Child Support Idea

Qantourisc · 2022-07-25T08:28:15+00:00

Bookkeeping would probably kill it.

Also food is hard to separate.

my_name_is_gato · 2022-07-25T13:30:15+00:00

Attorney and MRA here that is very familiar with this area of practice. The problem is that money is fungible; making someone slightly more accountable for child support expenditures doesn't change the fundamental flaws inherent in the system.

Anyone with half a brain can game the system to ensure all child support related funds are either justified or difficult to dispute. Simply pay cash for the pedicures because last night's steak dinner was paid for by child support money.

Then you have the issue of enforcement; unless the waste is egregious and easy to prove, it will be potentially expensive to litigate what expenditures were sufficiently child related to merit some sort of action by the court. Even if there is waste of say $50 per month, it would take a year to equal about 2 hours worth of a decent attorney's time.

The worst problem comes as a simple reality of human nature. There is no way to punish the parent without unfairly hurting the child. The type of parents these laws would target are the types that would sacrifice their child's quality of life before their own if paid less in support or worse, required to refund some.

One idea could be an automatic review at say age 19 to determine whether the child is attending school (extending support to age 21) and give the paying parent an opportunity to seek a judgment that is only enforceable when the child is no longer in need of support. Again, any parent with a brain can plan around this to either have enough justification to make it not worth the fight, or just plan to be "broke" by putting everything of value in trusted persons' names to become judgment proof.

If parents put half the energy into being better parents as opposed to finding ways to game/beat the system, I would be out of a job overnight. Unfortunately, that's not the reality and parents are very, very good at skirting the edge of what is legally actionable.

imextremelymoderate · 2022-07-25T08:33:32+00:00

It almost brings me to tears thinking how much child support money is not even spent on the child. It should be criminal. It's like stealing money from a child!

DouglasMilnes · 2022-07-25T11:33:27+00:00

There was an attempt at something like this by the father's rights movement in USA back before the internet days. That's not to say it shouldn't have another airing.

I think the Trust concept is going to be too expensive. Parent spends $1 on a new school pen, sends the receipt in which must then be manually checked. Say that takes 3 minutes of a clerk's time to verify and record, charged out at $50 per hour = $2.50. Child support suddenly isn't going very far. And there is still no check made that the child has the $1 pen.

Better would be auditing. That allows for random verification, with all bills available and questionable. That is both cheaper and can be more thorough.

Feminists will realise that this could benefit some men, so if you want to design a campaign, you need to work out how to counter their resistance, since they have taxpayer money to lobby against your idea.

PyromaniacStoner · 2022-07-25T17:34:51+00:00

it pisses me off so much when women look at child support with dollar signs in their eyes, how can you possibly call yourself a good mother when you are literally stealing money from your own kids that they need for support

if you take your childrens money and spend it on yourself then you are a piece of shit

BookerTea3 · 2022-07-25T12:26:19+00:00

Pitfalls would be:

Contribution to rent, food and utilities. There is a decent argument to say, standard of living costs should increase due to having our kids. I wouldn't want my kid living in a scabby area.

I don't see how you could differentiate overheads etc for this kind of stuff.

wrekd · 2022-07-25T13:55:37+00:00

Too much overhead. Would create too much bureaucracy. The child support system also doesn't give two shits about kids. The system is in place to generate federal grant money payable to states through Title IV-D of the Social Security Act. The kids are just the lube used to stick this up the butts of all Americans.

AmorphousApathy · 2022-07-25T16:56:20+00:00

Child support is supposed to replace the missing parent's financial presence in the household.

If both parents resided with the child, there would be non of this kind of accounting.

How do separate child support from the household budget for food, a larger apartment, heating and cooling costs, outings with the child, etc.?

highedutechsup · 2022-07-25T14:05:39+00:00

Won't work because single mothers want what isn't theirs. That's why they get remarried, to use the new guys income. The new step dad pays for someone else's kids college because they now have the toxic trophy wife.

This is the only way to change the system: Mothers that don't want to work, get the cost of the local daycare rates, and that is what child support is set at. The rest of the child support is 50/50 match on justified receipts. No receipts, no money. You don't like the Dad knowing how much you are spending on expenses, you shouldn't have had a kid with him, or be asking for his money.

This isn't a 50/50 income issue where the Dad needs to give 50% or MORE of his income up to some lazy hippo that turns his kids against him. Stop the welfare whales and tinder traps. There is no reason in this world the courts should be promoting single motherhood, it is a determent to society. Fathers should be able to sue the mothers for not contributing. No mother deserves more than minimum wage for sitting on a couch getting a pouch.

You think you can raise a child on your own? Prove it.

nacholibresGF · 2022-07-25T16:30:59+00:00

Judge made my parents open two trusts in our names when they got divorced with 25k each- parents still abused them but he had the right idea

Ukman_44 · 2022-07-25T12:45:19+00:00

"As a mother, I can tell you that no mother using child support as legally intended would throw a fit about having to upload a receipt or bill to draw against the fund."

Rubbish. I'd say about 99% of mothers would throw a fit about this! What an administrative overhead to their life! The vast majority of expenses are shared - rent / mortgage, utilities bills, food, transport (if they have a car). How do you propose to split those out?

KazukiYahashi · 2022-07-25T10:51:29+00:00

I wish it was this way… As it is, child support is hardly guaranteed for the child.

ExMuzzy · 2022-07-25T12:59:41+00:00

The only way I see anything being done in regards to child support is if we begin giving out primary custody to fathers more often so that more mothers are liable for child support (that’s how it works in the uk anyway)

cjgager · 2022-07-25T15:35:25+00:00

sounds like sort of like as escrow account for new construction (i'm from a contractor's family so that's why) - - - so the funds are put into the account & then they are not given to the other person until they can prove the funds are going to be used for appropriate items/costs.
you can probably already do this - maybe the only benefit if made like a "national" thing is people could get some type of child credit or something like that on their taxes?

Last_Braincell_Cant · 2022-07-25T19:31:44+00:00

One of my close friends had their parent leech 100% of their foster care money and use it for themselves while my friend was staying with their aunt and uncle bc the foster father wasn’t taking care of them. Added up to like 8k by the time the money stopped bc they turned 19.

kottermusprime · 2022-07-25T19:55:10+00:00

Why wouldn't everyone just upload rent/mortgage payments and utility bills? Which are your largest bills and impossible to support a child without. This is a pretty stupid idea.

thegreatesthumphrey · 2022-07-25T20:22:39+00:00

This is assuming every mother has the ability to pay for all of the child's needs ahead of time and wait for reimbursement which isn't always the case - hence support

Then there are families of 3 or 4 children, it would be outright irresponsible to then force a single mother with full time custody of that many children to take care of each of their individual needs, pay for upfront, then spend even more time processing all of the accounting for each item for each separate child

I think your idea would only work for mother's who already have an education and career and/or ones who are remarried - that leaves the bulk hurting the most to hurt even more

spicytaco77 · 2022-07-25T20:34:27+00:00

So, say you get married, have other children, step children, etc. So you’re going to split the utility bill, mortgage/housing, food, internet, etc into 5ths or 6 each month, upload it to a system, wait until approval, until you get reimbursed? Seems like a lot to ask of someone who’s most likely doing too much as it is.

tootired213 · 2022-07-25T21:03:15+00:00

My parents do this for my younger siblings. They have a joint bank account that’s sole purpose is for their children left in the custody agreement. Food is the responsibility of each parent during their custodial time, as well as extra things for each home that the kids want, if they want to go on outings with their kids during custodial time, vacations, etc.

The joint account is only used for tuition, books, car payments for the kids car, camps, pretty much everything you said up top.

If either parent wants to make a withdrawal from the account, they need to notify the other parent, and both parents have alerts to their phone for purchases and withdrawals, so they can’t withdrawal money from the account without the other knowing.

It just makes the most sense.

Ok_Razzmatazz_1751 · 2022-07-25T21:35:11+00:00

It's an excellent idea in fact , the only problem is we can't find people to do what jobs we have open in the USA right now. The plethora of positions needed to keep track daily is what I think would be the hardest aspect of this .

SeaITeam69 · 2022-07-26T01:24:00+00:00

Agreed although food and rent should be exluded, I also think the funds should be on a separate account where the father could view all purchases and issue and audit if he believes the funds are being spent on something not related to the child

All to many women do not spend their child support on the kids, my dad had to pay child support even when it was split 50/50 or else my mom would file for custody.

Yet she still had the nerve to complain about my dad not spending enough on clothes etc

Fearless-File-3625 · 2022-07-25T09:31:03+00:00

Sounds like a good idea.

BoudiccaGoesWest · 2022-07-25T14:02:59+00:00

The only way to solve the problem of child support is to kill the whole damn program. Just shut that fucker down.

Existing child support legislature in the US was designed by the Clinton admin to put the cost of welfare onto the shoulders of men. Specifically “deadbeat dads” in the “urban market” (you can guess what that’s a euphemism for) were villanized as being the cause for any financial issues the US government was having.

Turns out child support has NEVER funded welfare/TANF as intended. It has, however, monetized children and moralized the idea that one separated parent should give the other separated parent money.

Seriously. Just ditch the child support. I’ll rally behind that banner any day.

For context, I’m a woman.

Melkor7410 · 2022-07-25T12:16:27+00:00

It doesn't stop misuse of child support really. You would use child support as a percentage of groceries, utility bills, housing costs, and 100% of all child activities. However, the receiving party of it would just use none of their funds if at all possible and now use the extra money they have for not spending it on those things to instead use it for whatever they want not child related. Maybe make it like taxes, if you want a tax deduction, show receipts and such. Same with child support. This would be a type of trust fund basically with a trustee to oversee. I do think there should be at least some that is a discretionary fund. Not gonna get receipts for going to the carnival and buying the kid cotton candy or something like that.

MGTOW_and_Bitcoin · 2022-07-25T14:06:46+00:00

The most important thing a parent does is make financial decisions for the care of their child like what clothes to wear, if or not to have a big care provider, what kind of food or extracurricular activities to participate in all of these financial decisions is what constitutes actual parenting.

Child support takes all of these decisions away from Father's mostly and gives it to mothers who go on to confuse it with their contribution for the child.

Child support represents in my opinion a very fundamental form of Parental alienation you should with your resources have decisions child support is absolutely immoral.

The stupid rationalization for child support is that there are fathers out there that do not want to manage their part of their child's financial needs this is a huge f****** lie.

Every man that is a deadbeat father is a man who should have also had a legal right to choose to be a parent or not.

Not only do men lack basic human rights to decide to be a father we're also forced into exploitive situations where we are fundamentally alienated from our children.

Anybody who is in support of something as stupid as child support does not understand the social cultural and economic context we're dealing with today and the last 50 years.

OldEgalitarianMRA · 2022-07-25T16:31:29+00:00

Men should divorce a stay at home parasite and we should fight for default 50/50 custody and, with both spouses working, child support will be a minimal amount.

Halobruhv · 2022-07-25T14:49:02+00:00

This would make all the mom's I see posting on Facebook getting their hair and nails done with that child support check madddd

quantainium_pasta · 2022-07-25T13:56:05+00:00

It's too much of a pain in the ass, to audit every single transaction. It would be like putting a 5% tax plus 5 minutes for every single transaction. It is too economically inefficient.

I do think having a separate account and putting child expenses on it is a good idea though, since it tracks each transaction automatically, at least at a high level. That way you can at least do a high-level audit by looking at the statements for the OBVIOUS fraud.

Also, deny cash withdrawals from those accounts. I'm sure there will still be ways around it, but at least this way it's a lot more of a pain in the ass.

imextremelymoderate · 2022-07-26T09:31:51+00:00

Let the non custodial parent reduce the child support owed, up to a legislated amount, by showing proof of purchases for the child unrelated to a specific household, like dental/health, school fees and supplies, summer camp, etc. If the argument is "well, they're just going to cheat the system and it's going to hurt the child" or "there's no way to do the bookkeeping" then you'll see the double standard

turbulance4 · 2022-07-25T13:03:34+00:00

I actually proposed something very similar to my ex wife. She was like "no thanks, I'll just take your money and do with it as I please." Not in the words, but that was the obvious intent.

My idea was basically a shared bank account that we each added money in, in equal measure (ie. Both put in $200 every time it was empty) and either could spend from that account for anything child related: clothes, new tablet, school stuff, insurance, medical/dental fees etc. Except food, food would just be on whichever parent has her at the time. Then upload a pic of the receipt to a Google drive or something.

ThrillaDaGuerilla · 2022-07-25T09:01:10+00:00

Where's the allowance for housing, utilities, transportation, maintenance?....

Will you also be forcing parents who are still together to adhere to this "childrens spending fund"?...if not...ask yourself why.

eyesayhello · 2022-07-25T09:31:59+00:00

Good luck with that.

AnonymousNeko2828 · 2022-07-25T16:28:40+00:00

This seems like a pretty good idea, though some stuff would problably need to be thought about more

The_Peacock_King · 2022-07-25T16:47:04+00:00

Thank you, women such as yourself are a true Godsend!

Sintar07 · 2022-07-25T17:28:01+00:00

The biggest pitfall is, unfortunately, human beings. Bad people, men and women, though mostly women atm since they are the vast majority receiving child support, will continue to look on it as "their" money and seek ways to take advantage of it: things for themselves, clothing, things they would like to eat, etc. passed off as "for the kid," or in the worst case scenario, use it to buy high value child items (like baby formula) to resell.

Only way to potentially address this would be to have a new set of clerk/accountant types to review submitted receipts; catching suspicious activity could certainly not be left to an AI. But then that opens a host of new issues: who's being hired, who's doing the hiring, is either party being paid enough to care and not just punch the clock and hit "approved," is either party being paid too much so the job is seen as cushy and sought by those looking to relax for a big check, where's that extra money coming from, is anybody involved going to be pressured by feminists, when the answer is "yes" how will that be addressed, and how many people will be needed to do this level of work anyway?

And for all that, even if an ideal solution is found for every problem and the oversight is both effective and incorruptible, they'll still miss a bunch anyway, because imagine trying to review receipts alone with descriptions like "DRESS" and "BAKERY BREAD" and "FORMULA" and trying to figure out if what they're buying is actually for the kid or not.

I don't mean to sound like I'm just shitting on your idea, it's not a bad idea, it's just not really airtight, and if I'm being honest, idk what idea would or could be. Perhaps stiffer legal penalties (or any legal penalties) in civil courts for misuse of funds, with the responsibility of initiating legal action being on the party(s) in question? Someone who has reason to believe their payments are being misused seems more likely to be able to demonstrate what is being purchased with them than a clock puncher bureaucrat looking at receipts. And then if the receipts were just kept on file as a matter of course, they could be looked into at the time accusations came forward. That could keep the overhead and personal intrusion down without reducing effectiveness I think, and might make people think twice about potential penalties before spending the money on themselves.

dependency_injector · 2022-07-25T13:00:45+00:00

It could be great, like some sort of banking card that can only be used in relevant places, and automatically sends reports to the parent that pays for it.

xsplizzle · 2022-07-25T13:22:48+00:00

feminism would claim its an attack on women, thats it, end of discussion.

ijustdontcare74 · 2022-07-25T15:05:22+00:00

Similar to food stamps, CS payments should only be allowed to be spent on specific items for the child. Food, children's clothing, a % of utilities, school fee's after school clubs etc.. all of it should be held as record that the father can view and contest. He should be able to go to the child support agency and log a case for inappropriate use of funds should the mother, say use it for buying dresses or a new car.

I've always thought it a scandal that women don't have to provide some sort of accountability for the CS. It's supposed to be for the child but we all know they use it for their own spending. It should be ring fenced and protected ONLY for the needs of the child.

McFeely_Smackup · 2022-07-25T15:26:13+00:00

we hear child support defended all the time as "it's for the CHILD, it belongs to the child", and this is said with a "wink, wink" because the payments go directly to the mother, with no restrictions whatsoever on how it's spent, and no ability to audit where the funds go.

I feel like it's as simple as if you want to collect child support, then your end of the deal is you have to save receipts and be prepared to be audited on how it was spent every couple of years.

I have to save receipts for my taxes, why is this any different?

aerial_coitus · 2022-07-25T13:54:31+00:00

I don’t know why it’s not already this way

Yes you do. Or if not, you should.

Godspiral · 2022-07-25T15:48:15+00:00

A difficulty would be auditing/bookeeping is something someone wants to be paid for. If the basic math skills are beyond the child's grasp, one solution would be cryptocurrency, or something like a "foodstamp account" (electronic now) where stores can whitelist items for payment through "child support account"

PotentialSecond68 · 2022-07-25T22:05:18+00:00

You in the wrong Reddit

Smitty1017 · 2022-07-25T19:28:06+00:00

It would work like an HSA. Yeah that would be great

Title	Child Support Idea
Author	Ferbuggity
Upvotes	223
Comments	144
Date	July 25, 2022 8:12 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/w7j62g/child_support_idea/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/child-support-idea.1124918 https://theredarchive.com/post/1124918

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