Originally posted by AnIntellectualRedneck
You want parental rights, then take parental responsibilities. When the child spends 3/4 of the time with the other parent, your main responsibility comes in with contributing financially.

I hear people say crap like this and I want to go postal. My wife and I split in 1991 with two young kids. When they were little I saw them every weekend driving 300mi each weekend since she saw fit to move them out-of-state without my permission. I worked my way up increasing my earnings just about every year and she would repeatedly drag me into court to get more. Whenever my kids needed anything they called me. Whenever they needed help with school they called me (despite the fact that she had gotten her teaching certification). Every little expense that came along she expected money from me over-and-above what she was receiving. When we split she was making about $45k/yr. Throughout the entire family court ordeal she was making $16k/yr working only 20hrs/month. I was paying her almost twice her gross earnings in child support PLUS paying all thie kids medical/dental insurance. And she had remarried and built a small horse farm.

When the economy up-ended my business of 9yrs crashed. Nevertheless, my daughter was hoping to start college and her mother refused to help her. I took out a loan so she could go to college and she lived there. I paid for her tuition, room, board, medical and miscellaneous. My current wife and I were on the verge of losing our house. I was buying diesel fuel 5gal at a time to keep our house heated (60deg). In our state, child support goes until the child is 25 if they are going to school fulltime. So my ex dragged me into court. I explained that I had paid for my daughter's college, that she was living at school AND working and that I was out of work since my business had failed. My ex's attorney (she always had an attorney though I couldn't afford one) told the judge that I wasn't working cause I didn't want to work. He said he found "1,500 jobs in my field on Monster" (which was an unabashed lie, of course). I explained that I was earnestly looking for a job and sending out over 100 resumes a month and working with three executive recruiters. There were no jobs. I mentioned that she worked 20hrs a month and was making only $16k/yr and had never worked more than that. Documents provided by her showed her annualized income potential was around $80k. I also pointed out that the Child Support Guidelines clearly state that ALL financial contributions are to be considered.

Judge didn't care. Said he didn't care what 'the mother' was doing, only what I was doing. Said I had to pay $2500 as partial 'arrears' and put me on Community Service for 8hrs/week (picking-up trash on the highway and far, far worse stuff). I couldn't come up with the $2500 and he had me cuffed and dragged off to jail.

These are just some of the highlights. If your a guy the court looks at you from the get-go as a criminal. Even if you had done right by your kids without fail their entire lives.

So shove your 3/4 time where the sun don't shine. It has nothing to do with time. It has to do with what you provide in total. She filled her personal bank account with the kids' money. They never so much as got an allowance growing up.

This country needs a revolution. That is what it needs. Cant believe i enjoy saying i fight for America because we are the greatest representation of freedom .......... my ass.

Wow JTMAN , i hope your daughter is very gracious for what you did for her as well as your other children.
I suggest people write to their governors , im seriously going to send mine an email and let him have it. This is wrongful enslavement , the law should be changed that child support is for the BABY (Child). The mother can support herself , both parents should take on the responsibility of their own life while the child should be the only one getting the money from the non-custodial parent. Such as gas / food / clothing. Taking 50-60% of one's income is gross , 20% a month would be the max. It doesnt cost much to provide the child with necessities. If the child wants extra she/he can ask the mother or the farther.

I have two family members paying child support , and i see both of their wives living off of the child support.

The system used to figure the amount of child support to be paid is absolutely skewed and I know this first hand. My amount was set without any evidence of my income, only the word of the children's mother, and I was not served with a court date, but the documents were left at one of my part time jobs at the time where I only worked one or two days a week. So I got the notice a week after the court date.
Once the support had been set, I was already in arrears because her lawyer had worked in back payments somehow from the time we seperated (we were not married). So I was told to pay every month and oh yeah, you are already a year behind. To keep from being thrown in jail, I had to use the grant money I was awarded to go back to school to pay this shake down. My court appointed attorney told me to forget about school, to get another job, and move back in with my parents because this is my reality now.
All of this crap was thrown in with the fact that I had to move out of "our" house and lose time with my kids because my ex had grown tired of me. So through no real fault of my own about 40% of my pay was garnished and I was expected to somehow tough it out or go to jail. The system is far from fair.

Child support needs to be reworked. As it is, the party who has custody reveives child support. But when the mother earns well and the father earns far less, then what little he pays in child support does not reach the children. When the children are with the father, the children have a significantly lower standard of living.

I wish there was a way we could bring this up with our law makers. They wont do anything unless you it push into their face and then some. It is totally unfair and unbalanced for the non-custodial parent. Something needs to be done. The kid should be getting all of the money the non-custodial parent pays because you should not have to purchase the custodial parent's time to raise their kid they helped bring into this world. It is starting to seem that the non-custodial parent , usually the farther , is responsible for his ex more so than his child.

If there is a group of men that are against the way Child Support , they need to contact more media outlets and plead their case to get into the public eye because i havnt heard the media mention about the unbalance and false policies that child support is based off of.

I think that the CS recipient should keep records of all CS payments that are used and what ever is left over each month should be put in an account that can't be touched until the child is 18 yrs of age. The payments my sons mother receives are put on a card so records shouldn't be hard to keep track of.

I pay support for my youngest, my oldest sons mother understands my position and dropped support, she does fine without it. My ex-fiance (youngest sons mom) used my sons CS for her wedding (married the guy she left me for), I know because she told me that's what she needed it for. I was behind and asked her to grant me the "once in a lifetime" forgiveness that PA offers so I wouldn't go to jail for the $780 I owed. "I need that money for my wedding" she said.

That is why I believe the recipient should show proof, monthly, that the moneys are going towards the welfare of the child. Anything else should be saved for later in life.