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?

You must realise what a stupid comment that is? The kids never see a fruit or vegetable at her house and their personal hygiene is appalling.

Do the kids have scurvy?

Do they shower multiple times a week? Do they have clean undergarments, tshirts and trousers each day?

If the answers are "no", "yes" and "yes", she's doing fine.

Pay child maintenance and perhaps there will be more fresh produce and the clothes will be newer.

I made the point that she claims to be penniless, uses food banks

Food banks provide fruit and vegetables. 🤔

@formerbabe

Don't you need a referral from a doctor/hv/ss etc to access a food bank?

@formerbabe no, silly. You just rock up in your 4x4 in between hair and nail appointments to claim your free tins of beans then speed off into the distance, laughing.

Allegedly.

Giveup why not pay your maintenance instead of going to court for access? Then later on try and establish contact? The money will make their lives easier.

@Givenupno even if you're the exception, why are you filling this thread with your unusual situation? You should start your own thread.

This is always the situation when women voice issues, there becomes a 'not all men' argument. The fact is that more men shirk parental responsibility therefore it is a male issue, of course not all men but it is still a male issue.

Mad ex = I don't want people to think I am the bad guy, a cad, a feckless twunt so I will tell everyone she is unhinged, mad, crazy and they will feel sorry for me and see that I had to leave.

The truth is that once we split, and she realised she is better off without me, she was no longer prepared to put up with my nonsense and I don't like that...so I will just tell lies about her.

Unfortunately, this only works with people who don't know her.

@dontdisturbmenow

There are many reasons why men don't pay and it's not all black and white.

I say that as a single mum for many years who didn't get a penny from my ex despite him seeing them eow.

I could have gone through CSA but he was dreadful with money and I knew it would made him even more stressed and depressed which would in turn impact on his relationship on his kids.

He then became self employed and I knew that getting anything through the CDA would just be a lot of stress for little coming in.

I found it easier and less stressful to budget everything with the certainty of what I earned even if at times, it meant being very right and having to do without some things.

I did it all for my kids and them only. They don't remember the things we missed out on (easily forgetable) but do have the memories of good times with their dad, and to me that was priceless.

As to him, he is the one who has to live with his conscience.

But that is exactly it- ina nutshell. Men don't pay, and women accommodate- for their kids. My ex always paid ( the minimum, but he paid), so I know I'm lucky. You could insert any kind of behaviour in your post- Ex didn't pay/ see them/ make them a priority/ .... I didn't make a fuss, and just accommodated for my kids.

It IS the right thing to do, but it is also how those men get away with it. Because we accommodate...

Not having a go, by the way
🙂

Alternatively, stop electing misogynists. [] Why didn't Labour sort it in their 13 years of power then???

Not sure why you equate Labour with being somehow less misogynistic that the Tories ? Especially the NuLabour project which was effectively a budget Tory party. They'd have never been elected if they'd made it a manifesto pledge to really sort out non-paying parents.

@Iverunoutofnames

I have a friend whose ex pays her £5 a week for their DS. She won’t ask him for more as she’s scared he will stop seeing him the one night a month he does. He has older children he pays properly for. He’s had a new baby with the woman he lives with. She’s too scared of her son being fatherless to push it though.

#She should do it. If that is his opinion -it's no great loss. Money should not be used to hold someone over a barrell.

I've been on both sides of this argument. I was brought up by my dad when my parents split and my mum didn't pay a penny in maintenance. My dad earned a high salary and, as was common in the '70's, he didn't persue it because there was nowhere to go. The courts told him to pass me back to my mother!
I had 3 children from my first marriage and their dad always paid. No trouble there. I remarried and had another child, that marriage didn't work out and his attitude was that I was getting benefits for!

I don't get benefits now but he does and that absolves him of any responsibility according to CMS. They can get £7.50 a week off him, but it's not worth the bother ( he's abusive and there's no contact). I really think a lot of women are in this position, abusive ex's that would make their lives a misery if they persued the father.

IMO I think the American system is the best one, if my ex thought his credit rating would be affected he'd soon pay up.

To be fair there’s a lot of parents that have a child with someone and end up in a bad situation emotionally and financially. Yet continue to have children a lot of the time to that same person. It’s complex but there’s no way I could put my DC under finial strain knowingly his dad can’t even be arsed to pay for one child let alone continue to have more. We can’t expect CMS to sort this out.

Righto I will use the less than £100 a week I get to live off and try and entertain the kids with when I have them to send to her

If she would accept the financial settlement offered rather than having six figures sat in a bank account that we can’t access I would have more benefits and would both have a significant lump sum to live off.

Doesn’t suit the image she is trying to portray either. But clearly you all know her and me and all the ins and outs

To qualify for legal aid in family court, giveupno's ex would have to satisfy a cheap and reluctant system that there was domestic violence. Add that to the responses we've seen, and I think it paints a picture.

www.gov.uk/legal-aid/domestic-abuse-or-violence

Not sure why you are surprised when our very own PM doesn't pay for all of his children.
Also if an NRP doesn't communicate then they take the previous years' earnings which is often considerably less even if you can prove that they are earning more.

@formerbabe

she regularly sends them in filthy clothes that don’t fit, pay for all their haircuts as otherwise they would never get done, pay for their phones, and recently just purchased them each a laptop to help with home schooling and fees them the only decent meals they get all week when they are with me

Taking this on face value, she is extremely unusual going by what you say. I don't know any women who don't feed their DC a decent meal or dress them appropriately

Really? Maybe because I work in an underprivileged school, but parents who do this sort of thing are not as unusual as you'd wish. I don't see a whole lot of difference between mothers and fathers with regards to that kind of neglect.

@Givenupno stop being a selfish, aggressive non-parent and PAY FOR YOUR KIDS. Don't spend all your money fighting their mother, causing her even more stress on top of funding them, just do the decent thing and pay what you should. And get a job, Jesus.

I'm genuinely confused

You live on less than £100 a week but offered her a grand a month? You have a six figure amount in the bank which neither of you can touch and your ex uses food banks?

Some men seem to think it is paying to see their child rather than paying to keep them. With an argument of I don't see them when I want so why should I pay - because they need food, heat and shelter wether you see them every weekend or not.

It simply shouldn't matter who the child is living with, the other parent should contribute fairly towards their upkeep.

Sadly, this is not always the case and their are loopholes to get out of paying the right amount are all too easy. Obviously it's not all men and most are really good, but yes the ones who do want to worm out of it have been doing so for too long.

Not sure why you are surprised when our very own PM doesn't pay for all of his children.

Is that a confirmed fact ?

I have a DS who has just turned 18, I split up with his father when he was a baby and haven't received a penny in the whole 18 years. Frankly I get that I earn way more than he does and I understood this before getting pregnant, so I haven't wasted a moment worrying about it, but it is frankly pitiful that it goes on.

@Shinebright72

To be fair there’s a lot of parents that have a child with someone and end up in a bad situation emotionally and financially. Yet continue to have children a lot of the time to that same person. It’s complex but there’s no way I could put my DC under finial strain knowingly his dad can’t even be arsed to pay for one child let alone continue to have more. We can’t expect CMS to sort this out.

What about people have one child? Are they entitled to have CMS? I know plenty of women who stuck with one child as they knew after the first that their partner wasn’t who they thought they were. Then split and their ex refuse to pay maintenance. Are they allowed to use CMS as they were good and didn’t choose to have more children? Remember some people only show their true colours after they split.

Not sure why you are surprised when our very own PM doesn't pay for all of his children.
I very much doubt that is true, and have never heard it suggested by anyone who would actually know.

@Alex50

I worked for it in its previous existence. In those days the ethos really was "go for the easy ones". There was very little in the way of staff to do investigations and if an absent parent claimed self employed then there was no way to investigate the net profit declared. We did have links to IR and HMCE but the parent would be an idiot to supply different figures. With the massive staff cuts since I doubt that it is any better. I'll be very interested in how far the JR gets!

@Givenupno just PAY some fecking money towards the upkeep of your kids! They’re the ones who suffer when they have a parent like you, controlling and obsessed with what the other parent is supposedly doing with ‘their’ money.

God I hope I’m never in the positions where I have to deal with this sort of feckwittery.

Your kids will see through this when they’re older - you know that don’t you? One day they will turn round and realise that you made their lives that little bit harder out of bitterness toward their mother - who incidentally they will worship when they realise how tough it must have been for her to raise them

I personally would like to see child maintenance built into the tax system. If it is possible to do this for student loans, It could be done for CM. If there was a disagreement between the parties, it could be paid by both parties, then go into a common fund that provided childcare costs first and then get split according to a formula based on income. Obviously it wouldn’t be perfect but I’m sure it could be worked on. HMRC have tools for dealing with directors who take dividends and the self-employed, it seems ridiculous not to use these.