# Should people who spend their child support on themselves be punished? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 7, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310 "2013-03-07T18:40:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/21 "2013-03-07T23:11:06Z")
> [@randomface](#): > > I chose the first option, but only for the situation where the kid had been kicked out and not living there. Other than that, money is fungible. Same here. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/22 "2013-03-07T23:14:02Z")
How old is the son, and for what reason was he kicked out? I typed a long response and then realized **Alice The Goon** had already posted a similar thought. Are you getting your information from the Support Payer, The Support Squanderer, or the Son? My mother received support money long after we were grown and moved out in the form of garnished wages. My dad had waited that long to get a job “on the books” thinking he was in the clear. One might have argued that she should have passed that money on to her kids because it was meant for our support, but the fact is while he wasn’t paying it she covered everything. I’m not saying that’s what’s going on in the case shared in the OP, just giving an example of how it could be okay for a recipient not to spend child support directly on the child in question. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/23 "2013-03-07T23:24:00Z")
> [@Tequila\_Party](#): > > I know someone in a similar situation, except she spends her child support money on her drug habit instead of her child. She also receives food stamps, then sells them at a discounted rate for cash and buys more drugs. It’s awful. Since she spent the money on drugs, someone eventually reported her to CPS. If the mother is neglectful enough that CPS has to be called, then maybe the father should take custody of the child. If he’s too busy or even less suited to be a parent, or just plain doesn’t care, and the child has to be placed in foster care, then _both_ the mother and father should pay support. I have zero sympathy for a father that’s so uninvolved with his child’s life that he doesn’t know (or care) that his ex is a crackhead. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/24 "2013-03-07T23:59:08Z")
For the vast majority of households and children, the biggest expenses are housing, food, and medical. Of those three, only medical can be easily accounted for. ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/25 "2013-03-08T01:45:18Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > I’ve never understood the thought process behind this. If a parent is paying for housing, clothing, food, electricity, etc., how could they not be using child support on the child? Even if they literally take the child support check and spend those particular dollars on themselves, they are obviously then using their own money for the necessities that their child uses. It doesn’t really matter where the literal dollars come from- things are being paid for. And you may know one parent that has thrown their child out on the street and is keeping the child support for themselves, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a common scenario, considering that it’s felony abandonment to not provide housing to your minor child. Yeah that, and I say this both as someone who has paid child support and someone who shoud be being paid child support (but is not being so paid.) It was part of his household income and I never questioned how he spent it. If my son had not had a roof over his head, food, clothes, etc. THEN I would have questioned that, but not how every exact dollar was spent. Plus, then you just make people lie. Doesn’t anyone co-parent? ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/26 "2013-03-08T16:08:01Z")
I am referring to parents spending the money on themselves and NOT providing for their child. The woman I referred to in my original post didn’t even get her son a winter jacket and his clothes were old and torn before she kicked him out. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/27 "2013-03-08T16:19:16Z")
Well I support the idea that the money needs to be spent supporting the kids, but voted no because money is the epitome of a fungible commodity…so there is no way to say what money went where, and how the money would be spent if not on hair extensions and manicures. To force accounting would tend to result in ONLY the support money being spent on the child in some cases… Kid can’t have shoes because the money this month was spent on Coco Puffs and Ding Dongs. This is as bad or worse for the kid as mom’s hair extensions, yet the accounting will show the support money was spent on the kid. I do think there should be some mechanism where the spouse paying the support can bring down the wrath of social services if it is plain that the child’s needs are not being met. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/28 "2013-03-08T16:24:33Z")
> [@the\_apples\_fell](#): > > I am referring to parents spending the money on themselves and NOT providing for their child. The woman I referred to in my original post didn’t even get her son a winter jacket and his clothes were old and torn before she kicked him out. Kicked him out of a house, or apartment, with heating, and lighting, and television, and phones, and Internet, and food … ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/29 "2013-03-08T16:57:09Z")
> [@the\_apples\_fell](#): > > The question is, should someone who does this be penalized legally? If so how? Should they stop receiving child support and receive no other penalty, or should they be charged with some kind of fraud? If a parent neglects her child she can be punished by CPS. There is no fraud here. She might not be spending the money how you think it should be spent, but no one guarantees that child support will be spent on the child in the best way possible. The Court system has a minimum standard for parenting. You don’t have to be the best parent, or even a mediocre parent, you just have to meet the bare minimum and the government won’t mess with the way you raise your kids. That’s the deal we have now, not because it’s the best deal, but because it’s the best we’ve come up with. Child support is also a minimum standard. We don’t care how you spend the money. We know you need some money, so we picked an arbitrary figure that seems to work. So long as the child’s basic needs are met the government will leave you alone. If the non-custodial parent has a problem with the way the money is spent, then the solution is to ask for physical custody. If anyone else has a problem, I sympathize, but government intervention is not the solution. ---
**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:** [March 8, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/30 "2013-03-08T17:01:43Z")
> [@the\_apples\_fell](#): > > I am referring to parents spending the money on themselves and NOT providing for their child. The woman I referred to in my original post didn’t even get her son a winter jacket and his clothes were old and torn before she kicked him out. Again, where the hell is dad in this? If my child was in a neglectful home, I would fight tooth and nail to ensure that I could give the kid the care they need. Instead, this dad apparently thinks the appropriate solution is to ask for a discount? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/31 "2013-03-08T17:11:22Z")
This seems to be confusing one issue with another, and bitching about one concern over a more important one. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310/32 "2013-03-08T20:40:27Z")
If she doesn’t have custody of the child, the person who is caring for the child should get the child support. Otherwise, absent obvious abuse or neglect, there should be no accounting of how money is spent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-people-who-spend-their-child-support-on-themselves-be-punished/652310.md?page=1)