Here's something to think about. Your father was rich but your mother had no right to that money once divorced (what in the world makes women think they are entitled to the same lifestyle a man provided after kicking that man to the curb?). Child support enables her access to that money (which is why I called it the new alimony).Erana said:But what about my father? He had a PhD in chemistry, a burgeoning career with real earning power and probably $2 million in inheritance. He moved his money around and then didn't pay taxes, so when the divorce came along, he looked like he was in debt, rather than owning prolly $2 million worth in inheritance.RachaelHill13 said:This happened to my father almost word-for-word. He worked for the government, so his projected income was wonky and the child support was much more than the standard 1/3. Then his job got outsourced a few years back, and the amount he was expected to pay didn't change.Crono1973 said:xXxJessicaxXx said:Child support is set at a percentage of income so it is never beyond their means.Crono1973 said:Here's the reality, when men can't afford to raise their children, they are punished. When women can't afford to raise their children, they are given welfare.
LOL, yeah right. Child support is alot more complicated than that. A court can set child support based on your POTENTIAL.
In other words, if a court decides you could be making $100,000 a year they could set the amount based on a percentage of that. That percentage could be more than you make at your current job. Further, child support doesn't take into account any abnormality you may have. Let's say you get laid off because the economy sucks, because your city got flooded or whatever, the child support will build up and if in three months you don't pay...you could be in jail or have your license suspended making it even harder to pay said child support.
Luckily I have never been in such a position but it could happen to me as I have seen it happen to others.
So again, LOL, yeah right!
And then he fought for partial custody so he would pay less. (Which God knows how he got, because the grounds for divorce were, "Hey, he's kinda abusive." But of course, a fracture isn't really a broken bone when you have a high-price lawyer, now is it?)
And then he proceeds to make being around him so bad and often downright dangerous for my sister and I that they effectively dropped the whole thing. (Did I mention he is a hoarder? You've seen the TV shows; would you condemn your child to having to live in a situation like that with a dangerous man?)
But he played the court and dragged out the legal proceedings of the divorce for four years draining my mother's time, energy and money, and threatened to do the same thing again, with the ammunition of "She wouldn't let me see the kids" if she ever tried to get more money from him.
Ten years later, he managed to shove two million up his nose, and between the exacerbated divorce, student loans, and medical bills, at 19 I'm already in thousands and thousands worth of debt, and I can't remember a time when I didn't have to be afraid of my family's financial situation.
So yeah, it really isn't reasonable to judge Child Support based on a few unusual and extreme cases, because you have your father on one hand, and my father on the other.
It doesn't take 100,000 a month to take care of a child, this is where the percentage system breaks down. Most of that 100,000 becomes MOMS MONEY, in other words...alimony.