When Dads don’t pay child support kids can always count on Mom to take up the slack!
Child Support. You dislike paying it. I dislike receiving it. In fact, I can’t wait for the day that I am a successful writer and child support is no longer part of this messy equation. I’d love to be in a position to be able to offer you child support one day and do you know what? I’d pay it and probably more than required, no questions asked!
From the moment our marriage started falling apart I’ve heard various versions of the “I can’t afford child support” song! And 18 months later it’s still being sung.
Child Support and parents who receive it (particularly mothers) have received such a bad rap that some fathers lump all mothers into the same category.
I am not one of those mothers. And you know that I am not one of those mothers. But, the last time I submitted a dispute with the Child Support Agency you came back with the response of “I should not have to support her lifestyle” and you know what? You are 100% correct. Child Support is not supporting my lifestyle. Child Support is doing just as the name suggests, supporting YOUR child or children, in this case, 4 of them!
What you don’t realize is that there are so many different services available to me as a single mother who is not receiving child support and I have so much love and support from family and friends that I can always provide for our children, regardless of if you contribute financially or not.
So, you not paying child support does not affect me or our children. They are always provided for, no matter what!
There will come a day when they are grown men and you and I are at their high school graduation brimming with pride and as we should be, because our boys are going to be brilliant. Which is why we, when married, we made the decision to send them to a private school which would provide them with the best education to begin their lives.
The difference is, I will be brimming with pride for them and myself because the children and will have done it together without your help, we will work together as a team with support from our school community and school friends to get through to that point. We will sacrifice, they will go to school in hand me down uniforms from our friends, receive financial support from the school, teachers will turn a blind eye when the children arrive at the school in the wrong sports socks because I couldn’t find $13 to buy new ones. And at the end of their schooling, having made it, with the original intention of giving them the best possible education, the kids and I will have done it without your help.
And you will be sitting there brimming with pride knowing that you financially wiped your hands of their education when they were 9, 5, 2 and not even born yet!
Our children do not suffer when you don’t pay your child support. No matter what, our children do not ever go without. They don’t know that their meals sometimes come from a local charity, they don’t know that their clothes have been worn by several children before them and they don’t know that I spend hours going through classified ads looking for free gifts for them. Nor should they, they are children and should be free of these adult worries. As I said earlier, there are so many services available to someone in my position it does not phase me if you pay child support or not.
So you might wonder why I constantly fight you for it if it doesn’t matter?
Because I am fighting for the rights of our children. You work in a well-paid job, you tell the Child Support Agency you do not work. I am forced to spend hours filling out paperwork, gathering evidence to prove you work. Hours that would be much better spent caring for the children or working on building up my own business. But instead, it’s spent fighting you on behalf of our children for them to be financially cared for in the way they are legally entitled to be.
At the end of the day, they don’t care who provides what, they don’t care, they don’t even know that you don’t pay anything to help raise them and nor should they. They’ll still love you the same regardless if you pay child support or not.
And you still fight me, which means you are fighting your children. Why?
I admire those fathers who step up and go over and above what they need to do. They are the ones who love their children and respect the mother of those children. They are the ones with 4 children, even though child support is capped at 3 still provide for that 4th child through either money or otherwise because it’s the right thing to do.
They are not the ones who constantly throw into the mother of that child’s face that child support is capped at 3 children and therefore you don’t HAVE to contribute anything to the 4th child.
Let me let you in on a little secret, this 4th child, doesn’t come with special discounts. I can’t take him to the grocery store and receive a discount because he’s the 4th child, I can’t ring the electric company and get a discount because I have 4 children and the 4th one isn’t covered by child support. I am 100% financially responsible for this child. 100%! And currently also 100% financially responsible for his 3 siblings.
The next time you sit down to your lovely steak dinner, think of your children, what they’re eating and how much you contributed.
The next time you go out for a night, think of your child at their birthday party and what you contributed.
The next time you’re buying yourself some clothes, think of your child and how many clothes you provide for them.
The next time you’re grocery shopping and throw treats into your buggy for yourself, think of your children and how many treats they get when you contribute nothing to them financially.
At the end of the day, they don’t care who provides what, they don’t care, they don’t even know that you don’t pay anything to help raise them and nor should they. They’ll still love you the same regardless if you pay child support or not.
I will still love them the same regardless of whether you pay child support. Even when they are grown men and they have more of an understanding of who did what, they are still going to love you but they will have a greater appreciation for the struggles and sacrifices I made to ensure they never knew you didn’t contribute financially to raising them. What will they thank you for?
I have older kids, 4, and the law is that the ex only pay for two, since once they turn 18, they are no longer financially dependent on their parents.HA! So my ex, is only responsible for two and barely pays for that. If he’s not fighting a small increase, he’s playing games with the checks, not signing them, entering the incorrect amount, or addressing it to my 11 year old daughter. Meanwhile, I have to guess when that check will find it’s way to me…somehow, the attorneys cannot get direct deposit into place. All the while the ex posts on Facebook, of all the tattoos he’s getting (9, so far), the vanity plates for his truck, the concert tickets and backstage meet and greets, and the trips! Also this “recovering alcoholic ” is posting how much fun he’s having at the bar playing Bingo! Yet, cries to the court and his lawyer that he is financially strapped. Our whole family once lived off of what he earned. Until we screenshot all his posts about his exploits, and sent them to my lawyer! All the while he hasn’t visited his one daughter, who’s forced by the court to see him, the other three have no desire to see him. My story is very complicated, involving domestic abuse, alcoholism and his overuse of pain meds, his lying and cheating on me….yet he is in denial and acts like I ruined his life. Meanwhile I am raising four kids with issues from years of emotional abuse from him. I was blessed two years ago financially, and was finally able to remove him from our home. Still waiting for the divorce to finalize, since he comes up with new ways to stall it.
I feel your pain. So many people say (and even I’ve mentioned it in this post!) that in the long run the kids will see who did what and it’ll all be worthwhile but unfortunately that doesn’t pay the bills!!!! It’s still so tough to live day to day and to constantly have to say No to things and hear the phrase “At Dad’s house we can have…….”.
I’m from Australia where our Child Support laws say he’s only financially responsible for 3 children even though we have 4, It doesn’t make sense. But it seems that no matter where you live there will always be a fight on your hands when it comes to child support.
Thanks for you comment and reading the post x
Ihi I sent you a message earlier on. did you get it? I am wondering what your views on female led relationships are.
Female led? Seriously? Marriage is a partnership. It’s give and take. There is a serious, marriage-destroying issue if the parties to a marriage think it should be “led” by one or the other.
I have been blessed to be in a position where I don’t NEED my ex-husband’s child support for our 2 children, but I should not have had to get a court order to make him support his children. I should not have to go to court to make him pay for additional large expenses and disregard smaller ones because I hate having to go through the court. I am actually responsible for a larger percentage of child support for my children AND I agreed to lower the court mandated support for him during our divorce proceedings, yet he still doesn’t pay for anything extra and is behind in his payments. Yes, I will take up the slack and thankfully, my children have never gone without (even when I was out of work for 6 months and he never once bothered to even offer extra money to feed and clothe his children) but it’s not right. I can only imagine what women who are not in a position to need the support have to do to care for their children. We need a better system.