Aibu to think not paying maintenance should be grounds for blocking contact

[Whypaymumwillsavetheday]

I’ve always gone along with ‘the child’s right to contact with their parent comes before any disputes over money’, ‘maintenance isn’t linked to contact’ ‘it’s not pay per view’. I’m now starting to think it is not in the best interests of a child to have a relationship with a parent who is unwilling and/or unable to provide the basic necessities. If I was to disregard my child’s needs in the same way, there would likely be serious intervention from social services. What is the difference?

My ex and I have 3 children. He was so angry with me he refused to pay maintenance for our DC. Youngest had to come out of fee paying school he was settled in. Eldest was off to uni. Middle child totally bewildered. I had to stop his horse riding lessons and had to say no to school ski trip all his friends went on. At 14 I told him it was all because his shit Dad refused to pay maintenance. Eventually CSA made him pay. Made his employer pay it out his salary every month and I got the back pay too. But too late for D's to go on school trip. It ruined the children relationship with their Dad. My 3 kids are all adults now. Eldest dd rarely sees her Dad or he sees grandkids. Middle child no longer sees his Dad. He moved into his own house last October. His Dad has never even seen it. Youngest still sees his Dad occasionally but recognises he is selfish. It is exh own fault.

I don't agree....I think if people are unwilling to support their children then they lose their rights to contact...end of

In my friends DC case her ex was forced to pay via CMS and when having DC he use to tell them mum steals all his money and the reason he can't do x,y&z with them is because he has no money because the robbing *'s from the CMS take it to give it to their mum.

He also send a pathetic begging letter to my friend asking her to drop the CMS claim because "surely you and partner earn enough money not to need maintenance for kids".

It took three years to get the slimey git to pay up;he's still in arrears.

I honestly believe that if he had a choice between either having contact or not paying maintenance then he'd go no contact.

What would you say about a resident parent who doesn't work and openly admits this is because they get enough maintenance that they don't have to? Should they lose contact?

I also believe parents who have an affair should forfeit the right to shared custody.

Wtf. Who punishes their child for their own failed relationship. Pathetic.

Children should not be used as bargaining chips, end of. We need a better enforcement system for absent parents, more mechanisms to get maintenance where they are self employed or living off savings, but most of all there should be a culture starting with mediation that parents take a 50:50 role in the upbringing so no maintenance is actually required.

We as women do need to take some responsibility by ensuring that we are in established relationships with financial security even if not married before we have children and not have more than we can afford to bring up if they worse happens eg I know two widows with young children through my work.

A large number of the deadbeat dad stories on here are serial offenders, they will never change, don't have babies with them!

The child support payment system is very different from the USA system, which is a state law based system. If the non-custodial parent does not pay, then the state pays the custodial parent and chases the non-payer for reimbursement.
One judge got the bright idea of taking away the Driver's Licenses of all failure-to-pay parents. In one week the county collected over $500,000 in back child support. Men will pay for what they really want.

I never said it was acceptable, rather situations that I knew of…

I disagree with the idea that a non-paying parent is necessarily neglecting a child. If non-paying parent knows their non-payment will not affect what is spent on the child, because the RP will make up the difference out of their income, then they are harming the RP, not the child.

The idea that maintenance benefits the children is probably true in the majority of cases, but whenever I read it in threads like these, it feels manipulative and dishonest to me. There is a reason "think of the children" is a joke meme, it's an emotional and manipulative argument that's used in many contexts.

@fUNNYfACE36 but financial abuse is also "sick". And withholding maintenance is financial abuse.

And although I don't think stopping contact is the solution,, I do think anyone who commits this financial abuse should be barred from seeking increased contact.

@Getoff yes you are right. When my ex withheld maintenance my children didn't go without food. But I did. Regularly. So I guess that's ok?

I didn't say it was OK.

Surely if you lost your job and had no income you would claim benefits, those benefits would include money specifically for the children so the tax payer is actually providing for the children in those circumstances. A NRP who becomes disabled or loses their job does not get benefits for the child so is in a different position.

If parents have money then of course they should support their child/children RP or NRP.

Denying a child the right to have a relationship with the none resident parent is disgusting.
Dress it up how you like, but it is still using that child as a weapon to score points.
It's not about the parents, it's about the child, and money shouldn't come between the child and parent, however much it annoys you.
Horrible behaviour from a resident parent who should know better.

But there could be cases where it is OK. I have in mind an RP with an income from working of 115K, 2 million pounds in savings, her savings being so high in part because she contributed an insignificant amount to joint finances in her long marriage, because she thought it was a man's duty to support his wife. As it happens, he does pay, but I believe there would be no overall financial injustice if he left it to her.

I think men that are capable of financial abuse (as I would view this if they are choosing to withhold money from their child) would also be likely to be capable of other forms of abuse too. I don't think that contact with an abusive parent is always better for the child in any way shape or form - although the child may of course not recognise it as abusive themselves because it's all they know and they are desperate to be loved.

To me people are looking at this the wrong way around, it's not about the child being a bargaining chip to get money out of the father, it's about whether a father who refuses to provide financially for a child is going to meet the child's emotional and physical needs. You have to look at exactly why they are withholding the money and a blanket decision either way can't assess that.

I would prefer to see court orders that are reinforced by criminal action/ jail time for non-payers. Drink driving has become unacceptable - not supporting your family when you are able should be the same.

Um no. You wrote a long post about how terribly your ex treats your child then said contact should be pay for view. You do realise that works both ways? You want to reduce contact if he doesn't pay, so you'd increase contact if he pays more.

Surely it's bloody obvious.

Dress it up how you like, but it is still using that child as a weapon to score points.

Yes. Many of the posts on this thread prove that.

At least I think (?) we can all agree that paying the debt to the child should be rigorously enforced. But it won't be while the government is so male.

So much hand wringing for these ''poor fathers'' who so easily divest themselves of responsibility yet so little consideration for the mothers who have no choice but to deprive themselves to provide for their children. Rather than prevent contact, I would however prefer to see non-payment of maintenance criminalized as it is in many other countries. Too many men see maintenance as unnecessary, preferring for the mother to deprive herself to meet the child's needs.. the lack of consequences just makes it so easy for men to further abuse women and by extension their children.

I agree. I think that parents should provide financial support where they are able to, but there should be means to enforce that that do not involve loss of parental contact. There are lots of things that make people unfit parents, but not paying maintenance isn't one of them. Does the OP intend to extend their draconian principal to removing every child from a parent they deem "unfit"?

So much hand wringing for these ''poor fathers''

Eh? Can you quote those posts?

You’re looking at this the wrong way

contact is about a child’s right to see their parent

even if you have your child removed as in your example ss would still allow contact as long as it was in the best interests of the child

I feel you pain, truly I do, as a kid who never met their dad raising a kid who hasn’t seen hers since she was 2 and certainly never received any financial support, I feel you

but this was never about fathers rights, it’s about the child’s rights

Nothing will change until we change how parenting is viewed.

As long as dad's are seen as an optional extra just there to provide the money but not really as equal parents then they'll always think its ok to walk away.

We need to move away from viewing EOW as the norm post split. Shared care should be the aim.

But I have a feeling lots of women dont want that either

We also need to be looking at why society raises men to be shit dads.

There haven't been any posts like that on here. No one is arguing that fathers should be able to not pay CM without consequences, but withholding contact is not in the best interest of the child and never will be.

It's not about 'poor fathers ' or 'poor mothers' and this post only illustrates that the OP's suggestion is indeed beneficial to mum but not to her child.