To think this is scandalous yet in plain sight because the patriarchy has no shame

OK so what does it cost you in housing? Extra council tax? Gas and electric? What is the cost of 'a bit of food' (it's a lot of food when they get to teens!)? Sanitary products for girls? Would you be earning that if you could only work school hours in the week? Or had to cover 13 weeks of school holidays? When you actually have to cover the full cost of these things on your own you become far more aware of them. You are comparing apples and pears. This post is about maintenance and more specifically my original post was about how a nrp paying 450 a month for an unspecified number of children was not in any way subsidising their ex's lifestyle as many seem to think.

It's obviously hard to break down because some expenditure is 'lumpy', but we're fairly old fashioned in terms of how we do things.

The kids are still wearing hand-me-down clothing from their cousins. I appreciate not everybody has that available, but we're the sort of people that would happily buy children's clothes at jumble sales, charity shops, etc. My eldest son wears second hand school uniform (immaculate and only £1 an item). We buy Clarke's shoes in the sales (£22.50 for the last pair). Our biggest regular expense is currently weekly swimming lessons.

Day to day spending is just a bit of food and meals out at the local cafe or cheap and cheerful places such as nandos. Bigger ticket spending would be the all inclusive holiday that we took at Easter.

I'm guessing that the total spend is less than £6k per year for both boys and that includes holidays. If it wasn't for the pesky kids, we'd probably spend a lot more on holidays, meals out and socialising so our outgoings would actually increase.

For reference, I earned £97k last year and my wife has an income of around £45k.

Well my main point was that you were being unfair labelling people as irresponsible for not having 7years of child-rearing costs saved up before having a baby, which given you're now saying 1-2years instead means I think that you agree your opening stance was a bit harsh.

I also think that it's not going to be the thing that makes or breaks the situation though. As this thread shows, many (most?) woman never get back to their full earning potential after having kids. With the maintenance requirements being pathetically low, and many NRP either gaming the system or simply not paying, having a safety net is just delaying the inevitable. So whilst it's great to have, it doesn't "fix" the issue of the system being stacked against the RP who ends up bearing the brunt of the costs of child raising, whilst simultaneously being less likely to be able to earn a huge salary to pay for it all. All of which gets us back to - maintenance needs to be addressed such that both parents pay an appropriate/proportionate amount to bring up their child.

He’s not even a single parent??? Jeez! What’s he arguing for? I assumed he was.

@ThisOldThang Come back when you’ve walked the walk!

Well done. You earn more than a single mum on minimum wage.

But you are looking at it from the point of view of a couple. For the purposes of this post if you separated then you would be starting from scratch, as a single parent with limited earning potential, whose partner would be walking away with no responsibility. The nrp should be able to be forced to support their kids whether with the rp or not if they do not do so willingly.

I’m not disputing the average figure is higher than the costs to many people. That’s how averages work.

I’m talking about a typical situation for single mothers. They are often forced to leave the family home because it’s too expensive on one income, and have to rent. Your situation is obviously different in that I presume you’ve stayed in your marital home after a split and can afford the mortgage on one wage? Not many people can do that.

Without a hefty deposit a single mum would have very little chance of buying. Obviously they’d need enough bedrooms to meet the legal living standards for the children. That is far more expensive than it would be to house just themselves. In my area in the north, the difference between 1 and 3 beds would be around £700 a month. In London it would be much more. Are you saying that this isn’t a factor in the cost of raising children? Actually putting a roof over their head.

I bought my flat in Shoreditch, our house is in Southern Stockholm.

It does include childcare, but is averaged out over 18 years. So costs would be higher for younger children but lower in primary school age. Then increasing again as they get to teens and eat more/need more tech/school equipment and more expensive trips etc. Out of interest how much do you think you spend on your kids a month, and are you able to break that down?

Well there's your answer then. He chose not to pursue additional contact which is why he had to pay more. I'm not sure why you think it would have been fair for him to neither parent nor fund his children. Why should mum have to do it all?

That is in total, not per parent. It includes childcare.

He had a three bedroom house. Two bedrooms freshly decorated and chosen by the kids. In the hope they may stay more.

He lived 12 minutes away from children’s house but they insisted on going home most nights.

teenagers tend to stay in the family home. They chose to stay with their mum. He spent a lot of time with them. They chose to sleep at their mums. That’s how CM is calculated. Where they sleep. So still a hands on dad.

What’s the point in spending thousands to go to court for an order, when the kids want to sleep in the home they have grown up in.

Also he was single. No new partner involved.

@EnterFunnyNameHere @BorisJohnsonsPhysique
You've both essentially said the same thing, and basically reinforced my point, so replying to both :)

Yep, £10k is probably waaaay short of what it actually costs. My thinking was (kind of like a dowry), a child should not be even considered until the woman (particularly) has savings sufficient to maintain her and her baby, for I'd say at least a year or two to cover the (actually quite likely) case of things hitting the fan. The fact that you've both said £10k probably doesn't even cover a year shows you how utterly irresponsible most people are when having kids, because divorces are common, women are often out of work during this period, and men are scumbags!

Others have asked whether I am saying only the rich should have kids. Well, if it actually costs this much to take care of one properly, there is a reasonable chance that you'll be alone while doing it, and you would legitimately struggle to fund the endeavour... are you actually having a baby for the right reasons? It makes it seem like "because I want one" is the overriding reason, when it should be "because my foundation is stable enough to actually do this properly".

But that's completely hypothetical. We already owned a three bedroom property before we had kids, so our housing costs remained static.

You'd have to make major assumptions regarding people only renting/owning properties with the exact number of required bedrooms in order to apply the housing costs in that way.

The 'average' will include what some people pay for childcare, private education, luxury holidays, pony ownership, university costs, etc. the modal (as in modal average, not mean or median) cost would be far more revealing.

Lucky you. Housing is expensive in lots of places.

Why didn't he then? Did he go to court? You mentioned teenagers, did they not want to live with him?. All very well saying he would have done xyz, but he wasn't.

Then you are killing two birds with one stone. If men are forced to pay maintenance even if they are prefectly happy to walk away from their own child, then they will think twice before having a child they do not truly want if it will hurt their pockets to have one.

I’ve never lived in a one bed property, even if I had, I’ve never lived anywhere that it would cost £1,000 to have an additional couple of bedrooms, or £2,000 to have an additional couple. The three bed flat I bought was far cheaper per month than the two bed flat I had been renting.

I think the biggest cost apart from childcare is the difference in cost of a one bedroom property and a 2-3 bed. That alone could be £1000 a month.

You are missing the point. He was quite happy to have them 50% of the time. He was quite happy to contribute in the same way his ex was.

It may have been. Child maintenance is not counted towards benefits income. .So could work part time get. £150 then another £ 200 or so on benefits. Then any money the father pays on top is added to this. Without reducing benefits whereas if she worked more then benefits would reduce

Our two don’t cost anywhere near that.

That's a ridiculous figure in 2 parent households taking the lower figure of £938.

Just for the children alone you would need £1876

Add in mortgage or rent
CT / utilities / phones
Food
Car/petrol
Internet
And even in 2 parent households you are going to be at a higher figure than lot of people earn.

So by your calculations most children are not getting what they need.
There is no way in the earth that we spend anywhere near that figure

That figure is very high end will be skewed by the costs of childcare.

There's no way we spend anywhere near that amount on our boys.