I'm asking this because I don't know, not to sound insensitive. If you do not want to pay the child's other parent child support, can you not take shared/joint custody and raise the child 50% of the time, thus not owing any child support?
Yes, joint custody will knock down the support obligation. But that takes away the woman's extortion option of withholding the kid. Right. That goes for WOMEN too. Its almost startling at times the obligation to accountability we try to take away from independent, equal women. My dance floor analogy might be bad. But its like a woman opening her dance floor (legs) KNOWING cracks and wet spots are on the floor (no birth control) without cleaning it or putting up a sign. And when the dancer slips (impregnates), she wants to put all the liability on the dancer? Or blame him for having slippery shoes (no condom)? Women are the gatekeepers to their bodies. How does women like Matt Leinart's ex-girl getting $30K not think he won't make a good father? He shouldnt have led her on, but she shoulda saw Mr Hollywood wasn't going to be around all that much. And Matt Leinart's probably one of the good guys compared to others in his profession. If she had a drunken 1 night stand with immigrant pool boy you bet she's considering her rights to abort. I'm not saying dont pay support. Because it probably is cheaper in some instances to pay support than the actual real fatherly caretaking. I'm saying, I dont know...have a child support debit card so you can see exactlywhat gets bought on it. Of course that will shame the woman like a welfare or food stamp card. But if its CHILD support, its for the child's needs.
Child support is so important for marriage. There shouldn't even need to be a law in place for this to happen. Those who take advantage of this are, to me, horrible horrible people. But as Refman said, it seems that most of the time the problem is with non-payment than with liberal spending. A child doesn't choose his/her family, country, beliefs, path, nothing. Sometimes, parents need to put their egos and insecurities aside and realize the most important thing is to make sure that his child's life is as unaffected as possible by the splitting up of the parents. Even 1% of the burden of divorce shouldn't fall on the child and that is the MOST important function of child support. It's not just a paycheck I hope.
I agree with the reciepts thing. I think it's BS that a man can pay thousands of dollars a month to support his child and have no way of knowing if that is actually happening.
Great...now tell me a few things about this idea... Who is going to administer it? What will the rules be? Who will do the forensic auditing of the receipts and the outflows? How much will it cost the taxpayers to do this? The fact of the matter is that the system you describe will be very costly. It will require the establishment of an entire new regulatory agency and all of the employees to go with it.
This notion is simply morally reprehensible. Now that I have that out of the way, allowing men to opt out of child support will cause an undue burden to the state in additional WIC and assistance payments. I would rather the father pay than the rest of the state pay because he had an itch in his pants that night. To each his own, I guess.
This thread only reaffirms my already jaded opinion that there are a lot of people who should not think of bringing children into this world either by intent or accident. Very disheartening.
Its a mess.....yea the system was obviously need. but of course it is ripe with abuse (imho) So....I've been thinking it might be good just to avoid the whole game in its entirety.
that makes me cringe. i have a one week old son i hope nothing like this happens to me one day. i want whats very best for my son, but im going to have to say no to paying for cruises.
You have nothing to worry about as long as you and your wife are happily married. This must be a very happy time for both you and your wife.
I guess I'm fortunate in this situation. I do pay an assload each month for my boy, but it pays for a decent house in a good subdivision so he can grow up in a nice neighborhood. It also pays for some daycare so my ex can still keep her job. I've had no problems and as far as divorced parents go, I think we are doing a pretty good job. I see him when ever and get him every other weekend. I know that when I'm not there, my ex is doing her best to raise my boy right. Sure I pay more than is "required", but my boy comes first and I still live pretty comfortably. My only gripe is with taxes, I pretty much lost all tax breaks that come with home ownership, kids, and a marriage. All in one simple divorce. You try and do right by your boy, but you still get none of the tax breaks. Oh well.
If you can prove that the mother is barely providing for the child and taking cruises with the child support money, you may not win, but you have a valid argument. By the way, the tide is turning on this in Texas. Fathers are winning more custody battles than ever.
