You were thinking commensurate.
That’s one of the main points of this thread: Parents are allowed to have “offensive perspectives” by your definition. Do we mandate that married couples send their children to camps, after school activities, and help with homework? Then why should that change now that there is a divorce. Being an asshole parent is not against the law.
The judge should rule just like he would for a married couple: You must only pay, by law, enough for the bare essentials. Anything above that is a personal choice for the parent to make.
That won’t address the problem of accountability: with WIC, SNAP, and TANF, you know the money is going to the child because if it isn’t, the child is going to be neglected: they whole point of those programs is to keep children from a level of poverty that actually compromises their well being. There’s much less risk of a parent using that money just for themselves because there just isn’t that much to go around.
But someone who is receiving “upper-middle class” TANF may be using it for the kids or may be using it for themselves. Very reasonable people could disagree over whether they were using it for the kids or themselves because there is so much gray area. You say that there needs to be a way to ensure that the money is actually going to the kids, and short of endless record keeping and endless court appearances to determine how many errands for mom a kid can run in a car which was 75% paid for out of child support payments or whether a new dress for Suzie to wear to maternal grandma’s 65th birthday party was a child-cost.
How do you propose making sure the money “goes to the child”?
[QUOTE=jtgain]
By having the structure the way it is, the courts encourage jilted ex-spouses to go for the jugular instead of being reasonable. And that hurts the children far more than a couple of hundred bucks a month either way.
[/QUOTE]
If you think that the way it works is that the parties generally start out reasonable with each other but the courts have encouraged them to go for the jugular instead, I’m not sure what to tell you. It’s not like when two parties walk into a courtroom and say “we’ve agreed to handle this in the following way,” the courts are beside themselves with disappointment.
The question with the vast majority of child support cases isn’t “should we strong-arm the non-custodial parent into a different arrangement than the one they’ve generously agreed to,” it’s “how much do we need to order this person, who otherwise would pay either nothing or a trivial amount, to pay.”
It might be morally wrong, but it is not illegal. Bill Gates can provide sustenance living for his children and nobody will say a word. If he gets divorced, why should he be legally required to pay them millions per year?
Nobody in this thread has any problem with providing support for their children. But I must emphasize support for the children, and not support so that ex and her new boyfriend can go to Europe for a month. By complaining about excessive awards, nobody is trying to shirk their duties to their children.
I chose my words poorly. The law as it is encourages jilted ex spouses to take their case to court because they can always get more money under the child support system (so long as Dad is successfully employed) than what is necessary for the care of the child.
Her friends and family are telling anecdotal stories about how the amount that Dad offered is a pittance and it’s just like that asshole to try and cheat you out of money.
The courts themselves love settlements. Less work for them. But the underlying law encourages non-settlements by making the default child support payment higher than most people would believe is reasonable.
What are you basing that higher than most people believe is reasonable part on?
What about these cases I suggested? A better apartment in a better school district? An adult ticket to accompany a kid to a stupid movie? A car sometimes used to run errands for the household? Dinner for the child’s friend who is visiting? Recouped wages for a shift missed due to a sick child?
Do you not see how dozens of these situations would arise every month, and create huge opportunities to abuse and harass the custodial parent–the same sort of abuse and harassment you object to in the current standard? And there’s no case law for any of this, so it would have to be hammered out over years and years, and different judges would have different takes and it would be a tremendous waste. Loser pays would simply silence the poorer parent because there would be no way to reliably predict in advance what a legitimate expense was: it’s far too messy.
Because the awards are not in any way related to the actual expenses of raising a child, but on the incomes of both parties. For low income people, the awards may be woefully deficient.
But the topic of this thread dealt with higher income people, so when you get to that point, the award will continue to grow out of proportion to the actual expenses of raising that child. Most people are unfamiliar with the child support calculations and a guy making $100k a year will be floored when he sees what he ex is entitled to for child support. He will immediately be resentful because he knows that it does not cost nearly that much to support the kid.
All of that could be hammered out by the applicable law implementing the plan. Sure there will be some hitches, but there has to be a base level of accounting. You wouldn’t pay your broker a fixed amount each month for your retirement and not demand a statement of your account and assurances that the money was actually going to your retirement. Of course not. Why should your child be any different?
And as to your first paragraph, married parents are allowed to live in crappy apartments in bad school districts, never take their kids to a movie, or allow friends to come over. Why now that there is a divorce should the heavy arm of the state now mandate that a person provides these things for their children?
How is $10,000 a month per child the bare minimum? And nobody would preclude parents from spending more money, but why is it mandatory in divorce proceedings?
When parents are together, there is an assumption that whatever they are doing, they have the best interests of the kid in mind. This may not be true 100% of the time, but few things are true 100% of the time. It’s a reasonable working assumption.
Unfortunately, it’s pretty well documented that when parents break up, one parent often stops caring about the best needs of the child. Indeed, what happens pretty often is one parent wants to start a new life, and doesn’t want any reminders of their old life, such as a pesky child, in the way. People leave their kids- just wash their hands and walk away like the kid never happened- all the time.
This is bad for everyone. It’s bad for the kid, and it is bad for society.
We can’t do anything about emotional abandonment, but we can do something about financial abandonment. In fact, we’ve even set it up so that if you don’t actually abandon your child, you don’t have to pay child support. Couples have all kinds of options.
I think this is one of those things that people make more complicated than it has to be.
Rent/mortgage: Rent is easier than a mortgage, I grant you. I live in a three bedroom apartment. It’s not hard to find out what a comparable two bedroom apartment costs in this neighborhood. Simple subtraction tells you what I’m paying for my daughter’s rent. Want to/have to move? Stay in your budget or convince your ex you need more money or convince a judge you need to move to a higher rent district. Mortgage could be figured similarly, or just go with a percentage.
Grocery: again, a percentage. Divide the grocery bill by the number of people. It’s not exact, but it’s close enough for me. If the kid requires specific food due to medical need, then itemize that separately. (For me, this would be a loaf of gluten free bread and a box of gluten free pasta once a week, and a box of gluten free cookie mix once or twice a month, that sort of thing. Keep the receipts.)
Health insurance/clothing/school supplies/activity fees: these are all easy to track. Keep your receipts.
Incidentals: perhaps this is where a smaller-than-now monthly amount would be easier. I’m not going to nitpick over dinner for a friend or a movie ticket. But sure, if you wanted to, you could itemize all those expenses, too. Divide your grocery bills by the number of meals, instead of the number of people, if you like.
I’m not sure everyone should need to do this. If you and your ex are fine with the status quo system, then cool, use that. If you’re both fine with a dart board and number chart, go for it. But most common reason I hear non-custodial parents giving for not paying their child support is that “the bitch is spending it on herself”. Frankly, I rarely believe it. But if seeing some receipts will make 'em pay up, then that’s another system that should be considered.
But yet again, there is no law requiring me as a married person to be emotionally invested in my child. I can be a bitter, detached, self-absorbed asshole who provides no parental guidance to my child at all, so long as that child has a sustenance existence. I agree with child support to that extent.
But if for whatever reason, my wife and I can’t get along and we divorce, why does the state now, under penalty of imprisonment, make me pay for all of these extras that I didn’t have to before?
And I don’t have to pay child support if I don’t abandon? My wife could leave me and would certainly get full custody. I might want to stay married; I might want primary custody. I wouldn’t have a choice in the matter about paying child support.
You’re just continuing to state the same opinion, which doesn’t answer my question. What award calculations are you talking about? What are the amounts being awarded, and what are the expenses actually required to continue supporting the children subject to those orders? And how do you know that most people think there’s an unreasonable relationship between those two things? I think most people believe it makes perfect sense that a millionaire’s kids are going to get a little more comfortable lifestyle afforded to them in keeping with the life they grew up in.
Because there’s been a divorce and you aren’t fulfilling your parental role anymore, that’s why. When you’re raising your own children, you’re responsible for their care. Criminally responsible if you screw up. So while you’re doing the actual work and not screwing it up, the “heavy arm of the state” doesn’t need to be involved, the importance of child-rearing being a pretty fundamental principle of how we do business. If you aren’t participating in raising your own children anymore, someone still has to, and they’re still your children. So now what do you have to contribute to their well-being? Oh, millions of dollars? Run that shit.
Because Cesar Milan rakes in a whole lot of money, and after paying child support and alimony, will still have well over 100,000 a month with which to live on himself. I think he’ll manage to scrape by, even after taxes.
In this case, I think that’s especially fair because they married in 1994, and were married the whole time he built his business up from the ground. I don’t know much about their life here, but there’s no way she and he weren’t partners doing that time.
Because a child in a household is infinitely more complicated than a brokerage account. You can’t just say these things would be “hammered out”: you’re hand-waving away this tremendous, impossible burden. It’s like saying proposing a base on Mars and then saying that the expense and the technical stuff “can be figured out”.
You appear to be making two different arguments:
- That no parent should be compelled to pay any more than the bare minimum required for basic child support.
- IF parents are going to be required to pay more, the custodial parent ought to have to prove that the money is going to the kids.
I am only addressing the second right now. In terms of the first, if you think there should be any income-based sliding scale at all, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be extended upwards infinitely. If, on the other hand, you think there should be one flat rate applied to all non-custodial parents based only on local cost of living, I think that’s a defensible position but really couldn’t be applied retroactively: people today had kids under certain presumptions of legal protection.
I’d have a lot more sympathy for the dudes (and it’s usually, though not always, the dudes) who pay these large support amounts if every last one of them can show evidence that they fought tooth and nail for full custody of the kids.
But why that neighborhood? Let’s say you were living with your ex in a $1m house. You leave and get a job making $25K a year–the best you can with your education and skill set. Where is a “fair” place to live? The child support is enough to put you both in a safe apartment in a good school district, but if you look to places where you can pay half, it will be much dodgier. Is it more important that you don’t get the benefit of a nicer place than that your kid goes to a better school and has a safer walk there?
But what do you buy? Your $25k would put you on rice and beans. Child support is enough to cover fresh fruits and veggies, hamburger and chicken. Should you eat separate foods? Should he eat rice and beans because mom can’t afford better for herself?
But other people would nitpick, and they would always and only see the result they want to see: if they are mad at their ex, they will see everything for the kid as being really for the parent. “She buys them designer clothes because she’s a snob”, “He pays $1K for baseball camp because he’s living vicariously through the boy”.
It would just shift the argument to cases. People will see things in the way that confirms their prejudices.
My argument is simple, but I guess I’m having trouble articulating it. The only legal obligation that a parent has to his child is to provide a basic level of existence so that CPS doesn’t deem the child to be in danger. That amount could be reduced to a fixed number. That amount has nothing to do with the incomes of the parents as it is static. Sure we all believe that richer parents should provide nicer things for their kids, but we don’t mandate it.
So, now the parents can’t get along and the child has to live primarily with one parent. Yes, the child has been deprived of the consortium of the non-custodial parent. No amount of money will change that, especially money which isn’t required to actually be given to the child or used for his benefit.
And why a change in what is the minimum of support? Before, when married, I would go to jail only if CPS investigated me for abuse. Now, I go to jail if I don’t pay an arbitrary percentage of my income to the child’s mother. If courts actually cared about the well being of children, they would ensure that this money actually goes to the child.
In other words, as a married parent, I must pay $X. As a divorced parent, I must pay $X+$Y with Y being an amount totally unrelated to what it costs to support a child. If that’s not a punishment for getting a divorce, I don’t know what is.