How consistent is your ex in making their child support payments? Is your ex behind in their payments? Do you wonder if you should forgive your ex’s child support payments?
Kimberly Seals Allers was owed $38,750 in child support and she decided to go to court to ask the judge to forgive the debt. When she wrote about her decision for the Motherlode blog, she received about 450 comments which underscores the contentious nature of child support.
Join me for this episode of Conversations About Divorce as I talk with Kimberly about how she came to realize she would never see the money that was owed, and why it was in her children’s best interest for her to forgive the debt. We explore the idea of ‘alternative currencies’ for child support where a parent without the financial resources might contribute through additional parenting time, saving on child-care expenses that would otherwise be incurred. We also expose some of the inequities of typical child support calculations which are frequently derived from the number of overnights for each parent and don’t accommodate for situations where one parent works nights.
Kimberly Seals Allers is an award-winning journalist, author of The Mocha Manual series of books (HarperCollins) and founder of the award-winning pregnancy & parenting website, MochaManual.com. Kimberly’s next book is a exploration of the cultural and social influences on how mothers feed their babies, to be published by St. Martin’s Press next year. A divorced mom of two, Kimberly lives in Queens, New York. Follow her on Twitter @iamKSealsAllers and follow @MochaManual.