Child Support and parental responsibilities

[Rumpleteaser]

Background
I split from Ex in May, for a period he was contributing finacially, after he found full time employment. He was living in the family home and I was with my parents. I was the the one reponsibie for making sure the morgage, childcare and all bills was paid. In August I asked him to move out, he refused, I gave him until the start of Sept, the boys and I then moved back in. He then stopped contributing financially, so I told him to take over paying 50% of the day care costs, he told me he was going to cancel day care. He did take over paying his share, but left me hanging, not knowing what was happening. Because I thought he was going to be vindictive, I had the locks changed. He moved out without too much fuss. He has only had the boys overnight once and seen them on 2 other occasions for a morning or afternoon.

At some point he applied for child support, claiming he had the boys for 35% of the time, if that were true, I would need to pay him maintenence. We both supplied evidence, to which the assessment was made in my favour. They deemed I have 100% of care, which I certainly do now, since ex moved out. I wont get my first payment untill December as we have missed the November collection, but it will be back dated to September. Ex is claiming CSA has advised him to stop paying any further day care costs and that what he has contributed so far to date towards day care, should cover his payments in arrearas (sp).

Questions
My questions to all those single Mums out there is:
How do you and your ex cover those expenses related to your children?
Do you rely only or primarily on child support payments.
Who earns more and who cares more for the children?

I am particulary interested in hearing from Mums, who earn more, work full time, care for the children for the majority of the time, with ex partners who want to be involved where they can with their children. Though I want to hear from anyone who has an opinion also.

I feel essential child care expenses should be shared equally, those things such as daycare, education, medical. That child support goes towards everyday expendable expenses, such as food, clothing a roof over their head extracuricular activites, sport etc.... Am I naive thinking this?

Ex seems to think I am out to get him, I have supported him over the last 4 years, while he was trying to set up a business, which just before the spilt was in a position to start making money after the debt had finally been paid off. He was only working 20hrs per week last finacial year at a retail casual rate. I came into this relationship with assests, he did not, we had a verbal agreement that if we split I would get back what I put in. When we did split, he told me he was not sure if he would honour that agreement, though the law recongises, the assests I bought into the relationship. We are still waiting on legal settlement of our property and assets.

Thanks for listening and for any advice you can offer.

[Jellyfish]

Unfortunately, all a non-custodial parent has to pay is child support and that is meant to cover their contribution to all expenses involved in raising a child. Obviously, usually in practise it does not cover much but legally, nobody has to pay above the assessed child support amount. Some do under private arrangements but it is near impossible without their agreement. You can also apply for special circumstances to try and prove that the assessed amount is not appropriate but it is a difficult and long path to take.

It is likely anything he has contributed to child care costs to date could be used to cover his arrears if he can provide evidence he has done so.

ETA: In our situation all we receive is child support. DD1s dad technically earns more than myself (for child support purposes as I am a stay at home mum) but I do have a new partner and another daughter now so in practise we have a combined income that is of similar to him (not that it is worked out that way because step-parents are not required to contribute to a child which kind of shows there are flaws both ways because in practise a step-parent will most likely be contributing to a child too but yeah). We have DD1 I think 93%? Most of the time basically. DP and I pay everything for DD1 using the child support as required which is about $70 a week. Which is pretty good compared to some others but considering DD1 has medical needs that involve around $150 a week (speech therapy) well, it doesn't go very far in the end.

[nothing2lose]

I earn more, I have DD for the majority of time and my ex pays for absolutely nothing. Never has, never will. In almost nine years of separation I have received a grand total of $668 child support. That's meant to have covered his share of all her educational, material, medical, etc needs (I just worked out it is one cent every 10 days! Yep, that should cover it )


As Jellyfish said, your ex doesn't have to pay for anything over and above his legal child support obligations which, if he is not working, may be nothing.

[Amity]

I earn more, I have DD for the majority of time and my ex pays for absolutely nothing. Never has, never will. In almost nine years of separation I have received a grand total of $668 child support. That's meant to have covered his share of all her educational, material, medical, etc needs (I just worked out it is one cent every 10 days! Yep, that should cover it )


As Jellyfish said, your ex doesn't have to pay for anything over and above his legal child support obligations which, if he is not working, may be nothing.

Yep.

I work full time and have had my kids (over the years) ranging from 100% to 66%. Note he's never had more than 34%

In the last 3 years I have received $646. In total.

Don't worry that the psychologist costs $160/week ($6400 per year), shoes are $160/term, school fees $1000/year, karate $160/month, soccer $90 term, basketball $180/term, hospital $1000/year, other therapy $500/term, doctor $500/year, medication $500/year, chess $80/term, after school/before school care $X (I don't want to think about it), groceries $(something scary as DS1 is gluten free)... etc etc etc. The boys are grading in karate next week so I'll be up for the costs of their mitts and pads (even though it's on XH's time, I'm expected to fork out the money).

That doesn't include the costs of food, roof over their head, car, day to day clothes, school uniforms, basketball/karate/soccer uniforms etc etc...

We are both working in the same industry, yet somehow I'm the one paying for everything!

So in response to your questions:

How do you and your ex cover those expenses related to your children? I pay. For everything.
Do you rely only or primarily on child support payments. No. Never have, never will. He wasn't regular even when he was paying anything.
Who earns more and who cares more for the children? I earn probably 3x what he does. I care more for the children.

[Catastrophic]

He pays child support... That is it - and if we are not talking or arguing that Is the first thing that goes...

I pay for everything out of my own pocket the child support doesn't even cover half of the child care fees. I work full time - and earn just a bit over what he does.

I don't expect anything more from him. And he has them sometimes every 2nd fortnight... But generally just comes over and sees them.

[~clover~]

I get nothing. I've had nothing since 5 months before I left him, 9 months ago. I don't even get child support & that was only $16 a week til this month!

I have 100% care. He's in NSW, I'm in WA for now. I'm driving them to NSW for christmas to see their family, including a week with him. He has no interest at all in helping cover those costs. But is happy to cry that he won't see them christmas day, because I have other plans. I invited him along, but there's always an excuse.

I don't work, but I would if I could. I pay for all the kids school expenses. Excursions, swimming lessons etc. I would pay for day care to work if it was available here. He has no interest in helping at all. When I first got here I asked for $100 that he'd borrowed from me. I was going to use my $200 food money to buy a fridge, so I needed that for food. It never came. i had to take my kids savings that I'd been putting away for them, so I could feed them.

I'm actually greatful that he doesn't earn enough for me to have to rely on child support to survive. I still recieve almost full entitlements from centrelink. If I had to rely on CSA, we'd be screwed. Majorly.


A friend of mine has it court ordered that her ex pay her DD's private school fee's on top of child support, but that's because he took her through the family court to have her DD go to that school. He wanted that, so being his choice, he pays.

[nothing2lose]

I think, to summarise everyone's posts, there are serious flaws in the child support system in this country.

If you are able to get any child support, let alone any additional money, from your ex, you are doing well.

[Beatrix]

Ex pays child support and atm for half is school swimming ($30 each) and school fees ($210 each) which was agreed to in mediation

But he has just repartnered and has now started talking about not paying for school fees anymore because the governments bonus at the start of the year should cover that (never mind the school uniforms etc)

We pay for everything else private health, medical, after school activities (dancing, gymnastics, football) and he wants us to supply clothes as well because they grow to quick.

I guess we have it pretty good compared to a lot as he has never not paid child support.

I guess sometimes the bare minimum required legally is good enough for some fathers and others don't give a poop.

[Ryatha]

Xh and I have a good arrangement but out separation was better than our marriage. He pays child support and half of school fees and uniforms and out of school activities. He pays oshc and child care fees the days he has care of the girls and buys them clothes and toys to keep at his house. He has them 40% and our arrangement is considered shared care. Therefore I make him (and he agrees) to pay half of everything. We speak before big purchases and keep receipts where needed.

I think I'm very lucky with this arrangement as we both agree to put our kids needs first. But we only separated 18 months ago so things could change yet...

[*Efjay*]

I am not in this situation at all & hope like hell I never am.

But just wanted to say how sucky it is that a partner thinks all responsibility to his/her children is forfeited just because the relationship broke down. How sucky is that! I wonder how many out there actually still continue to go halves for raising their own children.
How can these people think its ok that they contribute nothing to the child they (assuming) once cared for & did everything for. People suck

[~clover~]

Can I ask you guys what happens when your ex begins another defacto relationship? Does that count for anything? Like, does the new partner become a dependant, so CSA amount reduces, or does partner not count? I'm pretty sure I remember reading that its still only his income that counts. Hers would mean nothing?

[Beatrix]

Since my husband income doesn't count, xh new missis won't either.
Unless he has another biological child I'm pretty sure cs stays the same.

[~ Mylitta ~]

My husband earns more than his ex and currently we have majority share of his two kids care. Despite this we still pay her child support. The two parent's salaries are added together, then a percentage of that is deemed to be what would be spent on the children from that "salary pool". The percentage of that input into the salary pool and the percentage of care are used to work out who pays who what. The child support is "meant" to cover all reasonable expenses to raise the children. So that means child care, education, health etc. Extras are extras. For example, if you decide you want to put the kids in a private school, that would have to be negotiated with the other parent separately to child support if you want them to contribute to the costs.

[Cass72]

Can I ask you guys what happens when your ex begins another defacto relationship? Does that count for anything? Like, does the new partner become a dependant, so CSA amount reduces, or does partner not count? I'm pretty sure I remember reading that its still only his income that counts. Hers would mean nothing?

Clover my income is not taken into account for DH's child support estimate. Likewise, only DS2 is considered a dependent - neither DS1 nor I are considered dependents and, as such, do not affect his estimate. The only way to change this would be to get a court order stating that that I could not support DS1 and that he was DH's responsibility.

[Rumpleteaser]

Thank you all for answering my questions. Looks like I have alot to learn, about this separation business. I guess my DH will remain a burden to me for the rest of his life, hopefully he will continue to drink and smoke himself into the ground.