It’s ‘the same thing’ as saying that the marital status of the parents should make no difference to their obligations towards their own children.
Yes, it sucks that some are born into wealthy families and others are not - we do not live in a world of perfect equality. But as long as this remains true, parents will continue to, legally, owe duties to their own children, and not to some random child not related to them.
I’m not comfortable with taking this concept on faith. You need to cite this.
This is where we cross into difficult territory. I think there are some aspects of child support that might be unfair- particularly if they assume the noncustodial parent will always earn at the same level and don’t get properly adjusted, for example. But what you’re doing here is forcing a parent to choose between staying in a marriage that isn’t working and uprooting his or her life (and probably that of the child’s) in a very radical way because she’s getting divorced. That seems unfair to the child and to the parent who gets custody. My understanding is that it’s already very hard to raise a child on your own and stay out of poverty.
You’re making it seem as if this is just some argument about the best interests of the child, or different approaches to raising children.
In reality, 100% of these disputes involve the ex-spouse who wants their hands on the money trying to get the other spouse to shell out, and the one who has to do the paying resisting.
You will not find situations where the paying spouse is in court trying to force the custodial parent to accept more child support because they feel it’s in the best interests of their child, and the custodial parent fighting back that they prefer to have their child live a less extravagent lifestyle.
So this high-minded talk about the “basic parental duty of figuring out a mutually agreed-upon way to raise their mutual child” is complete nonsense. It’s all about using the kid to squeeze as much money as possible out their ex. Nothing else.
“extra money” What’s that? I’ve never heard of this concept.
True story - As a teenager I wanted some useless thing and I asked my parents to borrow some money to buy it. I had a repayment plan ready as part of my proposal and everything. My dad gave me the money I asked for but told me I didn’t have to pay him back. He said, “There is no amount you could pay me that would make up for what you owe me. This will be part of the tally”
You and I have certainly had our differences at times, but I’m in complete agreement with everything you’ve written here. The divorce laws, as they exist in this country, are nuts, and the child support payment amounts are one of the nuttiest aspects of them. It’s a prime example of how life for ordinary Americans has become more and more subject to the arbitrary whims of judges and other government employees. There’s no justification for letting courts set arbitrary amounts of money that one individual must pay to another.
And you are right, also, that the current system gives women a strong financial motivation to get pregnant by a wealthy man, and possibly even to use deception is doing so. Doubtlessly some women have gotten pregnant for this reason.
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.
My own feeling is similar to the OP. There should be a base minimum, but after that it should be up the parent.
Besides for being what’s morally right IMO, it has the added benefit that it would incent the custodial spouse and the child themselves to seek a positive relationship with the non-custodial spouse. As opposed to the situation now, where support is guarenteed by court order, so that frequently no one has much incentive to treat the guy like anything other than an ATM machine.
Wouldn’t the joke be on them if the rich guy got joint or sole custody?
“Thanks for carrying the kid for nine months. I always wanted another kid. I just love kids. He’ll have a great life - all the best schools, live in a mansion, the works. See ya later.”
Would this not be a recipe for parental alienation?
Kid lives with the poorer parent in a dinky two-bedroom apartment and walks to school–no fancy clothes or European vacations. Then Kid goes to visit richer parent for the weekend and suddenly is showered with the fancy bedroom and the pony and the endless computer games and the fancy birthday party with the clowns and the trip to the beach and the zoo and whatnot, then come Sunday night Kid gets packed off to the dinky two-bedroom apartment again.
Many kids are frankly materialistic–when they see all the cool toys at Rich Parent’s house, and realize they can’t have all that while living most of the time at Poor Parent’s house, well, there’s a solution to that. Rich Parent simply buys the kid’s affection.
Maintaining a somewhat similar lifestyle while at the primary and the nonprimary custodial parent’s house evens the playing field (and yes, quite frequently in divorce the child is a weapon).
The people in the OP were, I understand, both rich. Only the woman was richer than the guy by an order of magnitude and they share joint custody after a “vicious court battle”.
So no, not really, as it appears there is no issue with the couple highlighted in the OP that the relatively “poorer” guy had a child with the richer woman for the purpose of extracting money out of her. Allegedly, he’s a famous male model and restaurant owner. This is a battle between the wealthy.
Which I’ve heard about and seems to have been a quirk unique to Ontario Family Law. It does seem to have been ironed out, though, as he’s currently shooting a TV series in Canada.
Says Dave Foley. I am a fan of his comedy, but I don’t think you can accept his portrayal of the circumstances as gospel. Even taking him at his word that he was ordered to pay $17k/month, he was over $500k behind when he started airing his dirty laundry. That is almost 3 years of no payment, and even longer if he partially paid. Why didn’t he try to get his amounts adjusted during that time? Or why didn’t offer to take his kid half the time to reduce his obligations? They whole story seems fishy to me, and his bitterness against his “cunt” wife doesn’t make me think he is an truthful, unbiased reporter.
Agreed. It also would would be a means to coerce one partner to stay with the richer one in order to avoid being financially destitute.
But the way it works, the joke is on the rich guy.
“We love kids too. He’s going to have a great life - all the best schools, live in a mansion, the works. All paid for by you. But he’s going to have all these things while living with your ex. To whom you will pay the money to support this lifestyle. See ya later.”
This seems to be a more accurate account of the Foley situation:
Seems like he is basically a deadbeat to me. The story reported at that link is more in keeping with that the numbers tell us. Given this guy was apparently not paying child support when he was “keeping his pool heated to 95 degrees”, it’s hard to paint him as a sympathetic figure.