Maintenance

There are roughly 6 days a month that a woman is fertile. An average man is fertile every day. Maybe men should take more care recklessly impregnating women every time they have sex. Yes, they should pay cms every time, no exceptions.

The fact that women get one extra point of choice is just one 'advantage ' that women have, and its only been that way, safely and legally since the 1960s and is now being threatened in the US..partly because it actually puts men on the back foot in one scenario. One. In the vast majority of cases, men still hold all the cards. Any man old enough to have sex knows that there is a chance of contraception and that the woman has that extra choice. Unlike women they can't fall pregnant by rape. If they dont want to deal with that potential outcome, they are perfectly free to avoid sex.

Vanishingly rare cases of women in stable settled relationships lying about the pill etc should not be the way into suggesting that child's parents should not both be held responsible for it.

Fucks sake. All the men at the anti abortion protests and the outrageous things they said about women who have abortions. And then men who also think that they shouldn’t be obligated to do anything to keep their child alive either. Women can’t win, ever, in this world.

Child Maintenance is for a parent to support their child financially, whatever the circumstances of that child's life. Even if you dump it all in an ISA and use it for Uni fees it's a good idea. Why would you want to take this away from your child?

My son's dad was involved and I didn't claim CMS. We separated when he was 9. He was self employed and a low earner. I chose not to pursue the little he would be ordered to pay in order to have a better co-parenting relationship. This ultimately was better for our son, kept things amicable and led to me coming off better in the divorce than I may have otherwise. I have not claimed any benefits since we split other than child benefit.

I know this is probably not the situation the OP is discussing. However I can see perhaps where the mum prefers no contact or involvement with the father so she might choose not to pursue CMS to make contact less likely. That said, if the mum wants to claim then she absolutely should regardless of whether or not the father wants to be involved.

Deciding not to be involved should have happened before conception. He bears responsibility for the child and I would lean towards YABU because the child deserves to have that money spent on them.

As the child of a mother who decided not to claim maintenance (father uninvolved), I’d say the mother should always claim! My mother was too proud and wanted to raise me herself, and preferred I go without sometimes than claim and subsidize her/ our income.
if he doesn’t want to be involved with a potential child, he should have had a vasectomy or abstained.

Why should a man who chose to impregnate a woman and have a child be able to just skulk off scot free?

This is ridiculous. There might be many reasons why a resident parent chooses not to claim that turn out to be more beneficial for the child in the long run.

My child's father isn't involved (his choice) and he pays maintenance (well, he currently doesnt as he's a twat, but I'm waiting for a deduction of earnings, before he changes jobs again) You bet your arse I will stay on top of it and chase it as much as I possibly can, purely to make sure my child has the money and not him.

You can do what you want. If you dont need it, put it in a savings account for your child.

You claim child maintenance on behalf of your child, even if it’s pennies, it’s theirs, to pay towards their upbringing or put into an account.
a father should still contribute to their child’s life regardless of whether they want contact or not

But in some circumstances, it's easier not to go through with formal claims and the resident parent takes all the financial responsibility, however hard that is.
I never claimed maintenance, nor did many other single parents that I know.
And it wasn't because we were financially stable.
As hard as it is for some people to understand, applying for child maintenance wasn't a considered option.
I am very proud of raising my child without financial support and working for everything he needed.

The father being a shit that doesn’t want any contact has no bearing on whether or not they should pay maintenance. But if you are the mum it’s obviously up to you. You could claim and save the money for your kids future but if you’d rather just take a stand (that nobody else really cares about) then go for it.

Your thinking is backwards. The money is a contribution to the costs of raising a child. The more you have the child, the more costs you incur. The less you have the child, the fewer costs you incur so you give money to the resident parent towards your contribution of raising your child.

Whether deadbeat-dad is involved with the raising of the child or not, the child still needs to be house and fed as the absolute lowest of the low standard of parenting.

If a man creates a child he should pay maintenance regardless. If he didn’t want one he should have made sure he didn’t get a woman pregnant. Plus it’s a twat of a man who doesn’t want to take care of his own child.

Are you the absent father’s new girlfriend?

On £80k it's £700+ because that's something my friend gets.

And £80k is far from a "highest earner"

Honestly, CMs is fuck all. Highest earners paying £300 a month. The losers scrubby contribution is fuck all.

Completely agree with this. When two accidentally conceive, ie both act as if they are trying to avoid pregnancy by being on the pill and wearing a condom then if a pregnancy happens, and the woman insists on keeping the child, I think it makes a difference. I mean, literally no idea how you could enforce this in real life but it's what is fair.

100% our body our choice. But don't then start pretending it's not our consequences.

That's not a "feckless, disgusting, dead beat dad". He's no different to the millions of women a year who don't continue with a pregnancy because they don't want the child. Imagine as a woman feeling that way and being told, well the child's happening regardless so you'll be paying for them for 18yrs and they'll likely grow up with abandonment and self esteem issues. If you don't raise the child you're a useless deadbeat mother.

I think OP asks a very pertinent question. The father doesn't want the child, and we don't know the circumstances around the conception. OP is choosing to have the child with that knowledge. Is taking no maintenance to balance the guilt of solely choosing to put a child in a situation where they have to deal from day one that one parent actively wishes they weren't here? Because it's not OP who has to live with those feelings, it's the child, who also has no choice.

I think trying to make herself feel better by not claiming maintenance is the least of the issues that will potentially raise their heads. So may as well claim it. He can fiddle it and pay nothing or next to nothing anyway. There's no winner in this situation.

Who is going to support the children? Can you afford to or will it be the tax payers via the benefit system? If it will be entirely on you then do what you want otherwise he should have to pay his share.

I agree with pp that circumstances are important. Was the conception a mutual decision; a one night stand; an accident where the mother decided to continue with the pregnancy when the father didn't want to or some other permutation of circumstances.

If a baby is conceived while two adults are having consensual sex, those are the only important circumstances when it comes to financing that child's ongoing life.

Bollox. I choose to have sex. I also choose to take precautions to make sure I don't get pregnant. Having sex doesn't mean making a baby. It means having sex.

So in a committed couple, if the woman is taking the pill, for example, and happy to do so, you think a man should also wear a condom. What's the point of her taking the pill then?

I agree with pp that circumstances are important. Was the conception a mutual decision; a one night stand; an accident where the mother decided to continue with the pregnancy when the father didn't want to or some other permutation of circumstances.

Children are expensive to raise and the father was involved in the conception even if it was through carelessness or an unthinking moment of desire so has a responsibility towards the. Hild.

On balance, unless a mother has a very compelling reason not to then I would favour claiming.