Child Support is not a Replacement for Physical Parenting

There’s a rumor going around that parenting begins and ends at the wallet. Not so.

Growing up, I learned two things about being a parent. The first being that the job required a large salary. The second thing is that it required a lot of sacrifices. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever stomached a pitch on parenthood that didn’t center around funds or fun, one of which you could never have too much of, the other of which you’d probably never have again. I grew up seeing my mother and father split the responsibilities, the funds, fairly equally, the fun, not so much. And over time, I accepted that two-parent homes were about the appearance of partnership more-so than an actual partnership.

Most of the married mothers I knew were overworked, overlooked, and underappreciated, sacrificing most of their fun in order to appease a partner-in-funds. This honestly sounded like a super shitty deal to me, but apparently, if I could find a man with more funds, living a life devoid of fun wouldn’t be all that bad. Instead, I found one unwilling to devote either-or. Guilted by the threat of the “bitter black woman” surname, I refused to pursue child support as it came with the threat of incarceration for him, as if where a man dodged his duties mattered. I reluctantly prepared for single-parenthood from a single pocket…