Child Support - Is It Child Support or Paying The Bills?

The most common complaint you here from an ex paying child support is that they are paying far more than what it costs to support the child and that they take offense to paying the other parents bills. But what constitutes “Child Support” and what constitutes “Paying the bills”?

It is difficult for a couple of people hanging around the water cooler talking about child support to understand just what goes into child support and separate that from paying the bills. This could be especially perplexing when they compare themselves to someone they know of or perhaps a couple of people they know of.

The major problem comes in the form of not having a set dollar amount for child support cases. Given the fact that dollar amount can range from near $100 to well over $1,000 it can be very confusing and provide good fodder for angry parents. The truth is not in anger and definitely not in the comparison.

The fact of the matter is that child support has no relationship to paying the bills associated directly with the child. Instead it has to do with assuring that the child is able to benefit in a the form of their lifestyle at both parents homes.

The two major factors (there are many) in the way that support payments are calculated are:

The percentage of time each parent spends with the child. More time with the child means more financial benefit to that parent.
The amount of income from each parent. More income means more responsibility.

Essentially, if both parents make the same amount of money and have a 50/50 split in the amount of timeshare, then they will be about zeroed out on child support. If they earn the same but one parent sees the child for just 2 weeks every year, then the parent with very little time will pay the other parent a significant amount of. If the timeshare is 50/50 and one parent makes significantly more than the other parent, then they will owe the lower earning parent a significant amount of money.

To wrap this up in a neat package, all the whining and whimpering about paying another parent far more that the child's bills is simply missing the point. Spending more time with your child will bring your support amount down and be far more beneficial to your child than merely sending cash.