" Both mothers and fathers can be deadbeats, but it is still the responsibility of both parent to support their child. The cost to support a child can be overwhelming for a couple with two incomes let alone for a single parent. As a single mother with full custody I work full time and my childs father collects unemployment during the winter months. Yes I do get child support, but it is no where near enough to pay for the things my child needs, health insurance alone is $35 per week. When my child goes to his fathers house for visits the only thing he is expected to provide is food. I even get the dirty clothes sent back to me to wash.
A father should help to pay for things for their children no matter what the situation and what the mother does with the money she rightfully earns should not be an issue. "

" I've known men who were being charged way too much and totally out of proportion to what they could possibly afford, and I've known men (including my dad) who were charged way less than a fair or reasonable amount (he quit a job so he could petition the court to reduce his child support, and when they did, he got another high-paying job right away, and of course did not notify the court of the new job; the whole stunt designed merely to not have to pay hardly anything in child support). My dad also deliberately shorted the checks by odd amounts -- like $2.13 or $7.88 -- every time a different amount, but he kept track and made sure he never quite exceeded the amount he'd have to be in arrears for the court to go after him. It was just to be nasty to my mother, but the my brother and I were the ones who suffered, as my mom really struggled to find and keep a job in the failing Detroit economy in the late 70s and early 80s (and ever since, actually).

So, no, it is not always fair, though that is the idea behind the whole child support thing. There are always jerks who subvert the system and make it work against its own goals. "

" it may not be always used to get even ,but sometimes it's not a fair way to help a child[s] grow up and some payments are out of syc.with real life -but then the worlds and real,life is never fair .If you don't want to pay then don't start the reason to have to pay????????? "

" jennifer says: God forbid if dad passed away, how would they “raise the child” then?

the ANSWER is: a SOCIAL SECURITY check until the child turns 18 or 21 if enrolled in college! "

" Both parents conceived the child and both parents are responsible for raising the child. Whether it is mom who leaves or dad, both parents remain responsible for the expenses associated with raising a child. There is nothing "unecessary" about child support.

Generally, one parents is declared "custodial." That parent carries the bulk of the responsibility for the daily work of raising a child -- caring for his needs, taking him to the doctor, buying clothes and food, providing shelter, driving him around to activities, tending him when he's sick, comforting him when he wakes in the night. The other parent may do some portion of this work when the child is in the non-custodial parent's home, but the bulk of the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the custodial parent. The court is supposed to decide on a fair amount for the parent with the lesser responsibility to provide to the parent with the greater responsibility to even out the monetary burden of raising the child. That amount may be less in arrangements where the child spends closer to an even amount of time in each household.

We had an unusual situation -- we were granted absolutely equal shared custody of our children. We did our best to split the time they spent with each of us as evenly as possible, and we spent all our holidays and birthdays together as a family. Therefore, since there was no single custodial parent, and no inequality, there was no child support.

Let me tell you -- the system is not set up for such a situation and we ran into trouble all the time because there was no one parent more responsible than the other. But it was what worked best for our family, and our kids are now grown so it isn't an issue any longer.

If a parent dies, that is not an analogous situation. There is no other parent somewhere shirking his or her responsibilities towards the children s/he brought into this world. It is a tragic situation where family and community should step up and help out.

The point of child support is to insure that each child gets equal support from both the people who brought him/her into the world, regardless which parent is the one with the larger share of daily hands-on duties. It has nothing to do with "getting even" with the parent who walked out, if that's how the break-up occurred. There is nothing "unnecessary" about child support -- it is the responsibility of every person who brings a child into the world (and does not give the child up for adoption) to provide support for that child until s/he is grown. "