Do you think women should get alimony and/or child support?

[Amelia G]

Another board I post on has been discussing how Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson pays more than $22k per month in child support. I have some opinions on the topic, but I'm wondering what you all think. Do you think women should get alimony and/or child support after a relationship breaks up? What if the man doesn't work. Then should he get alimony and/or child support after a relationship breaks up?

[One Eyed Cat]

Another board I post on has been discussing how Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson pays more than $22k per month in child support. I have some opinions on the topic, but I'm wondering what you all think. Do you think women should get alimony and/or child support after a relationship breaks up? What if the man doesn't work. Then should he get alimony and/or child support after a relationship breaks up?

The parent with custody of the child should get some support. I would really have to judge alimony on individual cases. There are situations where a wife, husband, or neither should receive alimony. It would depend on what they put into the relationship and their reasonable expectations of same.

OEC

[helcyon]

That's a tough one for me to answer without bias. I just got a bill in the mail for $50k for this. I think I'm going to have to do one of the following:
- Quit working and go lie on Bondi Beach for the rest of my life like the fat lazy maori I may as well become. There is little motivation to keep pursuing higher salaries when it just goes to someone else.
- Use my limitless snake-like charm to woo "Laura" down at the child support agency who sent me the letter
- Spend everything I ever get as soon as I get it... doesn't solve anything but I get flash cars and threads at least temporarily
- Go back to peddling junk as well as keep my career and just pay the damned bills for another 5 or 6 years until little cutie daughter is 18

[Mr Karl]

I don't believe in alimony.................at all......... As for child support, well, children do need to be provided for, simple as that.

[a_small_death]

Alimony I see as most time rewarding he greedy. I say enter into a pre-nup. If you've worked hard for what you have then you have to keep it without someone taking because of BS alimony. Marrige in the US anymore has turned into how can I profit from this. So remember kids Sign a pre-nup so won't end up in the poor house without pants. Child support on the other hand can be a duel edge sword. It needs to be monitored and not so big as to make a person unable to make a living less of course you happen to a dead beat dad. This is why I sometimes look forward to apocalypse.

[Ace]

If you have kids, you support them. No exceptions.

As for alimony, it depends. Some people deserve it, some are money-grubbing gold diggers.

[helcyon]

If you have kids, you support them. No exceptions.

Yes sure. But why do I pay more every time I earn more? It should be capped or something. In my case I gave them a house now worth over a million bucks as well. They are not short of money. The fact that the best thing I could do for myself financially is quit working altogether means that there is something wrong somewhere. Basically, turning to crime to generate cash for these payments is the best option for me on paper which sucks because I deliberately ditched that lifestyle years ago. So I won't be doing that even though going to jail means no more payments. It's crazy. Like I said there's something wrong somewhere. I can't fix it so I just have to do what's best for me and work with what I'm forced to.

[One Eyed Cat]

Yes sure. But why do I pay more every time I earn more? It should be capped or something. In my case I gave them a house now worth over a million bucks as well. They are not short of money. The fact that the best thing I could do for myself financially is quit working altogether means that there is something wrong somewhere. Basically, turning to crime to generate cash for these payments is the best option for me on paper which sucks because I deliberately ditched that lifestyle years ago. So I won't be doing that even though going to jail means no more payments. It's crazy. Like I said there's something wrong somewhere. I can't fix it so I just have to do what's best for me and work with what I'm forced to.

They should put on a cap on it. The maximum should be basic living expenses + possibly some educational costs and health coverage. It shouldn't just go up as you earn more.

OEC

PS: As a sidenote, I'm applying this principle to either gender having custody + same-sex couples. It gets a bit complex when you factor in surrogacy, adoption etc. I'll save that for another time. It is an interesting subject.

[Amelia G]

Yes sure. But why do I pay more every time I earn more? It should be capped or something. In my case I gave them a house now worth over a million bucks as well. They are not short of money. The fact that the best thing I could do for myself financially is quit working altogether means that there is something wrong somewhere. Basically, turning to crime to generate cash for these payments is the best option for me on paper which sucks because I deliberately ditched that lifestyle years ago. So I won't be doing that even though going to jail means no more payments. It's crazy. Like I said there's something wrong somewhere. I can't fix it so I just have to do what's best for me and work with what I'm forced to.

I really deeply do not understand the sliding scale. Especially if you start earning more after, say, getting out of a bad relationship with someone who dragged you down and prevented you from succeeding. So you get free and then you are supposed to compensate that person? WTF?

Any idea what the point of the sliding scale is supposed to be?

[SyntheticShock]

I think alimony is just another way for the ex-spouse to get money. I don't like it, unless it was agreed in a Pre-Nup. Just because someone has grown accustom to a lifestyle, doesn't mean the ex has to keep paying you to live that lifestyle.

Child support is a tricky situation. I don't believe that someone should get that large of amount just cause the parent who is paying the child support happens to make a lot of money. I do know someone who shares custody right down the middle, and the guy still has to pay child support, which I also don't agree with. I know my mother had an issue with collecting child support from my father, he was a slick one when it comes to the government and his money, I think she got child support from him a handful of times over the 18 years he was supposed to.

I do believe in supporting what you've created, but the details should be determined as a case by case situation.

[Wickedanima]

I think if the Lady was not working outside the home, Alimony should be rewarded on a conditional basis, 6 months to a year, to be fair and give her plenty of time to find a way for her to support herself.

If there are children involved, there should be child support. But I think it should be universalized that the parent paying child support should have visitation rights. If a person is good enough to pay child support, they are good enough to see their children.

[helcyon]

But I think it should be universalized that the parent paying child support should have visitation rights. If a person is good enough to pay child support, they are good enough to see their children.

As long as a parent isn't some kind of violent or otherwise loathesome freak (like everything in this drawing the line there is complicated) they should have these rights as you say.

Now...

< >
None of this is gender specific either in my view. Also It seems common sense that if you do have same-sex parents then you apply the same laws to them too. Most of the issues seem to be the same as those facing similar male-female parent couples so why not legislate very similarly. By similar I mean where at least one of the parents is an adoptive parent .

This relies on the whole legal framework coming in to line which demonstrates how this is unbreakably interlocked with wider same-sex issues. In Australia right now the new government is supposedly going through the books in a cleansing blanket sweep of same-sex discrimination nuances. No legalised same-sex marriage but "removal of discrimination". Wonder how it'll turn out. It should be mainly positive I'd say.

No-one said getting the laws around parent split-ups working for everyone is easy. Even with the best intentions the law can't solve asshole parents.
</ >

[Bikerpunk]

Well, my ex decided to move 3100 miles away to be with her family.

I pay well over half my post-tax income in child support and in paying off the bills she ran up on her way out. Went rather mad on the credit card, she did.

It will be five to ten years before I have any degree of money for myself, ON a six figure salary, if I get a job paying less than that, I am hosed. Child support is NOT dependant on what you earn, but what a judge thinks your "potential" is. Lots of guys who had dot com jobs now driving cabs in jail cause a judge thinks they should STILL be making $65 an hour doing HTML.

I can only afford to see my kids for a day or so, twice a year, maybe not even thanks to the Republicans tripling the cost of oil and jacking up flight costs.

Child support is money for the woman. Alimony is money for the woman. The only difference is that child support is tax free for her and doesn't end when she finds another man to pay her bills, so women pretty much demand alimony + support as child support and get it.

The problem with "I think women should only get this long enough to go to school/get a job" is that many of them simply like the idea of sitting around doing nothing on someone else's dime, and no longer have any interest in bettering themselves, and there is a HUGE industry devoted to making men nothing but de facto wage earners for people who walked out.

http://www.amazon.com/Hit-Where-Hurt...2416938&sr=8-1

And by the way, the whole "women experience a 45% decrease in standard of living" thing is mostly influenced by the fact that they based that on tax returns. CHILD SUPPORT IS TAX FREE." My ex's tax returns say she earns $0.00 - but she just bought a new car and is living in the nicest area of town.

[Bikerpunk]

I mean, don't get me wrong, my ex and I are still friends, and I have no problems whatsoever with paying for my kids to live in a nice area, a safe area, eating good food and no longer seeing any real impact in terms of standard of living.

I live in a room. Not an apartment, a room. But I'm happy knowing they're okay.

Others are not so lucky. What most people don't realise is that legally, my finances are an open book to her - she can demand to see how much I earn and where I get it from to see if she can demand more money.

I can NEVER ask for ANY accounting of where the money goes. She could technically spend it all at the nail salon and feed the kids once a day, and I would have no recourse whatsoever. Child support is tax free cash to the mother to spend as she sees fit, and God help any man who married a woman who develops a gambling addiction or a taste for crack.

Because even in cases like this, judges side with the mother, that all-important bond CANNOT BE BROKEN.

[Mr Karl]

I guess I'm lucky in that me and my daughters mother were too busy living our lives to make a big deal out of the child support thing

[OrganizedKhaos]

Depends on the area whether or not sufficient jobs are offered....
KY sucks.


Do you wanna work in the coal mines?

[Wickedanima]

As long as a parent isn't some kind of violent or otherwise loathesome freak (like everything in this drawing the line there is complicated) they should have these rights as you say.

Now...

< >
None of this is gender specific either in my view. Also It seems common sense that if you do have same-sex parents then you apply the same laws to them too. Most of the issues seem to be the same as those facing similar male-female parent couples so why not legislate very similarly. By similar I mean where at least one of the parents is an adoptive parent .

This relies on the whole legal framework coming in to line which demonstrates how this is unbreakably interlocked with wider same-sex issues. In Australia right now the new government is supposedly going through the books in a cleansing blanket sweep of same-sex discrimination nuances. No legalised same-sex marriage but "removal of discrimination". Wonder how it'll turn out. It should be mainly positive I'd say.

No-one said getting the laws around parent split-ups working for everyone is easy. Even with the best intentions the law can't solve asshole parents.
</ >

My thoughts were ungendered because I believe that regardless of gender, or HOW the child became the child, such rules should apply. Adoptive Parent's who's child is awarded to birth parents should have rights to visitation with their child... Adoptive parents who haven't been nasty or abusive should be privy to all the rights a birth parent would have in the breakup of a marriage.

IMO, anyway.

[OrganizedKhaos]

Thank you for sharing your point of view.