Posted on 07/03/2002 12:44:55 PM PDT by RogerFGay
The parent with whom the child lives requires a bigger and costlier home to house the child, provides the meals, clothing, utilities on a full time basis. It would be ludicrous to cut back on child support because a child spends a weekend with the non-custodial parent.
In the case cited, dumbass, the child lived with both parents. 51% with one and 49% with the other.
Why? Thats not necessarily true at all. Are you a divorcee that has this as an agenda?
Our child's father paid $100 dollars a month. I picked up the insurance, paid most of all medical costs, and never got to see her except during the school week. He spent every holiday, every spring break, most of every summer and nearly every weekend with her; I even had to transport her back and forth to the place of his choosing. I did this because he kept threating to go to court to get custody, and at the time I couldn't afford a lawyer. I was still scared of him, and as long as he was good to our child, I didn't want to make him mad, because when he got mad things got dangerous.
I met a new love, got married, and we settled into a happy family mode - except that my daughter had no vacations, no extra time with us. It all started to unravel when she asked to be allowed to attend a karate tournament in which she was entered to compete; "Daddy" refused, telling her that was "his" time and she needed to come down to "his" house - and I was supposed to bring her, or we'd all go to court. She dropped out of the tournament because she was afraid I'd go to jail, since "Daddy" said he put me there for contempt of court unless she complied. She never did go to a tournament.
It finally ended two years later when she asked her father to get professional help for his problems. He withdrew her savings account she opened with him (nearly a thousand dollars) and sent it to her through Child Support to "close out" his "payments" when she was thirteen years old.
All told, he spent less on a life time with his only daughter than he did on his truck. Meanwhile, her incredible stepfather (who has been raising her since she was nine) has taken it on himself to put her through college, even though he makes less than her biological father does.
I am saddened that the man who gave my daughter life never saw her as anything more than a possession. But I thank God every day that a good man stepped up to the plate and showed her how a real father treats his children; not as possessions, not as a liabilities, but as precious investments for the future. In more ways than one, both these men got what they paid for - one man got a reciept from the county saying "paid in full", the other man got a daughter...
So your assertion is that the parent who has less time with the child doesn't need the same size home as the parent who was given custody? Should we expect the kids to sleep on the sofa while staying with the other parent? I would think not. That parent has to have a home big enough for the children to have their own bedroom, just like with the first parent. There are added costs to having the children live primarily with one parent, costs in utilities, food, clothing, etc. But the added costs of those do not justify the high awards that the courts make. If one parent has the kids on weekends and half of the summer, that would be somewhere around 20% to 30% of the time in which the children are with that parent. Why should 100% of the support money go to a parent that only has the kids 70% of the time? The rest is little more than hidden alimony.
By the way I am not devoriced nor maying support out side of my marrage.
Sorry. What I meant to say was that the requirement for a bigger and costlier home is nonsense, that the extra utility costs associated with a child are small, and that meal and clothing costs are subsumed in the child support payments. Furthermore, a change in support payments for a weekend visit was never proposed in the article and is a foolish strawman argument.
I have no children and am not married. However, I have watched friends and relatives go through this scenario.
I have watched my own brother refused to spend a dime on his children because he paid child support. If he were still married to their mom, I believe that he would not refuse to buy them something just because he had paid the mortgage for the house they live in. People need to quit using children as pawns and start behaving as if they love them.
You must live in a fastasy world. Children do take up space that would not be required if they weren't there. They have possessions and need a room to sleep in. And yes, the house is most likely occupied for more hours requiring more use of utilities.
Obviously you have never purchased clothing for a child or watched a teen age boy eat everything in sight.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, will not be fixed an our lifetimes. The government agencies that collect that money tack on an extra 2 or 3% onto every payment that is made. That comes to about $450 million that goes back into the system. And that's not counting the $4 billion in direct funding that the feds send the states each and every year to feed the divorce and support machinery. The federal funding that they receive is based on the amount of support that they collect. Any state that did what was fair and right regarding this hidden alimony would be cutting off their own cash supply. Follow the money and you'll see exactly why things are as they are and what forces benefit from things staying this way.
And you obviously have no idea how to manage money. I did buy those things while my kid lived with me and the deadbeat mom didn't pay a cent. I didn't drag her in front of a judge and demand cash from her on a regular basis. She chose not to contribute. Being a deadbeat is her shame and I was willing to let it drop instead of using my child as a pawn to extract money from the mother, using the threat of criminal sanction if she didn't cough up the cash weekly. Unless there is a clear case of abuse, the children should go with the parent who can best afford to care for them, if that parent chooses to take custody. One's who do not do so should contribute to the child's up-keep, but the hidden alimony has to go.
Amen, brother!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.