Do your children know if absent father does not pay maintenance

[evolucy7]

I am interested on views on whether if you are in this position, do your children know that their father does not pay any maintenance to you. I don't really mean when he may be absent completely, but when he is still involved but makes no contibution or just the £5 per week payment throught the CSA.
Thanks

Oh HerBeauitude your so right he is a very vile man, and I cant tell you how many time I have told him my money is nowt to do with him.

Oh the other things that makes me laugh is that I have asked him if he could start picking the boys up from school (literally a 5/10 minutes walk from his house), so I can do a few extra hours at work as the work is there for me... and he said he wont because they are all my mates at school and look at him funny. This is because he is thick and doesnt know the difference between a mate and someone I speak to because my son is in the same class as their son you know?? The man makes me so argry

Regarding when the dc are older. I did say to my ex one time, when he was squealing on about how he never saw them* that he would have to explain himself to the dts when they are older on why he never paid a penny.

*(he cancels all the time and only pays attention the few times it hasn't been suitable for him to see them - deliberately being awkward)

To add salt to the wound, he used my credit card for his liaisons, used it right up to the limit. Hasn't paid a penny toward that debt either. So I've got the never-to-be-good-again credit rating, the large debt and he skipped off into the sunset clean as a whistle.

Karma is patient however.

Oh TwoIfBySea that is horrid!! My ex did similar with my phone bill. For a bloke he is hooked on making phone calls (no-one EVER used to phone him) leaving me with a bill over £200 I couldnt pay it so ended up with that my broadband and tele package being cut off, I not have sky, but no phone line because BT want a £50 deposit to reconect and a pay as you go dongle.

Make you laugh dont they?? And like I say he has no shame because he is more than open with the boys that he dont give me any money because he isnt working and thats why he cant take them anywhere and do anything with them

The best we can do LittleBeaut is to raise sons that are nothing like their fathers!

Which, considering how close I was to my dad, is an extremely sad state to be in. I'd be utterly ashamed if either of my ds's treated anyone like that, in fact they wouldn't be allowed to!

I couldnt agree with you more!!

When I think of how he spoke to me at time and some of the things he did I would be ashamed if my sons turned out the same. One of mine does have his short fuse I have to admitt... but hoping that the less and less time he spends with his dad will sort that.

yes my kids know thats because he was furious that i contacted the csa and they overheard him say i would never get any money out of him. according to the csa hes spent the last 6 years living off his mums pension.

he does now buy the kids decent presents at xmas and birthdays,my daughter asked him for a laptop at christmas and got one.its a standard joke in my house that i think the kids should get every penny they can out of him because he doesnt pay maintainance.

I got half way down this thread and then read 'there is a difference between a father and a dad'- is there?

Nobody ever explained the difference to me, I just assumed it was 2 different words that actually meant the same thing, with perhaps the word father being a bit more formal!

Why do people on these boards say really wierd, twisty, crap like this?

I'll carry on reading the rest of the thread now!!

Maybe it seems "wierd, twisty, crap" because you're taking the words at face value and not considering what the meaning may be given the context in which they were used.

Possibly you've been more used to sites that have required less in the way of thinking and insight than this one often does.

In the context in which it was used, "father" means a man who provided the sperm for a child. "Dad" means a man who loves, nurtures, and raises a child. They are not necessarily the same thing. It's not that uncommon a turn of phrase.

That's just your take on it love, still sounds daft - where I'm from, those kind of blokes are called 'sperm donors'- not fathers. Context which in this instance means the coherence relationship between these two words!!!

Allow me to let you into a little secret. Where you're from is not the entire world. This might shock you but, sometimes, people use different words for things.

But I'm afraid I've read your last sentence several times and I'm still not sure what you mean by it. Is this another example of "weird, twisty, crap", parochial differences in word usage or just illiteracy?

Oh I give up - forget it - google it when you have time. Goodnight.

Google what?

Your inability to string a coherent sentence together?

Or your inability to read something, consider its meaning in the context in which it was found, and to compare that with cultural references regarding often-used phrases?

Or your inability to make a reasoned argument that puts your point across and invites sensible discussion?

Or your inability to realise that just because you and your smashing little friends from wherever it is you come from don't define word usage for the rest of the planet?

But please dobiegirl, please don't go! You are leaving so many important questions unanswered! Come back so I can marvel again at the deep, hidden truths that I'm sure are there just beneath the surface of the stream-of-consciousness you bestow upon us! Please don't just leave us here wondering what the fucking fuck it is you're actually trying to say!

Yes, my daughter is fully aware that her father pays nothing (and has never paid anything) despite maintaining regular contact with her, which I have encouraged.

She asked and I told her. She's 14. The subject never arose when she was younger and if it had I would have answered her questions without embellishment.

I don't think it's up to me to lie in order to preserve his dignity or her image of him. Personally I think any man who chooses not to support his child is a complete tosser, but that's my opinion and I don't think she's needs to know that. She just needs the facts when she asks.

Just read through your little rant again, couldn't believe all those questions, what the hell are you on about???

You sound really angry and mad about something. Chill out! All I said was dad and father are infact the same word - which they are!!!

Hey, congratulations dobiegirl! This is the first post you've made in this thread where every sentence is actually readable! Woo-hoo! Not necessarily true of course - "dad" and "father" are not the same word, you can tell by the way they have different letters in them and tend to be used in slightly different contexts - but readable!

Award yourself a gold star.

Ds is 6. No contact with his father. No reason on earth to discuss mone issues with him. If I can't afford something I tell him but would never tell him why. I really feel it is not his concern at all that his father is so lacking.

Dad and Father do mean the same thing to some people, I do think though that most children call the person who privides the male parental role "Dad" as a loving close term, and the name "Father" is often referred to as a more distant term for the male who provides the parental role for a child, also known in some places as the sperm donor.

My children's Father has no contact, he now provides the minimum through the csa, the children have been told by me, as someone else said I think it helps them to understand that he has not completely abandoned them. (they don't know, he has managed to get his employers to reduce his salary and put more of his income into share options instead to avoid paying the correct amount, he has to meet his maker one day)

I have never discussed money in front of my ds, but my exh regularly tells our ds that I am stealing all his money!

I will when she grows up a bit. She should know who put all the effort in. After all, if she does well in life I'd hate him to sponge off her like he has every woman he's been with so far.
I'll give her the facts but I won't be cruel, and will hold back on calling him a 'sponger' or 'cocklodger'. I think that's fair.

whiteandnerdy - i am v.sorry but i LOL

awww

When I was growing up it was very very obvious my Dad had a lot more money / better lifestyle while Mum went out cleaning and we had free school lunches.She didnt need to tell me he didnt give us much it was obvious and was a huge source of resentment to me.

As I got older Mum gave free rein to her understandable resentments about his attitude and even then it made me cringe and now at age 44 when she talks about it I still hate it.

So I think wherever possible keep financial stuff away from dc although I can see how hard that is when you are struggling and maybe already keeping quiet about other bad behaviours.

So far my xh pays good maintenance and reading some of the crap deals on here I am grateful.

lol @ karma is patient - I hope that too

Karma is patient :) It's a shame it's too bloody patient sometimes!

If I was in that situation I wouldn't hesitate to be honest, tell the kids the facts. I grew up in a house where my parents were completely transparent about finances. I never felt over burdened by any of it, but I knew how much they earned, how much the mortgage was, bills etc - just from them talking not from them telling me and I'm the same now, transparent about finances.

If I was bringing up children with no financial contribution from their father and we didn't have enough money for something I wouldn't say 'your father doesn't give me any money' I would just say to them that I get paid x amount of money and it only goes so far after I have paid the mortgage, bills, food etc - they would be able to work out that there wasn't any money coming in from anywhere else and I would expect them to be able to add 2+2 to get 4. However, if there was a Dad on the scene not paying towards their upbringing but complaining about the length of their trousers - then I would have no problem in saying, in front of them, that when you contribute financially to their upbringing then you get some say in what they are wearing. If they asked outright, I'd tell them the truth, no doubt about it.

Having read all of this I am worried I have somehow damaged my dd by telling her too much. I didn't have much choice after we had to make huge lifestyles changes because he stopped paying the £500 a month I'd always got from him (I now get £6.50!). I didn't know how else to explain it so I told her the truth. DD doesn't see her 'male parent' (not getting dragged into that argument lol) so have I made her feel worse? Should I also feel guilty as I did feel that I wanted to tell her the truth so she didn't blame me and think it was my fault that we suddenly had no money. I do share a lot with dd, perhaps too much? I grew up knowing nothing about anything, and my mum is still the same, you can ask her anything and she is guaranteed to say 'its none of your business'. As a result I grew up quite naive about things, especially money as it was always none of my business!
I decided when dd was a baby that I would always tell her the truth appropriate to her age/maturity. Obviously, there are things I would never ever share but recently we've talked about finances. Did I make a mistake? What should I have done and what should I do now?

I dont think you have made a mistake. It is important your daughter grows up understanding why you have to make some tough choices and that it isnt you being mean or careless.

I was recently faced with my ex saying he wouldnt pay half of the childrens school fees and there is no way I could have made up the difference without us making huge sacrifices. Ex has recently backed down as I threatened to take him to court.

But I did tell the children that we were in dispute about money and whatever happened I wasnt taking them out of school, as they were old enough, to overhear conversations and to see something was really wrong. I also had to deny ex access to the house as I didnt want him snooping, whereas before that he would pick the kids and their stuff up if I wasnt there.

My kids also needed to understand that we arent nearly as wealthy as we used to be, so our lifestyle has to change

My parents separated when I was 7. My parents had a voluntary agreement wrt money but I don't think my dad ever really stuck to it. He used to give my mum money in front of us and it looked very generous (£100 or £200 at a time) but I worked out pretty quickly that that was only 2 or 4 supermarket shops and therefore was a bit pathetic.

My mum never mentioned a lack of money. We didn't get everything we wanted, far from it, but she never cited lack of money as the reason. She just said no and that was the end of it. It was only when I was an adult that I truly appreciated how difficult it must have been for her financially, brought home by her having someone remove some built-in cupboards she'd hated for over 20 years - she simply hadn't had the money to do it until we all left home.

Didn't feel that mum had been dishonest as this was only one of a huge range of things she didn't discuss with us!

Find it much more difficult to work out now that I am in a similar situation. Quite frankly, I find my lack of income (we are living on my part-time earnings alone) scary and the DCs have, not surprisingly, picked up on that. I then find myself overcompensating to try to convince the DCs that financially everything is okay and there is nothing to worry about (I feel very strongly that they are too young to have to have adult worries, they're coping with quite enough as it is).

My DD misses nothing and has already made a rather derogatory comment about dad not paying for things. I said 'well dad isn't working at the moment'. I want her to know she can moan about her dad to me, that I will sympathise but that I won't collude or criticise him. Obviously, there are times when it's very very hard not to say 'Yes, I know he's ......' but know it's not in her best interests.