To think he should still pay maintenance if he takes a 'career break'

[PIPERHELLO]

Just that really. He's very well paid (six figs) and planning a career break. I am struggling to find a definitive answer online as to whether he can be forced (by court / Child Maintenance service) to continue paying maintenance if he voluntarily leaves his job.

Thanks.

Do you believe in the patriarchy

Categorically yes.

Why wouldn't this be an ongoing liability? He can rack it up as a debt but it would still be owed. If the RP chose to take a career break she could stop paying the gas bill but it would still be owed. Why is money owed for children different?

Because maintenance is calculated as a direct percentage of taxable income.

Gas bills don’t change. You pay for what you use. Maintenance changes - if you earn more then you pay more. If you earn less you pay less. So when he’s earning no taxable income then he’s not building any liability as his assessment will be nil.

It's shit op. And I agree the patriarchy does have a lot to do with it. And I'm not a bitter ex - DH and I are still together.

But I have many single mums as friends who are totally fucked over by a male NRP deciding that CM is not a priority.

If I ran the world I'd ensure it was a debt that followed them, I'd enforce it through the courts, take away passport and driving licence and not allow them to marry while a debt remained outstanding. If the local authority can chase down people who don't pay council tax, no reason why CM can't take the same approach.

I agree you don't want to make him the RP, but you might want to suggest that him being available for all drop offs, pick ups and sick days as well as school holidays will come in handy as of course there's no need for paid childcare if he's not working. That might get him back to the office!

*Does it? It's the man. HTH.

It's likely because of innate cognitive and reproductive differences between the sexes which while small at an individual level will have a large difference when we look at stats. at a population level.

@GunpowderGelatine

Narnia? The place ruled by a Snow Queen? No, dear. It isn't real.

Do you believe in the patriarchy. The system designed by men where they work harder and longer, have less time to spend with their families, die earlier (at work or suicide), do less well at school and university and in graduate work immediately afterwards? Do you also believe in Christareyouforreal World?*

What on earth does this even mean!

I think it's been proved we don't have "innate cognitive differences" at all. Reproductive yes of course.

You think women habe the better end of the deal in our society? Righteo.

But that's my point. Why is it a percentage of taxable income? Why isn't there a baseline sum you are expected to contribute come what may? You can default on it but the fact of the matter is that you have responsibilities and you are not meeting them. We could, as a society, decide to write off this liability in the case of disability or illness or whatever. But a certain sum should be an absolute minimum.

You can be jailed for defaulting on your TV licence but you can choose not to pay anything towards your children's upkeep? Very odd.

If contact goes through the courts, a 50-50 split is seen as the ideal

It may be ideal, but it’s rarely practical.

50:50 requires splitting one household into two. Paying mortgages and bills on two family sized homes. It also means both parents need to arrange childcare and/or reduced hours, so both careers take a hit.

It can be done. I’ve only seen it in case where both parents are professionals well into their careers, dr’s, lawyers, teachers etc where pay is good and part time isn’t unusual.

For those who are in more traditional “male” low paid roles though, like builders, time off or reducing hours for kids is usually met with “can’t the wife do it”, and the next job goes to the bloke who can do longer hours. Or they’re self employed and turning down a job means they aren’t considered for the next. In thoses cases, and those where RP stays in the family home and there is no money for another suitable family home, then there must be a main carer.

Do you believe in the patriarchy

Absolutely. Unless you think the world is designed to systematically disadvantage men? You know, the same men almost exclusively responsible for all violent crime? Those men

The system designed by men where they work harder and longer

Depends what you mean by "work" - if you mean paid employment then perhaps but raising children, bearing the mental load AND sustaining paid employment takes up far kore time for women than it does men.

die earlier (at work or suicide)

And how is that the fault of women, or the "matriarchy" (lol)

do less well at school and university

Yet they still continue to get the higher paid jobs over smarter female counterparts 🧐

Why is it a percentage of taxable income?

Because simply put, why should children not benefit from the full "wealth" of their parents? Why should someone earn £100k a year but only give enough to put beans on toast on the table once a day? When your together children benefit fully from your earnings, splitting up shouldn't change that.

People need to disassociate maintenance m with being "money for the woman". It's money for the children. It just goes into her account because she's responsible for buying food and paying bills.

Gunpowder, it's clearly pointless trying to formulate any argument with you as you are not interested.
Whatever anyone says, the stock response boils down to everything a man does is wrong and any time a man is clearly disadvantaged, he should just suck it up.
Women are unquestionable victims in every case, and any time they are disadvantaged, guess whose fault it is?
Are you really this unreasonable in real life?

But that's my point. Why is it a percentage of taxable income? Why isn't there a baseline sum you are expected to contribute come what may? You can default on it but the fact of the matter is that you have responsibilities and you are not meeting them. We could, as a society, decide to write off this liability in the case of disability or illness or whatever. But a certain sum should be an absolute minimum.

Because how else would you decide that basic sum?

Too low and children of high earners will miss out on the lifestyle they should have in accordance with their parents income and too high and low earners would just end up in debt.

And given that they can even get many cases of disability benefits correct I don’t fancy the chances of the CMS being able to accurately assess people who have no need to pay based on health.

@cathf WTF are you going on about? I'm answering ridiculous claims being put forward by another poster who has a deep misunderstanding of what a patriarchy or matriarchy is

Surely there's more to this ...?

How was the divorce?
Has it got shared care? Is he wanting to have more time with the children?
Did you get a settlement?

Ah @cathf I see you're possibly referring to my reply to you - why are you upset about what I said? And what do you mean by "play the victim" when the marriage breaks down? Don't you think men should pay for their children?

However before I would agree that it has nothing to do with sex, I’d be interested to know out of the £3.8 billion backlog of unpaid maintenance, how much of that is attributable to women. IIRC 90% of single parent families are headed by a woman, which suggests there’s an awful lot of men not paying maintenence.

Yes, exactly.

There are certainly women arseholes too, but more of this particular flavour of arsehole are men. I think it's worth asking whether more might be done to tackle predicaments like blankscreen's if it weren't mainly men not paying and women not being paid. After all, it's not like the status quo is helping blankscreen's family much. I for one am pissed off that her DSS isn't getting what he's due.

To return to OP's point - YANBU of course. One thing you might like to do is start being quite vocal about how you are really ok with helping to 'financially support' your dear Ex to retrain. Because that's what you're doing, right? You're now covering what were his childcare costs.

He won't like that interpretation one bit, and neither will his new partner.

:)

Why would this be any harder than calculating any other thing to which we all have to contribute ? A set £50 pw regardless of income (or whatever we agree) and then an income based top up. If your income falls you still pay the basic minimum. If you can't pay the basic minimum then you default but it's a liability, just like your council tax is. It doesn't matter if you don't use the services - you are still liable.

I don't understand the optional nature of this bill.

I like that idea @rightreckoner and it has to be better than what's in place now

@blackteasplease

The word is 'proven' and it certainly hasn't been proven that there is no innate cognitive difference. The overwhelming evidence suggests there is but it isn't proven one way or another.

Have you heard of Ocam's Razor?

@GunpowderGelatine

"exclusively responsible for all violent crime?"

I feel it's time for me to womansplain. Men are provably less agreeable, more prone to violence, more able to inflict violence due to their physiology and therefore, at the extreme (transgressions outside of the law) will make result in them being a significant number of the incarcerated.

Most violence is male on male so I'm not sure what that has to do with patriarchy / matriarchy but I thought I'd address your point as it stands.

Yes, I think woke wankers are creating a world which systematically disadvantages men. You can call it affirmative action or political correctness or whatever else but it is the very definition of systematic discrimination. You know that this week NASA suggested that the first person on Mars would likely be a woman? Their reason "it's about time". Nothing to do with suitability or being the best for the role but simply because they will have a fanny. Do you understand? This is the very definition of systematic disadvantage yet discriminating against a female is illegal.

We are not the same. Legally looking to enforce equality is foolish.

"die earlier (at work or suicide)"

The matriarchy / society expects men to do the dangerous and hard work. All the bedungareed want 50:50 sex representation in STEM but are hardly fighting for more women on the front line. Women in the US protested against women getting the vote because it would have meant equal treatment when it came to conscription. Did you know that?

Toxic femininity has meant that men are earners and providers and die at work.

"lol"

Are you twelve?

"Yet they still continue to get the higher paid jobs over smarter female counterparts"

I have two issues with this. Firstly, I doubt you have proof of "smartness" and supposed link. Secondly, I know there are several factors when it comes to success. Lacking agreeablness is proven to be significant. Of the Big 5, men and women who 'succeed' are significantly less agreeable than less successful people. Thatcher, Brady, May, Shinawatra, Arlene Foster, Deborah Meaden, Rowling, Wojicki, Marillin Hewson, Barra, for example.

That list took 15 minutes because I found powerful women who had taken reputable personality tests and fitted my assertion. It would take you much, much longer to find any kind of evidence against my claim. Why do you think this is?

If women were paid less and smarter and better then companies would be clamering to hire them, surely?

Have you heard of Ocam's Razor?

The word is Occam’s...

Shit. You got me there!

*slow hand clap

Honestly i'm not agreeing with the 'patriarchy at it's finest' tag. Women tend to be RP yes, but you have t think about the reasons why.

1. They're more likely to be a SAHM, yes but usually after agreement from both parties. Most women prefer to be SAHPs, and would balk if their husband insisted he be the one at home instead of them.

1. More likely to be on a lower salary, either from taking multiple MLs or taking time out from work to raise kids. Again this is most likely to have been agreed by both parents. The fact is working part time/reduced hours means you're less likely to be promoted. This isn't sexist. It's fact.

it's sad this is happening to you OP, but if the current CMS rules state no income no maintenance, then that's what's gonna happen. Either take him to court or lobby the govt to change this.

Anyway back to the op, where the current system disproportionately disadvantages women. Yes he bloody well should. If he’s taking a career break by choice and has substantial assets, the payments should remain the same. Of course if his health were of serious concern and continued to be so, a review would be needed to reflect the change in circumstance.

Whole system favours the absent parent. Lime i find it disgusting they can be on say 20k on april 5th and 35 on april 6th but you dont get an increase because of it until the following year. They base it on out of date figures rather than current earnings. So their wage can double and you wait until next year and the same can happen again. It should be automatically based on each months earnings as in effect the year child turns 18 your paid based on the old years figure and the absent parent can earn all they want knowing you won't see a penny of it. At least with the csa if their wage went up they reviewed it straight away.

And you would want an instant decrease if the wages dropped, tricia?

And you would want an instant decrease if the wages dropped

I can’t soeak for Tricia but that’s how we work it. I think it’s only fair.