Child support situation - opinion poll - please see details?

Make him pay. Call it pay for play if you want. If Dad doesn't have his checkbook out then he's not acting grown up at all.

Yes, Mom you should have, and still should. Even the back support. Not for revenge but responsibility.

Male.

I was and still am an excellent father. I have been. I always paid my child support even when my daughter was spending more time with me. She fought with Mom and her half brother.

Your "freedom" is secondary. If you've let Dad share time with the child then your freedom is an illusion. What will you do if the stresses and tension get to be too much? Will you try to stop visitation? What if Dad decides he wants joint custody? Or full custody? Dad may get contentious You freedom really is an illusion, there's a child involved. You are also not the only parent with a legal say here. You better hope Dad continues to play nice. You need a lawyer. Soon.

I admit to having a thing against deadbeat parents. :)

(((Toke)))

This is more common the other way around, where a woman acquires a sample of a man's semen, without his knowledge, say from a used condom and successfully impregnates herself. It is a bit of an urban myth, but it has been tested in court a few times, with mixed results. Remember, however skilled he is though, the odds of him successfully acquiring an egg, transplanting it and fertilising it without medical intervention and assistance is pretty well zero anyway. If he stole her egg and then used for his own purposes, in this case a surrogate birth, then he is guilty of a wide range of offences, the least of which should get him struck from any medical register if he were a professional gynaecologist. He certainly should have no rights to sue the woman whose egg was stolen for child support! S case in a similar vein happened in the UK several months ago where a lesbian couple used a sperm donor to have a child, and the couple later split, and the sperm donor was successfully sued for child support. This is one reason why I am against people conceived through IVF being allowed to know who the sperm donor was, as is now the case in many places, and people who use donated sperm or eggs are more and more allowed to know who donated the gametes. It is also the reason why I would never donate sperm: the laws may well be changed to make me responsible for any children that result.

Yes, I do think Child support should have been pursued, but under the circumstances I can understand why you did not, but in principle a parent should be financially responsible for their offspring.

I am not sure how it works in Canada, but I just want to say that I also think that the Child support system in america needs reform, I have known low income guys with a few kids who are literally starving to death because after the Child support gets taken from their Check, there is nothing left for food and rent, this results in people disappearing and running like rabbits rather than have to pay, for sure, both parents should pay, but they need to remember that a guy has to eat!

I am male last time I checked, (and hopefully people can see that by my pic)

I was in a DNA test type situation with my ex where I was not the father but continued to raise the kid as if it was my kid, having a bond with him from birth and all, I married his mother a few years after he was born and we got divorced two years later (I had to learn the hard way that you can't turn a ho into a housewife).

It has been four years since the divorce, and I still get the kid every Weekend, I do not pay child support of course, as he is not biologically my child, but I do buy him things , as do my parents who consider him to be their grandson, we buy about half of his cloths, he has many toys, and of course I feed him for the day and a half out of every week (or almost every week) that I am with him, I also give other support as needed, and as I see fair.

His bio dad has not been seen in over 6 years, he paid like four or five times on his support and then vanished.

Why not just get legal advice rather than an opinion poll?

I am male, was a lawyer before retirement, in Illinois, USA. You're in Canada, right? I don't know their legal system, bear in mind. I never had any children. My first wife had a daughter, which I was only a stepparent to for a while, and she was very lax about getting her deadbeat musician father to pay anything.

An Adjudication of Paternity comes first, and with dad's whereabouts unknown, it would be impossible to get a Judgment of Paternity. Only THEN can child support be pursued, anyway. You should get dad to sign and notarize an Acknowledgment of Paternity, which together with blood tests will be security for you for the nonage of the child.

But you should (have) pursued support, which is for the welfare of the CHILD, not your personal convenience and preferences. What if you get disabled or become jobless? Think of the young one!

I am a divorced female.

Weather or not mom pursued child support, the father should have been responsible and paid from the get go. Who makes more $$ has no bearing on the situation. mom could be making $300,000 a year and dad making $25,000...if mom has custody, dad should still be responsible for his child. As long as whatever their current domestic and monetary agreement is, if all parties are in agreement, then that is their deal.

Yes, I have custody of our 2 daughters, my X lives about 14 hours away, sees the girls whenever he can / wants to. He pays support for them, and even when he was in between jobs for about 6 weeks, he still paid support even having 2 more children with his current wife.

Do you think mom should or should not have pursued child support?

He should have paid or provided child support, but I can understand why the mom would not want to pursue it. Now that the father has re-entered the picture and wants visitation rights, he damn well better be contributing to raising this child. He can't have it both ways.

Are you male or female?

Male

Are you in any kind of shared custody, divorced with kids situation?

No

Yes i think she should have pursued CS.

Female

My husband has custody of his son and the mom is SUPPOSE to pay CS but she doesn't.

If I have learned anything in this whole debacle over my step son it is that it doesn't matter if you are the man or the woman if you have a biological child you are responsible for them LEGALLY, EMOTIONALLY, FINANCIALLY, and MORALLY!

Any parent that skips out on ANY of those responsibilities should be held accountable by the courts. In my opinion that child is being deprived, deprived of what she is owed which is 2 parents, not just one. I was raised by a single mom because my dad didn't want a daughter, so I really have seen both sides of this and while it was great growing up with my mom, and not having to schedule activities on only certain weekends and not having to make sure my parents sat at opposite ends of the theater to see me play my clarinet...I missed not having a dad-like-person....I can't say I missed my actual dad because i didn't really know him, but I missed not having a dad-like-person.

It is my opinion that this isn't about child support this is about are you denying your child to see the other half of her...and the answer is yes. Now is that decision right for you...well you guys broke up for a reason so if he hit you, or stole all your money or was a crack head that you couldn't depend on or something like that then okay, you might be making the right choice here....but if he is a descent guy who knows how to eat with his mouth closed, earns his money honestly, and can provide even one small thing to this child that you can't...like how to bait a fishing hook, then i think you are doing her a diservice by not involing the father.

men can be d*cks, we ALL know this, heck even THEY know this...but just because they were crappy boy friends or crappy husbands doesn't mean they can't be great fathers, ESPECIALLY if your major problem with them was that they wouldn't grow up! I have seen some low life scum that i wouldn't trust to watch my dog be absolutely wonderful fathers, and it has amazed me...just give it a thought, it isn't just about the power it is what she will always be missing from her life.

I did not seek child support in my divorce.

My daughter was not married but living with her b/f and after the baby was born they seperated because he had beaten her up several times & my daughter didn't want any part of her X. 3 years later she sought child support because the father wanted to be a part of my granddaughters life. He got 2 weekends a month (supervised) and is now paying child support although my daughter did not seek back pay. It works for us the way we did it.

If the woman you're speaking of is in agreement to the terms & everyones happy then I say try it. If it doesn't work out the way they agreed then she can go back to court and change things,or attempt to.

I can't speak for other women, but I would have pursued child support. Reason being, the situation involved marriage and "exes" have a bad habit of showing up down the road - for lots of reasons. I certainly understand the desire for autonomy, but it doesn't always work out (obviously).

I am female.

No, not currently. I had full custody of my children. I didn't get child support for them for most of their lives - and it was probably for the best anyhow. But, that's not to say I think parents should be excused from supporting their children - they should not.

Single mom....the father wasn't prepared to deal with me having children so he abandoned me. When I actually had the kid, I filed mostly to spite him and force him to admit the obvious. I didn't hear anything from anyone for 3 years...then CS called, they found him, my son & I had to take a blood test which I agreed to b/c I knew he was the father and his denial was based on wishful thinking (and a lie from a known liar). Sure enough, he was so I got my 'I told you so moment' but then, to my surprise, he insisted on paying CS which by that time I didn't want b/c I didn't want him around. He paid for a while but he's disappeared for over a year now...legal reasons it's a pain.

He's been quite a loser about visitation.

SO, as long as you and the dad are working things out, I wouldn't unless you like having to do ppwk and appt's ALL the f'ing time, but he should be willing to help you out with stuff.

The girl I grew up with...her parent's situation was similar and the guy didn't pay monthly but helped out with cars and repairs.

edit: orry, missed the 'married couple' part, we weere only engaged...nothing legal yet