How do adult children feel about a parent avoiding child maintenance?

[VeneziaJ]

I’m asking this out of curiosity. have any of you been children of a parent who didn’t pay any child support despite having the means to do so. I’m not talking about deadbeats who don’t spend any time with their children. I’m talking about a parent who maybe does have time with the child but does everything in their power to avoid paying child support including pretending to be self-employed fabricating their accounts et cetera et cetera and if you were such a child, and later learnt about this as an adult, how did it make you feel about the absent parent? Did it change how you viewed them especially when you saw the parent with care had struggled financially throughout your childhood. I read a lot of stories of absent parents failing to pay child support and it’s usually written from either the parent with care perspective or the non-resident parent it would be interesting to know how the adult children of such situations have felt about it especially when they’ve grown into parenthood themselves

Are you in this situation? I imagine a lot of kids don’t know, my ex is awful with maintenance but my kids will never know that, why would they?

As a child of a dead beat dad in the 90's, I definitely new. Never having enough food and having to steal school jumpers out of lost and found is kind of difficult not to notice.

Not as kids but the OP is asking about when they're adults. Will your kids never be told the truth?

No my children are all grown up but I come across this situation quite a lot with people that I talk to and I just wondered if anybody did find out as an adult (and I’m sure there are some) whether it affected the way they viewed the non resident parent. Obviously I’m not suggesting that anybody should tell their children! but people do find these sort of things out; an example is my husband found out that his father Had been trying to get access to him when he was small after his parents separated, but had been blocked by his mother. He only found that out after his mother died. When he was going through her personal effects and saw the letters. That’s one example of how somebody might find out I’m sure there are other examples.

A parent avoiding and not paying their child maintenance is the definition of a deadbeat parent

A lot of children just go no contact with that parent
That's how they feel about it

I always knew. We were dirt poor while he lived a very nice lifestyle. He was shit in other ways too. I didn't see him from age 20 onwards. Had no reason to. I did go to see him with my DS when he was a widower from his 2nd wife. It had been so long that with his dementia, he didn't have a clue who I was. Fine by me.

Pretty much my situation. One of a number of reasons why we are low contact/ have a strained relationship. I think it’s pathetic. Him & DSM have always justified it (mum inherited some money), but the court ruled he had to pay. I think my DSIS isn’t bothered & they get on well…

We saw him regularly throughout our childhood and he was pretty hard up. But they went on to have a big family, so…if you have children you pay for them. My mum moved in with my DSD who was a great man and left us all his life’s savings. Desperately let down by one man but dearly loved by another…

My DH. He has a very distant relationship with his Dad now as a result, but his Dad was low effort in other ways too-they have a phonecall every couple of months. More of a problem is his wife who regularly berates DH for not doing more/calling his Dad more… i.e. on his birthday! I can confirm DH’s Dad does not call him on his birthday… I don’t think his Dad is too bothered by it and we always talk about the relationship as whatever DH can live with- he needs to be at peace with how he choses to handle it.

What is more problematic is DMILs attitude to the whole thing. She never chased for or asked for maintenance on the basis that “she shouldn’t have had to ask”…. i agree with her but she refused any of the means available to her to chase it “on principle” and is still incredibly bitter about it. Life hasn’t turned out how she planned for various other reasons (including choices she made) but this is the thing that she will get stuck on for hours at a time. She’s a lovely lady who did a great job bringing up DH alone, but her frustration that we won’t indulge her hours of ranting having been divorced for 40 years can be a sticking point.

It can be complex. It never occurred to me as a child (saw him once a month, both had remarried). He paid no child maintenqnce but did pay quite a lot to us during the uni years. I don't think my mum asked him very hard (she's very passive). I found out when I asked her in my 30's, she never said anything before that.

The thing is, both of them are very emotionally stunted. Neither of them thinks or behaves like "normal" people, they are products weird upbringings (including boarding school). So while I'm deeply unimpressed with his behaviour, I can also recognise that staying in touch with young children from a distance was more than many men did and must have taken an effort.

My Dad isn't a bad man, just very self centred and oblivious. I would feel differently if he lied or had said horrible things. It was bad but could have been much worse.

I had a deadbeat dad and I knew too, OP said she wasn’t referring to deadbeat dads though

If they ask as adults I can’t imagine lying, but their dad is around and they love him, I can’t imagine them asking really, why would they? And why would I try and damage their relationship with their dad as adults by offering up this info?

I don't know, I think I'd feel a bit betrayed as an adult if I was allowed to have a false idea of a parent when actually they were a shit.

My daughters knew from around 14/15 that their dad fought paying. He told them he paid me “literally hundreds and hundreds, nearly a thousand and she spends it on your siblings who aren’t mine” when one of them wanted to do an activity I couldn’t afford.

He didn’t. So I showed the girls our budget, including what he paid.

One of them stopped seeing him at that point as she was incredibly offended that he lied to her in an attempt to damage my reputation to them/their relationship with me and also that he grudged CM so much.

The other was in contact him for a few years after, but cut him off when he started complaining to her about paying maintenance for her younger half-siblings after his relationship split up. She realised he’d happily spend £500 on a weekend at the races, but absolutely grudged every penny to his children.

Well you wouldn’t know would you. And I think if I had 2 loving parents and then as an adult my mum decided to declare my dad a looser and tell me he never paid for me, I’d also judge my mum. It’s not particularly relevant to my kids how much I pay for their day to day life, how much their dad pays, if I get any extra help. And it’s between me and their dad. Would I lie to them? No. Would I offer up the info out of spite? Probably not.

I didn't realise when I was a child but when I was an adult I pieced together the clues, asked my mother and she confirmed that for various periods of time my father avoided paying the child maintenance he should. At the time it just added to my general opinion that he was a piece of shit.

When I ended up as a single parent myself and my ex avoided paying, my opinion of my father got even lower. I will say at least my dad didn't try to tell me that he had been paying even though he hadn't. I wish I could say the same about my ex.

My dad.
He paid the CMS minimum from when they split in my early teens, then stopped paying anything when he lost his job when we were 14 - 16. He had a new job at only slightly under the old wage within 6 months, and was living with a girlfriend in her house with no other dependents at the time. He never started repaying. Contributed a grand total of a couple of food shops to me and my siblings uni experience, didnt ask anything about how we were financing it beyond 'your mum is sorting that isnt she' (like she did everything else). Didn't ask how were were affording accommodation deposits, stuff we'd need to set up in halls, textbooks laptops, anything. He made reference to us getting grants a couple of times so I think he thought that paid for everything.
He still claims he 'let' my mum have the house - when their finances pre relationship (unmarried) meant that 90% of the equity was hers anyway, she always did all the actual parenting, he was an occasional warm body in front of the tv to make sure we didnt burn the house down, that was it.
He thinks he's a decent dad who 'did his best' and i am 99% sure if I challenged him on not paying he would either deny it or explain it away with excuses.

I have a close friend who realised once he was in his teens. He saw a lot of his dad and step-mom and as a young kid didn’t realised, but later started to see his mom was struggling to put food on the table whilst they lived in luxury (very expensive house with jacuzzi etc., lots of holidays and money to burn). He figured out his dad couldn’t be paying much maintenance and his dad was mean in other ways too, such a buying him nice clothes but banning him from taking them to his moms where he spend most of his time. His mom was struggling to afford the basics and so not being able to take his clothes there really only punished him. As a teen and adult he saw his father as selfish and resented him. He has very little relationship with him now beyond a few pleasantries each year. Truth be told I think fathers who aren’t willing to pay for the kids are selfish is many ways and even if kids don’t find out about the finances they learn their true character in time.

I knew. Wasn’t helped by the fact that he never made time to see us either. My “relationship” with him was absolutely and definitively changed by both those facts. I haven’t seen him in decades. His loss.

I have adult DC whose father never paid any maintenance, but saw them every Sunday, although from what I can gather they mostly did their own thing and he sat on his computer. They were aware from their teens that he didn't pay, as I was matter of fact about the fact that he didn't contribute financially and that I was doing my best, but we were managing solely on my teaching salary.

They thought then, and still think now that he was a bit of a shit father. Now in their 30s they have little contact. He is clearly financially comfortable and has had a large inheritence since we divorced. Last Christmas he gave DD a box of biscuits when she took presents round for him, his new wife and her children.

She was polite about it, and isn't interested in money, but they all think he's a bit sad and they aren't very interested in having him in their lives. One of them is now about 5 months pregnant, but AFAIK hasn't bothered inform him yet as she doesn't think he'll be that interested and she hasn't seen him for a couple of years.

He is reaping the lack of care he provided when they needed it.

My dad never paid a penny of maintenance. I know because when he died shortly after I turned 18, my mum was able to make a claim against his estate for unpaid maintenance to the tune of like £40k (I grew up outside the UK but this was roughly the equivalent). I always knew he was a selfish turd and I was not surprised. He’s dead now, long dead, but I still think he was a horrible selfish (and damaged) person. He was messed up and that messed up-ness impacted the sort of father he was. I don’t think he necessarily did it to be intentionally awful, but he was in fact, awful. It’s been 25 years and my feelings haven’t softened.

My ex doesn’t pay. My children are age 10 and under and I am quite clear to them the reasons why we are in the financial position we are in. I don’t bring opinion into it. I am factual without being subjective. It’s up to them what they do with that information.

but I will be honest with you all that I will be thoroughly disappointed in my children if they grow into adults fawning over their father when he does sweet FA for them.

it really annoys me seeing posts and replies on MN where adult children talk about how they have given their useless fathers the time of day as adults when their poor single mothers have given everything and more to raise them

there is such a thing as loyalty

My Dad never paid but he rarely saw us, just didn't really understand or want to understand parenting, we pretty much ceased to exist to him once he moved out. One winter when I was very young my Mum couldn't afford to heat the house and we all slept in one room as it had a gas fire. I didn't know that was why we were camping downstairs at the time, but I did know that cheques could bounce from a very young age. Due to some unusual circumstances we do have a relationship now, but its more like with a distant relative, we see him maybe once a year. He gets none of my emotional energy - he doesn't know what he did wrong and at this point nothing I can say will change his world view.