AIBU to think how men have got away with this for far to long

[Alex50]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53064741

Why don’t they pay for their children and think it’s ok?

@HughAckmansWife - just like your posts then :)

See, this isn't funny Bus Driver. There's nothing even slightly funny about this.

@HughAckmansWife - I agree there is nothing funny about dead beat dads not paying their way

Excellent. Then we have no more to say.

They were crap back in the 1980's when I was a single mum and crap now. They never managed to get a penny out of my husband because he gave them the runaround, wouldn't answer letters and so on.
My previous next door neighbour, I moved recently, has four kids with his ex wife. Did nothing but constantly pursue his cycling hobby with all the latest expensive equipment when they were all living together and did absolutely nothing else, real peach. He has a full time job.
When his wife divorced him he bought a huge house with four bedrooms that he didn't need because the children never visited in order to get out of maintenance. He only pays the bare minimum of what is left of his outgoings.
He fills the house with undeclared lodgers and rakes in £3k a month from them and his kids see none of that money.
The house and garden is left to go to rack and ruin because he is too lazy to decorate, clean, garden just like when he was married. The lodgers have to clean up around him. There is a big housing shortage there so they just do it.
The place looked like a slum.
I don't know how he got away with it, surely you can't buy yourself a great big house instead of supporting your kids, but it seems you can.

@HugeAckmansWife however their is plenty to say as nobody can explain to me what is a fair Child Maintenance payment is?

If they can calculate a basic minimum of what it costs to raise a child, and then a monthly/weekly figure, then I reckon they can start from there. NRP pays 50% of that.

Both households have housing costs and bills to pay. You don't need to factor those costs in as they both have them.

That figure can be adjusted by CMS according to NRP's income, and maybe a figure added for extra costs incurred by RP such as needing larger home to accommodate the children having a permanent base, but also for NRP according to how often they have the children.

The minimum cost is the minimum though regardless of anything else.

@thebusdriver what do you think is a fair way to calculate maintenance?
My ex doesn't pay, hasn't paid. He works, he told me he's not giving me any details of his income etc as the CSA won't give him leeway for his important bills and leave him short. He offered me a tenner a week for 2 teens from his full time wage.
Told me if I go through CSA then I'm being massively unfair as he has important bills, you know as if I don't and then the kids costs on top of that ....

[quote scotsllb]@thebusdriver what do you think is a fair way to calculate maintenance?
My ex doesn't pay, hasn't paid. He works, he told me he's not giving me any details of his income etc as the CSA won't give him leeway for his important bills and leave him short. He offered me a tenner a week for 2 teens from his full time wage.
Told me if I go through CSA then I'm being massively unfair as he has important bills, you know as if I don't and then the kids costs on top of that .... [/quote]
Everyone knows RPs dont have important bills... we just need money for hair and nails

This is why the default contact for Children should be 50/50 where it is safe to do so.

None of this - it is not good for my child rubbish.

If Children were awarded 50/50 the parents would have the same bills and would be contributing the same costs and then you stop all this "not paying enough" or money is being spent on nails etc

The NRP who do not pay should be fined or should be dealt with more harshly.

BusDriver we've been through this. You've been told plenty of times that it's an impossible calculation to be 'fair' to all because we all have different views of what constitutes a necessary thing. Sport and music lessons, school trips, clothes not from Primark. Most RPs pay for these things because they see the impact on their children but they are not strictly necessary. CMS stipulates only that it is a contribution to essentials..whuch implies all non essentials are entirely down to the RP. Assuming the nrp is EOW only, with maybe one mid week, they are unlikely to be contributing similar amounts to non essentials in their time.
More contentious by far is childcare. It's hugely expensive and not all is covered by UC or CTC. Whatever the answer, I'm sure we could agree that the £7 Pw that rps gets from nrps on benefits is insufficient. What would YOU say is a ball park fair minimum figure per week?

Sorry, just saw your post
My ex and many like him, as you have been told elsewhere are not interested in 50/50.

Or how about both parents equally put into a Child Maintenance fund where this fund is then spent on child items such as clothing, uniform etc and not just chucked into the pot?

Because I'm not doing two separate shops at tesco for their food and my food. When we have an ice cream at the beach do I pay out of two separate pots? As the RP, I can see that my DS needs 2 blazers for school because I'm the one dealing with the lost, muddy or torn one but my ex thinks 1 is sufficient. He also bought them school shoes out of Asda that didn't fit and fell apart after two weeks. Guess who then had to run around trying to fit in a trip to get decent ones. In your idea, who gets to decide how that money is spent?

Part of the problem are the repeated attempts to sneak morality into the system - which immediately twists all "logic" and not only allows but encourages perverse outcomes.

If we take a sliding spectrum from to and try to work alone that without any attempt to impose what we believe should be you might get a better outcome.

would be a situation where the unemployed uninsured father dies the second after conception (not that I am suggesting any causal link ). That leaves a single parent to bring up triplets without a penny in income from the father (unless there was money in stuffing him and charging for display ?).

is a family where both parents put into the childs upbringing to the best of their abilities.

Now we just need to work out how to go between the two and do what's best for the child. But that's never going to happen, because at every point on that scale you will get enough weighty views as to why that number (, , ) is "special" and needs to be treated differently.

There are areas of public policy where the desired outcome - in this case what's best for the child - is lost in a maze of politics and morality with a binding of religion and all viewed through the populist prism of todays cause celebres .

Also @TheBusDriver what happens if there is not enough money in the pot? Cms doesn't come close to what it actually costs for a child. NRP pay at most 20% of their income, RPs pay considerably more than that now. In your system both parents would contribute 20% (you know in fairness) and that would go in a separate account to pay for the children's expenses. What happens when it runs out? Who tops it up? Do the children go without? If there is not enough to pay schilool dinners do the children do without their lunch? What's your solution?

@HugeAckmansWife - Why are you expecting the NRP to fund an ice cream on the beach? This is the issue with maintenance it takes the pee. A non rp is expected to pay the maintenance and still fund activities so the RP should.

I reckon shopping is not that much more per week plus all the extras the rp will receive from benefits etc if entitled to it.

@HugeAckmansWife

Because I'm not doing two separate shops at tesco for their food and my food. When we have an ice cream at the beach do I pay out of two separate pots? As the RP, I can see that my DS needs 2 blazers for school because I'm the one dealing with the lost, muddy or torn one but my ex thinks 1 is sufficient. He also bought them school shoes out of Asda that didn't fit and fell apart after two weeks. Guess who then had to run around trying to fit in a trip to get decent ones. In your idea, who gets to decide how that money is spent?

Sounds like our exes went to the same school of shit parenting.

My ex decided once that I spent too much on food as Asda did 5 ready meals for £4 (or similar). He was going to order a months worth x2 (so one microwave meal per child per day) instead of paying the CM. Not sure why he thought that was an acceptable diet for growing children especially as he had previously told me I was shit mum for not making a roast every Sunday .

Then one October he turned up with a bag of his step-sons old clothes and declared that him and his wife had decided 'they're weren't paying any CM that month as they had provided clothes instead. A bag of shorts and sleeveless tops in October. Some were stained, misshapen and generally worn. Even if it had been summer there was not £30 worth of clothes. Fucking joke.

My absent father never paid one penny for me. This was in the days when your mother got child benefit and that was that. On the other hand when my DP was in a really good job he paid a hell of a lot of CM. A few years on, he had a breakdown so couldn’t work. He’s been a SAHD to our own son, so has no income (no he doesn’t get any benefits and we don’t receive tax credits). His ex wife refuses to let my DP see his older son, against a Court ruling, and we don’t even know where he lives a though DP still has PR. I make generous arrangements for my own elder child, am I supposed to pay for my DPs son too? I think not. So in this case, a percentage of zero income on my DPs part = zero CM. That might seem harsh, but I already paid his min payments for years when he was on low income.

I reckon shopping is not that much more per week

Food is completely free if you're a single mum but us women keep this a secret from all the men....sssshhhhhh

I'd better add that I'm being sarcastic before some bloke starts quizzing his ex on that!

How do they calculate how much benefits should be? In the olden days, the dole was meant to be the minimum a person could live on. Presumably it's much the same calculation now - hte minimum a person could live on.

If they can do that, then they can decide the minimum a child costs.

@ToftyAC

My absent father never paid one penny for me. This was in the days when your mother got child benefit and that was that. On the other hand when my DP was in a really good job he paid a hell of a lot of CM. A few years on, he had a breakdown so couldn’t work. He’s been a SAHD to our own son, so has no income (no he doesn’t get any benefits and we don’t receive tax credits). His ex wife refuses to let my DP see his older son, against a Court ruling, and we don’t even know where he lives a though DP still has PR. I make generous arrangements for my own elder child, am I supposed to pay for my DPs son too? I think not. So in this case, a percentage of zero income on my DPs part = zero CM. That might seem harsh, but I already paid his min payments for years when he was on low income.

Call me harsh but I’m not going to get worked up about visitation rights for men who can provide SAHD services to their second family whilst their first family lives off fresh air.

I'm saying that things like an ice cream on the beach are not essentials, but pretty standard for parenting. If the kids are with the RP 95% of the time, they are paying for 95% of that sort of thing. Why is that fair? Are you honestly telling me that you believe RPs spend less than 20% of their salaries on their kids and that nrps are somehow subsidising their share of those costs? Cos you know that bollocks right?

My DPs ex wife doesn’t live on fresh air. She has a very rich husband. Also, she stopped visitation before we stopped paying CM. He’s been a SAHD because it’s helped him get better after his breakdown. He’s ready to go back to work now our own son has started school, but hey! The labour market isn’t great. He’s be happy to start paying CM, but against a court order we don’t know how to even get in contact with them, because we haven’t been told where they live, so get off your high horse.... especially when he couldn’t afford to pay CM and do I did it for him. Things are not always that black & white.