by GypsyBell

Created on: March 20, 2009   Last Updated: March 21, 2009

There are quite a few catch 22's to child support. Child support was originally set in place to help women raise their children. It used to be that when a women got divorced her income was lowered substantially and she often did not have the means to take care of her children. Child support was put into place so that the child would not have to suffer from this drastic reduction in a women's income. It was originally put in place to balance the incomes.

But is this still the case today? Often it is not. In today's society where most women work their income is not as drastically reduced as it was say 20 years ago. Many single mothers can get by on their own salary without need for child support or with need for less. The court mandates that for a single child a parent should pay 20% of their income to help with the costs of that child. This often leaves the parent who is paying the child support worse off than the parent that retains custody of the child. If someone makes around $40,000 a year they would on average pay around $6,560 a year in child support. This would bring their salary after taxes and child support down to $26,240. If the other parent makes $30,000 a year after taxes plus child support they are actually making $31,160 a year. How is it fair to bring one parents salary down to such a level while increasing the other parents? It seems that today Child support is no longer about balancing the incomes. What would you do in a case where the custodial parent makes $100,000 a year and the non custodial parent only makes $35,000 a year? Is it fair to make the non-custodial parent 20% of their income to help raise a child when the other parent clearly has the means to raise that child without financial help? Each situation should be looked at as equalizing the balance of income to better benefit the child as opposed to giving one parent better means than the other.

Another catch 22 about child support is that just about any women can go out and get pregnant by any man, not tell him about it and then show up with a baby demanding money. This is not ethical by any means, yet it seems to happen more and more. Women get pregnant because they want child support money. Now while this isn't an article on birth control and I believe that everyone should use birth control and safe sex practices. What if a man is in a relationship with a women and has made it clear he is not interested in children. She says she is on the pill or some other form of birth control when in truth she is not. She comes up pregnant, will not let him sign his parental rights away and forces him to pay for a child he neither consented to having nor wanted. Not only does this have devastating effects on a child, but also on the man who was manipulated.

Our society needs to take a closer look at responsibility as a whole. Child support is one of many issues that just shows us that there is no one way to do anything. The courts should seriously take a look at amending the way child support is handed out and delivered and focus on balancing the incomes of the parents to make it easier on the children instead of making one parent suffer.

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