But, as noted in an earlier post to this thread, I don’t agree with “the fundamental goal of prioritizing the children’s needs”, and think it’s completely unjust. It’s evil.
I do agree with you that once you accept “the fundamental goal of prioritizing the children’s needs” much of the rest flows. And much of the problem that fathers/mens rights groups have is that they feel compelled to accept this basic premise and thus the main thrust of their argument is frequently that they’re really arguing for the best interests of the children, which is not generally convincing. But for myself, I disagree with the premise.
I’m going by what he gave. Frankly he could be making the whole thing up, for all I know. But the premise of this thread is that the situation is as he described it.
I believe you are hoisted by your own petard here. Because the stats show that the overwhelming percentage of divorces are initiated by women.
[And I’ll bet - though I’ve not seen stats on this - that the percentage of male initiators is much higher when there are no children involved.]
So the statistics indicate that women tend to regard divorce much more favorably than do men. Which is consistent with my argument, and inconsistent with yours.
Such numbers would of course include my divorce, where I left my wife and she filed the paperwork. I would imagine, though have no evidence, that the majority of divorces are male instigated in the true sense of the word. They certainly have been in my experience.
I saw that post, but I did not realize that it was yours.
So your opinion is that the children’s needs should not be prioritized beyond basic food, clothing, and shelter regardless of the means of either parent? (You mentioned only malnutrition, but I am assuming you meant basic necessities.) Perhaps that a parent could provide more support to their children, but they could not be legally compelled?
Not in my experience. Not even close. From my experience, about 80% - to 90% have been initiated by women. Although I believe the actual stat is about 75%.
ISTM that the vast majority of divorces by Dopers on this board are also initiated by women, based on threads on the subject by both genders. (Maybe someone wants to run a poll.)
You need some sort of explanation before proposing a vast discrepancy between legal initiation and “true sense of the word” instigation.
Yes, that’s my position.
That also happens to be the prevailing state of affairs for parents who are not divorced. Or for custodial parents who are divorced, for that matter. There’s only one exception to this rule.
(I think the “right thing to do” would generally be to treat kids better than that. But I don’t think the kids have some inalieable right to any more, or that anything more should be enforced, let alone prioritized over the needs of the parent - who is actually making the money. Again, much as it is with custodial parents.)
[I should note, though, that even if you don’t go as far as this position, that doesn’t mean that children’s needs necessarily come before their parents. You could try to make everyone equal, for example.]
I did explain by reference to my situation. I left my wife. Moved out. Told her it was over. She filed for divorce. Under your numbers, she initiated the divorce, which is pretty meaningless.
By true sense of the word instigation I mean the person who left the other, threw the other out, or who took the actions which ended the marriage. In my experience, in the majority of instances, that has been the man. I don’t know the numbers, and I don’t think it would be a HUGE discrepancy (maybe 2/3 to 1/2) but I would bet a lot that well over 50% are initiated in that sense by men. Either leaving their wives, or getting caught cheating etc.
What I’m saying is that you need some sort of rationale to account for the notion that men are more likely to actually instigate while women are more likely to file. Absent an explanation, you would think the numbers should be the same for instigating and filing.
There could be men who initiate and women who file, but you could also have the opposite, so it should even out in the end, absent some compelling reason.
[On that note, I know a guy who is quite possibly in a divorce situation at this time. Right now they’re separate, completely at his wife’s instigation, and he is desparately doing everying he can to keep the marriage together. But I’m thinking he might be wise to consider filing for divorce. Right now she has all the cards, and is taking her sweet time deciding what she wants to do, while making him jump through all sorts of hoops. But I think time is not on his side. Because the longer it drags on, the worse off he will be if it comes to a divorce, both because he will have been out of the family picture for longer and because all the extra effort he is putting out now will have become established as the status quo that needs to be maintained in divorce.
So I think he should give it a bit more time, but if she won’t commit to giving another shot, he is probably better off filing himself. Not that he won’t lose out in the divorce - he is absolutely dead meat. But that’s out of his hands - she can get divorced whether he likes it or not - and he is going to be even deader meat if this drags on another year and then she decides to go ahead with it.]
And yet again, I take care of the oldest 4 evenings a work week and the youngest 2 days during the work week plus every other weekend. Also in the last two years I’ve lost almost all of my sick leave. Last year alone I spent 8 weeks of sick leave with the kids. I’ve also taken the oldest on vacation twice in the last 6 months, by myself. I may not take care of them every meal, but I can’t now, otherwise I would.
I think this seems to be the problem too, a lot of people just assume the father wants nothing to do with the kids. That’s far from the truth. I’ve asked my wife for extra time with the kids. Hell my oldest is doing a class and I told her I would take her even though it’s my ‘night off’, and she told me no. She wants to take them when it’s my time, but if I ask for the same she says no. I spend as much time as I possibly can with the kids. I know there are other fathers that do the same. Yet no matter how many times I have to say it people in this thread say I’m not doing anything for my kids. It’s no wonder people give up if that’s the kind of crap we have to put up with.
Well, I have. It comes from a couple of things; the desire to keep the children in the same lifestyle, and the possibility of disparate family incomes down the road.
How about this (hypothetical) situation:
Two people with 2 young children. Both professionals, making approx 100K each. 200K household income. It’s good money, so the children get the best of daycare/childcare, amounting to 38K/year. The plan is that when they are school age, they will go to the best private schools, which will cost abut 50K/year for the 2 of them. The kids come first.
Now one spouse meets someone at work. Affair and divorce ensue. The kids move in with this spouse, as it is deemed in the best interests of the kids. The other spouse sees the kids as much as is possible, however needs to pay child support. In order to keep the children in the same lifestyle, the non-custodial spouse needs to pay half of the 38K/year, plus other expenses. Let’s guess 17K + another 15K. = 32K This leaves them with 100K - Taxes (40%) - 32K = 28K/year to live on. They are single, so they need to move to a smaller place and adjust their lifestyle significantly
The custodial spouse income is 100K - taxes (40%) + 32K = 92K/year. Much of this goes to the children to help maintain the children’s lifestyle. They stay in a large house, and have all the things that kids need.
Now picture the future, when the custodial spouse has the new friend move in. New friend makes 75K. Being a good person, this new friend contributes to the household expenses like food, utilities etc. They even help with nice things for the kids, because they like them. The income for this household is now 92K from custodial parent, plus 75K - taxes (40%) = 45K Total 137K
137K is more than 28K
One of these households will suffer a greater degree of lifestyle change than the other.
I agree with your general position, as above, but I’m not sure about this particular logic. Because you could also point to a situation where the non-custodial parent has a new friend move in, which would work the other way.
Although you could argue that a non-custodial parent is less able to start a new family, since per my understanding obligations to a new family do not constitute a change in circumstance that would allow a reduction in CS (I’m not sure of this - it’s definitely the case in some jurisdictions, but I don’t know about all).
But I don’t know if this is factual (in terms of likelihood of remarriage). Maybe the non-custodial parent can take up with a woman who is independently wealthy, due to CS payments from her ex-husband.
(On another note, though, your numbers in your situation actually underestimate the disparity, since the custodial parent will generally have a lower tax rate, due to the dependents.)
Where do you and the ex work? Do you both have to live in Expensive County?
Because I live two counties away from you, and commute to an inside-the-Beltway job. And the Firebug’s day care runs ~$8000/year, not $18,000. There’s $10K/year savings right there. (And it’s a good day care - an ‘early learning center’ which I don’t know whether that means anything official, but they take it seriously; it’s not just supervised play all day.)
Double that savings if you can get a refund on the 4 year old’s tuition. (I can’t believe you had to pay the whole year upfront. You don’t even have to do that for college!)
Plus housing’s cheaper down here, too.
So, again, do you both have to live in Montgomery County? Because man, that place is killing you. And there are cheaper places to live in the DC area.
Custodial parent - lives in same house, has maintained a degree of stability and a lifestyle close to what was before. (net income before = 60+60 = 120K/year, net income after = 92k/year
Non-custodial parent, has moved into smaller place, net income has dropped from 60K/year to 28K/year.
I agree that the non-custodial parent may be less able to “start again” (Hi, would you like a date? I live in a walk up bachelor suite with 2nd hand furniture, have no car, and spend all of my time either working, commuting or with my kids.") versus "hi would you like date? I live in a nice house with my 2 kids, but I have all my evenings free since the kids are with their other parent a lot - I can pick you up in my new SUV, which is needed to get my kids to and from important events)
Mine, too. My husband left me, moved in with his girlfriend and then was SHOCKED to get served divorce papers. Fortunately, not all men are that stupid.
(We didn’t have children together, I can make no comments on the fairness of his child support. I will say that in our divorce - although I made twice what he did - he paid me support for five years - the length of the car loan that we took out one month before he packed his bags and the amount of 1/2 the car loan. I got to keep the car, too. He didn’t bother to have an attorney. He was also SHOCKED when I closed all our joint credit cards.)
Having a hard time understanding this. If you had no children, what was the support for? Was it spousal support? (Hard to imagine, if you made twice what he did.)
OK - I am sure it can happen. But even in your later example, you seem to accept that where both remain single, they both suffer a drop in standard of living (one greater than the other).
Which was my point. Certainly if you bring in outside factors, like remarriage for example, or winning the lottery, a person’s standard of living may go up after divorce. Mine did, despite paying much higher accomodation costs as well as child support. But ceteris paribus, both parties will see a decline in standard of living after separation.
Yes, you’re absolutely correct - It’s a simple fact of life that running two households will lead to less disposable income for both parties. Divorce sucks.
That’s a pretty ambiguous definition if you include getting caught cheating. Is that only behavior that instigates divorce? How about if he drinks too much? Maybe he is too cheap, or is a loud mouthed boor. How about if he is a lousy lover? Works too many hours? Or just about any behavior that the wife doesn’t like, then the divorce was instigated by the husband’s bad behavior.
Where do you draw the line? I say it is the person who first says “I want a divorce”, or words to that effect.
If I understand your point correctly it is this: Two married parents can legally agree to provide only the bare minimum to their children. As long as the children are being feed, clothed, housed, and schooled the law won’t come after them. With this in mind, you feel that divorced parents should have the same option. If one parent wants the child to have more than the bare necessities, then they are free to provide it, but the other parent is not obligated to chip-in.
With this policy the state would require that a non-custodial parent must provide 50% of the price of what it estimates the bare necessities cost?
