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?!

Always support the children. The man's choice in that ends at conception. It is that simple. They all no this, so there's really no justification in moaning or blaming women. Wrap it up or keep it to yourself if you don't want babies.

Indeed.
Most men want children. It adds to their status and if you want to believe the armchair 'manzone' philosophy, it demonstrates their fertility.

However now most men also want a wife that goes out and pulls her weight financially - the issue comes is that a great many are not as willing to step up and take over half the 'traditional' jobs that women did - like housework and childcare. So when they split, they are reluctant to do 'more work' with the kids, and are also acutely aware of how childcare could impact their career, so choose to prioritise that, not really caring that obviously the same applies to their wife, left to juggle all childcare alongside a job. This leaves women quite often compromised and in need of more financial support than if they had been willing to take on their share of raising the children that they created together.

In addition women and society is far more aware and focussed on what raises happy healthy children, and a number of men dont engage with that as a mutual endeavour - a behaviour which brings families closer together - they resent the lack of attention being solely on them, and are jealous of their own kids.

I've been banging this drum too, since it happened to me 21 years ago. Married with a toddler and a new born baby when ex-H decided it was all a bit too much like hard work and buggered off with someone else.

Wouldn't disclose his income at mediation, so had to go to court for the divorce. Then wouldn't adjust his contributions in line with inflation, then made out he was suffering financially and reduced his payments. Eventually took him to the CMS and discovered he'd been massively underpaying as his salary had gone up so much!!!!!! He protested vociferously and endlessly and got his new wife to write me some long letter about how mean I was taking money away from their new family. I honestly thought I might orbit the moon with rage.

Anyhow, it is scandalous and I wish there were some way of making these wankers pay their fair share and parent their fair share too. I'm also really sorry to hear that little has changed in the last two decades.

@dogmandu and sometimes the most intelligent thing to do is call a deadbeat a deadbeat and a condescending arse a condescending arse.

I thought there were two parents and they negotiate custody? In decent divorces they kind of do.

Women aren't solely in charge of whethet they get 50/50 custody.

They all no this, so there's really no justification in moaning or blaming women. Wrap it up or keep it to yourself if you don't want babies.

Does the same apply to women?

15% - lol. I am a single mum and spend 100% of my income putting a roof over my kids' heads, food on the table, driving them around and paying for all their school trips etc. Why is this somehow all my responsibility to shoulder, but their father is only expected to pay 15% of his income towards them? (Luckily my ex isn't a tight arse and actually does pay his fair share).

In theory, this is true. In practice, from what I've observed, many men on 50:50 parachute in various female relatives to do the childcare and labour for them or move in a new woman to do it, so in essence they carry on largely unhindered by parenting.

Yes ! agree with this as well.

'' How do you expect me to do 50%? I work.''

I actually heard this.
His wife was working full time doing all the drop offs and collections and covering for sickness. He obviously had not noticed this during their time together.

No. Women get pregnant, men don't. You can argue that women should make better choices, but ultimately once a child is conceived the man's responsibilities are cemented. No ifs no buts.

Or maybe 50/50 should be standard system and if either parent doesn't want this then it goes to court to decide how to split the time and financial support is agreed at the same time.

It's not straightforward for the father to get 50/50 and expensive to go to court

Reading this out of genuine interest and curiosity. I don't have children but two of my best friends are in completely different situations re CMS / maintenance payments even though their exes are very similar in terms of their jobs and what they earn (neither dad sees the kids very often). I don't understand how it all works? Are they meant to give a % of their wages? Or does it change depending on what the mum is earning? Or is it based on children's ages / how much time they spend with each parent?

Court is expensive? Bit like parenting then. If they can't be bothered, they stump up half the childcare bill, it's that simple.
If pre separation, dad was doing half the parenting, then I agree, it should be default, but realistically how often does that happen? Kids come before dads bank balance.

In this scenario I would force 50/50 on the father, or he pays for half the nursery fees plus usual CMS. His choice.

I do appreciate that doesn’t work in all scenarios though

We had a thread recently in which a number of male posters insisted that since women could get abortions (a very simple, easy and insignificant process, of course), they should have a right to abandon their child and not do as much as contribute a piddling amount per month. One of them actually called this "ethics". They were immovable in their view that the greatest injustice of biology is that they could not choose to terminate a pregnancy and they actually thought they were being incredibly magnanimous by accepting that women must be able to do this - but they should be compensated by consequence free sex and the "ethical" right to abandon their children. The right of a woman to bodily autonomy and the right of a child to be supported by the people responsible for its existence were nothing to their "right" to sex without consequences and to abandon children. You could not get them to see what they were doing. They were absolutely fixed and it was clear from their tone that they thought we were the ones lacking in comprehension and morality.

So I guess it really is as simple and depressing as that. Their desire for sex and no consequences trumps absolutely everything. And we are the problem.

I totally agree. I'm increasingly seeing posts that men shouldn't have to pay for/look after their kids as the woman should have aborted. As if having an abortion is as easy as getting a haircut and the woman should suffer if she doesn't have one. Absolutely vile.

You can't abort children!!!!!! Holy moly, this argument annoys me. Most men don't abandon pregnant women, they abandon their own children.

lol what 🥲

It's based on a % of earnings and how many nights the children live with the parent who is paying CMS

Once you get to 50/50 where parents both have equal number of nights then no CMS is payable

The problem comes in that there is no requirement to force a father to work to pay for CMS - many therefore give up work

There is also lots of loopholes when it comes to being self employed and cash in had payments

Absolutely this! ALL our money goes on bringing up our children, while men get to contribute a pittance. God forbid you ask them for extra, for a big school trip or towards clothes after you’ve replaced their entire wardrobe three times in a year due to teenage growth spurts. They’ll just shrug and say “Sorry, I can’t afford it”. Well nor can we, but we HAVE to find the money while they can just slope off and forget about their children completely until next Saturday.

Men can wear a condom to stop having kids willy nilly.

Because men keep abandoning their responsibilities without consequences and children keep being negatively impacted, leading to poorer life outcomes for the dc, and MH issues and a lot of stress for their mothers.

Should be 20 threads a day until the courts and authorities DO something.

Exactly! Men definitely should think before they have unprotected sex but so should women

It's infuriating, reading this thread about how many of you single mums are shafted. My ex husband insisted on 50/50 nights (I still cover 75% of dc time, but that's another story) as he was determined not to hand over a penny to me, the fool. As he's self employed he could have had an easy life not paying me a penny AND not worrying about drop offs/pick ups etc. Part of this debate is also the responsibility of the government to provide good quality and affordable child care and housing, as the lack of these has a huge impact on single parents (often mums).