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I agree. In a reappraisal of child support, my husband was ordered to increase payment from $1200 per month for two kids, to $1800 per month -- for two children spirited out of state in a divorce he did not want. Sadly, the son committed suicide before it kicked in, reducing the amount to $1200 per month for a single child. Over the course of 15 years, we paid all transportation costs for visitation, even though the ex was supposed to pay half -- she never did, and the legal costs it would have required to take her to court over it would have been higher, so we just let it slide. Further, when the kids came to stay with us for 30-day stints, did we get to then send LESS to the ex that month because we were the ones incurring expenses? OF COURSE NOT! The original payments amounting to $600 per month per child -- now, really, does it take that much to raise a kid? Especially when the ex was theoretically kicking in a share as well?

In a family, when they can't live at a certain standard of living, they tighten the belt, do without, etc.

That's all out the window post-divorce -- for the EX-WIFE.

SHE has a legal right to demand that HER standard of living be maintained, under guise of "child support."

The ex-father has NO right to ANY "standard of living". If he has to live in a box, so be it. The ONLY thing that matters is that he pay the "award" to the female progenitor of his former children.

Unbelievable, isn't it, that so many otherwise sensible people fall back on the ol' "If he didn't want to be responsible, he shouldn't have opened his zipper" routine. Notice they NEVER say, "If the mother didn't want to end up a single parent without enough income to raise the kid, she should have kept her legs shut." Meanwhile, our culture is SCREAMING in pain from the long-term consequences of fathers' roles being reduced via family law courts to emasculated tokens whose only role is to provide money -- suicided teen boys, promiscuous girls desperate for male affection any way they can get it, popular music filled with hatred toward women -- I can only shake my head in amazement. For "conservatives," an awful lot of folks around here indicate the same narrow-minded template thinking as Liberals.