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.

So remove the discount. The father can buy six fewer pints of lager each month and the child can have a new pair of school shoes or a week's worth of lunches.

They had unprotected sex with her! That was making a choice.

"I can see the argument that as it is the woman's decision whether to have the child, she should be responsible for the child."

Seriously? If a man doesn't want to have a child he uses a condom properly or has a vasectomy.

If you can’t afford to keep getting different women pregnant then don’t!
To be fair, surely that cuts both ways across the genders?

How did I stereotype them?

If the discount is only seven quid a week then I'm sure they can cut back on something they are buying for their own benefit and give it to their child instead.

It does, except that women are usually the resident parents and usually have no choice but to pay for the majority of their child's living costs because the alternative is abandoning their child by the side of the motorway.

It's touted as being the ideal while hinting that resident parents are money grabbers ignoring the real problems of non resident parents who refuse to pay or ones who pay sporadically ones who quit jobs and ones who work cash in hand to avoid paying and yes its a problem because if it wasn't child maintenance would be downgraded as they would have no work to do, face it a computer with very little oversight can calculate payments and generate letters instead they have people lots of them and they are BUSY five hours for a one hour call back yesterday because she was so busy that's five hours dealing with non paying parents

This is such an interesting debate. I only wish ANY of the major political parties gave a flying fart about this issue and actually promised to create a better deal for RP and children. As far as I recall all the Tories have done is start charging RP for bothering to look for the other parent. (Not trying to make this into a political battle, more just saying that things have gone backwards if anything.)

I asked around some of my friends whose parents are divorced, the overwhelming majority had dads who didn't pay anything. And these aren't stereotypical feckless men getting a different woman pregnant every year. These are situations where the parents were together for decades or married, and the dads are well off - things like academics, business owners, working for the civil service even fgs.

I think the point is that women generally have to think about this anyway since typically in the event of a split they have to find the money for everything (barring whatever paltry sum the dad pays if anything). That's the point of the thread.

Are you a NRP @Housesellingnightmare or do you just live with one? Either way I hope you/they pay for the kids.

Well I think we need to increase the amount AND remove the discount.

And if the man can't pay the government should top up and consider it a debt he needs to repay as and when he can.

If he decides to deliberately live in poverty for the next 30 years just to avoid paying then I hope he enjoys his shitty life.

Well I think we need to increase the amount AND remove the discount

So only the first children count?

FFS if a man works for the bloody civil service then how hard can it really be to find him and make him pay child support?

No, he needs to find a way of paying for all of his children and if that means he is accruing and paying off debt for the rest of his life then so be it.

I am angry about these men refusing to pay for the kids they have brought into the world, yes.

I think it should be mandatory to tick a box with your employer and fill out a form with details of your children and their other parent so that the money comes directly from your wage to the resident parent's account. If you don't tick the box/complete the form you should face prosecution for fraud. The trouble is that the onus is on the resident parent (usually the mother) to jump through hoops to get any money at all. Many don't through fear of abuse from that parent, pity because the other parent is finding things tough or pride/anger and not wanting to have anything from that person at all.

Well as a taxpayer I really don’t want to pick up the tab for this.