Ex wants me to pay for kids’ school uniform

[dancingdad]

We are separated and have twins who are starting school this September. I pay her child care each month (£400). She’s sent me a long list of uniform they need for school. Am I right in thinking the child support I pay should go on this?
she has a kid by someone else too and the father was never asked to pay child support so I’m thinking my money will no doubt go on his uniform too!

CM is not meant to cover gaps in earning potential. We don't actually know how much he has them, except that he would like them more and she's not allowed this so excuse me if I don't break out the tiny violins for her plight.

Mumsnet is ridiculous about child maintenance and everyone on here seems to think single fathers and married couples are just rolling in spare money, callously laughing as they withhold it from struggling exes.

I'm not going to continue this argument except to say that if you can't manage to keep your child's living costs under £990, your expectations of a comfortable life are very different from mine and in fact the vast majority of normal people in the UK.

I want to be clear—I’m not saying it’s the mums who enable deadbeat dads. More often than not, it’s the new wives, girlfriends or partners who seem to go above and beyond to defend them.

I run a support group for single mothers, and whenever we post about the realities of solo parenting, it’s always the same pattern: the harshest, most dismissive comments aimed at mums doing it all alone tend to come from women defending men who’ve consistently failed to show up for their kids.

As a single mum myself, I know this story too well. My ex contributes a grand total of £0 per month for three children. I cover everything—and when he does see them, I’m the one sending food to his house too. Technically, if you looked at my CMS situation, I’m in the negative 😂

I think just logically a child has two parents who should financially contribute 50% each towards bringing them up, so if CMS is paid at £400 for 2 children, I would think it reasonable to expect the RP to also spend the same, plus of course I am assuming child benefit is received (there may be UC too of course). I'm not sure I could honestly say £970 a month could be attributed purely to the children, some months (uniform, christmas, birthdays, special expensives etc, yes) in my experience with mine. I appreciate costs can vary regionally though.

I know CMS is not calculated like that, I was just remarking on the overall cost per month

You've jumped straight into the lions pit here, with steaks strapped to you for good measure because you're a man.....

People are forgetting here some key information. It doesn't matter what amount of money you think someone should pay for their children, CMS is based on a percentage of earnings.
It also depends on contact arrangements too. £400 a month would be pretty good if the split was 50:50 or 60:40.
Access arrangements are also not as black and white as they first appear.
Many women use their children as weapons in separation situations to get back at the father and deny access thus increasing their CMS allowance.

I'm not saying this is all women and there are definitely plenty of men out their avoiding CMS payments too but come on everyone, give the man a break. He asked a simple question, let's help him out and give a decent answer without being so judgmental!

So the answer is technically no, you don't legally have to contribute to school uniforms as this is what your CMS payments are for. However, morally you may wish to help out with items such as uniforms which can be expensive especially in children growing like weeds!
I hope this helps OP

We know this:

• OP doesn’t have his kids overnight
• OP left his kids with a ‘drug addict’
• OP pay £400 a month child maintenance for 2 children he admits he doesn’t have overnight. Therefore we can estimate his monthly gross salary to be £2500 after pension deductions and pre-tax and NI which is actually more than some families have as income.
• OP is querying if he has to provide school uniform for his kids

Now, use common sense. OP is only able to work FT because he sees his kids so little and pays so little towards them.

£400 a month for 24/7 childcare for two children is an absolute bargain!

You realise that potentially at least part of that money "for the children" goes towards simply housing them? Fun fact - the LHA (local housing allowance), if she's one of the many single parents having to rent in the private sector, is normally hundreds of pounds short of what the actual costs are. The costs attributed to children isn't simply those directly attributed to them, such as food, clothing, haircuts, etc, it's a proportion of the overall household costs. If I were just looking after myself, I could survive in a shared house or bedsit, eating cornflakes for dinner, with the lights and heating off to save money, but is it really fair to do that to children? I have been a single parent for almost 10 years, I work, & with the cost of living crisis it is FAR more difficult now than it was 10 years ago. I really feel for this woman trying to raise three kids on her own with what is actually fairly little financial support. And, if she's choosing to not give herself a break, ever, from those kids, in exchange for the equivalent of 32 hours' worth of minimum-wage income per month, I would honestly question why? She would be far better off shipping the kids off to their dad for 15 days a month so that she can enjoy some "leisure" time (especially if she's an addict), getting herself a job, and earning more than he's giving her in maintenance?
Honestly, it's bonkers that people think mothers withhold access for all that maintenance money they get! 🤑I can earn more in a couple of hours than my ex gives me a month in maintenance, but because he's a threat to our children I have to do his share of the parenting AND cover the majority of the financial burden, too, all whilst my ability to work is limited BECAUSE I am the one doing all the parenting! Voluntarily taking on all the parenting jobs in exchange for benefits and child maintenance is a dumb business plan, and I have no idea how anyone can pay for a champagne and caviar lifestyle - or multiple school uniforms - on UC & CMS alone. I certainly haven't managed to find that Holy Grail!

Just help towards the uniforms, and anything else you can, OP. These are your kids, and regardless of what you think of their mother, if they have a need that your ex can't meet for whatever reason, help them, whether you have to or not. My eldest will turn 18 soon, and she has felt the financial struggle over the years whilst also seeing her dad's social media posts about his more than comfortable lifestyle. She has a fairly low opinion of him as a result. He could have chosen to be more generous rather than punish his children to punish me, but he didn't. As my daughter says now, one day if she is asked to help choose his retirement home, she'll remember how he behaved towards us as she was growing up & return the energy 😥 And, no, it gives me no pleasure at all that my daughter says that because I know it comes from a place of hurt and sadness that I couldn't protect her from. Leave the door open for a future relationship with your kids, OP. If you haven't already obtained a CAO through the courts, go and get one, they're fairly inexpensive and if your ex argues against contact just to be a dick, it won't go well for her. If you can honestly say you did everything you could to have contact with your kids it will come across far better than shrugging your shoulders and blaming their mum for saying no. Just bear in mind that, yes, you could also end up being expected to parent on a 50/50 basis, and you have to be prepared to do that & make the same sacrifices your ex has had to. Good luck, I hope it works out for you!

Where did you pull £990 from? Lets me guess you still think there is a made up 50% rule?
I find it worrying you’re married to a man who pays CMS money and you still don’t understand the rules around it. He’s obviously pulled a blinder on you by telling things like his money isn’t for her rent, and he must getting a bargain childcare wise as he’s moved on and had another child with you even if you do have cheapest parenting costs at less than £200 a child. I’m guessing as soon as you had your child he reduced he’s CMS money so now his children cost even less 🙄.

FYI My niece is currently costing my brother and his wife £1200 a month in nursery bills.

Did you miss the part where it said he is paying maintenance? Do you not think he also needs money to survive? I absolutely hate that men are expected to give every penny they have to their kids whilst the Mum is possibly raking it in. She probably gets benefits! Help with housing, childcare costs. Some women don’t get a penny in maintenance, those are the ones I feel sorry for, not the one that is getting £400 a month, then expects further contributions! I bet with the amount of maintenance he’s paying I doubt he’s on benefits. Exes should not have to cover all the costs of a child, however most of Mumsnet are man haters and cannot see the wood for the trees when it comes to issues like this. Heaven forbid the ex has any quality of life when they have kids. As long as Mum is A ok. Most of the time, it’s their own fault anyway for having kids to absolute losers in the first place. They know what they’re like before they even get pregnant. This op sounds like a decent Dad. But no, everyone wants to label him a selfish, shit Dad and side with the greedy ex.

Thanks for telling me.

"I'm not going to continue this argument"

Well nobody wants to continue an argument when it's become clear they are wrong!

No idea how can spend so much?! - have you seen the cost of uniform (clothing, shoes, PE kit, bags) especially if has to be particular branded items, and for two children as twins. Let alone if you are wanting to get a few sets to see you through the week without mid week wash - you are living in cuckoo land!

Very, very many people do not have the funds for more expensive branded items (schools in areas of low income family hopefully won't have that expectation, and in England schools are not allowed to have that requirement), nor to buy multiple sets to see them through a whole week.
The cuckoo land you speak of is the reality of many families.

You should not have to spend hundreds of pounds on uniform for primary school.

Apologies as think my message might not be very clear - absolutely it shouldn’t be this expensive I agree! I am saying the reality is that it can cost hundreds of pounds so not sure how the person saying they didn’t know how it could be so expensive was not appreciating the very real cost of uniform. But absolutely it should not be so expensive, the reality currently however is that it is currently so can easily add up to hundreds of pounds which many struggle to afford.

CMS is never fair and nowhere near half of what kids cost to raise we all know this.no she shouldn't be grateful for getting more but £400 a month means he must be a pretty high earner and yes he should contribute to his kids extras like uniforms etc I didn't say he shouldn't. I agree if she's a drug addict he should get social involved and gain custody of his kids he'll soon learn that the two of them cost more than £400 to provide for each month and he'll soon moan if the mums on benefits and only has to pay less than £30 a month in maintenance

Dads that query the amount of money they contribute, often turn to "she's an addict" or she's some other derogatory something...but no word on why they've left their kids in the care of this person?

Hopefully now you realise that you WERE being a shit dad, you'll stop being one!

You need to go to court and get parental responsibility. And pay a decent amount of maintenance. Through court you can get access.
If she is a drug addict I would really push for access so you are familiar to them incase you ever need to take over parenting. Also rather than give her m ey for 1/2 the Uniform, I would be buying 1/2 the Uniform and then handing it over.

So do children not need outings, hobbies, associated kit, pocket money, school trips, toys, games, bikes? None of these are essential but it would be a pretty piss poor parent who thought it was fine for their child to go without any of these things if the RP is doing all they can, with earnings limited by childcare and the NRP sits there saying "I pay what I have to, I'm done"?

That's quite the rant. To take your generalisations one at a time:
I was with my ex a decade before we had two planned and wanted kids. He was a good, involved dad until ow came along. So no, not a loser who I should have seen coming

I only get CB and work ft in a graduate professional job earning v similar to my ex.

He pays 14% of pre tax but post pension salary in CMS and not a penny more. If I ring fenced the same % and then set that as the budget for our two teens they'd do no hobbies, have no trips to cinema or water parks or whatever, no pocket money, no tech (which they need for school, not gaming) but I'd have a lovely life on the all extra cash I'd have just for me.

I'd love to do 50/50. ex was never remotely interested post split in more than EOW and now it's probably about one weekend a month. He can take promotions, live miles away from whichever school, do whatever he likes knowing that an unexpected bill that is child related is never his problem so long as he pays the CMS. But yeah, it's definitely a fair system 🙄

We don't know how much OP earns because we don't know how many overnights he has. If he has any overnights, he will be paying the same in rent as the children's Mum anyway.

OP says he has no overnights.

Sorry, we’re not talking about you though and everyone else seems to be making wild generalisations? A lot of women are money grabbers and don’t expect their exes to have any quality of life. I was in the same situation as you. This man is getting slated for paying maintenance, could understand it if he wasn’t. That’s your choice you do what you do with the kids. Good on you. Sure your kids will appreciate it one day.

I think that if you want to be seeing your children more and you feel their mum is blocking your access then you need to go to court and get a legally enforceable arrangement. Then recalculate child support as necessary. Particularly if you are implying that the mum is depriving the children of clothes you have bought for them.
On the face of it though, £400 isn't enough to support 2 children properly

…whilst the Mum is possibly raking it in. She probably gets benefits! Help with housing, childcare costs.

If people generally feel that a mum is raking it in on benefits, housing and benefits, what is stopping dads and this OP in particular from quitting their job, filing for a lives with order (which obviously he’d get if mum is a drug addict) and raking it in himself on benefits! Sounds like a dream life…

he is paying 200 per child per month. He said this covered childcare. so probably anything else is on the ex. And 200 per month on childcare does not go far so I guess the ex had to heavily reduce her working hours/income whilst OP can do with his time what he wants without any worry how to combine children and work.

Exactly the same here. 4 children, 18 years together and no sign of any loser behaviour before he left for OW. I also couldn't ringfence just 16% of my salary and not a penny more for my children. Well I could, but they'd be cold, hungry & miserable.