To think this is scandalous yet in plain sight because the patriarchy has no shame

[Webjisroommate]

A year ago I separated from my DD’s father and she was in the middle of her first year of nursery. He paid the cms amount every month, without fail. This was 360 a month, even though I was left to pay over 1,300 on nursery fees alone. Obviously the situation has now changed slightly with the hours but his 360 contribution is quite literally nowhere near half her costs. I have spoken about this with other mum friends and have learned that 360 is actually pretty fortunate! Some women are being paid less than 200 and others have to chase cms when their ex is self employed. I was not aware of any of this before having Dd.

My career is now hugely clipped as I am doing 95% of childcare while ex sees her a day a week… the day I use mostly to clean and get the house in order to start the week again. And yes, I suggested 50/50, he didn’t want that.

I honestly feel like this is a huge joke player on women in plain sight while nothing is actually done about it?! I also can’t fathom how HMRC can chase tax from the self employed but Cms can’t chase these men to pay for their children. It’s a disgrace. Why is this allowed to happen?!

Yes. He was subsidising her lifestyle. That’s my point. Not popular opinion on here.

@PippyLongTits I wrote to my MP yesterday. Although I have never been a lone parent, I believe the system needs to change.

@CornishIrish both men and women. Unfortunately there are natural consequences for both when wrong choices are made around choosing a partner or to have children

If he did half the parenting he wouldn't have been "subsidising" anything.

It's utterly shameful.

If she was working less than full time to enable her to be a present parent then no that is not "subsidising her lifestyle". I actually really enjoy my full time job and wouldn't choose part time but this year my teen kids with ASD and various other issues have made it incredibly hard to work FT. If I could have fewer hours / days to be there for them both physically and emotionally they would benefit. Sadly ex only pays the legal.minimum he can and does fuck all. If he did contribute more fairly our kids would have at least one parent who can properly support them in time and energy.

ALL absent fathers claim that they’re subsiding their ex’s lifestyle. Mine paid £50 a week (for three kids). That’s less than £17 per WEEK per child or £2.20 per DAY. It wasn’t even a tiny fraction of what it cost to raise them, never mind an equal contribution with me skimming money off the top. He’d still tell his friends and anyone that would listen that I was “rinsing” him for maintenance.

How much was he paying a month?

He was paying £450 a month. He was on 35k a year. Not a big earner.

For how many kids?

And how old?

@GentlemanJay Even for 1 child that is not more than it costs to raise a child. Costs per month for 1 child are between 938 and 1030 on average. So you can reassure your friend he still isn't covering half the cost of raising his child, let alone subsidising his ex!

Well that's not subsidising anything is it? Exactly how much do you think children cost?

That figure is very high end will be skewed by the costs of childcare.

There's no way we spend anywhere near that amount on our boys.

That's a ridiculous figure in 2 parent households taking the lower figure of £938.

Just for the children alone you would need £1876

Add in mortgage or rent
CT / utilities / phones
Food
Car/petrol
Internet
And even in 2 parent households you are going to be at a higher figure than lot of people earn.

So by your calculations most children are not getting what they need.
There is no way in the earth that we spend anywhere near that figure

Our two don’t cost anywhere near that.

It may have been. Child maintenance is not counted towards benefits income. .So could work part time get. £150 then another £ 200 or so on benefits. Then any money the father pays on top is added to this. Without reducing benefits whereas if she worked more then benefits would reduce

You are missing the point. He was quite happy to have them 50% of the time. He was quite happy to contribute in the same way his ex was.

I think the biggest cost apart from childcare is the difference in cost of a one bedroom property and a 2-3 bed. That alone could be £1000 a month.

I’ve never lived in a one bed property, even if I had, I’ve never lived anywhere that it would cost £1,000 to have an additional couple of bedrooms, or £2,000 to have an additional couple. The three bed flat I bought was far cheaper per month than the two bed flat I had been renting.

Then you are killing two birds with one stone. If men are forced to pay maintenance even if they are prefectly happy to walk away from their own child, then they will think twice before having a child they do not truly want if it will hurt their pockets to have one.

Why didn't he then? Did he go to court? You mentioned teenagers, did they not want to live with him?. All very well saying he would have done xyz, but he wasn't.

Lucky you. Housing is expensive in lots of places.

But that's completely hypothetical. We already owned a three bedroom property before we had kids, so our housing costs remained static.

You'd have to make major assumptions regarding people only renting/owning properties with the exact number of required bedrooms in order to apply the housing costs in that way.

The 'average' will include what some people pay for childcare, private education, luxury holidays, pony ownership, university costs, etc. the modal (as in modal average, not mean or median) cost would be far more revealing.