Summary

The author advocates for a default 50/50 split in childcare, child maintenance, and benefits to ensure fairness for both parents, particularly in the UK.

Abstract

The article discusses the current inadequacies of the UK's child maintenance and benefits system, which often leaves one parent with everything and the other with nothing, even in cases of 50/50 childcare. The author, who identifies as a dreamer, envisions a world where childcare is equally divided by default, unless otherwise agreed upon, and where child maintenance and benefits are fairly split according to the actual costs of raising children and the time each parent spends caring for them. This fair split should apply from the moment of birth, with formal recognition of the childcare division and subsequent adjustments as needed. The author emphasizes the need for a system that supports a fair distribution of resources, including tax credits, universal credit, and council housing, reflecting the part-time nature of childcare in separated families.

Opinions

The UK system is flawed as it is designed to favor one parent over the other, regardless of the actual childcare arrangements.
A 50/50 childcare split should be the default, both during the relationship and after separation, to promote fairness and support for both parents.
Child maintenance should reflect the actual costs of raising children and be split accordingly, with no payments required if childcare is equally shared.
The current benefit and tax credit system in the UK is unfair, as it forces parents who share childcare equally to choose who receives the benefits, rather than splitting them proportionally.
Government systems should be more flexible in recognizing the varying degrees of childcare responsibility, especially in the case of separated families.
The author proposes a formal process at birth to register the intended childcare split, which would inform future benefit and maintenance distributions, making the system more equitable and transparent.
The author suggests that universal credit for couples should be split into separate bank accounts, reflecting individual contributions and needs within the partnership.
Implementing these changes would greatly assist individuals in challenging situations, such as those escaping domestic abuse or dealing with post-breakup communication issues.

Your Kids Deserve Parents With a Fair Child Maintenance Split

And a fair split of child benefits too

I’m a dreamer. I like to think of all the ways the world could be a better place.

Lately, I’ve been pondering child maintenance and child-related benefits and how the system is really messed up, in the UK at least.

Everything about the UK system is designed to give one parent everything and take from the other.

I know several cases where ex-partners do 50/50 childcare and yet one person gets no benefits and still pays their ex maintenance.

And that’s so, so, wrong. It doesn’t help families one bit.

The default childcare split should be 50/50

When people have kids, the default childcare split should ideally be 50/50 (after the nursing phase), and that should be considered the default after they split up, too. Obviously, some couples don’t want to work that way, but I think this should be the starting point.

And that means that the default child custody should be 50/50.

And child maintenance split should be to split costs 50/50 too instead of the current system where one partner is left paying the other even if the childcare is split 50/50.

I mean, that doesn’t actually make any sense. If both partners do 50/50 childcare, why should one pay the other at all? Split costs = fair.

Of course, this goes up in the air if one partner isn’t willing to do 50/50 childcare. Then, you need the child maintenance system as it stands to fill in and recover payments from the deadbeat.

But it would be very useful if the child maintenance system had a way to determine the actual costs of raising kids at certain ages (or a way to fill that in somewhere) so that couples could just split those costs.

Tax credits and benefits should be 50/50

As well as all that, why is the UK benefit and tax credit system so borked?

At the moment in the UK, if you share kids 50/50 with an ex, you then have to choose between yourselves who gets the child benefit and who doesn’t.

Why does one person get all the benefits and the other is left to fend for themselves? A 50/50 split on benefits makes perfect sense to me. Unless the childcare is uneven, then whatever ratio is appropriate makes sense.

Same goes for council housing (in the UK we can apply to get rental housing through the council at affordable rates, but the size of the house is limited to how many kids you have). Why should one partner get a house big enough for their kids while the other gets nothing? Why not allow some sort of grey area into the calculations for people who have kids part time?

In 2022, in the UK, there were 2.5 million separated families with four million children in those families. And 88% of the parents with care were female.

This is why there’s a cohort of grumpy dads out there thinking the system is rigged and women get everything.

Why can’t it be split fairly?

Is it really that hard for government bean counters to split using a ratio and apportion into two bank accounts?

This should start at birth

And here’s my big game-changing idea: All of this should start at birth.

When the child is born, you register for your child benefit payments, and at the same time, you should formally mention what proportion of childcare each partner is doing.

Child benefits should be split according to that proportion into two bank accounts. Every three months (just like for tax-free childcare), you can verify what the current childcare split is.

Then, any future benefits and child maintenance payments, like tax credits or universal credit or council housing, can use that childcare ratio split to determine a fair split and pay each partner accordingly, whether they are together or not.

(Aside, I also think that universal credit for couples should be split into separate bank accounts with job seeker payments going into the account of the person who is job seeking — why should it all go into one person’s account?).

This also means that while the couple is still together a proportion of child maintenance could be officially transferred from the partner not doing 50% childcare to the account of the person doing most of the childcare.

This would give nursing mothers and stay at home parents a government-sanctioned proportion of the couple’s combined income for their own private use.

It also means when a relationship breaks down, the childcare breakdown, child maintenance and benefits split are already in place and would only need to be adjusted to whatever the new childcare split ratio is.

This would be an enormous help to people trying to escape domestic abuse. Or even just for couples who aren’t communicating well after a breakup.

Why isn’t the world like this?

Seriously, why can’t we do this? So many families go through this that it would make so much sense. To have a fairer system for everyone would be ideal.

I guess I’ll keep dreaming.

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