Single Mama Troubles [three]:: Child Support

Alright, let's talk about this. All of us strong, beautiful, hard-working, selfless, respectable single mamas (and daddy's) out there have problems with it. There's really just no getting around it, no matter how everything goes down.


Maybe your child's father is completely willing to help out and willingly pay his child support. He recognizes that you take care of your child most, if not all, of the time. He understands that having a child, and raising that child, is expensive and very difficult to do on one income.

But he probably still wants to know exactly how that money is being spent.

 

Regardless, it's an issue. And we all have to deal with it. It's just that for some it's easier than it is for others.

 

Unfortunately, that isn't the case for me. Oh no. Child support is a constant battle and always something I'm getting hell for from the Ex Husband and his GF. They just won't let up.

 

Let me go back to the beginning for you. The Ex Husband and I split up in March 2008. He was deployed, I managed the money. Even though we were separated, I paid all the bills until he got home and we could split our accounts and he set up an allotment. I paid off his credit card, the payments on our couch and over half of the money he owed on his truck loan while he was gone. Did I get a thank you? Of course not.

 

Anyways. So he got home, we separated everything and he set up an allotment for $400 each month. We agreed on that number because if we had taken it to a lawyer and gone through the courts, he would have ended up paying a heck of a lot more. Basically? I settled. But I was trying to "keep the peace". Or at least some semblance of it.

 

So we went through the next ten months with this allotment set up, and everything was fine. My child support came on the 1st of every month, my bills were paid and KBug was cared for. No problem.

 

Then he deployed again in July 2009. And KBug started preschool in August 2009. I had told him before he left that she would be starting preschool and he had agreed to kick in some money. Her preschool was very affordable, $150 each month for three mornings a week. I told him his half would be $75. And he said no.

 

I never did see that $75 each month to help.....

 

So he came home in February 2010. Very end of February. And he informed me that he was getting out and moving up to where his GF is from. Ok, not a problem. Let's create a new agreement that maps out visitation and alters the child support for the summer while you're looking for work. He said he had enough saved up that it wouldn't be a problem.

 

Saw KBug five times in the three weeks he was here, packed up his things and moved away.

 

Goodbye child support.

 

It's now May and I haven't received anything since March 1st. Wow. Thanks. But GMa and I are trying to be nice and follow the agreement we had planned out for visitation. KBug was only 4 years old and there was no way she was going up there on her own. But GMa was being generous and offered to take her up for a week long visit. All the Ex Husband had to do was pay $250 for KBug's plane ticket. GMa would cover the hotel, rental car, food and her own airfare.

 

Two months behind on support and he couldn't scrape together $250 to pay for her ticket. Therefore, no visitation. He's not getting away with paying nothing. No sir. Not happening.

 

By the time July 15th rolled around and I hadn't seen child support, I decided it was time to take action. So I went into the Child Support Enforcement and opened a case against him.

 

 

Then, in August, two weeks before KBug is set to go back to school, he tried to offer me money to bring her up there. But only enough to cover fuel costs, if that. No help with a place to stay or anything like that. I couldn't afford it, and he clearly couldn't. So it was a no go. Especially with KBug so close to starting a full-day preschool program.

 

She starts school, he's supposed to pay half because I'm working. But I'm already not seeing child support, so do I really expect him to help out with her school costs. Nope. I sure don't. And it's a good thing I didn't hold my breath.

 

In September he got the notice of the case against him and I got a furious phone call. He was so mad, it was actually quite funny. At that point he tried to offer me some small amount of money every month to not take him to court. I told him no. It was time he be held accountable and own a little bit of the responsibility for having a child. He didn't like it, but I wasn't backing down.

 

 

Court date in November, he didn't show and asked for a continuance.

 

Court date in December, he didn't show and asked for a continuance.

 

Court date in January, he didn't show but he's gotten a lawyer. Lawyer asks for a temporary order for the month and a continuance to familiarize himself with the court case. The Ex Husband is ordered to pay $425 by January 15th.

 

Court date in February, he didn't show but he still has a lawyer. Lawyer agrees to the $425 that I originally told the Ex Husband would be his monthly payment. But he has racked up several thousand dollars in arrears, so the judge tacks on an additional $45 a month until that's all paid up.

 

So my order is set, and my child support is finally coming in every week. Thank goodness!

 

Well, then in September I get a notice that he is taking me back to child support court at the end of October. Alright, fine. He wanted to go back and have the child care costs taken out because KBug was out of preschool and in Kindergarten. He didn't want to help pay for her education at a Catholic school. He also wanted my income re-evaluated because I had changed jobs over the summer from being a nanny to a preschool teacher. Well, my income stayed exactly the same at the end.

 

Court date in October, he didn't show and he didn't have a lawyer. I literally got to watch the judge laugh and the CSE lawyer toss the papers in the trash.

 

 

It was awesome.

 

So my support is coming in steady from February 2011 up until January 2012. And then it just stopped. Absolutely ridiculous. He had quit his job before he had a new one. And when I asked him about his child support he told me he didn't owe me anything because he wasn't making anything. Umm, sorry buddy.

 

That's not how this works...

 

From January 2012 until May 2012, I received a week and a half's worth of support from him. But I tracked my account online and watched his arrears add up every week. I finally started receiving in May, but then lost another week sometime in July. Maybe he took a week off? I'm not sure, but it started right up again so I didn't worry about it much. I knew I would see it eventually.

 

Everything has been coming in the way it should since then. And this year, amazingly enough, the order worked correctly. I should have gotten part of his tax return last year when he filed because he had several thousand dollars in arrears. But he somehow managed to get away without paying it. He didn't get so lucky this year, and that several thousand was deposited straight into my bank account.

 

Now, before anyone gets defensive, I haven't spent all of it. I used a portion of it for bills, a portion of it for new outside toys for KBug because hers from last year were in bad shape, and another little bit of it for a pool for the backyard for KBug. And she's gotten some other things here and there. Clothes, toys, DVDs, etc. Kid things.

 

The rest of it is sitting pretty in my savings account until we need it.

 

So now that I have given you my child support history, let's just talk about child support in the general sense. There are a few things I really just don't understand when it comes to those who have to pay the child support.

 

Seriously, why is it that men think it's ok to help create a child, but not help financially when it comes to raising the child? Children aren't free. They're expensive. Clothes, shoes, food, transportation, child care (we can't all be SAHM's), sports, summer camps, toys, bedroom furniture, books, backpacks. And then there's the laundry detergent to clean the clothes, the dish soap to wash the dishes, the fuel for the car to get them where they need to be. And doctors bills, prescription costs. It all adds up. Having a child isn't cheap. But you think it's ok for one parent to have to pay everything? That's basically asking the impossible.

 

 

And then there's the ones who really just can't stand their ex. Well, obviously at some point, you could stand them. It's quite apparent that there was a relationship that involved at least a little bit of physical attraction. If there wasn't, there would be no baby. But there is a baby. And even if you can't stand the ex, you still have a child to help take care of. Now, if you really can't stand the ex and feel the child isn't important enough to stick around, that's on you. But that doesn't mean that you should get away with not taking responsibility for you child, at least financially. It's not about getting back at your ex.

 

 

Another thing. If you really don't want to be a parent, well, you probably should have made sure you were better protected in the first place. Because not wanting to be a parent really isn't a legitimate reason to abandon them. It just doesn't make the cut as far as reasonable excuses go. Your child can't eat an excuse for dinner. Sorry. But even if you've had a child and don't want to be a parent, there are consequences for your actions. And, in this case, it's child support. So just pay it already and deal with it. It doesn't mean you have to see the child or be a part of their life. It just means you're accepting responsibility for your actions. It's not the end of the world for you.

 

 

The last thing that irritates me about child support? The endless string of complaints that comes from the person who has to pay out the money. Oh my gosh, just deal with it. Yes, you have to pay money. Yes, you have to pay the taxes on that money. Yes, it takes away from your income. Yes, it means you have to save to buy that video game. Yes, it means you have to live on a budget. Yes, it means you have to spend carefully. But who really freaking cares!? Apparently a heck of a lot of deadbeat dads out there do. And sometimes, as in my case, even the GF cares. What, do you think your children are better than mine and deserve more simply because he's with you? Umm, no. Your children are no better than mine and deserve no more than mine. That's not the way this works. So just shut up already, please.

 

 

And that's my little rant on child support. I could have gone into how incredibly ridiculous and irritating it is to deal with child support enforcement, but I decided I would leave that for another post. This one is already long as it is.

 

And to all the single mamas (and daddy's) out there who have dealt with or are still dealing with any of the issues I wrote about above, I'm sorry. It's no fun at all, I know, and I wish there was some way to make it easier on you. But stay strong, keep your head up, and eventually it will all work out. Just have faith.