Non resident parent's obligation to support their children

[MargotBamborough]

Another day, another thread about an unmarried woman separating from the father of her children.

This gets discussed a lot on here, but I can see the logic for why unmarried couples should not necessarily have any financial obligation towards each other when they separate. People should have the right to live together without being considered a single financial unit in the eyes of the law, and enforcing marriage-like obligations on people who have not chosen to get married seems wrong to me. Even if this results in some unmarried people, particularly women, making themselves financially vulnerable.

What I don't understand is why the non resident parent's financial obligation to support their children is so small. If the parents of two preschoolers separate, for example, how is the resident parent, who is most likely the mother, supposed to keep a roof over their children's heads if they can't work, and how can they work if they can't afford to pay two sets of childcare fees with the piss-poor contribution she is getting from the children's other parent?

I realise that even claiming the minimum that non resident parents are obliged to pay via CSA can be impossible sometimes - and that's a separate issue - but who on earth decided it was fair or reasonable that the non resident parent's obligation to pay should be limited to an amount which doesn't even touch the sides of the actual cost of raising their children?

I know it's another argument in favour of getting married, but that doesn't help resident parents in this situation, or indeed their children.

Does anyone have any bright ideas about how things could be changed to make the system fairer?

This is purely theoretical for me, but the injustice of it just grates. I've tried to use the gender neutral "resident parent" and "non resident parent" throughout, but we all know the reality, which is that it is usually women who get screwed over in this way, and I assume that is why the problem hasn't been addressed.

I understand where you are coming from but also think it sends out messages that NRPs (and it will mostly be fathers) are not fully accountable.

Not like us resident parents (mainly mothers) who are accountable for childcare, our jobs, feeding, clothing, handling bills, running a stable home, child’s physical and mental health etc.

I really do think a lot of people have this idea that divorced mothers are very well off. That the ex h stumps up half his income, or whatever, so that the ex wife can live a life of luxury whilst he lives on the breadline.
As had been shown on this thread that is often not the case.
Plenty of women who were married and only had children to that one man are really left in the crap when they break up.
Often these men don’t do enough childcare either so the mother is left in a weak financial position and has to provide the majority of childcare. It is very hard to work full time and be the sole/main carer not having a partner to pick up the slack.
This is different to getting pregnant to a virtual stranger and deciding to go ahead with the pregnancy.
I’m not getting into an argument about this, but it is different.
Other children should not factor into maintenance. Someone said it’s only 11% reduction, no it’s not.
NRP shacks up with ow. She has lots of children with a third party. The more dcs she has the less maintenance the nrp pays towards his children. That means the rp then has to find the difference. This can mean the dcs go without or the tax payer stumps up the bill. Either way that is not right.
The new woman’s children are not the responsibility of anyone except her and her ex.
Also if the nrp cannot afford more children with more women then tough shit.
Nobody ( as in the powers that be) care though.
I also think a lot of women are frankly complete arseholes. They choose to shack up with these feckless men who don’t contribute financially towards their existing dcs and they do their best to sabotage any relationship the nrp gad with his existing dcs.
Again if you want evidence if this just look at threads on here.

Yes @Daffodilwoman.

That's why I think that the amount a NRP pays towards his children should not be reduced if he has more children - his own or someone else's living with him - and it needs to be deducted from his income at source. If he is not on PAYE then it is more complicated but he should be required to pay a minimum amount assuming he is working full time on minimum wage, and if he can't pay then the state should top up the RP and consider the rest a debt repayable by the NRP with interest using a similar system to student loans, written off after 40 years.

That way if a man goes to really extreme lengths to avoid paying he will have to be content to live on the kind of income that doesn't allow him to go on holiday or have nice things.

If men think their debts are going to be written off after a few months then why would they pay them?

If they know that these debts will be hanging over their heads for 40 years if they don't pay, that's a much bigger incentive to just cough up.

I also think a lot of women are frankly complete arseholes. They choose to shack up with these feckless men who don’t contribute financially towards their existing dcs and they do their best to sabotage any relationship the nrp gad with his existing dcs.
This won't be a popular opinion, but didn't mother number one also choose to shack up with this financially feckless man? What makes her superior?

My ex wasn't financially feckless until we split up and he met his now wife. Like Ice said before, a crystal ball would be amazing.

So they fall for the same illusion you did?

Probably for some of them.

In my case she encouraged him not to pay. She phoned me up and laughed when they realised he could reduce his cm because he lived with her DC.

@Honeychickpea no, many many of us SP had children within marriage to a stable, committed men who took a full part in parenting. Until they got bored / met an ow / had a midlife crisis whatever.
The second group of women are maintaining relationships and having more children with a man she knows does not support his existing ones and fully supports that, even in some cases helping him by supporting him in working / earning less or being her childcare so he can pay little or nothing. Big difference there

So he fooled you into thinking he was a stable committed man until playing that part no longer suited him. Much, I suppose, as he is fooling the woman he is with now.

No, not really. People change. In our case he would have been putting on an act for well over a decade. I've read stories on here of men who funded and went through fertility treatment only to later disappear off. The women they go on to be with have full knowledge of his current status as an NRP and what he does or doesn't do for his kids, not at all the same. In my case, I would literally have needed a crystal ball, in his current wife's case, she just has to look at his actual conduct...which she does and seems not to mind.

No I don’t think it’s comparable.
The first relationship met and married when they were children free. Probably both working full time, both doing an equal share of the household chores.
The second woman knows the man has children and knows how little time and effort he puts into seeing them.
Of course there are exceptions. But, it’s really not the same is it. The second one knows he should be paying for his existing children and seeing them.
I’ve come across women who have fallen into the second category and then split up with the man, so he had dcs to 2 lots of women. When asked if they knew how he treated his first bunch of dcs they say yes, they just didn’t think he would be like that with their dcs.
Completely different.

Most are not 'arseholes'. They get stuck with arseholes who present as wonderful until women get pregnant. And all of a sudden it's a whole different ball game. It's fairly well accepted that abusive men ramp up the abuse when women get pregnant. And when you're pregnant, it's so much harder to leave. Harder again when a child is there. It's not 'easy' and women should be supporting each other rather than knocking each other down. AFAIK research has shown that it takes women a few attempts at leaving an abusive man before they successfully leave. For various reasons, often financial. Women need to support the f*ck out of each other in these cases, not judge.

But we're talking about women who get into a relationship with a man who is ALREADY behaving badly to his existing children. He may be great to her until she gets pregnant or further down the line but the point is she already knows he is a crap dad, whereas those of us who got left with the first family had no such evidence.

You are assuming that the man is honest with his new partner, which is very unlikely. They lie to their new partner , same as they lied to their former partner.

They claim that they can’t pay their share of their joint household costs because they are sending every spare penny to their greedy ex. How many women ask to see the bank statement to check ?

They claim that their evil ex is stopping them seeing their kids because she lied in court/ to social services / she turned the kids against him / he ran out of money fighting her in court / he didn’t want to make things toxic for the kids etc etc.

They have 101 excuses why it’s not their fault. You see it all the time on here - second wives / Gf bemoaning how their life with their new man would be perfect except for psycho ex who is out to destroy her life because she is jealous. When 90 % of the time the ex was glad to get rid of him.

I certainly wouldn't be getting pregnant to someone who can't afford to contribute to the household or couldn't bestir himself to get to court and organise formal contact with his existing children. I'd be wary (and was, when on line dating) of anyone who launched into tales of nasty ex wives.

Neither would I @BibbleandSqwauk . But you are probably smarter / less gullible than average. There’s an awful lot of daft lasses out there 😕