Usually, fucking deadbeats is the reason why you receive child support.
It’s not a pain in the ass, it’s simply impossible. The four biggest components of household spending are housing, food, transportation, and medical care, and only the last can be itemized.
Think about it: if Suzie, on her own, could only afford a SRO in a shitty, unsafe neighborhood, but with her child support, she can move into a two-bedroom apartment in a good school district, is it fair to charge the difference between the two to the child? Because Suzie is benefiting, but it’s impossible for the child to benefit without her also benefiting. If she bills only half to the child, they can’t live there at all. Must the child share a bed at a roach motel and Suize can spend the child support on clothes for the kid, as if that mattered more than safety?
Or transportation: Suize would drive a junker without the child support check. Now she can afford a 5-year old used car. It’s much safer, much more comfortable–things the child certainly benefits from, but so does Suzie. What to do?
Or food. Suzie on her own would be eating rice and beans, but with child support she can afford lean meat, fresh veggies, dairy products. Must she cook these for the child and refrain from eating them herself? If she can only bill 1/2 the price to the child, she can’t afford to buy them at all.
Only health car can really be clearly defined, though I’d argue that Suzie having decent health care also benefits the kid.
The concept of child support is misandric, and just shows how we need to fight more for men’s rights in this country.
This is cruel. We have good parents in here talking about how they are proud and happy to support their kids, above and beyond the court ordered support.
people receive child support because they are no longer married to or living with the other parent of their child. That doesn’t make anyone a deadbeat. Most people co-parent just fine.
Please, please tell me this a joke. If it is- good one! You got me!
If not, what the hell are you talking about?
It’s OK for a parent to spend support money on themselves if the children will benefit from it. Let’s address your posts, paragraph by paragraph.
Suzie or Steven being able to live in a better place in a safer neighborhood benefits the child too, in many, many ways.
Enabling Suzie or Steven to have reliable, safe transportation helps the whole family, in so many ways.
Suzie or Steven having better food enables them to take better care of their children, because they will be healthier. Parents can’t take adequate care of their children if they aren’t taking care of themselves.
It’s OK for a parent to use support money for their own medical bills. Really, it is. Like I just said, parents need to be healthy so they can take care of their kids. No, “medical care” does not mean elective cosmetic surgery like breast implants or a butt lift.
Now, here are some examples of parents spending support money on themselves, that I’ve seen personally.
I worked with one woman who took her ex, to whom she was never married, to court for back support. She did get the money, and what did she do with it? Took a trip to Cancun, and bragged about it. :mad:
Another co-worker (different place) took her ex-boyfriend to court and got the $1,500 he owed her too. What did she do with that money? Bought a boombox stereo for her car. :rolleyes: Now, if she used that money for car repairs, or to make a down payment on a better one, I would have been OK with that.
As for my high school friend, her mother liked to play Bingo, and this was how she financed it. :smack: It wasn’t like her dad didn’t support her, either. He bought clothes for her, paid for school activities, and even paid the deductible when she got really sick and had to be hospitalized (which he was not obligated to do), but oh, no, that didn’t count because it wasn’t The Child Support.
There was a situation like this in my own family. I really believe that one point, those kids would have been better off in foster care. :eek: I mentioned it to someone who knows more about foster care than I do, and that person told me, “Are you aware that essentially 100% of children are sexually abused while in it?” and I replied, “Yes, and they still would have been better off than they were with their parents.”
Last I heard, their father AND HIS ENTIRE EXTENDED FAMILY are completely out of the picture. There are a lot of things our mutual relatives won’t tell me, except that all I need to know is that I should not be sorry about this. 
Ok. Well those things are the vast bulk of any household spending.
It’s backpay. They child had expenses in the past. The mothers met those expenses through whatever means they had to–by not going on vacation, by not putting a stereo in the car. Now they have been repaid. It’s their money.
That shit–clothes and school activities–is the chump change of raising a child. Providing a place to live, food to eat, a way to get around, and the insurance premiums dwarf everything else.
I don’t have a dog in this fight but have seen it many times.
I have sympathy for the dad who lost his job/had to take a job with less salary and the courts don’t seem to acknowledge this…or of the dad who is rejected by his kids and, after a few years doesn’t seem to have the will to go out of his way to provide for them anymore.
I’ve seen the other side where the mom doesn’t get more in child support but the dad gets the ‘the support money is never spent’ syndrome. I pay $x a month…new clothes? My support goes to that…doctor expenses…that’s what my support is for…gas money? support. car repair? Support…WHAT, My ex-wife bought herself a new dress?! That’s what my support is going for? Saving for college? That is what my support is for! In other words, their supoort money is never ‘spent’.
Maybe both sexes need to reprioritise what they find important in choosing who they have sex with.
I respectfully disagree with you. You do those things with money you earned at your job, after you’ve paid all your bills and the children have necessities. Child support is for the children. Period.
As for my friend with the bingo-playing mom, at least he was supporting her by paying for necessities. Far too many parents don’t even do that.
I was horrified to discover that child support is deducted from ADC or TANF payments. I just assumed that if a custodial parent was on it, (almost always) she simply got that money on top of the welfare money.
She did. This is what I talk about when I said the ‘money never spent’ syndrome.
Basically, if you give me $100…you can take ANYTHING I spend during that month (or even that year or years) and say SEE SEE SEE! This is how my money is being spent!
No…I spent MY money on the that. Your $100 was spent on toothpaste and laundry soap.
And you don’t think there may be some very good reasons why the kids rejected him? Seen that many, many times.
Another demographic I have no sympathy for are the women who get involved with these deadbeats. Think about it.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Nope, every benefit program I have applied for asks if you receive child support payments and the amount of payments. The Food Program form I just filled out for my kids preschool just asked that.
The custodial parent was effectively loaning the non-custodial parent the child support payment, by covering the child’s expenses. The non-custodial parent repaid the loan.
I mean, it’s not like she put off buying them food and shelter while waiting for the payments.
I mean, let’s say I wasn’t getting the $500/month I was owed in child support and so my friend was loaning me $500/month to cover expenses. I get my backpayment. Can I use that money to repay my friend?
Why shouldn’t it?
If I divorced my wife she would have little income and her and my daughter could apply for welfare. If I stayed married we wouldn’t get welfare.
Why should my daughter not get welfare but yours does just because of your marital status?
Your horrifiedness makes no sense to me.
I don’t think you understand what they meant.
Ok look at it like this:
We’ve got Bob, the custodial parent, and Mary, the non-custodial parent. She’s supposed to pay $100 a month in support (I know the numbers are stupid, but roll with it) to Kiddo, their child. But Mary is a fucking deadbeat. Mary has not paid support in 8 months, meaning she owes Bob $800 in back support.
Now, during those 8 months, Kiddo still has to eat, and have a home, and get places in a car. The bills still have to be paid, ya dig? And who is paying them? Bob. So, in essence, Bob has loaned the $800 to Mary during those 8 months, because he paid for the things Mary should have paid for. You see?
Now Bob takes Mary to court and Mary has to pay Bob that $800. Once she does, that money is Bob’s, not Kiddo’s. Because Bob already covered the expenditures during that 8 months. Bob probably skipped a lot of things in order to cover for the fact that Mary wasn’t paying. It’s fair for Bob to then take that money and use it on himself; it’s his money. Now, I think it would be nice if Bob would maybe set it aside for a college fund for Kiddo, but he doesn’t have to. And depending on how hard it’s been, dealing with the stress of raising Kiddo alone, it’s arguable that the best use of the money is letting Bob go on vacation, or maybe splurge on his car a little.
Does that make sense?
eta: ninja’d!!
Why shouldn’t a man have an opinion about child support, especially if he’s supposed to be receiving it and isn’t (happens more than most people think)? And my experience has been that men are MUCH more intolerant of men who do this than women are. Same thing with battering.
PSXer stands for “Probably Scandinavian Xenomorpher”, who therefore should not be fed.
Then the father needs to go to court and request a lower child support payment. It’s all based on his income. The courts won’t know it’s gone down unless he points it out. Though, I’ve found out just recently that at least some states base child support payments on at LEAST a person having a full time job at minimum wage. When I was doing the calculations for my case, even though I knew he had no job at the moment, I had to put down that her father was earning $1533 a month, because he could earn at LEAST that.
I knew a guy that lost his job, was unemployed for several months then had to take a job at lower pay and the court said that he SHOULD be making what he made before and refused to lower support.
I kid you not.
I actually can understand this sometimes. For example the ‘dad’ that decided since his income was going to be hit anyway with support decided this was a good time to go to Grad school and get his Master’s and Ph.D. The court keeping his support payments high even though he had no income is probably fine because if he was married he wouldn’t hav ebeen able to go to school without working.
However, this poor guy just couldn’t get a similar job after a downsizing. He literally lived in a van for 4 years.