Single Dads Support Group
This community is dedicated to fathers who are going through the parenting process alone or without the support of a spouse. Single parenthood is often opted for by the parent (as in divorce, adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood, or extramarital pregnancy), or an unforeseeable occurrence (as in the death of one parent or abandonment by one parent).
Hello,
I pay my $1,100 child support faithfully every month (faithfully as in the State of Oregon withdraws it directly from my paycheck every two weeks). Also, I provide medical and dental insurance to my two sons.
My ex has been living with her ex-boss for the last 3 years. Not married. She owns the house (I gave it to her, free of any cost to her).
The thing is, my kids dress in ratty clothes, they've had head lice twice, their nails are nasty, she doesn't take them to get their haircut, and they smell when I pick them up. I've calculated the cost of daycare and it's about $900/month for both of them.
My question to Dad's, since only 11% of use receive child support and the rest of 89% pay...what exactly would my ex be paying for?? Groceries per month must be $200-250....Bringing it up to the $1,100. After after-school care and groceries...what?? Sure the odds and ends of kids...I pay those too when they're with me. Keep in mind that nobody sends me money to help with my housing and utilities. She works full time and makes more than I do.
AND I'm quite certain that she didn't put the rental amount that she gets from her boyfriend.
Does this system seem hinky and slanted to anyone else?? Is child support the legacy of feminism that is not applicable to the modern family where men and women are "equal?"
It's really obnoxious from my vantage point. I'm not even granted the decency to pay the child support directly even though there's never been any problem with payment.
Thanks guys.
I pay my $1,100 child support faithfully every month (faithfully as in the State of Oregon withdraws it directly from my paycheck every two weeks). Also, I provide medical and dental insurance to my two sons.
My ex has been living with her ex-boss for the last 3 years. Not married. She owns the house (I gave it to her, free of any cost to her).
The thing is, my kids dress in ratty clothes, they've had head lice twice, their nails are nasty, she doesn't take them to get their haircut, and they smell when I pick them up. I've calculated the cost of daycare and it's about $900/month for both of them.
My question to Dad's, since only 11% of use receive child support and the rest of 89% pay...what exactly would my ex be paying for?? Groceries per month must be $200-250....Bringing it up to the $1,100. After after-school care and groceries...what?? Sure the odds and ends of kids...I pay those too when they're with me. Keep in mind that nobody sends me money to help with my housing and utilities. She works full time and makes more than I do.
AND I'm quite certain that she didn't put the rental amount that she gets from her boyfriend.
Does this system seem hinky and slanted to anyone else?? Is child support the legacy of feminism that is not applicable to the modern family where men and women are "equal?"
It's really obnoxious from my vantage point. I'm not even granted the decency to pay the child support directly even though there's never been any problem with payment.
Thanks guys.
Be thankful for the automatic deductions to your paycheck. It's the best insurance against anyone coming after you down the road claiming non-support. I've heard of one guy who paid cash because his ex had bad credit and could not open a checking account. Nothing was recorded, and guess what? The kids turned 18 and filed a claim. Since dad had no record, he was on the hook for 18 years of support. Again.
Gdaddy, do you mean the non-custodial parent pays the child support?
I live in northern Cali. I'm going for 100% legal and physical, with hopes of getting 50% at a minimum. Given the way the mother is, it's not too unlikely.
I'm new to this. See my thread here:
http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Single_Dads/forum/12424576-urgent-child-custody-issue
The system got the way it is because of a very powerful women's lobby. They had stats that showed that women didn't do as well as men after a divorce. The way they addressed this was to dramatically raise child support payments.
Child Support is not about child support; it is basically a welfare system paid for by the "high wage earner" which is most often male. The amount has nothing to do with the cost of raising a child; it is based on equalizing the net income of the parents. There is no requirement that 1-cent out of however much one pays is spent on the child at all; it is completely at the discretion of the parent receiving the support.
Child Support is called "Child Support" because it invokes a visceral reaction and lets the media run wild about "deadbeat dads". If they called it "Spousal Income Equalization", well, it would be pretty hard to get up in arms about that wouldn't it?
Lawyering up may or may not help. In California, child support calculations are done in a computer program called the Dissomaster. Judges will rarely vary from what comes out of this program.
All the Dissomaster really cares about is net income so it looks at your gross income and your tax situation. Expenses are irrelevant.
So the only way child support changes here is via %custody time or by arguing someone's earning potential. Theoretically, if you and the mom have the sane net, after tax income, and share custody 50/50 then there will be no child support. The title "non custodial" doesn't have anything to do with it.
With custody time, you are going to get set with something via Mediation if you can't agree with the mom. % custody time makes a HUGE difference in the child support calculation. Of course, here, the "best interest of the child" is to be considered. If the Court smells that you want more custody to lower support payments, they will be very unhappy with you.
Income is a tricky game too. You can, theoretically, argue that the mother can make more money than she does. So if the mom is an Anesthesiologist working only part time at Starbucks you can argue in Court that her income if she worked as an Anesthesiologist should be used in the Dissomaster. This is called "imputing" income; it is at the discretion of the judge.
The tricky part with income is that Courts are very reluctant to impute income to the low wage earner. They will do it to the high wage earner in a heartbeat (like say you switch to a lower paying job to spend more time with your kids). The rationale here is that if they impute the income of the low-wage earner, even if that person is just pain lazy and avoiding work, they are in essence punishing the child. It can be done, but it's not a precise science.