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Rising costs make child support even more important

On Behalf of | Aug 27, 2014 | Child Support |

The life of a single parent is filled with unending challenges. You are the one who must take on all adult roles in the household, from giving hugs for good deeds to meting out discipline for bad behavior. In addition, you have to make most, if not all, of the immediate financial decisions and you may be the chief breadwinner as well.

Divorced single parents should not have to bear the financial burden of raising children alone. A non-custodial parent should share in the economic responsibility by providing an appropriate measure of child support. And as some recently released statistics demonstrate, this support is growing more critical by the year.

The government report states that a middle-income, husband-wife family that had a child in 2013 is looking at expenses totaling $245,340 to raise that child to the age of 18. That figure represents an increase of 1.8 percent over the amount that raising a child born in 2012 to the same age will cost.

In breaking down expenses, 30 percent, the largest sum, is dispersed on housing. Education and child care take a healthy 18 percent bite, followed by food garnering 16 percent and 14 percent given over to transportation costs.

Now remember, all of these statistics apply to two parent families. The cost of necessities is not discounted for single parent families. When you look at these numbers, you can see the truly daunting challenge that parents are presented with. Given this, it is simply unfair and not in the children’s best interest if one parent does not hold up their end of the financial bargain by providing proper child support.

If you are a custodial parent who is not receiving the court-ordered monetary payments that you and your children need and are entitled to, you might consider talking to a Texas child support attorney. The attorney may be able to see to the enforcement of the agreed upon terms as they were outlined by the court.

Source: Dallas Morning News, “Cost to raise a child rises to more than $245,000,” Peter Frost, Aug. 18, 2014

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