Broken System

I try to refrain from doing too much complaining on this blog, but I am really frustrated with something in particular. Child support. Now I know that some people really need and rely on child support, and I'm not knocking that. I also think child support is necessary and more fair when one biological parent has majority custody. I just think that the system is broken. Here's a little back story:

When Matt and Kylee's mom were divorced, their pay was quite similar, and since there is a 50/50 custody split, there was no child support owed. Fast forward several years - Kylee's mom decided to open a case with Health and Welfare to have child support recalculated (I keep trying to tell myself that this has nothing to do with the fact that we won the educational custody case earlier this year, but I am positive that was a contributing factor... especially since she told us she would delay opening the case if we let Kylee attend kindergarten at the school near her house).

Needless to say, we were less than thrilled when she told us she was requesting the recalculation. If she truly needed the money to support Kylee, that would be one thing. But the truth is that Kylee's mom and stepdad make more than double our household income. What's the problem, you might ask? Well, child support is only calculated on the biological parent's income. That means that Kylee's stepdad's income doesn't count in the calculation, even though he is the primary breadwinner in their household (Kylee's mom is a school teacher). So here we are, basically a one income household, and we are being ordered to pay Kylee's mom monthly child support. $250 a month in child support to be exact. We are fighting the dollar amount because we don't believe the salary for Kylee's mom included in the calculation was correct, but we will still owe a substantial amount of money each month (I'm thinking it will end up being between $175-$200 per month). At least that is substantial for our family... We already make sacrifices so I can stay home, so trying to find that extra couple hundred dollars a month won't be easy (although we'll make it work!).

What's even more frustrating, though, is hearing how often Kylee's mom and dad go out, hearing about how almost every week Kylee's mom takes the entire family to the movies or the aquarium or Big Al's or somewhere else that isn't cheap, hearing about how their nanny does all the laundry and helps with the cleaning and cooking, hearing about how Kylee's mom is taking the entire family (plus the nanny) to Florida over Christmas and how the plane tickets alone are over $6,000, etc.... Meanwhile, I'm cloth diapering, canning as much free fruit as I can, buying birthday and Christmas presents at garage sales, etc. But we are being ordered to pay child support. I'd say that's one broken system.