Speaker 1: 0:00

I read a post in which mom is asking what is child support for? Now she says please help.

Speaker 2: 0:08

I'm not going to show my ex this, but I'm trying to see if my position is correct or incorrect. My ex pays child support around $200 a month for each of our children. I use that money for food and rent etc. Our kids need snow boots this winter. We live in a part of the world that requires snow boots in the winter. I asked my ex to pitch in 50% of the cost because he'd be using the snow boots when he has the kids and well, it is a necessity. He refused telling me he pays child support and I need to take it out of that money. He told the kids he already paid me for the boots because he pays child support.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Am I looking at child support wrong? When we got divorced, my attorney told me I can use the money for things the kids need like housing and food and clothing. I don't have to buy all of them all their clothing. I'm the only parent that buys clothing. In the end I only have X amount of dollars. But should I be buying all their clothing first and then written food?

Speaker 1: 1:10

And that is her Reddit post. So, Linda, you run into this a lot, don't you?

Speaker 3: 1:19

Just about every case, and a lot of the cases I see, the father is estranged and so he has quit paying child support a while ago, and so it and the children have been told, usually in that case by the mother, that he's not paying and that's why she can't afford to get them the really expensive tennis shoes they want or something like that. Kizzies, yeah, exactly. But the child in this case, or the children in this case, has been told by father that he's already paid for the boots and probably anything else they wanted, because he pays child support. And I think that is the big takeaway from this is quit talking to your children about child support, exactly.

Speaker 1: 2:04

No matter which side of the fence, you're on.

Speaker 1: 2:07

I was trying to visualize how that exchange occurred. The kids come in and say, dad, I need boots for the winter. Mom says you won't get them for us. So that's probably how that conversation started.

Speaker 1: 2:18

The question of what child support is for, I think it's the same.

Speaker 1: 2:22

I've practiced in Virginia and Oklahoma and it was the same in two very disparate states.

Speaker 1: 2:27

The two states are very different, or one's a commonwealth, sorry, virginia and the issue is that child support is the obligation of both parents. So both parents have a statutory obligation, not to mention an ethical obligation, to care for their kids. And when you have a situation in which the parents are equally having parenting time with the kids, then they're both providing for the same set of essential basic necessities for the kids in terms of housing and food, on probably roughly equal levels. When you have one parent who has primary custody and the other parent has very limited time, like every other weekend, then the parent with primary custody is supporting their children financially because they have them, they're feeding them, they're housing them, and the parent who has the visitation is doing less of that, and so they make up for some of that lack of support by providing direct financial compensation to the parent who has the children more, so it's both parents' obligation In this case. I think you were looking through the comments and did you find out their parenting time?

Speaker 3: 3:35

Yes, I was curious about how many children there were, since she used the word each to describe the children. That you know obviously implies at least two, but I think maybe more than two. But she said they do have about really close to about half time. Maybe she has a little bit more by the end of the year. And then she also volunteered that she, at the point of the divorce, was making more money than he did by a little bit. So I don't know if she's minimizing the differences there either way or whether that was true. But she said now she doesn't.

Speaker 1: 4:09

So this sounds like a situation with roughly 50-50 physical custody and incomes that are probably fairly close, and he's still paying child support. So I think the answer is what is child support for? To provide financially for your children, to keep them in as best a situation as you can and if you can, it's nice to have their living environments not be so totally different, to go from a lap of luxury on one occasion and then you're going to a small apartment in a rough part of town for weekends or whatever. But that doesn't always work out clearly because you can't equalize it totally. So the answer in terms of she asks should I be buying all of the clothing first and then rent and food? No, you just have to watch a basic survival show. You need what? Do you need? Your water, your shelter and your food, and a bikini, and a bikini that's true.

Speaker 1: 5:06

That's true, I like a tankini myself, just because of the way my body works. But so, yeah, you take care of your rent and your food first, and then for the clothing you have options. If she doesn't have the cash, and if he can't or won't contribute extra and there's no court order requiring him to, then you hit the goodwill.

Speaker 3: 5:31

I hear the most especially, I think, from the fathers, because they're traditionally more the ones to pay child support, don't you think? Okay, I agree, they will say that they feel like there's no control. They have no control over what the child support is used for, and I think that's where this post originally started that they feel like they're just paying for mom's brand new sports car or something, and they may be, and it's none of their business.

Speaker 1: 5:58

You know, what I tell my clients is if you're paying child support, you pay what's ordered and once it's out of your account, into hers or into his, it's none of your business anymore because she has other payment.

Speaker 1: 6:13

You have a bank account and money comes in and money goes out, and each dollar is not specifically allocated for a certain thing. So the child support that a person receives is just adding to the overall pool of resources they have to meet the needs that they have for themselves and for their children. And it's not the business of the parent paying child support to keep track or receive an itemization of how each dollar of child support was spent. It's just none of their business. Now if you have a parent who keeps coming back, who's receiving child support and is perennially saying my children are destitute because I can't provide for them or whatever, and they try to seek additional child support, if a court were to entertain that which most courts wouldn't because typically, to my understanding of the jurisdictions I've been in, there are statutorily presumptive amounts of child support based on incomes- Sure.

Speaker 1: 7:09

But if that were an issue, then I think that would open it up to. Okay, then where's the money going? But typically it's just not anybody's business and you're not together anymore and it's not a good look, especially for a guy, to try to be exerting control over the finances of their ex. That gets us straight into the Duluth power and control wheel, which is not a good idea to be trying to focus on how she spends her money and to think that you have anything to say about how she handles her household.

Speaker 3: 7:40

And it is rather obvious if your child states to someone like myself it's just not fair that mom's spending this much money doing such and such, because obviously that has come from dad.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Or the kid's gotten on her Facebook account, oh my, and saw her down at the casino here on her beach trip with the girls. Yes, I was just thinking that I know, and that's a word otherwise for moms. Dads are quick to say I've already paid my child support, I don't need to pay anything else. Moms are quick to throw dads under the bus or whoever. Vice versa, if it's alternative, I could get you this, if only their parent would pay child support. It's just too easy to throw the ex under the bus when you're not giving your kids something that they want, which doesn't help anybody.