# Child support amounts are grossly unfair **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 10, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478 "2014-06-10T16:06:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/81 "2014-06-11T14:17:14Z")
So basically you know a few angry dudes and read some MRA blogs at some point, and that’s all the “facts” that you need. Have it your way. I’m not going to stop you from sorting yourself neatly into the lunatic fringe. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/82 "2014-06-11T14:21:56Z")
Insults are no problem. As many as you wish. All I ask is that you not falsely attribute things to me. Is that too much for you? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/83 "2014-06-11T14:25:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Three, and I’m genuinely asking because I don’t know the law on this, do joint custodial parents not have to pay anything to the other? I’m not asking if both parents can agree to not pay the other in a one-sided custodial case, I’m asking if “joint custody” is a special status that, once achieved, presumes that neither parent pay the other for child support My ex-wife and I shared custody of our kids after the divorce. She made good money, but I made more, so there was an “adjustment” that I had to pay her every month. It wasn’t $16,000 at least 🙂 The amount seemed to have nothing to do with the relative expenses of our respective households, or which house the kids actually spent their time. There was a presumed amount of expense on a spreadsheet, and an adjustment from a presumption of 50/50 split, based on the difference in our incomes. A lot of thought has gone into creating this system, and while I’m sure there are examples of inequity to be found, I thought there was generally a certain logic and fairness to the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/84 "2014-06-11T14:53:53Z")
> [@andros](#): > > This, this, and also this. > > And also, with all respect to you, **Yog** , who the fuck cares if two overpriced lawyers and a judge decide one obscenely wealthy parent has to pay an obscene amount to another obscenely wealthy parent? > > I’m just honestly not seeing how this applies to child support for the vast majority of parents, which is, as **Yllaria** adroitly observes, is typically based on the relative incomes of the parents. A very few men apparently live in fear that some gold digging bitch will fool them into marriage & then rob them of their precious masculine essence to produce a mini-parasite. Then, when they exercise their masculine prerogative to bug off & form another family, said bitch & parasite will claim a huge portion of their vast fortune. Right now, no women are lusting after that essence & that vast fortune is non-existent. But the system is unfair–because they just _know_ it is! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/85 "2014-06-11T15:07:52Z")
> [@GrandWino](#): > > Dave Foley, of Kids in the Hall fame, went through a pretty terrible ordeal in Canada with his child support obligations. The law there requires the support payments be set at a level to keep a child living at the same lifestyle as when the parents split up. At the time of his divorce he was making a million dollars a year and his support payments were set at a high level. However, his career tanked and his earnings dropped to very little, and he couldn’t afford the amounts set by the courts anymore. He ended up having to hide out in the US because if he went back to Canada he would have been arrested - basically for not continuing to make a million dollars a year. This is a completely inaccurate statement of the law in Canada. The federal Divorce Act specifically provides that a parent who is paying child support can re-apply to the court if there has been a material change in circumstances, such as losing one’s job or other drop in income. There was a thread a few years ago, I believe in MPSIMS, talking about the Dave Foley case. I quoted the relevant portion of the Divorce Act and linked to a recent Supreme Court decision which outlined the kinds of evidence that was needed to show a change in circumstances: pay stubs, income tax records, and so on. **Spoons** also posted in the thread. He’s a Canadian lawyer in a general practice and has done some family law. He explained that he had made those types of applications to vary, successfully, for clients of modest means. He also outlined the type of evidence he needed to present to the court to obtain a reduction in support obligations, based on change in circumstances. I’m posting from my phone so can’t search for the thread easily, but it shouldn’t be hard to find if someone wants to look for it. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/86 "2014-06-11T15:11:28Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > But the system is unfair–because they just _know_ it is! In particular, I think the focus on “unfairness” in mandated support levels for the children of the very wealthy doesn’t scale well to more typical situations. Sure, it doesn’t really matter whether Halle Berry pays $16000 or some lesser sum in child support if the custodial parent is a multimillionaire anyway. If the court invoked some kind of “general principle” such as the OP is advocating, where a noncustodial parent would only be required to pay a minimal amount to keep the kid from starving or freezing, it wouldn’t result in any actual hardship for Halle Berry’s kid. But it **could** result in actual hardship in some of the millions of cases of ordinary, non-wealthy families where the custodial parent doesn’t have wealth of their own to pick up the slack. I think the system we’ve got now, though extremely imperfect, is at least theoretically about the best we could get. Let responsible, cooperative parents (whether married or divorced) work out their own mutually agreed-upon arrangements for how to raise their kids, without legal interference. And for the divorcing parents who call in the law because they can’t get their shit together sufficiently to achieve a mutual agreement, let the law work out on a case-by-case basis what would be in the best interests of the kid. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/87 "2014-06-11T15:26:03Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > In particular, I think the focus on “unfairness” in mandated support levels for the children of the very wealthy doesn’t scale well to more typical situations. > > Sure, it doesn’t really matter whether Halle Berry pays $16000 or some lesser sum in child support if the custodial parent is a multimillionaire anyway. If the court invoked some kind of “general principle” such as the OP is advocating, where a noncustodial parent would only be required to pay a minimal amount to keep the kid from starving or freezing, it wouldn’t result in any actual hardship for Halle Berry’s kid. > > But it **could** result in actual hardship in some of the millions of cases of ordinary, non-wealthy families where the custodial parent doesn’t have wealth of their own to pick up the slack. > > I think the system we’ve got now, though extremely imperfect, is at least theoretically about the best we could get. Let responsible, cooperative parents (whether married or divorced) work out their own mutually agreed-upon arrangements for how to raise their kids, without legal interference. > > And for the divorcing parents who call in the law because they can’t get their shit together sufficiently to achieve a mutual agreement, let the law work out on a case-by-case basis what would be in the best interests of the kid. Interestingly, on going back and looking at the article linked in the OP, according to the article in the OP at least, the OP case wasn’t an example of a court-created ruling, but a merely the court approving a settlement reached by the parties. > [@](#): > > Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon approved the agreement, which calls for the Oscar-winning actress to pay $16,000 a month to her ex-boyfriend, or nearly $200,000 a year. Even if the amount was an absurdity, it isn’t an absurdity imposed by the courts, but one reached by the parties themselves. The courts merely stamped their seal of approval on it. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/88 "2014-06-11T15:26:53Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > The reason I’m not interested in researching this further and getting into a fact-based debate about it is because I think my depiction of the situation is beyond obvious and that anyone who disputes it is either from another, ideology-based, planet and/or is not arguing in good faith. I can’t think of a single thing in the world that I believe is “beyond obvious” and only disputable in bad faith that I can’t provide any basis in fact for. I’m sitting here telling you this is how custody laws are written and this is what happened in every one of the dozens of custody cases I’ve seen, and you’re telling me that you know the statistics say that men win primary custody on a regular basis. You’re not disputing that any of these things are true. And at the end of all that you’re telling me that _I’m_ arguing in bad faith because I’m wondering what basis you have to believe your portrayal of the “real world” is beyond obvious. And you’re also doing it while adopting this air of hyper-rationality, as if the only thing you could possibly ever be persuaded by is logic and reason. You tell me: this makes sense? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/89 "2014-06-11T15:27:12Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I quoted the relevant portion of the Divorce Act and linked to a recent Supreme Court decision which outlined the kinds of evidence that was needed to show a change in circumstances: pay stubs, income tax records, and so on. > > **Spoons** also posted in the thread. He’s a Canadian lawyer in a general practice and has done some family law. He explained that he had made those types of applications to vary, successfully, for clients of modest means. He also outlined the type of evidence he needed to present to the court to obtain a reduction in support obligations, based on change in circumstances. Three issues, though. [ol] [li]The burden of proof is on the guy trying to change the current arrangement. So it’s possible for a guy to be earning less but unable to prove it.[/li][li]It’s my understanding that the judges won’t change things based on a temporary change, it’s only a permanent or long lasting one that will allow for a change. This could be a particular problem for an actor/entertainer, whose income is generally very erratic.[/li][li]Most important, is the issue of imputed income/deliberate underemployment. The courts do not allow for changes if they feel a guy is capable of earning more, even if he’s not. This is a highly subjective judgment, particularly for an entertainer. Maybe the guy is deliberately turning down roles that he could have accepted, and so on.[/li][/ol] All in all, I can see where an entertainer can have a very hard time meeting the burden of proof that he has a long-term decrease in income that is not deliberate on his part. So I don’t see any reason to doubt Foley’s story based on his theoretical ability to apply for a reduction. > [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > I can’t think of a single thing in the world that I believe is “beyond obvious” and only disputable in bad faith that I can’t provide any basis in fact for. > > I’m sitting here telling you this is how custody laws are written and this is what happened in every one of the dozens of custody cases I’ve seen, and you’re telling me that you know the statistics say that men win primary custody on a regular basis. You’re not disputing that any of these things are true. And at the end of all that you’re telling me that _I’m_ arguing in bad faith because I’m wondering what basis you have to believe these things are beyond obvious. Well for one thing, if you’re going to be arguing in good faith, you should not be saying “_you’re telling me that you know the statistics say that men win primary custody on a regular basis_”. That’s a misreprentation of what I said, and one crafted to undermine the counterpoint that I made to the facts I cited. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/90 "2014-06-11T15:28:53Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > One, don’t you think a divorced parent should be able to start fresh? If someone pays the basic amount, for instance, shouldn’t they have the right to ignore his previous family because he chooses to? You can divorce your bitch of a wife. But you can’t divorce your bratty kids. Sorry bout that chief. What the fuck? Divorce isn’t a chance to start over with no kids. It’s a chance to start over without your spouse. You can have an ex-wife, you don’t have ex-kids. Anyone who thinks a divorce is a perfect time to ditch the kids as well as the wife is an inhuman monster. The only thing going for them is, if that’s the way they feel about their kids, the kids are almost certainly better off without them. Just tell them that daddy got killed in a car crash. Seriously, they’d really be better off thinking their dad died than that their dad didn’t love them. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/91 "2014-06-11T15:36:58Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Well for one thing, if you’re going to be arguing in good faith, you should not be saying “_you’re telling me that you know the statistics say that men win primary custody on a regular basis_”. That’s a misreprentation of what I said, and one crafted to undermine the counterpoint that I made to the facts I cited. Bloody hell, son. I didn’t fucking craft anything. “Respectable,” then, not “regular.” Are you telling me you do not in fact know that men are winning custody cases on a regular basis? What’s the second thing? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/92 "2014-06-11T15:48:06Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > Bloody hell, son. I didn’t fucking craft anything. “Respectable,” then, not “regular.” There’s no difference between “respectable” and “regular”. But I did not say men win custody on a respectable or regular basis. I said:\* “I’m aware of stats showing that **fathers who contest custody** win it in a respectable percentage of cases.”\* Meaning that the vast majority of fathers don’t go for full custody to begin with. Either because their work schedules won’t allow for it or because they (or their lawyers) realize that they have no chance. The small minority of fathers who go for full custody are those whose schedules allow for it and/or whose ex-wives have histories or drug abuse or mental illness etc. This was not absent from my earlier post. I wrote: "_But this is a self-selected group of fathers who assess they have a real chance of winning custody to begin with. Most know it’s either not compatible with their financial obligations or hopeless to try to begin with."_ [By way of illustration, suppose 10% of fathers contest physical custody and of that number 40% win. That means in total, 4% of fathers win full physical custody and 96% don’t, but 40% who contest win. That’s the difference between _“men win primary custody on a regular basis”_, which would be completely false, and _“fathers who contest custody win it in a respectable percentage of cases”_, which would be true.] ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/93 "2014-06-11T15:48:55Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > I’m not sure what you want me to cite. I was asking for a cite for the costs of raising a child because I managed to miss what you’d posted in the OP. That gives us a very general baseline figure. But when you get down into more specific details I suspect you can go beyond that $2,600 a month pretty easily. > [@](#): > > To me, it seems like we’re doing something more unfair in order to try to correct the fact that the parents are getting divorced. Yeah it sucks, but life sucks and 2 married people are going to divorce. The kid needs to accept that and the courts needs to accept that its better to have parents able to freely divorce then some court ordered punishment, outrageously disproportional to the “crime”, to fix it I don’t think any of that is true. It’s not about treating divorce as a crime and it’s not a punishment. It’s about making sure the child and the caregiver don’t suffer too much hardship as the result of a divorce, which makes sense. > [@](#): > > I think forced payments of an astronomical amount is too much. Relative to the incomes of these people, the amount is not astronomical. Chris Bosh has made more than $120 million in his career so far just from his NBA contracts (not counting endorsements, investments, or anything else) and he has several years of eight-figure earnings ahead of him still. If that weren’t enough, he doesn’t pay state income taxes. In that light, $30,000 a year to his ex-girlfriend (not ex-wife) doesn’t seem so egregious. > [@](#): > > I don’t disagree with you mostly. But I do think that you seem to think such payments can’t be profit centers. $16000 a month is profiting. I’m skeptical of the speed of which you are assuming that a profit is being made based on averages. The USDA calculated an average figure that (as other posters said) really does not track well when you’re dealing with extremely rich people. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/94 "2014-06-11T15:50:42Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > One, don’t you think a divorced parent should be able to start fresh? If someone pays the basic amount, for instance, shouldn’t they have the right to ignore his previous family because he chooses to? What the everloving fuck? ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/95 "2014-06-11T15:53:48Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Meaning that the vast majority of fathers don’t go for full custody to begin with. Either because their work schedules won’t allow for it or because they (or their lawyers) realize that they have no chance. The small minority of fathers who go for full custody are those whose schedules allow for it and/or whose ex-wives have histories or drug abuse or mental illness etc. This was not absent from my earlier post. No, it wasn’t. And that’s why we are right now in the middle of a conversation where we alternate my saying things like what basis do you have to support this rather in-my-experience-unsupportable set of assertions and your saying things like I don’t know what you’re even talking about and stop misrepresenting me. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/96 "2014-06-11T17:46:56Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > [By way of illustration, suppose 10% of fathers contest physical custody and of that number 40% win. That means in total, 4% of fathers win full physical custody and 96% don’t, but 40% who contest win. That’s the difference between _“men win primary custody on a regular basis”_, which would be completely false, and _“fathers who contest custody win it in a respectable percentage of cases”_, which would be true.] Actual statistics from the [Census Bureau (2009)](http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/childsupport/cs09.html) show that in about 18% of cases, the fathers have primary physical custody, versus 82% for mothers. That’s a percentage that is only slowly increasing. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Most know it’s either not compatible with their financial obligations or hopeless to try to begin with. What exactly are you trying to say here? If the father has primary custody, then typically he has little or no financial obligation to the other parent, and may in fact be collecting child support from her. Moreover, if almost a fifth of divorced fathers in fact obtain primary physical custody, then how is it “hopeless” for the remainder? ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/97 "2014-06-11T18:18:29Z")
Wow. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/98 "2014-06-11T18:26:32Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Actual statistics from the [Census Bureau (2009)](http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/childsupport/cs09.html) show that in about 18% of cases, the fathers have primary physical custody, versus 82% for mothers. That’s a percentage that is only slowly increasing. That’s actually a bit higher than I would have expected. Although still a pretty low amount. But I also noted that in the specific circumstance being described (by Malthus) of a super-wealthy guy, the guy would be less likely than average to prevail, since the work schedule would typically be more demanding. > [@](#): > > What exactly are you trying to say here? If the father has primary custody, then typically he has little or no financial obligation to the other parent, and may in fact be collecting child support from her. Right. But if he’s been commuting an hour and a half to a high-overtime job in order to make the bulk of his family’s earnings, while the wife supplements the family income by working locally at a flexible hour job, the guy is not going to get far arguing that he should be allowed primary custody, and get to lower his income and hours to accomodate that. Once the situation is already in place where the father is the primary breadwinner - a not uncommon situation - he’s locked into it come divorce and custody time. > [@](#): > > Moreover, if almost a fifth of divorced fathers in fact obtain primary physical custody, then how is it “hopeless” for the remainder? Do you disagree with the general principle that a man is more likely to fight in court for primary custody if he thinks he can win and can deal with custody? Hard to imagine. I’m not saying it’s hopeless for all the rest. I’m saying there are a lot who don’t fight it for these reasons. (Using your example - in a rather simplistic way - suppose that it’s feasible and winnable for 36%; these 36% fight it out and 50% of them win. You can’t extrapolate that the other 64% would also have won at the same rate.) ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/99 "2014-06-11T19:34:37Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Right. But if he’s been commuting an hour and a half to a high-overtime job in order to make the bulk of his family’s earnings, while the wife supplements the family income by working locally at a flexible hour job, the guy is not going to get far arguing that he should be allowed primary custody, and get to lower his income and hours to accomodate that. But if that is the situation that has prevailed throughout the marriage, then what’s the problem? If the wife has been the primary caretaker for the child(ren) for some long period of time, why are you expecting that this SHOULD change? If he has established over a period of years that spending time at his job is more important to him than spending time with his children, why should a court assume he’s going to change? > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Do you disagree with the general principle that a man is more likely to fight in court for primary custody if he thinks he can win and can deal with custody? Hard to imagine. Well, if he thinks he CANNOT “deal with custody,” why would he waste everybody’s time fighting for it? > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I’m not saying it’s hopeless for all the rest. I’m saying there are a lot who don’t fight it for these reasons. (Using your example - in a rather simplistic way - suppose that it’s feasible and winnable for 36%; these 36% fight it out and 50% of them win. You can’t extrapolate that the other 64% would also have won at the same rate.) So if the 64% don’t think they can “deal with custody” (meaning what, exactly? arrange their lives around their children’s needs?), why do you think they should win at the same rate? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478/100 "2014-06-11T19:50:00Z")
All these questions seem to be the same basic question. And the answers are: in those particular cases it shouldn’t change, and he shouldn’t challenge it, and he shouldn’t win. All I’ve been saying is that as a practical matter this is the likeliest scenario, in response to Malthus’ suggestion. As I wrote in one of my earlier posts on this subject (emphasis added): > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > It’s the cumulative impact of laws and **practical realities**. The reason why “the joke is on the rich guy” in that case, is because as a practical matter he is going to get the short end of the stick, as compared to a married situation. He is going to be providing the same money, but with much less input into how it’s spent, much less influence over how his child is raised, and much less ability to form a strong relationship with the kid. By contrast, the gold-digger gets the gold and a free and unobstructed hand in raising the kid. Who gets the last laugh? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-support-amounts-are-grossly-unfair/690478.md?page=6)