Child support and responsibility

Child support was created for a clear case: a provider left the family and abandoned children without means. Today the same device applies to a parent who abandoned the child and a parent stripped of daily contact, home, and the chance to raise a son or daughter.

Protection from a fleeing provider

The financial duty compensated for genuine parental abandonment. One adult left, stopped supporting the children, and put the entire burden on the other parent.

Abandonment and exclusion merged

The law barely distinguishes a vanished father from one who wanted to preserve the family, seeks contact, and is ready to pay half the costs directly. Both become payers.

A responsible father is convenient

Formal employment, declared income, accounts, and property make collection easy. The system takes money more reliably from a visible parent than from someone who disappeared.

Women default too

In 2025, women were almost a quarter of the public register of persistent non-payers: about 69,000 of more than 300,000 people.

The “70 percent” figure is distorted

It described repeat debtors among female debtors in one regional interview. It was not the share of all mothers or the female share of all non-payers.

Income share is not a child budget

For one child, payment is usually tied to a quarter of earnings. If income doubles, payment doubles although the child’s costs do not automatically do so.

Start with participation

Make full parenting by both the baseline: comparable time, direct payment of costs, and a transparent transfer for income differences. Collect support when a parent evades that share.

Child support must protect a child from abandonment. It must not become the price of exclusion from one’s own family.