To think that men who evade paying for their children are a burden on society?

[ASimpleLampoon]

Not my situation as not divorced but I'm fed up of hearing about thousands of men who don't pay child support or only pay the minimum, or fiddle their employment status/ declared income to pay less

They should pay at least half the actual costs of raising their children, more if they earn significantly more than the other parent

If they can't pay they should be supported to get a better job

If theyre self employed and can't pay enough well get a job that allows you to pay.

If they're getting paid in cash, take on more work to pay or find a job where they can't hide their income so they have to pay.

They are the real burden on society , fed up of seeing disabled people and carers torn apart while these feckless men get away with it year after year.

Where is the government and media campaign against them?

OK so women who would never abort or take the morning after pill should keep it in their pants if they don't want a baby.

What kind of a stupid question is that?

If a woman doesn't want an abortion or a baby then she will be doing everything to avoid it happening to her because its her that has to physically deal with it, she can't just walk away.

Not comparable in the slightest.

And yet it happens.

Oh that's already happening by everyone. What's sad is that it's some women doing this.

Men care far more what other men think than they do what women think. If you think that's the saddest thing then you're very limited in thinking.

Enforcement shouldn’t be as lax as it is either. For it to really be as tough as it should be, you need to go through costly court action.

My DSis has spent £££ and is finally getting somewhere. Her DS’s biodad hasn’t bothered since my nephew was a toddler and has never paid a penny in CM. This man is dumb as a box of rocks but also a manipulative piece of shit, so he initially took her to court for visitation under the guise that she’d been withholding contact - she hadn’t, and had all the evidence to prove that she’d actually chased him to arrange contact 🫠
The tables turned, and he was ripped apart. He also does the cash under the table thing, so the court can only work with his declared income. But they’ve now got an order in place where he is to make set payments. If he misses two consecutive payments, a warrant will go out for his arrest and he’ll be facing prison time.

Would be happy to see ANY parent not paying for their child losing their license or passport - but in the rare occasions they'd tried it it's been suspended. Let the taxi-driver lose their license until they pay, let the airline staff lose their passport. Most would soon start paying.

And yes to being a debt that never dies until the feckless parent does.

What point are you attempting to make?

Then she would HAVE to deal with it either by having an abortion or a baby.

Just like a man should HAVE to deal with it by providing financially.

I really don't understand what point you're trying to make?

It was the saddest thing in your statement, but now its that you have to attack a poster instead of discussing.

Yep, my ex wouldn’t give a shit what anyone thinks and if anyone asked him whether he is providing for his kids or how much he is seeing them, I’m sure somehow he would give them a story that would blame me and would manipulate the story in a way that would make him feel ok and he would actually believe what he’s saying.

Absolutely. How many kids could be lifted out of poverty if this was properly enforced? Massive benefits to society as a whole. And it is mainly men.

Absolutely agree with enforcing consequences like loss of passport, etc.

But part of the issue is that the CMS simply don’t consider many NRPs liable to pay maintenance. My ex for example isn’t doing anything wrong in their eyes because they say he doesn’t need to pay anything.

The whole system needs to be stricter.

Which is why the CMS system, benefits system and tax system all need to be looked at together to properly tackle the black economy - add in the passport office and DVLA to check car legalities and that someone hasn't created false identities. I'd go further and introduce biometric ID cards too. Let's have a real push to tackle the black economy and all that goes with it.

the issue is that people, like my ex, will see headlines like this and think all the single mums are raking in benefits, so why should we get maintenance.

Dear God, the very first post trotted out the 'it's not just men' line.

No, of course it isn't. Just like domestic violence and rape isn't all perpetrated by men.

But most of it is. And there are way more deadbeat dads than mums across society. They do make more; they do hide more money; they should be ensuring their children are supported properly.

But they DON'T do everything it takes. They "fall pregnant" or "unexpectedly become pregnant" as on the myriad threads here every single day. There are plenty of feckless women out there who treat biological reproduction as casually as some of us treat choosing what television show to watch. They are just as reprehensible and burdensome to society as are fecklessly mating deadbeat fathers.

And then they expect the rest of us to pay for it, not just via our taxes but in the social ills that these situations generate and perpetuate. I am SO tired of it.

Yes, many men are careless assholes. But as a woman I know that the ultimate power and responsbility for producing offspring stops with me. We can make it NOT happen by our choices each and every single day. No man can decide to make us pregnant if we don't want it to happen.

But millions are too lazy, careless or selfish to bother. And their carelessly conceived kids and the rest of society suffer for it.

I work in payroll, it’s shocking the amount of men who massively increase their voluntary pension contributions for several months to get a lower CMS calculation and then stop the contributions all together. Grim. Never once seen a woman do it though 🧐

Why is this thread being inundated with incels? Pathetic

You do understand that men can abstain, then all of those 'feckless' women wouldn't have anyone to get them pregnant, would they?

Not sure what the rest of your rant about women has to do with men not paying for their own kids, but pop off I guess.

I get that. It's would need an absolute sea-change and that's not something that could or would happen quickly but even your ex (as an example)... if he were ostracised or thought less of by his peers, that would chip away at that giant ego of his, surely?

If it became the norm to actually pay for your children and it was seen as disgusting to hide money away from them, the landscape would change.

In the meantime, if the government stepped in to broker the payments as PP suggest, i.e. make the payments to the resident parent (usually mother) and recoup that money from the other parent (by force if needed) then that would do nicely.

For the hard-of-thinking on the thread, BOTH parents need to step up for their children. It's a rare maternal parent that fails to do this. Every day, every minute of it, everything for their child(ren).

In my Utopia, all 18 year old boys would do some sort of civic service for a couple of years, and all of them would have to do a stint in child care and elderly care. They would also all be vasectomised with sperm frozen for when they make a deliberate decision to have a child.

And all men would pay an extra 1% income tax to cover the anti-social behaviour and damage done by men in terms of murder, rape, sexual violence and other forms of violence.

But I realise this might be too much for most to contemplate!

But if we tot up the costs we ALL pay for men’s violence and lack of paternal responsibility, I think we’d be surprised.

In my Utopia, all children would receive a Universal Basic Income, paid for by a tax levy on parents. Eg each child receives £200 a month, and each parent owes HMRC £100 a month per child.
if they cannot (or will not) pay the debt remains and can be reclaimed with interest in future.

Some of the replies on this thread… wow!

Firstly, we do not have reproductive equality. Britain is one of the best countries in the world to be a woman in terms of legislative equality. That doesn’t translate 100% to lived reality.

Last year the CPS ran a huge survey with the public. The results are highly concerning. On average, 33% of people think it isn’t rape of a woman is pressured into sex but there is no violence. 40% think it’s ok to remove a condom without consent. A third of men felt if a woman had flirted on a date, it wouldn’t count as rape even if she did not explicitly consent. Only 42% of 18-24-year olds believed that being in a relationship did not mean consent to sex could be assumed.

Rape Crisis (using ONS data) say 1 in 4 women have experienced rape or sexual assault (compared to 1 in 18 men). Half of all rapes are carried out by a partner or ex-partner. Last year more than 1.6 million women experienced domestic abuse (ONS).

Women are more likely to acquire STIs than men during unprotected sex because of the nature of the act. Only biological women can get pregnant, with all the risks (physical and social) that brings.

Sex for men and women is NOT equal. From initial consent to the act itself, women are inherently more vulnerable.

Some of the babies born to “feckless single mothers” are the product of sexual abuse and rape. Sometimes not even recognised as such by the mother herself. Abusive men actually like getting women pregnant - not because they give a shit about the children, but because it keeps the women vulnerable. And if they can do all of that while not even having to play an active role in family life, let alone contribute financially, so much the better.

So with a this in mind, I DO blame men more than women for pregnancies those men don’t want. The data absolutely supports that they have far more influence than women over this.

As for not having children you can’t afford. Well, if the only people having children were those who could afford to raise children without any state contribution whatsoever (which includes schools and health care), the country would implode quite quickly. Even if we took out education and health care we’d still have a massive population crisis. Society needs a large section on low to middle incomes, it’s how capitalism works. Some of these children grow up to be a Dr, nurse, teacher, etc. Others will be in far less-well-paid but also necessary roles, such as cleaners, carers, hospitality workers, admin assistants, etc.

They’re more likely to be a ‘drain’ on society if they are raised in poverty with fathers who take no interest in them. It’s in everyone’s interests to stop these men procreating.

If I’d walked out on my DC as a single mother, I’d have been open to prosecution for child abandonment. Why aren’t the fathers who walk away and do just that treated the same? At least the ‘feckless’ mothers are feeding and bathing those children, putting a roof over their heads, getting them to school, etc.

Thank you

The very fact that there is even a need for CMS to pursue these men or even for child support to be a thing is a problem in itself. When separated parents co-parent their children the way they should (ie 50/50) there is no need to pay child support as both parents are providing equally for their child during the time they have them in their care. That means food, clothes, bills, childcare, all properly split.
My ex brother in law pays no child support to my sister because he cares for my nieces properly 50/50. That includes paying for any childcare that’s needed on the days he has them.
If a parent is not prepared to commit to that level of responsibility regardless of how the relationship with the other parent might work out then they shouldn’t be a parent.
But yes. Since we don’t live in ideal world, absolutely feckless fathers have a lot to answer for and should be pursued relentlessly for the money.

For what it’s worth, and I know this is a very right wing view from someone who is quite liberal in all other respects, there is absolutely zero excuse for any parent to be having children they can’t afford and yes i am referring to parents on benefits having 4, 5,6 children with no incentive to work to pay for those children. There are endless options available for contraception so there literally is no excuse AT ALL.