If you can't afford one child, you shouldn t have had another one (I quote)

[travispickles]

So as some of you know I have DD of 10 weeks and DP has DS of 10yrs. CM has gone down by 20 quid a month and DP receiving angry texts (see above). She is demanding he makes up the shortfall or she will refuse to bring him into town when she is coming anyway but make us drive the two hour round trip. What she doesn't know is he has just been made redundant so starting Sept he will be sahd looking after baby. CM will go down to minimum. Thing is, I will only just earn enough to keep roof over our heads and she doesn't work although she is a qualified teacher. Do I have right to refuse to pay any of my income to her?

I disagree. Surely maintenance is to assist with the costs of bringing up a child - not the costs which would be incurred even if there were no children?

You don't have to argue about it. It has never been set out by CSA as far as I know. They say that CM is to cover the NRP's share of the costs of the child. What is meant by that is open for debate.

If you have 3 children and they never stay at the NRP's house then obviously housing is a cost for you, and the non-RP should be helping with it.

If you have 1 child, and the Non-RP has it stay over sometimes (or often) and therefore also has to have a bedroom for it at their house.. why they hell should they contribute to their ex's rent as well as their own...?

Round here a 1 bedroom flat (which would have to be two beds if the child ever stayed there anyway) isn't half the cost of a two bed flat... possibly £50 quid or so less maybe. Therefore half the cost of the RP's rent shouldn't be being paid for by the non RP. In fact, even by the logic that CM should cover the child's portion of rent and that was half the total cost of the whole rent, the child is still half of the responsibility of the RP so at most it should be a quarter that is owed by the non RP i.e. half the child's half if that makes sense? I can't understand on what planet an RP should feel that half their rent should be paid by the non RP. But it happens a lot.

And as many people have said - what happens when the child turns 18... and moves out? RP still needs to live in a house... how do they then afford to pay rent? Going back to Travis's dilemma - her DP's ex is refusing to work and expecting travis and her DP to support her... what will she do when the child is 18... she'll need to pay her own rent then. It won't reduce!

edam "A new partner who sets up house with someone who already has children knows full well there are existing commitments". So presumably the same also applies to PWC's new parent, in which case there are 3 adults paying for towards the housing costs? And what about when there is more than one NRP - potentially 4 or more adults paying towards 1 set of housing costs. Housing costs which the PWC and her new partner (who knew she had children, don't forget) would have to incur anyway regardless of the children

"PWC's new partner!"

Also, the more bedrooms the pwc needs, the same amount of bedrooms are then needed by the nrp. essentially you need two fully functional homes of a similar size, to enable each parent to have the children stay with them. So why should one person, usually the man, pay for all of his household costs AND half of his ex's household costs? surely it's 'quit pro quo' on that score?

Berrie - funny you mention about what happens when the child leaves home .... in two years time we stop paying maintenance, and we've already been told by the ex that she won't be able to afford the mortgage without the maintenance. I suppose there are some people out there who think my DH should keep paying, just so that his ex can stay in the style she'S become accustomed to????? Even though SS will no longer be in the equation?

well Petal according to a lot of the lone parents on here, they would be living in a cheap one bed flat/houseshare if they didn't have DC's. So obviously your DH's ex will simarly downsize

Yes petal02 for all those years they devoted and sacrificed at the alter of motherhood of course, duh

Edam, Interesting to hear your views so please continue to contribute. The point being made is that responsible and involved NRPs have housing costs for children so this is a neutral item for each parent.

In addition a lot of NRPs handed most of the previous house equity so the PWC has had housing taken into account. Also most PWC's get CB - which never seems to be mentioned in calculations.

Everyone's circumstances are different so I think CM should be based on actual costs.Parents should work out what a child costs, clothes, food per week, school dinners, activities, school trips etc and then they should split the costs equally. This way both parents are forced to contribute and the costs are known.

I would be interested to hear from PWCs (I am one) if they think this would work. I wouldn't have an issue sharing these costs - why would I?

Travis, I don't think your DH has to justify his position on work. My DH was told by his ex that 'she wouldn't allow him' to downsize from a highly stressful job to a profession like teaching as it would mean less money for her. Honest you can't make this stuff up and men have the bad press for being controlling!!

I would however advise him to give the ex notice - everyone needs some advance warning of changes in money. I would also recommend that he works out what the actual costs of raising his child are school dinners, school uniforms etc and makes sure there is room in your budget for these. If that means he has to earn some money then so he will have too.

So in summary - yes children should be paid for by both parents but let's base it on actual costs rather than a %.
Btw, CSA amounts = 15% of income isn't a small amount, if it was, no one would complaint about tax rates. I wish I could contribute 15% of income to raising my child, I don't think any parent normally does this so the CSA amount is generous.
Also most NRPs pay - yes there is a % who don't but even on the CSA own stats most parents so it's wrong to assume all NRPs are feckless.

I'm sure I spend more than 15% of my income on ds, if you include all the relevant factors such as housing (if it was just me and dh, we could have stayed in our first home, a one-bed flat), clothing, food, transport, haircuts, utility bills, toys, books, birthday parties - not just his but presents for friends - days out, etc. etc. etc. If I went mad and walked out on ds and dh tomorrow (God forbid) I'm sure they'd notice the difference if I was suddenly only giving them 15%.

Btw, I don't agree that costs are neutral, unless you have 50:50 shared care which is quite unusual. The expenses accrued by the child's main home will be larger than those accrued by the NRP. For instance, the child will be eating many more meals at the main home than in the NRP's home ? 36 v. six every fortnight for a child who stays with the NRP every other weekend. Repeat those proportions for the child's element of energy bills and so on and so on.

But Edam most of those factors would apply to both parents after separation
Both need a house, both need clothing, food, hair cuts, to pay utility bills, toys, books, and birthday parties.

A Child cannot stay at their other parents if they do not have a house, they will hopefully be fed there and not walking around naked. I know many cases where the NRP takes the children to get their hair cut. Guess what NRP have to pay the bills too.
Children need toys and books to use when their staying at both houses.
Inmost cases the children will have a party at both parents or parents will arrange it between themselves and share cost. When children go to parties the parent who has care of them that weekend pays for the card and present.
Both parents take the children on day trips and on holiday. So there is not many and in some cases any expenses that the RP has that the NRP does not. But the RP gets maintenance and child benefits which the NRP does not.

So to put it kindly you are talking rubbish

And your logic is the exact reason so many RP deny their children a full relationship wihh the NRP. They are too worried about losing money they rely on for their own selful ways that they reduce contact to up their money so that they can buy extragancies while their children miss out on what is truly important

We worked out the costs and split it 50/50. We do shared care, and also split the child benefit etc.

So there's no animosity about having to pay an ex money and no counting nights, as it's not relevant.

The child's element of the utility bills???? you imply that having the lights/heating switched on, costs more when the child is with you?

The child's primary carer and primary residence have to deal with the lion's share of the costs. It is NOT as expensive to feed a child every other weekend as it is to feed them all week plus every other weekend. This is very straightforward addition, fgs!

How much food does you child eat?

If you are feeding yourself it hardly much more expensive to feed a child on top. Most food for single people is wasted because you can't buy in small enough portions. Larger potions are also more economical.
And also the fact that they eat there more is why maintenance exists so the RP is getting money towards that additional expense any way

Petal, I'm not talking about my own situation, I'm talking about the principle.

It is more expensive to have two people in a house than one. That's reflected in the council tax discount for single occupancy. If you have a child living with you then your energy bills will be higher than if you were living alone.

There appear to be some people out there who are so keen to believe they are hard done by they are determined to ignore basic facts, like children needing a roof over their heads, or two-person households costing more than one person, or 36 meals costing more than six. Fine, whatever floats your boat.

I noticed that on the census too...

Did you read the really good article about family court interim report? I'll try dig out the link.... It really shows how crazy the court system is and how damaging to the people it protests to protect the children.
I'm looking foreword to the day share children have equal rights to a relate ship with both parents

My husband has a child from a previous "relationship". I have put relationship in inverted commas as it was a one night stand - this is accepted by both parties. There is no bitterness at all between them about it.

When I met my DH it was clear that the child that existed was a non negotiable part of his life and we could not make any decisions without considering that child. We waited until we could have a child without financially impacting the child that DH already had. The child's mother wanted to be a SAHM and my DH wanted that for her as well so we happily fully supported her until his son went to school. That meant that during that time and for some time afterwards we could not have children. The fact that he has shown such loyalty to his child is one of the many things I love about him.

Latemates - golly, you are right and I have been wrong all along. Gosh, silly me thinking children need actual meals. Now I realise they can survive on the scraps from the adult's table. Let's abolish maintenance entirely! (Btw, you may want to let NHS Choices know they can get rid of all those unnecessary pages of advice on child nutrition, especially the portion sizes bit.)

Edam, you are using an example of 6 meals Vs 36... Fine. You are right that is more expensive. But no one else has mentioned a situation like that.

Most of us are talking about situations where there is near on 50/50 care when we talk about meals. eg my DSD is with us every saturday and every other sunday, plus 2/3 nights of the week. So we do have to have afull house for her hear and yes, we actually spend more money on food because in the week she gets free school meals on account of her mother not working. So we feed her dinner 2/3 nights in the week and we feed her for 75% of weekend time, which is the expensive bit. We do need as much extra room here for her as her mum does and therefore I don't see how her mum can justify £500 CM as being hlaf of DSD's cost when she is there. She WOULD have to pay the same rent. And hardly any extra food. Because we have DSD so often all the other things y0ou list such as friends birthday presents/ school trips etc come up about even between the two houses.

And have a passive agressive for your last post.

I am actually so sad (due to debt problems in the past) that I note everything I spend and on what. Last month I spent £80 on my DSD and £208 on my own DD. Not including their share of food (and certainly not their share of rent because as I have said, we need a house and heating and electric whether we have kids or not)
my ex gives me £200 a month which a lot of people I know think is pitiful. Well clearly it covered all but £8 of my daughter's costs for the month, and beleive me she doesnt go without!
I would estimate that on top of that £208, considering I spent £269 on food that month, her food costs can have been and absolute maximum of 1/6 of that cost so say another £45 quid.

I think I do pretty well out of CSA.

But because the ex has it in her hesad that CM is or half of her rent, bills, food shopping etc etc she beleives £500 isn't adaquate. There is NO WAY that child costs her £1000 more than if she lived alone... NO way! The same way my child doesnt cost me £400 more than if I lived alone.