, some of column B. Your dad is being unreasonable, AND there are probably some things going on that you don’t have insight into, just because of your point of view of being the child of these folks. That’s a sometimes uncomfortable observation point – you see a lot of what goes on, but a lot is veiled from you, and sometimes – not always! – the conclusions you reach about the whys and hows are way off base. You have intimacy but without full knowledge (unless your folks are hugely over-sharing).
Part of it is easy to explain. Even if your dad is doing well financially, even if he makes lots more than your mom, even if the support being exacted by the court is a drop in the bucket that he could laugh off while jetting to Paris for truffles, it emotionally feels like theft. Without knowing the details of the divorce, I can only go by what’s most likely – and what’s most likely is, your folks got divorced at a time when he feels like he put in his part of the bargain (going to school, building a career) and that your mom put in her part of the bargain (helping with that, raising the kids) – and now that the marriage is el busto, things ought to be 50-50. The old arrangement is broken, the new one ought to start from a premise of even-steven.
But he makes way more money, so – even if the custody split is 50-50 – he’s sending your mom checks. That feels like a punishment for making more, as well as a burden/chain on future life developments. What if his fiancee decides she wants to be the breadwinner and wants him to stay home and take care of babies? (I recognize that’s not likely, it’s just a hypothetical.) Well, he can’t do that. The court will probably tell him, tough titty, buddy, get your ass back to work and make your support payments. It’s a psychic overhang.
I won’t rehash all the arguments we’ve had in this mega-epic-thread about what *ought* to be the case, just presenting why the old man feels used. (If it was your mother who filed for divorce, that probably sharpens the feeling.)
He needs to cowboy up and quit bitching about supporting his kids. He certainly needs to quit bitching about it to his kids.
You don’t say what your mother says about all this; I have no idea if she’s presented her side of the story with weeping self-pity or enthusiasm about her brand-new start on life. Doesn’t really matter. The takeaway for you and your siblings, in my humble opinion, should be this:
We make plans in life, and those plans very often do not work out. It is normal and healthy to mourn the death of a beautiful plan, and to be angry with whoever or whatever wrecked the plan. But mourning and anger are events, or at most processes. They aren’t permanent conditions. If you’re angry because your ex was supposed to be the breadwinner and instead dumped you 20 years in for Ms. October and now you have to start over in your career, get over it. If you’re angry because you did your part in the plan and paid all the bills and now that you’re supposedly ‘free’ you still have a money IV sucking the lifeblood out of your financial arm, get over it. Grownups make choices, they commit to things, and then – regardless of the outcome – they live with what happens and do their best by their loved ones. Whining and crying for years and years about the injustice of it all is just a waste of good tears, and annoying for other people to have to listen to.
The other takeaway for you, again in my humble opinion (you can tell I’m humble, because I’m so great at communicating humility) is that deals of the sort your parents made can be very effective. (After all, they had multiple kids and what sounds like a good standard of living even after the trainwreck expenses of divorce.) But they also create a lot of vulnerability. The partner who foregoes career for family compromises his or her ability to live independently at a later date, if a disaster strikes or a relationship falters. The partner who commits to economic functionality as their raison d’etre finds that society very quickly, and often irrevocably, accepts this role and locks them into it, and puts up a lot of resistance at any later attempt to moderate or even abandon the role.
Just things to bear in mind as you make your own relationship decisions in years to come. You should totally listen to me, because I’ve fouled up more relationships than most people even dream of having, so I am obviously a past master at this. Good luck.
Robert:
Amen to that.
“Are you sure this is a good plan?”
“Sure! I’ve done it countless times and it’s bound to work eventually.”
–Something Positive, http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp09252010.shtml
Grace
I think the original story fails to consider that child support varies per state. Try looking at the support amount in VA, it’s astronomical. VA child support is calculated on your gross, not your net income and the support tables are outrageous.
I have two children, both of which required daycare, and court ordered child support amounted to 42% of my GROSS pay. When calculated as a percentage of my net pay (The amount I took home after taxes), child support accounted for 60% of my NET. The remainder left me below the poverty line with no hope of assistance, because child support is still considered as income for the father.
There is no part of that calculation that makes sense, in any form or fashion, and that’s what I believe that dad’s rights groups are railing against.
As if the DSS system isn’t screwed up enough, and while I know that most NCP’s are forced into financial hardships, this story is a bit ridiculous. An upstate couple separated, with the wife/child moving to the city while the father stayed behind with his job. He was ordered the standard 17% off of his gross with one year arrears. This left him with about $45.00 a week to live on, thank you Bradley Law. Granted he earns just a bit above the minimum wage, but times are tough and a job’s a job. Eight months later, they decided to get back together but live separately until he could find a job in the city. She petitioned to the DSS to stop taking out child support, stating that they are back together. DSS refused saying that her husband has to reside in the same county as her, before they can stop the child support. Now the husband is forced to quit his job, move to the city and go on public assistance. BTW, DSS cannot release any funds until this occurs and will continue to collect support up to another 3 months. This will force the husband into arrears and that’s another story.
If things weren’t bad enough, DSS found out that her husband was receiving additional income and not reporting it. So they seized his bank account and threatened to raise his obligations. The ironic part about this, the money was being sent from part of his wife’s child support so that he could pay his rent.
DSS didn’t want to hear it, income was income!! This poor family not only pays support but cannot receive any due to their account being suspended….. You may ask why they involved the DSS in regards to getting back together, why didn’t they just go about their reunification until he received another job. I can’t say, but they were both teen parents and high school dropouts so let’s err on the side of ignorance. So what the hell is the DSS’s excuse?
So i have my child about 2 to 3 days a week, pay all his insurance, and everything he need’s while he is in my care. I make about 65k, and his mother about 36 to 50 not sure on what she makes. I pay 1256$ a month in child support, as i am also located in VA. She has full custody because her parents are well off, and I didnt have money for a lawyer when we went to court originally. We were never married, and there is no alimony. I am going to go back for full custody because i want him as much as i can have him money aside. He is very happy with me when he is here, and i dont see why i should not have him at least half the time. Because I pay so much in child support though i can not afford a lawyer. Any advice for me would be very appreciated! Thanks
The fact that this 2006 blog entry continues to generate lively discussion in 2013 is testament to how important this topic is to so many.
These statistics are from 2004. For those interested, more recent census bureau data from 2010 specific to child support can be found here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/childsupport/providers2010.html
I’ve spent years looking at state support guidelines and developed calculators that give you far more than the support amount. Not only do the calculators provide the final support amount for each case, but they explain the math of how various state formulas arrive at the results. The calculators then go further to place the resulting amounts into the context of financial contributions and the benchmark of estimated USDA food expenditures.
For those interested, the link is here: http://www.supportstudies.com. You’ll find calculators for California, New York, Illinois, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Georgia and Indiana. All are free to parents.
Whatever your position on child support payments, hopefully these will help explain the math behind the guidelines.
Alana, what a happy coincidence it is that you are splitting with your partner, and happen to have a personal website that’s a giant divorce mill law firm in the PNW! I am sure that your backlink to “your” site – where, I imagine, one could find all kinds of information if one did a keyword search on “child support” or “standard of living” – will be super successful.
Tragically, that will also be true of seemingly random text segments like McKinley Irvin tiny penis, or the ever-popular McKinley Irvin killed Jesus, or McKinley Irvin bad lawyer, or maybe even McKinley Irvin pathetic spammer. That stuff all tends to get Hoovered up to the big index in the sky.
(Amp or other mod, you might want to neutralize the link in “Alana”‘s post. These people are like cockroaches, you really want to discourage them with fire at the first sign of infestation.)
[Thanks, Rob. Spam deleted. –Amp]
I feel the need to throw in my own story here, for contrast. My ex and I are two women, living in California (we are the legal parents of our children).
I’m the custodial parent and have the children about 60% of the time, but I’m by far the higher earner and pay my ex about 25% of my gross in child support. While this surprises some people, it makes sense to me on some level – I want the children to be well provided for in both households, my ex is going back to school and has low income. While I think some of the complaints above are legitimate (the lower earning parent has a decreased incentive to increase their earnings) the system as it stands in my area seems like making the best of a bad situation. Children are something more than an obligation, they are a responsibility, and I feel responsible for mine having a reasonable lifestyle to grow up with even if my ex makes a poor living.
Part of what has made this palatable for me is that my ex and I have maintained a good relationship with each other and the children freely go back and forth. She definitely put aside part of her life so that I could advance my career, and I don’t want our children punished for that when they are with her, and I don’t want resentment bred.
Ruby – Apparently someone filled your canteen with Reasonableness Juice and some kind of Thoughtful Not A Total Bastard drops this morning, because that was about the most mature and decent thing that’s been written on this entire epic thread. You sound like a great person to be split up from. ;)
Robert – thanks, that made me laugh a little. I suspect, from my experience and that of people I know, that in some ways some of these issues are less acrimonious between same sex partners who have split up. It’s harder for us to blame gender for our differences and any differences with which we are treated, so there may be fewer preconceptions about how to do custody, support and the like. My sample size is not large so this isn’t a very scientific observation.
I did notice in one of your earlier comments, though:
California does something fairly similar, though the degree of financial responsibility is apportioned based on custody time in lieu of directly including basic living expenses (rent/food/utilities) – and the calculations are more than a little crazy due to a desire to tax-equalize the situations. A total support figure per child is worked out which depends on the total income of both partners. This is then apportioned based on the amount of custody each parent has, and offset by direct contributions (such as health expenses, private school, etc) from either parent. The guideline figure for child support follows from this.
This does have some fascinating consequences, though. Income from a new spouse is used only to determine the effective tax rate of the parent’s income and is not considered as basis for support. If I earned the same amount of money that I do now but married someone making $1mil per year, the effective tax rate of the dollars I earned would go up and therefore the amount of money I had available for the initial calculations would go down…which would mean my child support payable to my ex would actually *decrease*. Crazy world.
Yeah, the tax treatment of the payments is totally out of whack. Ironically, it’s the MRA topic on which they are absolutely 100% correct, and also seems to be one that they spend very little time advocating.
Well, what about giving the fathers the kids, and nobody pays anything. That is the ideal case many times. Why Give the mother custody, and give her payments? Why not just give the father the kids, and nobody pays anything. Having a kid increases the GDP of the economy. If there were only 1000 people on earth, there would be no roads, no hospitals, no schools, no internet etc, we need more kids to sustain our population, of 7 billion. We need more people on earth, and there should be an incentive. The reason the economy is down is because wall street steals every bodies money, without regulation. Make all stock market trades public, and make it illegal to use a hedge fund to make stock trades, and the economy will soar, it would take 5 minutes, but the politicians including Bush, and Obama, are too busy living good on tax money, and living with their hands in greedy peoples pockets. We do need reform, and it is senseless to force the kids to live with their mom, without even asking the kids! They should just ask the kids and father, and in all fairness kids should be at least 50/50 if both parents want them, and either no money should be paid, or each parent pays while they other takes the kids. They say oh but what about the schooling, it’s a joke. The schools only care about tax money for each kid in school we spend more than any other country on earth in education, and get the worst results! They need government reform, and to either be fair or get out of family affairs. It will all work out, just be loving, be free of resentment and trust things will work out, and the more people do that, the more the system will fix itself.
As a dad who has paid child support on time for 12 years now and has 3 more to go, I guess I am one of the “lucky” ones who pays far more than average. My monthly support payment is almost $700 for one child and both us parents make the same (within a couple thousand) gross income. Because of the flawed system here in Michigan, my ex keeps going back for more because she will receive it. Been through it enough that there is not anything that can be done except wait for it to end but I’m not buying that average child support figure, at least not in the cases I’ve seen. Based on the article, I’m paying for about 80% of our child expenses and I’m NOT the custodial parent. Have to love the system!
I often wonder what a NCP thinks is fair…..
$700 a month is about 80% of the average costs of raising a child for a single parent with an annual income of about $17,000. (For those with incomes around $60,000, the monthly cost is around $1800).
So is your income around $17,000 annually, of which you pay $8400 in child support? That would, I agree, be terribly unfair – but I admit that I’m a little skeptical.
Using a standard Michigan child support calculator, I find that a monthly child support payment of $700 would usually indicate an annual income of about $57,000. Of course, individual cases vary.
This article was written by a complete moron. No child needs 1800 a month worth of support. Period. It’s hidden alimony and nothing more. The Wisconsin model laws were a form of indentured servitude to the non custodial fathers in this country and a clear overstepping of government power into the personal lives of citizens. I hope the legislators who approved that travesty
rot in hell.
Please read a pending bill in the Senate Open Legislation bill # S4547-2011, this bill will reduce a parent’s child support obligation by the amount of social security benefits received by the child. Send your support for this bill and send to other in NYS.
I guess you could say my sister and I had to grow up under that “average.” My dad made around $30k a year, and my mom made around 20k. My dad was paying for 2 other children in child support that lived in Wisconsin from one mother, and 2 from another mother. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to raise them, but he had a record at the time so the courts automatically sided with the mothers.
I don’t remember exactly, but this equated to something like 30% of every check being taken out for him? Not too much, you might say, but factor in taxes, trying to help support his current family and bills, and you’ll see that my parents didn’t exactly have the easiest time in the world supporting my sister and I. Additionally, if my mom or dad had lost their jobs, those payments are based on a hypothetical income (meaning you still pay, even if you were fired), so we would have been out of luck. Thankfully, that never happened, and my parents still managed to do their best to make sure we had a roof over our heads, clothes for school, and food to eat.
Now to other side of the story:
One of the mom receiving the payments? Oh, she didn’t have a job (claimed to be disabled; definitely wasn’t) and *lived* off of welfare and the money my dad sent her. So, while I grew up with my parents literally working their asses off to support me and my sister, my dad was sending money to a woman that lived in an occasionally powered-on trailer who used the money to primarily support her cigarette and alcohol addictions. The children she raised, by the way? One of them grew up starting to do the same thing to her husband, but thankfully she suddenly left him and her children for another man spontaneously one morning. I haven’t seen her in about a year. I don’t really care if I ever do again. The other kid my dad doesn’t even if is still alive. Couldn’t get in contact with him during child support; never heard from him once it was paid off.
On the flip side, the other two children from the non-crazy mother grew up to be decent enough, I guess. I don’t really know because they live 700 miles away, and my dad never got to see them while paying for them, either.
So I’m sure the system works for some people out there, and that’s great, but anyone that thinks it should stay exactly as-is *seriously* has no clue what they’re talking about. Bi-monthly or at least quarterly investigations into the child’s livelihood should be required if you’re going to set up a plan that essentially fails to follow up on its lofty ideals. I’ll tell you one thing; it’s probably bitterness from my experience growing up, but I feel more sympathy than anything when I hear about a “deadbeat” dad arrested for non-payment of child support. If my dad had lost his job while raising me and my sis, it could have easily been us being raised by only one parent. How’s that for justice?
@FtGGoM: a “record”? For what?
You’re also saying that your dad had six children to support. That’s a financial strain for most people, and having six children spread over three households when you have a $30K income seems like a pretty guaranteed way to be “struggling” financially, regardless of how lazy the children’s other parent is.
“Bi-monthly or at least quarterly investigations into the child’s livelihood ”
I’m curious what you think this would have changed in your fathers case?
Presumably it would have been punitive for all of those bad mothers who weren’t working to make sure his dad’s burden of supporting six children by three different women was lessened?
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely in favor of fair custody decisions and not simply assuming that kids belong to their mothers and are billed to their fathers; I just find it odd that Dad’s “record”, whatever that is, is treated as some kind of minor procedural issue that shouldn’t in any way have affected his custody rights.