Thoughts on child support
 

Just looking for opinions, not a debate.
If a child (18 1/2 yrs) is not attending college, has a job making $11 an hour with a 401k, health benefits and paid vacation days..... should the parent whom he or she does not live with be paying support???? State law says until 21 but he/she is virtually self supporting. What do you think would happen in court???????????????????? Anyone have any experience with this kind of thing?
Technically the child is not living with dad but with grandparent in grandparents house. Dad happens to live there too.

In New York, child support will still be ordered. Lots of experience with this in my husband's family.

Well, if Dad has that as his legal residence(aka mail address) he DOES live there. I can see support being ordered if the court was approached because the legal parameters say untill 21, against the Mother.

If the law in that state is until 21 then it will probably stay like that. Most states are not until 21. I think it's wrong until age 21.

I know the laws are constantly changing, but my DH had wording in his divorce papers that if his son became emancipated before the age of 21, then the child support would stop. Emancipated was defined as: not enrolled in school, joins the military, gets married, has a child or obtains a full-time job. The wording was based on the laws at the time the divorce became final.
My DSS graduated college a few months before his 22nd birthday, so my DH paid until that birthday.

The law says until 21 unless the child is deemed emancipated. Hard to prove when the child lives in the family home.

Regardless, of how it seems like it should be, if the law says 21, it's 21. Right or wrong, it doesn't really matter how much the child works. Child Support is to pay for the housing, food, etc. that are considered needs. The child working never comes into question. In AR, it is 18 or graduation from HS, whichever is later. I've known people who were paying child support for kids that spent almost all the time with them. However, due to knowing the ex only wanted the money, would rather pay the money and have the child staying with them and happy.

Dad's sperm = dad's son = dad has to follow the law.

I may be wrong, but I think you stereotyped. This sounds like Mom's egg=mom's son=mom has to follow the law. I think the OP mentioned dad lives with parents and child lives in same house.

I don't understand your last sentence...they actually do live together right? In the grandparents' house? :confused3

Also, I would ask if $11/hour is enough to be self-supporting? Around here it would definitely not be. Is the kid living rent-free? That's not self-supporting.

You're asking for opinions on what-whether dad should follow the law or whether the law is fair?

If poverty level is considered $10,830 for one person. Child is making 22,880 a year for himself. Wouldn't that qualify as the ability to self support? If a parent chooses to let the child live rent free, should the other parent have to "pick up the slack" and help ex pay his/her mortgage/rent?

I was 16, living on my own working full-time and going to high school, and my dad still paid. Makes me angry to this day and a small part of the reason I have cut ties with my mother. When I graduated high school and enough was enough, she could have signed a paper... but instead, essentially forced me to quit college and get legally emancipated at 18 so the child support would be done (my dad told me I didn't need to do that...several times.. but I was fed up with her draining whatever she could from whoever she could).

Is it fair. No. Is it the law? Yes. The only option is for the child to get emancipated.

Are you still talking about the situation in your OP? The child is living with grandparents you said, not the other parent. Is the kid giving the other parent part of the child support? :confused3

That is up to the courts to decide. It makes no difference what we think.

:thumbsup2