Given the recent depreesion, many 22-26 year olds are finding it difficult to find jobs. If they are forced to live at home (with the cstodial parent), shold they not received child support payements?
The recent decision to extend insrance coverage to 26 years seems to support this…if the recession/depression drags on another 3-6 years, is it not nreasonable to have the other parents support their unemployed children?
Of course, this gives a new definition to “child”-bt maybe, this needs to be done.
What is your opinion upon this?
Terrible idea. I can’t find a single redeeming quality about it.
The whole health insurance extended to 26 thing is to allow parents an OPTION to share the benefits they are paying for with someone who may not be able to afford insurance. The whole idea of child support payments is that they are NOT optional. There is no way that parents should be required to support their adult children.
The mother/father isn’t forced to allow the child back in their home, and the state wont take responsibility for them (via CPS) if the parent abandons them, therefore the other parent shouldn’t be required to support them either.
/thread
By that age surely any support should be via welfare payments if eligible? Once you are an adult, you are an adult, and any and all parental aid should be optional, not mandatory.
ralph124c could be one of my children. My kids would love this idea, until I point out that they aren’t old enough (at 26) to stay out all night or drink beer or watch what they want on TV. At some point we have to free a person to make their own choices and to live with those choices, the two go hand-in-hand.
I would have hated to live with my parents at 26, and so I did whatever I had to do to make it on my own. Sometimes that involved not having the best of everything. The freedom was worth the sacrifice.
Wasn’t ralph124c the same guy who said that the unemployed were lazy? I’m confused.
This is the craziest idea I’ve ever heard. That just means that at some point in time it will probably happen. And no, I’m fully against it. Then again for my 3 year old I will be paying almost $150,000 in child support from now until the day she turns 18. That’s what they say it costs to raise a child from birth to 18. For both kids I will pay $280,000. There’s no way I’m going to pay another $160,000 for my kids just because they don’t want to find a job. It’s bad enough that I will pay for their college as well.
Yes I have a slight grudge against the high child support, but I don’t think I should be paying more then what they say it costs to raise a child. The idea that one should be forced to pay for a person that’s an adult. I had plenty of crap jobs when I was in my 20s and so can other people.
Maybe he lost his job…
I just want to clarify…
You’re saying it costs LESS than 10,000 a year to raise a child? Seriously?
I think when the kids turn 18, they are adults and they are responsible for their support. The question in the OP is absurd.
I have to second this question. We pay more than that just to send our kids to school.
To the OP: No.
What we should have instead is a Universal Basic Income Guarantee:
In a country as rich as ours, nobody should have to worry about having enough money for the basic necessities of life. Some people aren’t lucky enough to have family that’s able to support them. I’m not proposing that everyone be able to live high off the hog just by doing nothing, but they should at least be able to get a crappy one bedroom apartment and afford Ramen Noodles and Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches.
Hell no. I don’t even like the trend toward non-custodial parents being required to pay for college.
I’m strongly for holding parents responsable for supporting their minor children. Children need support, and their parents are the ones that chose to have kids. Married, unmarried or divorced, both parents need to be required to contribute.
But we need to draw a line and say - you are an adult. It’s time to support yourself. We’ve provided you with 18-19 years of food/shelter/clothing/education.
I’ve got nothing against parents that chose to offer to pay for college, or that let their kids remain at/move back home. But it shouldn’t be required. Kids need to know that they have the support they need growing up, but that they do need to grow up and become adults, rather than 30 year old children. We need more personal responsibility.
I disagree with any mandatory support over age 18. I didn’t even agree with allowing parents to keep kids on insurance after 18. They’re adults. It may be sour grapes on my part as both my parents were dead by the time I was 16, and no one helped me.
Many times I took jobs or stayed simply for the insurance. I worked my way though school with crummy jobs because of the insurance.
Of course in my day, it was different, all the kids couldn’t wait to leave home.
The problem with the OP argument seems it’s soley based on the lousy economy. But I know from working a lot of temp jobs in the last three years, that I LOSE OUT often to college age kids. So the fact is even though the 20 somethings are out of work, they STILL are more employable than the 40 age group for minor type of work to get you by.
Generally, there is no legal concept of “custodial parent” or anything similar for a child beyond age 18, unless they are gravely disabled and under a legal guardianship. Any person over age 18 living with a parent or parents is legally equivalent to someone living with a sibling. The child can leave at anytime (child services will not respond to an 18 year old “runaway”), and the parent can kick them out at anytime, without the law caring.
Crap, then what we need to do is build huge apartment blocks somewhere, put a commissary in each one with USDA staples [you know, ‘gummint cheese’ and the like] that they can draw a weekly supply of food from, and issue every unemployed person/family living space in. Pipe in basic cable, and moderate speed internet and then we don’t have to put out any kind of money as welfare, and worry about them spending it on drugs, booze or gambling … stick a small doc inna box every few buildings, and a dentist inna box in a few different buildings …
How many works of SF are there out there with exactly that … ?
This is a crazy idea. Adults should take care of themselves.
No, I screwed my numbers up, it’s $200,000-250,000 to raise a child from birth to 18. Wall Street Journal and a blog from New York Times.
Though a lot of that stems from the cost of housing, which I don’t think should be as high since the parents would be living there too. I know since my ex left my housing costs haven’t gone down much, nor have my electric bills. The USDA says it will cost me $11,000 for housing per year for both kids, that’s more then half of what I pay.
So I don’t agree with those estimates, and I surely don’t agree that paying for an extra eight years is even remotely fair.
Of Mom found a paying tenant for the basement.
Frankly, I think those estimates are conservative.
I can’t image it’d only be a cost of a child is ten grand per parent. Especially for the custodial parent. Since the custodial parent has to take on non-financial burdens (sick days, school, homework, etc) the majority of the financial burden should fall on the noncustodial parent.
I’m not saying you’re not paying your fair share - I don’t know. I do know ten grand a year per kid doesn’t sound like very much. Yeah, it sucks, but it’s before tax income (isn’t it?) and it’s your responsibility.
If you want to complain about not getting enough time to see your kids, or not being able to afford a decent lawyer to get custody, or anything like that I’m entirely sympathetic… but the court made you pay too much?