To be AMAZED at this cms calculation?

[whatnowws]

Recently split from DS’s dad. He won’t communicate or see ds, so after several weeks I contacted cms. They are getting in touch with him but… the claim is for 730 a month?!? He earns almost 80k? How can this be right?

meanwhile, I’m earning 46k and paying 1,700 in nursery costs and all other costs for ds?

how on earth is that supposed to be fair?! This calculation is also assuming he continues not to see ds. If he wants him a night or more then costs reduce further… basically he can do what he wants and I’m expected to pick up the financial pieces no matter what.

I totally understand your frustration - it isn’t fair and the patriarchy is indeed still thriving.
However, it isn’t a lack of intelligence causing women to make the comments you’ve taken against; it’s the repeated experience of all the things you are so shocked and outraged about. You sound really hurt and betrayed, it’s awful what has happened to you and your son. Sadly, it’s all too common and in a much wider context your salary, having your own home and the nursery fees are all privileges many women sharing a similar experience don’t have. Take a moment to think of all the blame, stigma, policies and hateful headlines aimed at single mums from lower income backgrounds who also have the extra burdens of not being able to earn a decent wage, the stability of their own home and CMS of over £700 a month. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have the right to be angry and disgusted too.

I have no practical experience but you could speak to a solicitor or women’s aid and see if there are any other avenues at all to explore. It’s outrageous that his contribution should be 15% of his income!!!

It’s not a race to the bottom of how shit we can feel as women though, Is it. Imo this is a ridiculous and very stupid argument. Of course his dad should be contributing 50%. As a minimum!!! What on earth is the point of looking at other women around us and considering how they’ve really got feck all. Come on now it’s 2024.

Your position is awful but needs a different thread.

Just because it was in the evening standard doesn't automatically make an infallible fact. Also that is just an average. That there will also be a distribution of people paying higher than that.

All day nurseries in my town now charge at least £90 for under 2s and that is outside of London. Only 4 years ago I was paying £64 per day.

Despite all the hundreds of posts on MN about the crippling cost of childcare some people still refuse to believe it. We aren't all just making it up so we've got something to moan about.

it sounds massively unfair, why doesn’t he have to pay half of the nursery costs??? Can you take him to court and get more maintenance? You read about all these high profile cases where one spouse claimed 100s of thousands a year because that’s their current lifestyle …

Well it sounds grossly unfair to me. The fact that other posters receive even more measly amounts does not make it right! Even taking into account his tax payments, he will still be bringing home more than you and get you are having to pay the mortgage on a larger house, more than half of nursery fees, clothes, food and clubs/activities. That said, the only real silver lining in this is that, although it is inevitably hard work being a single Mum, you do get to maintain a really special relationship with your daughter and in a few years time your childcare bill will be reduced. Hopefully though they don't then reassess his contribution. Admittedly i don't know how these things work.
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You will be entitled to tax free childcare so look into that

I assume you will claiming child benefit?

Nursery fees that high aren’t forever, but you can try to come to a private arrangement with your husband to pay more/towards childcare - he could be responsible on his days of having the child

as an example- my ex pays what CMS states on the calculator but will also pay for school trips, half of uniform costs, before/after school clubs on days he needs it etc etc

It was a suggestion from someone that she could reduce her hours and get UC instead of her ex paying. I don't understand why so many women think it's ok for OP to pay most of the childcare costs rather than split with her ex 50/50 so they can both work if that's what she wants to do. I agree, why don't they support each other. Honestly baffled.

The replies to this thread 💀

The 'you should be grateful ' police out in full force.

Men should pay half the costs of bringing up their own kid.

And no, £44K is not 'a very high salary' FFS.

This is why we can never have nice things in this country

You are on a VERY high income to start with, and then you get this massive extra top up

This is the crux of it. Paying for a child is the responsibility of the mother - or maybe the state if she isn't earning a VERY high income - but anything the scumbag dad (who is earning double the VERY high income the OP is - so maybe a VERY VERY high income then) throws in is a "top up".

Minding the child 24/7 is what the mother does. If the father sees him at all that's a bonus (unfortunately not one the OP is getting from her particular scumbag)

Mothers are responsible for their children. Dads are kind of a sprinkle of fairy dust that may take or may not - ah well, what can you do? And loads of mothers on this site agree with this.

Some posters are so harsh. I feel for you. No it shouldn't be up to you to cover more than him.

He'll still be bringing home a lot more than his child's mother who is paying all the child's costs and doing all the work

Sorry OP I know how crap this is and as for the comments where you should be grateful if you get more that £5 a month - gosh.

CMS is never fair, always the minimum.

I know great dads that see sense and fairly contribute (spoiler: it's always MORE than the CMS calculation) - on top of CMS will willingly pay their 50% share for school trips, uniform, clubs, nursery fees, take them for haircuts...

Sadly my children's father is a very well paid tightwad who LOVES CMS calculation as he uses it as a "but that's what the GOV states I should pay" argument and thinks he "pays for everything"

It's the absolute basic based on the living standards based on income. I finally got him to agree to pay for secondary school trips but it's taken me years of arguing.

The worst part is whilst you are doing all the childcare graft, they generally get the time to climb the career ladder, earn more, and you fight to keep your head above water in your own job and progress takes a backseat.

Ex has done very very well out of this and honestly what he pays in his little CMS costs is a bargain for the graft I do and the freedom it gives him.

Chin up.

Families who have an income that's a small fraction of ops get top ups from universal credit so it's almost the same as op

This.
Some of the posts on here are utterly depressing.
The CMS amount is clearly inadequate. He should be paying half the costs, including childcare, which enables both of you to work. He should also be caring for him on a regular basis, many dads have their children 50/50 now. If he wants to be a useless, selfish, deadbeat, he should pay more.

Unless he moves in with a girlfriend and then starts asking for 50/50 like my ex

Use the first CMS payment and book a couple of hours with a solicitor and explore the possibility of a Schedule 1 order.

It's awful. I hope your childcare bill goes down soon.
The only thing I can suggest doing is call his mum and tell her and ask her to have a word with him or help you out herself.

Or as another poster said until he has other children and it gets reduced. She added a cheery LOL at the idea of OP getting less money.

Race to the bottom for cms (I have to pay him for the privilege of rearing his children on my own so be glad you get 2 pounds fifty for 3 children every month)

Complete belief that the state should pick up for men (have you checked UC, OP, even though you earn 45k and he earns 85k -maybe the taxpayer can help)

Absence of any idea of expecting better from men. So many poster read that the OP's ex has NO contact with his child but still - he shouldn't pay for you to go out to work. But no condemnation on OP carrying the majority of the financial load and all - absolutely all - of the other load.

But I did particularly like the poster who suggested maybe OP wouldn't like it if her ex - the one who doesn't see his own child - got involved in decisions about nursery etc. that was so sweet really.

I agree he should be paying half of all the costs for your DS but as someone else said once he’s no longer in nursery / gets the 30 hours childcare your childcare costs will go down significantly. He will then be contributing way more than half of what it costs to look after DS, so it’s worth it in the long run.

The CMS isn’t fit for purpose and is inherently unfair to the RP. The previous CSA was wound up because it had racked up £3.8 billion in uncollected payments and it was easier to start again and write this off than enforce it. When the new CMS was set up in its place with ‘enhanced’ powers of enforcement, RPs with an active CSA claim had to pay £20 to have the case moved over or allow the accrued debt to be written off. After a year on the new system, if no payments could be collected, the case was cancelled along with the debt. DS’s dad ended up paying £0 and he’s 24 now.

CMS is no better and actually worse in some ways. The NRP is only required to pay 15% for one child, 20% for two or more assuming they have no overnight visits. This is entirely based on the income reported to HMRC which can be legitimately reduced by increased pension contributions or receiving dividends for example. No other income is taken into account, such as rental income.

Then to add insult to injury, they charge 20% on top of the payments to the paying parent and further reduce that amount by 4% from the receiving parent (under collect and pay), all money that should be going to the benefit of the child/ren. There’s around £615 million currently in unpaid maintenance under CMS. It may have changed recently, but last time I looked into this, CMS had never used any of the enforcement powers available to them since 2012.

Other countries don’t seem to have the same issues, perhaps because they take it more seriously. I’m seriously sick of it and would happily get involved in a campaign to make the state take this seriously as it is the children who ultimately suffer.

I’m sorry you’re in this position op. I know the worst thing about it is having to swallow yet another injustice despite doing the right thing yourself.

Does anyone find it funny that we're meant to pay lip service to the "dads matter" and "dads are equally important too" mantra, when there are dads out there who hardly see and pay a pittance for their children and people think it's fine because they do all they're legally obliged to do? What would happen if mums threw £7 a month at their children and then yelled at them to get out of their sight?

You could kill off all the dads in this country and replace them with ATMs full of cash and yes, many (hopefully most) children would be emotionally "impoverished" to some degree as they'd lose out on the weekly playground trip, the occasional school run and the odd bit of help with homework. Some (the minority of kids with equally involved dads) would lose out more. But a not insignificant number of kids would be better off if their useless fathers were wiped from the earth and replaced with a wad of cash. Most children would still be cared for on a day-to-day basis. By their mums.

But do the opposite - eliminate the mums - and suddenly you have a bloody huge problem as there are a lot of kids who aren't even being provided with basic, loving day-to-day care by a parent and all the money in the world can't provide that.

And folk have the temerity to say that "dads are equally important", when they're let off with so little a lot of the time. This might be true in some individual cases, but as a group if they want this to be true then they need to start stepping up. But they won't so long as everyone's expectations for them are in the gutter.

To be fair I just ran the op figures through entitled to and assuming she has a mortgage she’d get £540 quid in UC a month. It is a bit shitty to have to claim benefits but it’s only due to high childcare costs. The OP will be paying more in tax than she’d get in UC.

It’s a badly designed system much better to have affordable childcare and / or a tax advantage for resident parents ( like every other western country) rather than an oddly convoluted system.

Not really. He won’t be significantly paying than half. His contribution will go towards wrap around care (childcare costs don’t disappear once they start school), providing a room for his ds (OP obviously has to have a second bedroom to accommodate THEIR child) providing food, out of school activities and clothes. There are many costs associated with bringing up your child as a single parent - essentially what the OP is, as her ex doesn’t see his son. Might be paying a little over half, but certainly not ‘way more’ than half.