Section 1- The Core Betrayal: When Child Support Law Harms the Children It Claims to Protect

By Melanie Pelouze, Founder, I Objectwww.iobjectweobject.com

Let’s begin with the lie. That child support by formula, fiat, and force automatically serves the best interests of the child. That money changing hands, without context, accountability, or discretion, is inherently good. That the system is working simply because a payment was made.

It’s not. It’s breaking families. And the children, those we claim to protect, are paying the real price.

The Fiction of “Best Interest”

The U.S. child support system rests on a dangerous legal fiction: that rigid, pre-determined transfers between parents, calculated through income-based formulas, are always in the child’s best interest. But what happens when those formulas financially destroy a parent?

• A 2022 Urban Institute study found that 29% of custodial parents owed support live in poverty but so do 28% of non-custodial parents who pay it. The system isn’t lifting anyone up. It’s grinding both sides down.

• The Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement acknowledges that over 70% of all past-due support is owed by noncustodial parents who earn less than $10,000 annually. These aren’t deadbeats. These are the working poor.

• When a parent pays $1,800 a month in support while making $4,000 take-home nearly half their income and the other parent pays no taxes on it and lives in a newly built $1.5M home? That’s not equity. That’s sanctioned erosion of financial stability.

  
  

Children Don’t Live in Formulas

They live in homes. They sit with us at dinner tables. They grow up watching their parents struggle or thrive.

When one parent is forced to work 52 weeks a year with no paid time off, while the other takes 2, 3, 4 months off and yet gets paid by that same parent. What support what are we modeling for our kids?

This system erodes relationships in so many ways:

• Parents can’t afford travel to see their own children.

• Parents skip meals, delay medical care, and go into debt just to comply with the formula.

• Children internalize the guilt and tension of financial disparity.

  
  

According to a 2020 report by the National Parents Organization, only 17 states earned a grade of C or better for shared parenting policies. The rest actively incentivize custody arrangements that maximize payments, not connection.

We’re Not Talking About Edge Cases. We’re Talking About Design.

This isn’t abuse of the system. This is the system. Statutory frameworks in nearly every state rely on the “income shares model,” which assumes that a proportional division of combined parental income reflects fairness. But it ignores:

• Real expenses.

• Time spent.

• Housing costs.

• Medical care.

• Transportation.

• Emotional toll.

• the list goes on

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And in most cases, it strips judges of discretion. The law says, “Apply the formula.” Period. Even if it breaks someone.

Legal Precedent, Ignored

In Curtis v. Kline (Pa. 1995), the court held that child support laws must pass rational basis review meaning they must not be arbitrary, capricious, or unfairly discriminatory. So ask yourself: Is a law rational when it requires a parent to fund a home they’ll never live in while defaulting on their own rent? Is it just when support obligations are set without any mechanism to ensure the money goes to the child? We don’t allow corporations to operate without financial transparency. Why do we allow it when the stakes are children?

The Emotional Cost

We talk about money because the law does. But this is also about trauma. The trauma of a parent missing a holiday because they can’t afford gas. The trauma of always being the “lesser home.” The trauma of living paycheck to paycheck when you might not have to otherwise.

When children see the court system impoverish a loving parent, it doesn’t make them feel protected. It makes them feel shame.

What Needs to Change

• Judicial discretion must be restored. No two families are the same. Why are their support orders?

• Means testing and caps must be implemented. Support should not exceed a rational percentage of income.

• Shared custody must carry shared financial responsibility. Time matters.

• Transparency and accountability for support spending. If it's “for the child,” prove it.

We Object.

We Object to a system that claims moral high ground while enabling economic warfare.We object to formulas that see parents as numbers, not humans.We object to laws that harm children in the name of protecting them.

This is only the beginning. Section II of the Systemic Failures in American Child Support Law: A Comprehensive Analysis and Call for Reform white paper is next.

And we won’t stop until this system is rebuilt, from the ground up.