And he went to court over giving 4K a month to his kids? The feminists will have a field day with this guy.
Okay, where are all the dolts you see on divorce/child support threads blaming only the women.
What child needs 4k a month to live off of?
Obviously, he doesn't value mom staying home with children.
A lot of men would rather have the 2nd income than a stay at home mom for the kids.
I wonder who would pay if he decided not to work. I'll bet the court would force him to work, and there's your answer.
If he can't quit working, she shouldn't be able to either.
If she's well off enough to quit working, then he shouldn't have to pay any increase in support. If she isn't well off enough to quit working, then what the hell did she quit for?
Happy Father's day dad. Hope you get some vaseline...
At 43, with three children, staying home is a pretty common call. My wife now stays home, giving up a six figure salary to do so. We believe the kids are better off, she is better off, and the family is better off with her home. I make a fine salary -- but losing 110K in income hurts -- period.
This case is obviously one that is fact-driven, and should be based upon the individual circumstances of each case and each family.
At 472K, contributing 4k a month to child support is not a real problem. This is a guy who is probably damn mad at the wife, and would rather have the money in his pocket. I can't blame him for that -- but this is a situation of their making.
Neither of these folks are horribly sympathetic, Particularly when most American families would love to net a total of 4K a month in their whole houshold.
They each have equal capacity to earn fairly generous incomes. They agreed that each would cover the expense of the child during their half of the year.
She has decided to take off work during her custody period, and has asked him to pay her a stipend during that time. Is she willing to do the same for him, if he decides to take off work when the child is staying with him?
That would be my verdict. Instead of alternating weeks, let them alternate months. Let him pay her the $4k during her month off, then when he has custody and she's back at work, let her pay him.
"Moreover, he argued, the children were of school-age, had no special needs, and had done well earlier in their lives, when both parents worked full time."
And about all this, he had a good point!
Great post! This was really and excellent article, it gave a very informative over view of this subject, and was quite readable, if a little exacting in its precision (but I guess that can't be avoided in a piece like this). It also really shows, not tells but shows, how divorce truly undermines family life; and indicates via its discussion of even the wealthiest amoung us, how that starts to undermine all of society. Especially in its impact on the children in the family. If this family was together they might have the mom stay home; or maybe she could get better part time work (it seemed the week on/week off custody was making sucha gig hard to find, maybe), or they might have big fights about it (all the time!), but they wouldn't be adversaries in a court room, letting "society" and THE GOVERNMENT run their lives and raise their children.
So telling, really.
Judicial activism, socialist, elitist, egalitarian thinking at it's worst.
What the court didn't do was take the 14th (or 15th?) Amendment into account--slavery is prohibited. It may have been reasonable for his ex-wife to retire, but she could have taken part-time work at something other than medicine. The benefit the children derive from her greater involvement with them is likely nullified by the understandably hard feelings generated in their father. This was a poor decision, not in the best interests of the children, but clearly in the best perceived interests of the woman. And truly in the long run it won't prove to be in her best interests, either. Remember, Mrs. Dr. didn't have to sit there and watch her $1,000,000 stock portfolio dwindle to nothing either.
Custody should be awarded in direct proportion to the amount of financial support provided to the children. If a parent pays nothing, they get no custody, no visitation, no rights - and that goes for mothers too.
Makes me glad I don't have children.
Regardless of how much you make. 4K is an absolute LUDICROUS sum of money to pay for child support.
This is nothing more than the Government and the Courts stealing more money from the citizenry. Robbing Peter to pay Pauline you might say. Or vice versa. If she "chose" to say home, then she CHOSE to do without.
If the court had gone by state guidelines, he would have been paying a lot more. I think for three kids, it's 34% of gross, after FICA, though there is an income ceiling. I couldn't find a good link to get concrete numbers, cuz I didn't wanna spend an hour looking for it. I don't think this site takes into account the ceiling.
http://www.alllaw.com/calculators/Childsupport/wisconsin/
In other words, Chen doesn't see the kids between 8 and 3 every day during the weeks when she supposedly has custody of them, and doesn't see them at all during the weeks when she doesn't have custody. Clearly she's not really a stay-at-home mom who is breastfeeding a baby, caring for a toddler, and homeschooling a six-year-old. She is sitting by the pool and having lunch with her girlfriends. She's taking advantage of having a successful husband as if they were still married. What a sow. No wonder he's squawking. Four grand a month is four grand a month no matter how rich you are, and it's particularly grating to know that you're supporting a lazy ex.
I write this as a woman who is grateful for every penny my hard-working ex provides to our children.
something does not add up.
This must be a nuance of the Wis. support law.
Under the Model laws, his support obligation based on his income is essentially seperate from the mothers.
The interesting thing about this article is that if the situation were reversed, a husband who was intentionally underemployed (ie if this doctor intentionally worked a minimum wage job as a means of legally provable evasion) would not be an unusual phenomenon.
With a bit of humor, it seems this is a case of SIDS. Sudden Income Deficiency Syndrome.
hmmm anyone else think these docs are overpaid? Where are all the illegal alien docs to hold wages down? These obviously are jobs Americans won't do for 100k. Oh I forgot the AMA and BAR are monopolies exempt from Bush's plan to lower wages.
Crop dusters seldom set records.