My daughter’s father and I have been doing child support privately since she was 1, and she only ever paid $100 a month, he pays $150 a month now and only recently paid me back after being behind for five months. He sees her once a fortnight (his choice), and I have her the rest. This is fine cause she’s my daughter, and I love her more than life, but there’s no denying he’s a lazy father for SO MANY reasons, but I won’t get into that. Now fast forward to now I received my child support letter, and we have always somewhat averaged around what Centrelink adds up, granted he can afford that. I found out he was declaring it all wrong through and said he only received like 7k worth of payments, but he received over 20k. This was back in 2018-2019, and now Centrelink says he owes me over 1500. Should I go through Centrelink and get this money? Our daughter is in my care 98% of the time. I don’t mean to sound like I want that money, but heck, I do cause he has been ripping me off for years and lying! Opinions? Thank you. Please add** I also pay for All her clothes, daycare fees I have always dealt with for over four years; she recently needed surgery which I’m paying off, which was over 2k, all food, everything I have always done. Which I know is my job, and I’d do anything for my little girl, but he does the bare minimum and is still screwing me over in child support which he already was, but now it’s even more than I thought after all these years.
Whether or not he wants to be an active dad, half the responsibility lands on him. If he’s not caring for the child or splitting the parenting with you then the least he can do is contribute to maintaining the child’s livelihood.
Obviously I know there are cases where mothers completely take advantage of the money that should be going towards necessities for the kids. But in your case you’re doing the everyday heavy lifting of raising your child with a seemingly reasonable amount of financial help each month from your child’s father. Don’t feel bad for doing what you have to in order to provide for your child. It’s money he owes the kid he also made. Do what you have to for your baby.