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?!

@EnterFunnyNameHere @BorisJohnsonsPhysique
You've both essentially said the same thing, and basically reinforced my point, so replying to both :)

Yep, £10k is probably waaaay short of what it actually costs. My thinking was (kind of like a dowry), a child should not be even considered until the woman (particularly) has savings sufficient to maintain her and her baby, for I'd say at least a year or two to cover the (actually quite likely) case of things hitting the fan. The fact that you've both said £10k probably doesn't even cover a year shows you how utterly irresponsible most people are when having kids, because divorces are common, women are often out of work during this period, and men are scumbags!

Others have asked whether I am saying only the rich should have kids. Well, if it actually costs this much to take care of one properly, there is a reasonable chance that you'll be alone while doing it, and you would legitimately struggle to fund the endeavour... are you actually having a baby for the right reasons? It makes it seem like "because I want one" is the overriding reason, when it should be "because my foundation is stable enough to actually do this properly".

teenagers tend to stay in the family home. They chose to stay with their mum. He spent a lot of time with them. They chose to sleep at their mums. That’s how CM is calculated. Where they sleep. So still a hands on dad.

What’s the point in spending thousands to go to court for an order, when the kids want to sleep in the home they have grown up in.

Also he was single. No new partner involved.

He had a three bedroom house. Two bedrooms freshly decorated and chosen by the kids. In the hope they may stay more.

He lived 12 minutes away from children’s house but they insisted on going home most nights.

That is in total, not per parent. It includes childcare.

Well there's your answer then. He chose not to pursue additional contact which is why he had to pay more. I'm not sure why you think it would have been fair for him to neither parent nor fund his children. Why should mum have to do it all?

It does include childcare, but is averaged out over 18 years. So costs would be higher for younger children but lower in primary school age. Then increasing again as they get to teens and eat more/need more tech/school equipment and more expensive trips etc. Out of interest how much do you think you spend on your kids a month, and are you able to break that down?

I bought my flat in Shoreditch, our house is in Southern Stockholm.

I’m not disputing the average figure is higher than the costs to many people. That’s how averages work.

I’m talking about a typical situation for single mothers. They are often forced to leave the family home because it’s too expensive on one income, and have to rent. Your situation is obviously different in that I presume you’ve stayed in your marital home after a split and can afford the mortgage on one wage? Not many people can do that.

Without a hefty deposit a single mum would have very little chance of buying. Obviously they’d need enough bedrooms to meet the legal living standards for the children. That is far more expensive than it would be to house just themselves. In my area in the north, the difference between 1 and 3 beds would be around £700 a month. In London it would be much more. Are you saying that this isn’t a factor in the cost of raising children? Actually putting a roof over their head.

But you are looking at it from the point of view of a couple. For the purposes of this post if you separated then you would be starting from scratch, as a single parent with limited earning potential, whose partner would be walking away with no responsibility. The nrp should be able to be forced to support their kids whether with the rp or not if they do not do so willingly.

Well done. You earn more than a single mum on minimum wage.

He’s not even a single parent??? Jeez! What’s he arguing for? I assumed he was.

@ThisOldThang Come back when you’ve walked the walk!

Well my main point was that you were being unfair labelling people as irresponsible for not having 7years of child-rearing costs saved up before having a baby, which given you're now saying 1-2years instead means I think that you agree your opening stance was a bit harsh.

I also think that it's not going to be the thing that makes or breaks the situation though. As this thread shows, many (most?) woman never get back to their full earning potential after having kids. With the maintenance requirements being pathetically low, and many NRP either gaming the system or simply not paying, having a safety net is just delaying the inevitable. So whilst it's great to have, it doesn't "fix" the issue of the system being stacked against the RP who ends up bearing the brunt of the costs of child raising, whilst simultaneously being less likely to be able to earn a huge salary to pay for it all. All of which gets us back to - maintenance needs to be addressed such that both parents pay an appropriate/proportionate amount to bring up their child.

It's obviously hard to break down because some expenditure is 'lumpy', but we're fairly old fashioned in terms of how we do things.

The kids are still wearing hand-me-down clothing from their cousins. I appreciate not everybody has that available, but we're the sort of people that would happily buy children's clothes at jumble sales, charity shops, etc. My eldest son wears second hand school uniform (immaculate and only £1 an item). We buy Clarke's shoes in the sales (£22.50 for the last pair). Our biggest regular expense is currently weekly swimming lessons.

Day to day spending is just a bit of food and meals out at the local cafe or cheap and cheerful places such as nandos. Bigger ticket spending would be the all inclusive holiday that we took at Easter.

I'm guessing that the total spend is less than £6k per year for both boys and that includes holidays. If it wasn't for the pesky kids, we'd probably spend a lot more on holidays, meals out and socialising so our outgoings would actually increase.

For reference, I earned £97k last year and my wife has an income of around £45k.

OK so what does it cost you in housing? Extra council tax? Gas and electric? What is the cost of 'a bit of food' (it's a lot of food when they get to teens!)? Sanitary products for girls? Would you be earning that if you could only work school hours in the week? Or had to cover 13 weeks of school holidays? When you actually have to cover the full cost of these things on your own you become far more aware of them. You are comparing apples and pears. This post is about maintenance and more specifically my original post was about how a nrp paying 450 a month for an unspecified number of children was not in any way subsidising their ex's lifestyle as many seem to think.

Yes I know that it stil doesn't cost anywhere near that

So what does it cost? With a breakdown if you don't mind?

I don't need to break it down because your per a child per a month figure based on number of our children would be higher than the take home figure a month.
So if that figure was accurate we would be in deficit every month or unable to provide for them

The partner's income has nothing to do with his children.

@ThisOldThang how about when they're teens and need tech, want to not wear "embarrassing" clothes, do hobbies that cost £££ in fees or kit or travel, aren't amused by plodging in the park or woods. I'll spend £100 today taking mine to a theme park, with tickets and food. If you're really lucky maybe your kids will be into gardening or running or just hanging in the park but many aren't. It's not possible simply to say well we spend this so that is the cost.

The estimate is based on 1 child, costs for a 2nd/3rd won't be as high, for many reasons. A quick Google of costs of raising a child will show you the various figures quoted. Bit of you're unwilling to suggest a figure you would consider reasonable, and a breakdown of it I'm going to go ahead and presume you don't actually have any idea how much raising a child as a single parent does cost and presume you have nothing worthwhile to add to a thread about maintenance costs!

You’d be running 2 households on that joint salary if you were a single parent. That’s the point that so many people are missing.

how about when they're teens and need tech,

* Nobody 'needs' tech. Not even for GCSE coursework. It's a nice to have and I'm sure we'll buy it, but it's very much optional.

want to not wear "embarrassing" clothes

* If you're foolish enough to allow yourself to be bullied by your kids into buying designer clothes, that's on you.

do hobbies that cost £££ in fees or kit or travel

* If we can afford it, we'll probably fund it, but again that's an optional extra and far from the norm. It certainly isn't a 'right'.

aren't amused by plodging in the park or woods.

*\ 🤷‍♀️

I'll spend £100 today taking mine to a theme park, with tickets and food.

* I presume you didn't get into debt doing that.

I think people are confusing the necessary/unavoidable costs of raising a child with the optional extras such as luxury holidays, school fees, ponies, etc.

The point being single adult household or 2 adults household you can only budget to the money you have.
If RP you have income, benefits and maintenance of.NRP
If NRP you have income minus Maintenance

You can't change those figures
In our case both RP and NRP needed a home big enough to house the number of children in the family
Both needed clothes, food, toys/gadgets
Both did day trips and holidays
Both paid for uniform and school activities

Both had 50/50 shared of school holidays
Both had share of term time till RP moved away then the term time was less but CM went up

The children cost more per year because their core costs at our home was no different to my child but on top their was CM and school activities which as a couple we opted out of for our child but as RP decided the children had to do the cost came to us

So at least 2 kids.. 225/month per child. Yea, doesn't touch the sides. He isn't anywhere near covering half their costs. Whilst it must be heartbreaking for your friend that his kids aren't choosing to spend their time with him, I'm sure the reasons for that are complex. Generally parents reap what they sow in the longer term. If your friend has put time and effort into his kids they will come around longer term and he'll see more of them as they get older. Teens don't tend to want to spend much time with their parents whether they live with them or not, but it doesn't absolve him of his financial responsibility to them.

Apart from the fact that the rp will have their income limited I agree with a lot of that. But this thread is about non and low payments of maintenance and a nrp parent paying maintenance and paying for 50% of other costs is not what is being discussed, so your point is irrelevant.