Being told to be grateful for child maintenance

Nobody with any sense would say you should be grateful. There’s some parents at the very start and very end of the bell curve who are better off than they would be otherwise, but for the vast majority, it doesn’t come close to covering half the costs.

OP, how careful with words is the person who spoke to you? Maybe they didn’t mean grateful: perhaps they actually meant that given your ex’s track record, you were lucky to have got anything. It is a sad fact that many an ex-wife never gets anything by way of maintenance for the DC.

Some people are too stupid to see maintenance as being for the child, not for the resident parent.

It's also seen as "free income" because it's disregarded from benefits calculations and tax liabilities. Personally I think it should be treated as income, but that there's a legal requirement for a non-resident parent to pay CMS, with legal consequences for non-payment and a burden to liquidise assets, or the government apply a charge against them, to meet the payments if needed.

Me too, a set allowance per child should be paid by the state and reimbursed by the non resident parent. If that parent can’t afford it, it should be recorded as a debt and treated like any other debt.

I had a CMS call handler tell me I was lucky to receive payment…some parents get nothing.
I wonder if she’s still working for them!

Socially there is a stinking attitude toward child maintenance

It is quite the irony that so many people see it as free income because it’s not included as income when the reason it isn’t is because when the bulk of it when to the Sec of State to go toward the welfare bill (the RP at that point only for to keep £20 a week if they were on benefits) the debt got so huge it was decided that something had to be done…

So they said RPs could just keep the money that they knew mostly doesn’t get paid

Lol 😂 she basically told you that she and all her colleagues are useless - but you're the one who needs to adjust your attitude because you're not grateful. That's quite some dissonance going on, almost impressive.

He has a financial obligation to help you..nothing to do with being lucky.
Nothing about being a Dad is ok when you do not help $ wise or in caring for the children you created.
Tell the small minded to go jump.
Was it a man or women?

YANBU, but I find the standards for men financing their children is beyond low.
There's no shortage of men and women who excuse, praise the efforts of, help in curtailing... the very little some men are prepared to do.

Yup.

Also, nothing screams "RED FLAG RED FLAG" to me like a man complaining about having to "pay" his ex while she's "out getting her hair done and down the pub".

My sort of sideways one that irritates me is the women who see it as a point of pride to not "need" money from their children's father. You know the ones, "I can do it alone ,I don't need him" or "I don't expect anything from him, I just wish he'd see the children". INFURIATES me. It should just be a basic expectation - both parents have to contribute financially to raising that child.

To be fair to her people who work for CMS are absolutely hamstrung.

The system is shit. The training is shit (At the end of my training I asked if a different team handled certain further steps as no training had been given. I knew about them as my ex had been a dick and CAB talked me through the powers CMS have and the guy training me had never heard of those powers!).

Then there is also constant pressure to give people more time. I got a bollocking after a man complained bout my refusal to give him another month. He hadn’t paid for four years and was known to change job and address. I clarified, and they agreed, that my manner was perfectly polite and professional, and that I had indeed followed the guidance to the letter. However it was still decided that I was “unnecessarily aggressive” in my refusal. His case was removed from and given to someone else.

If you get CM through CMS you are lucky - not lucky you get CM, but lucky the absolutely shit show that CMS has worked and not made you one of the unlucky ones who get the shot side. And it’s not right that luck comes into it - it’s an absolute disgrace - but it is luck who you get on your case and how that plays out.

Society doesn’t care about CM though so politicians don’t care. Until that changes CMs won’t.

The other thing I got told off for while working there was explaining to my colleagues how important cm can be.

a lot of them were young and didn’t really grasp that it was income meant to help with things like food and heating. They genuinely hadn’t thought of it in terms like that and media coverage can often be hair and nails

I didn’t last there long. My face didn’t fit 😂

Poverty is punishment for women who failed to make their relationship work.

Women have children so women should shoulder the burden of raising them.

Single mother households are responsible for low educational outcomes, crime, anti social behaviour and so deserve the above punishment.

Men should not be held accountable or responsible for things that happen when they abandon their family.

I think that pretty much sums up the narratives some people hold.

If you believe those things (and many people still do), then I can see how the 'lucky' attitude emerges.

I was a single parent. My exh did pay maintenance. Neither of us considered it luck on my part.

I know someone who was told to be grateful by the actual CMS!

Shocking

I don't think my face would have fit either!

The entire system is an absolute joke, it needs completely revising so that there is a minimum payment per child payable regardless of income and non-payment will result in potential prison time.

No you shouldn't be grateful for the pittance your useless ex may happen to give you, it makes me so mad that so many men (and it really is nearly always men) get to leave their kids behind, do the bare minimum, 3 hour playdate every other weekend and then claim hardship when they are asked to contribute towards the children they helped being into this world.

YANBU. He should be grateful that you are shouldering the entire burden of raising his children, not that this is something that you should have been forced to do. He should also be thoroughly ashamed of himself.

Context is everything though. If he didn’t work he would give you nothing, if he had it taken out of his benefits it would be £7, but if he decides that he is going to give you money each week/month that is more than the CMS calculated amount in this context it would be lucky.

It doesn’t change that your children are being underfunded by a waste of space dad, that is still the case. But him giving you more than the CMS calculation is ‘lucky’ even if it is still not good enough.

Anyway, was he always unemployed when you were with him? Did he live on benefits when you were pregnant? I just wonder whether you followed the rule that if a man shows you who he is, believe him! Or whether you naively had a child with a man who was wholly unsuitable as a provider for the child. Either way, your child will grow up to know their mum provided for them when their father didn’t so all will be well in the end.

Yeah and then those who cannot afford it can turn to crime to pay the minimum amount, and will end up in jail anyway where no money is being paid.

Not well thought through is it.