Child Support
CHILD CUSTODY AND CHILD SUPPORT DEMYSTIFIED
Child support, quite simply, is money paid for the welfare of the children from the non-custodial parent to the custodial parent. This of course begs the question about custody of children.
Physical custody of children can be defined in the following way: That parent with whom the children live the majority of each week is the “custodial parent.” Obviously the other parent is the non-custodial parent. The law is gender neutral. The custodial parent can be either mom or dad.
There are three possibilities for child custody:
- Children with mom; parenting time for dad.
- Children with dad; parenting time for mom.
- Joint custody, in which the children spend roughly half of their time with mom and half with dad.
The Court works under a presumption that the non-custodial parent is going to spend approximately 1/3 of each week with the children. The following link is provided to allow you to estimate child support
www.mass.gov/dor/docs/cse/guidelines/worksheetchildsupportguidelines2013.pdf
One of the many advantages of divorce mediation is that mom and dad do not have to adhere to the strict child support guidelines. Many factors can come into play on this issue in which the mother and father may want child support child support to be higher or lower than the guideline amount. This is absolutely ok.
For an extremely thorough explanation of Massachusetts child support guidelines please click on the following link:
www.mass.gov/courts/docs/child-support/2013-child-support-guidelines.pdf