Understanding Child Support

All parents are legally responsible to support their children. Building a Parenting Agreement That Works: Child Custody Agreements Step by Step (by Mimi Lyster Zemmelman) notes that child support must continue until one of these conditions is met:

• the child reaches the age of majority
• the child enters active military duty
• the child is declared emancipated by a court
• the parents' rights are terminated (for example, during an adoption process)

Your pregnant daughter and the baby's father might meet the child support requirements by one parent being the primary caretaker and the other parent paying monthly child support payments.

Each State has its own formula for calculating child support payments and often takes the following into consideration:

• how much time each parent spends caring for the child
• each parent's income and living expenses
• each parent's ability to earn income
• each parent's eligibility for welfare benefits
• the number and ages of children each parent is responsible for
• the ability of the parent to pay child support

Money received as child support payments is income-tax-free to the recipient.

All States specifically prohibit parents from withholding visitation just because the other parent owes child support money.

For your pregnant daughter to receive child support payments from the baby's father, the child must be born and then she must go to court to get a court order. This will definitely need a lawyer's involvement.

Once there is a court order, there will still be the battle of actually collecting the payments. Zemmelman notes that "On average, fathers paid between two-thirds and three-fourths of the awarded support, but their compliance with support orders fell off over time." In other words, many fathers don't pay the full amount they are ordered to pay, and they tend to pay even less (or stop making payments) as the child grows older. Zemmelman notes that the best way to improve the chance of receiving child support payments is for the father to be actively and consistently involved in the child's life. Research shows that fathers tend to "continue paying child support when they had regular and frequent visits" with their children and that the less involved with the child the less likely they were to keep paying support.

You may also find it helpful to read the chapter "Where does the baby's father belong in all of this?" in our book "How To Survive Your Teen's Pregnancy".

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