Hard Option is new solution

by Robert Whiston  July 24th 2011

In what may be seen by many as  a surprisingly candid review of child support Rachel Alexander, editor of the Intellectual Conservative, lays the obvious on the line (see http://equalparenting.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/8a/).

Instead of reflecting the changes of today, where both men and women (mothers and fathers) go out to work in order to arrive at a “family wage“, the law has lagged behind, continuing to favor mothers over fathers – as if mothers never went out to work.

Eliminate child support (CS), suggests Rachel Alexander, in all but the most severe or onerous situations, and most of the fighting that clogs up our family courts would all but cease.

Neither parent wants to be penalised by having to pay CS. Some parents want it as a source of income to use as they please and avoid having to go out to work, especially when there is little monitoring of how it is spent and we are in an economic  recession.

• “The laws generally award primary custody to the parent who spent more time at home with the children and less time working, even if the difference was miniscule. The other parent is then ordered to pay a crushing amount of child support, sometimes on top of alimony.”

All this is premised on the adoption of shared parentingas the default arrangement for child custody awards, and how shared parenting would be implemented is still a matter of discussion.

For, in addition to passing shared parenting laws, Rachel Alexander believes there must be tougher requirements for issuing restraining orders [ a feature of US more than UK divorces - Ed], and reform of child support laws. Although the precise defintion of ’shared custody’ has yet to be agreed, where custody is shared 50 / 50 then obviously it should not include child support. This simple logic has yet to occur to legislators [1]  but has not been overlooked by women’s groups opposed to shared parenting.

Child support creates an incentive to continue fighting and currently marriage is about the only kind of contract where one party can unilaterally end the contract (and also be rewarded). A recipe for diaaster, Alexander believes.

It is rumours that the US Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement believes the solution lies in renewing the importance of marriage. To that end, consideration is reccommended to eliminate no-fault divorce laws and to require couples where only one spouse wants a divorce to work out the divorce agreement themselves.

This, it is thought, would disincentivize divorce, since couples could no longer simply run to court to end the marriage, but would be forced to work with each other to come up with a custody situation they both agree to.

A similar consequence is likely in Britain with the DWPs 2011 propsoals to have couples work out their own CS payments. (http://equalparenting.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/5/).

END