See I would say it impacts the child largely in ways that have nothing to do with how much money comes into the mother’s household. For example, a father impoverished by support payments, to the point where he is bringing home less than $200 a week is not going to have an apartment large enough to sleep children in any safe neighborhood.
When you say he doesn’t need a lawyer, does that mean he will be allowed in without one, or that his ex-wife will either not be there, or will not have a lawyer?
I honestly don’t know how you can discount so completely a lack of money to support the child. Without money, the child has no adequate food, clothing, or shelter. You are assuming the child has adequate recourse to all of these without the father’s contribution – that the father’s support is all gravy, IOW – but IME that is hardly ever the case. A lack of child support translates directly to a measurable decline in quality of life for the child.
But his child still has enough to eat, and clothes to wear, and a safe place to sleep even if it isn’t at Dad’s house. The child’s needs come first. And again, a father who is truly “impoverished” by support payments can move to have them adjusted. Support is set with reference to the parents’ ability to pay, and if a father literally cannot support himself, then he will not be expected to contribute much to the support of his child. But parents who are literally unable to support themselves are vanishingly rare – mostly being the truly disabled – and most long-term under- or unemployment is IME intentional, and the intent is to evade the support obligation without regard to the needs of the children.
I really can’t express how little respect I have for this type of parent.
With the assessment my ex did eleven years ago we did actually have to go see a judge to have the order changed but that is not the case anymore.
I just had an assessment done and we did not even have to go anywhere. Everything was handled through child support with no lawyers. Nobody has to see each other face to face. Nobody had to go to court. I guess things have changed in eleven years.
I suppose if there were more circumstances or one party was trying to fight a change to the order than I suppose it can get stickier but it still comes down to proving your financial case to a judge or magistrate.
In my county the custodial or noncustodial parent contacts child support with a request to have the child support order reassessed. They need something in writing. Just a simple letter stating they want an assessment with the pertinent information and signature.
I was able to fax it.
Then a letter is sent out from child support to both parties stating that a re-assessment has been requested and is in review.
They review that it has been three years or more and then a packet is sent to each parent in which they have 60 days to return copies of necessary paper work. Which includes pay stubs for the last six months, tax returns and any medical coverage.
If either party does not return their information they will take what they currently have on file and estimate what you should be making now. They also can file charges against you for not complying.
It then goes back to the assessment officer who enters all the information into a table and it spits out what each party should be paying according to their current wage. An new order is then assigned.
It then has to go to a judge or magistrate that then reviews it again and signs it if he agrees and a new support order is in place.
It takes six months to get an assessment done. I requested one in November 2006 and it was signed by a judge and filed in late April 2007.
Now I am not sure about every state or even every county in Ohio but that is how it works here.
I suggest that anyone having an issue should look up their child support agency in there state/county. Most of them have websites now and read up on the procedure for reviewing their child support order.
You can’t bitch if you are not least willing to try and change what you feel is unfair or your situtation has changed and you can not comply with the current order.
I waited eleven years to ask for an assessment. I should have done it years ago but I did not want to “rock the boat”, but after taking a long look at things I saw that not rocking the boat was in fact depriving my child of things she needed because I could not afford them on my own.
So apparently they are taking care of the child okay.
Apparently this is what he was ordered to do.
So he was grossing $20K, and taking home less than 10.
This man can take considerable comfort in how rare his case is. Also, he did have sexual intercourse, so he should have expected to live in poverty for the rest of life.
ETA: I didn’t see an answer to my question. When you say he won’t need a lwyer is it won’t need a lawyer like when a new employer hands you a NDA, or won’t need a lawyer like you may defend yourself in a murder trial?
I was unaware that you were talking about a single example and not generally when you said of “the poverty level of the non-custodial parent” [my words], " “it impacts the child largely in ways that have nothing to do with how much money comes into the mother’s household.” [your words]. Can I assume you now concede that this is generally incorrect?
As far as the specific example is concerned, the responsibility to “take care of the child okay” is not that of the new husband, but of the child’s parents. Again – for the umpteenth time – if the father believes that his circumstances, or even the mother’s circumstances, have changed materially, he can move to have his support obligation modified. He can also move to have alimony (a whole 'nother issue) terminated, based on his inability to pay it and the fact that his ex no longer needs it. What he should NOT do is avoid his obligations by becoming intentionally unemployed.
Or, in the alternative, you can take considerable comfort in how rare it is, since that means you don’t have to draw unwarranted conclusions about child support generally based on one completely anecdotal case.
Better him than his kid, who didn’t even get the fun of the sex first. And kids grow up, whether you feed them or clothe them adequately or not. A financial child support obligation is not a death sentence.
I didn’t answer your question because it wasn’t addressed to me, since I’m not the person you were quoting. Not sure who you were quoting, but it wasn’t me.
He does not need a lawyer to contact child support in his state/county and get the information on requesting that his child support order be reduced. As I said most child support enforcement agencys have a website. He can go there and start looking for answers.
Now if he is not paying any support and has not been doing so for some time then I would suggest he contact a lawyer as they will go after him for any back support he may owe and there also may be criminal charges.
Even if he can prove he was not paying due to lack of funds he will still owe from the original order and until a new order is put in place.
If you go to court to get child support payments lowered without a lawyer, and the other party does have one, you very likely won’t get it lowered. It’s all about the lawyers. My friend declared bankruptcy and had his pay halved at his new job, which he got RIGHT AWAY rather than go on unemployment. Went to court to get his support lowered and instead, it was RAISED with a COLA increase that his ex requested out of spite. He couldn’t pay the amount based on the new, lower paying job, so he went into arrears. Got his passport suspended, almost got his license suspended, until he finally found a job that paid enough so that his payments were back to 17% and not 40% (yes, it can go that high, and you can be forced to pay all kinds of things that are not included in the 17% if your child’s other parent’s lawyer asks for it and you don’t have a lawyer to combat it).
Yes, shit like this does happen. Yes, you need a lawyer in the court with you, or you will likely get screwed if the child’s other parent opposes the decrease. These are facts of life for lots of people, and it’s why so many people (mostly men) are so bitter about child support. It can and is used as a punishment by some people, when they can get away with it. And the child may benefit from the money, but he also suffers from the acrimony between the parents.
And it’s also the case that those most in need of a lawyer are those least likely to either be able to afford one, or to think of having one. It’s easy to say, “Get a lawyer,” when you come from a middle-class background, it’s another thing altogether when you’re earning below the poverty level and all you know about lawyers is the ambulance-chasers who have self-made commercials run on local stations during daytime programming.
The fact of the matter is that women are overwhelmingly awarded custody, men quite often have to fight for any visitation rights, and their finances are severely compromised in a divorce or child support case. Right now, men get screwed, even if the woman cheated, even if she was the only one who wanted to break up the relationship, and in some cases he even has to support children that are not genetically his. It’s severely unfair and in this thread it seems that few people care about making things equitable.
Children do need to be supported, but in some cases the child support that a non-custodial parent is required to pay makes a living situation unbearable. Let’s flip the typical situation. How do you think a mother would feel if she were forced to pay child support to a man and he interfered with her ability to see their children, using the threat of possibly increased child support payments as a weapon if she tried to pursue a court order to enforce the visitation rights? What if she was forced by financial realities to live in a place that was deemed by the court to be unsuitable for her children to visit, or that was so much lower in quality than the custodial parent’s home that the children didn’t want to visit because “there’s nothing to do there and it’s too small”? What if she had to work 60 hours a week just to have a below-poverty level of living?
Would you still say, “Suck it up, honey. You pushed out the little darlings, now you’ve got a responsibility to pay for them”? I seriously doubt it. Most people seem to think it’s okay to expect men to put up with a massive injustice like this, but not women. Like I pointed out with my earlier cite, men are more likely to pay proper child support than women, but no one talks about “deadbeat moms”. No, everyone likes to rail against the men, the majority of whom fulfill their responsibilities, inequitable or not.
Abortion is legal. The choice to have the child was 100% hers. The choice to not inform the biological father of his child or allow him to have any relationship with the child for the next 9 years was 100% hers. His responsibility, if any, in my mind should be minimal and entirely his decision and she should be looking at criminal charges for kidnapping or something similar for keeping this man’s CHILD from him for almost a fucking decade. The thought that he should be asked to pay 50,000 dollars out of the blue is a fucking travesty.
Who said nobody was upset about deadbeat Mom? Anybody? Anybody at all?
Yes deadbeat Mothers exist as well and it’s just as awful. When people of either gender are able to pay and don’t , or make a specific effort to hide they income to avoid any payment, I find that morally inexcusable.
That’s an interesting report. It kinda makes any argument about men suffering as much hardship as woman go away doesn’t it?
Custodial fathers tend to be older and in a higher income bracket than custodial mothers. It seems likely that those men as less inclined to pursue the non custodial Mom for support once she defaults .
Yes the system has problems and sometimes it’s unfair. This also happens to Moms who would like to work but as soon as they do they lose all their welfare help and wind up worse off then when they weren’t working. It doesn’t encourage people to be responsible adults. I’m more in favor or workfare than welfare, in which the state will help you but for that help you are required to work if you are physically able. But that’s another thread.
This guy in your story got shafted no doubt. I’m not sure how it relates to the thread specifically. It appears to me the greatest injustice was the alimony he paid to a woman who made more money and had a live in boyfriend.
I’m surprised he could get public aid but couldn’t get any rulings reversed. It seems to me he could have petitioned the courts concerning the alimony based on his wife’s higher income and her live in boyfriend but that doesn’t always work.
In this case as well it seems alimony was the main problem not the child support.
I find this fellow pretty dam honorable in that even when things got very discouraging he found a way to still financially support his son. It’s tragic when either party uses the kids to hurt the other. The Mom may not realize it now but the kid will eventually see whats going on and it will affect their relationship. Hurting the child to hurt him will eventually come back to haunt her.
I wonder how the courts found out about his second job. He’d have been better off to make that one under the table right from the start. There’s a huge difference between working under the table to avoid child support and working a 2nd job under the table to make ends meet.
That doesn’t appear to be the case in the two stories told. IMO it was the Mom’s pursuit of alimony that pushed two men into an untenable position. {based on the limited details}
IMO scum of the earth is far to harsh for the men described if you’ve really considered the details.
Thanks for your input. That was good information. Thats what I wondered in the cases given. If the ex had a live in boyfriend and was making more money why didn’t the guy go to court and fight it. It seemed to be alimony that was the biggest injustice in both those cases not CS. Courts and judges vary.
I lived in an efficiency apartment and drove a 2nd hand car I could afford. I struggled but I paid and we never had to go to court.
I think you’re wrong. Nobody here is saying guys don’t get screwed or that it’s okay. Life is messy and it isn’t always fair. When you have kids married or otherwise it gets more complicated. The point is a simple one. If it’s genetically your kid then you have a moral obligation to help support that child. That’s equally true for both genders, period, end of story. The support should be something you can afford based on some % of your income compared to the other genetic parents, but also based on the real needs of that child. Here’s a couple of other details
1.That moral obligation to help support your offspring doesn’t stop because your ex is spiteful and fucks with your visitation. Thats a separate issue.
2. That moral obligation to help support your offspring doesn’t stop because your ex has a new significant other or spouse and now they live better than you do. That’s also a separate issue.
3.That moral obligation to help support your offspring doesn’t stop because you feel your ex isn’t using the money to benefit the child. That too is a separate issue.
On all these details you fight however you can and do your best in court to make things as fair and just as possible, but what you still have is that moral obligation to pay support for your offspring.
oh and 4. If you seek to hide your income in order to avoid paying your child support , whichever gender you are, that’s morally reprehensible.
side note; hiding income to avoid paying any child support is different that hiding some income so that you can continue to pay your child support and afford to live.
I think in one of the above scenarios the guy did the honorable thing by eventually setting up a trust for his child. Fight to make things equitable sure, but don’t use an inequitable situation to justify avoiding your moral obligation.
I think the very study you linked to shows that it is custodial single Moms who face hardships more than custodial men or non custodial men.
Nobody here has said that except you. Rather than read something into that’s not there and then complain about something that’s not even being said, you might simply pose a question to the other posters.
Do you think CS should be equitable for men and women? Or any number of possibilities. I’m thinking you’d find that people are not bashing men and excusing women but they are sticking up for children.
You need to read your own cite a little more closely and figure out what the numbers reflect. Men’s income is near twice as much on average and many more women live in poverty. How is that equitable?
You might want to read the thread enough to know what you’re talking about before you post this shit.
The portion you quoted is concerning my daughter but the details you added are about another example that has nothing to do with her. In other words, your response has fuck all to do with what you responded to. Care to try again.
btw the first line;
“The choice to conceive was 100% hers?” see the question mark. I was responding to a specific post from another poster. When two people have sex they both knowingly risk procreation. They share that risk equally.
That has little to do with the choice to terminate or not or the issues that follow.
I want to touch on the subject of the custodial parent having a live in BF/GF.
IMO that has jack shit to do with child support. If the noncustodial parent has a live in BF/GF should child support then be raised?
The support is for the child. When I lived alone with my children and the only income was my job and the child support I was receiving the money went into one lump pile and all the bills were paid from that.
There was never any left over wads of cash from the child support. I barely made ends meet and took a part time job at one point because there was just not enough to go around. You can only rob Peter to pay Paul so often.
Now I currently have a live in BF. Now all the bills can be paid between the two of us and the child support can directly go for our daughter. Things like…
[ul]
[li]new clothes instead of thrift store or discount items[/li][li]new curtains, a comforter and a night stand and bookcase for her room[/li][li]spending cash for movies or shopping with her friends[/li][li]Driving school [/li][li]increased insurance rates[/li][/ul]
** Does she really need new clothes?** Yes
Does she now get expensive clothes? No, she shops at Wal-Mart. She does like the more expensive shoes. I give her $30, over that she must earn the extra money.
Did she need new items for her room? Yes, the hand me downs and garage sale items were worn out and since the extra money was available she got them. She is almost 17 so these are items she will take with her when she leaves the nest. She still needs a new dresser.
Does she need spending money? Maybe not, but I think having a $10 or a $20 to be able to go to the movies or to the square for the carnival is appropriate. She also does odd jobs around the house to earn cash. She actually has an interview today for a part time job in a small farmers market. I hope she gets it. I also hope the fact that she is now working won’t have people jumping on the wagon that the child support should be lowered since she is making some of her own money to help pay for the increase in insurance and to spend on herself. Maybe she will buy that dresser.
Did she need driving school? I suppose not. I could have made her wait until she was 18 and then she can just take the test but I think it makes you a better driver and her safety is my concern.
What’s with increased rates? A new driver increases your insurance rate which I am sure many of you know. The support helps me cover that hike.
As I stated, I wish I had the assessment done years ago. Perhaps it would have been raised enough to have given my son some new furniture and some better clothes. He is now almost 19 and those items are now given at Christmas and birthdays or cash for him to buy the extras that he can not currently afford.
I am not even going to go into the physical and emotional trials of raising two kids as a divorced mother. That is part of the deal. It has been worth it and I have two great kids.
Maybe I am different than others. Maybe my case is not the norm and there are millions of money grubbing single moms and dads that make it their mission to make their exs life a living hell even if only in the financial sense.
Maybe I am naive but I think there a lot more of people like me out there then people like them. At least I like to think so.
I have a year to a year and a half until the child support stops all together and to tell you the truth in a lot of ways I will be relieved. It is also a sad thing as well because the only support they ever got from their father was in the form of cash.
And to be fair, I put the issue of termination as different from the issue of conception. But the fact does remain that these days a woman has a number of different methods of rendering herself infertile, most of which a man has no say in and some of which he needn’t even know about. Consequently, whether or not to be fertile is a decision a woman does have, yes, 100% control over. (We can dispute the odd percentage point if you like, but it doesn’t have to be a mutual decision if she doesn’t want it to be. That was the point I was making.)
IT DOES NOT MATTER IF THE CUSTODIAL PARENT HAS A BOYFRIEND, GIRLFRIEND, NEW SPOUSE OR DOG LIVING WITH THEM.
Did everyone catch that? Can I make it clearer? Nobody but the legal parents/guardians of the children are obligated to provide support for the children. It does not matter if the custodial parent has a new SO who makes a million dollars a day–that person is not responsible for supporting the children. The SO’s income is not taken into consideration when determining support* because they are not responsible for supporting the children.
You think it’s unfair that the custodial parent is living a good life? Why should that parent be punished for the fact that they have found someone who isn’t a loser? The custodial parent is not required to live a sad existence–they can actually have a nice life! And the non-custodial parent should be happy about this, because it’s best for the children.
Child support is based on the income of the parents not the various people those parents may be having a relationship with.
I hope this is taken in the spirit intended: I am bitter as hell about having to raise my kids. I didn’t want to have kids in the first place, and due to stupid mistakes on my part, totally my own fault, I ended up pregnant with the first kid. I married her father, and then got pregnant again through birth control sabotage by that idiot. So then I had two kids.
My first husband was a jealous asshole–I finally couldn’t take his shit anymore. When I left, I was more than willing to let him raise the kids. But no way was he going to be tied down with two little kids–they were my problem. So, hey, I get to raise two kids on my own and then fight with him for support the rest of their childhoods. I raised my kids on my own for the early part of their lives, with very little financial support and almost no emotional support from the ex. I had to take my kids to the grocery store he worked at for them to see him. I spent every Christmas eve for years with my ex-in-laws to provide them the opportunity to be involved in my kids’ lives. I did my best to raise those kids, that I didn’t want and couldn’t afford. I did not get to walk away from my responsibilities, while the ex sauntered about his life only having kids when it was convenient for him.
I am extremely appreciative of my current husband, who both financially and emotionally helped support my kids through the dreaded adolesent and teen years. He is an exemplary parent, who paid his share of support, travelling 200 miles to watch baseball or basketball games and then turn around without getting to do more than wave to The Boy. The Boy never had reason to think his dad didn’t love him or wasn’t willing to pay his share. The Boy has never been told he was a burden financially to us or that we resented having to support him, being as he was ours and we love him.
And support doesn’t cover it all! After paying support for The Boy, we also bought his sporting gear, bought him school clothes each year, provided health insurance and made sure he went to the dentist even if it meant taking time off work and driving 200 miles to take him. We knew that child support was meant for day to day stuff and that sometimes you have to pony up some extra bucks if you are actually supporting your kid.
I have zero sympathy for folks who won’t live up to their obligations.
*because step-parent liability has been determined to be unfair by the courts
Oh, yeah! There is nothing like being able to tell the ex “I don’t have to talk to you anymore. I don’t have to be nice, I don’t have to pretend I like you, I don’t have to answer your calls. We are done now. If you want a relationship with your children, I suggest you work on that.”
My very favorite phone call ever was from my ex about a month after my youngest daughter graduated from high school. He wanted a picture of her. I suggested he call her for one and that he lose my number because I didn’t ever want to talk to him again. Ok, thanks, bye bye!
On the issue of non-custodial mothers defaulting on child support payments, I can think of one enormous bias beyond plain garden-variety meanness: that feckless women who are unable to provide for themselves or anyone else either are likely to constitute a disproportionate number of non-custodial mothers. In other words, the very attributes that make it likely that courts won’t award them custody are the ones that render them incapable of earning the necessary money to make CS payments. I may be wrong, but it seems like an obvious hypothesis.
good observation. I’ve appreciated your input in the thread. I salute you.
Just to offer a Dad’s perspective. I have two wonderful daughters with two different Moms. I paid child support for both. I received child support for one when she eventually came to live with me. Never went to court. We agreed amongst ourselves what the right thing was.
When I had concerns about my oldest daughter’s mom not using the money for what she needed I would use it to buy my daughter those things myself. I enjoyed taking her school shopping and such. We didn’t have a lot of money so I had to explain to her that name brand clothes aren’t better simply because they have a cool label and the other kids will be impressed. I also hated to have her think she only deserved things off the bargain rack so the compromise was that she got to pick a few things that were “cool” and a bit overpriced but the bulk had to be practical. Sales at “cool” stores were fun.
My youngest daughter’s Mom married a guy who did well. I never stopped paying child support even though she wore designer leather coats at 10 years old and drove a used Mercedes in high school. It never even crossed my mind that I shouldn’t have to pay. When her Mom asked me for more child support I told her I couldn’t afford it and she didn’t like it but accepted it. Later when my oldest daughter was on her own and I was doing better financially I voluntarily raised my support amount twice over the nest few years.
It worked out for all of us because we chose not to deal with each other out of spite and for the most part, not use our kids as leverage to get at the other. A little mutual respect, consideration and communication really helps.