Healthy Children Outcomes: #3 Social-Educational-Economic Status of the Parties Post Divorce, At or Below the Poverty Line
©2020 Kenneth H. Waldron and Allan R. Koritzinsky
In this, the third Blog in the Healthy Children Outcomes Series, we address the sixth most important factor: the socio-educational-economic status of the parties’ post-separation at or below the poverty line. The law requires parents to support their children financially, without specifics about what this really means.
For example, stable housing might appear to meet legal standards, but living on the streets in an unsafe way might not do so. Children are required to be fed, but no regulation suggests that this must mean healthy food and healthy amounts. In order to have children removed from parents for a failure to support them, circumstances must be fairly extreme, clearly dangerous or threatening the life or health of the child.
However, there is credible research finding that financial instability and poverty do negatively affect long-term outcomes for children. This is practical, not prejudicial. There are many prejudices towards the poor. A few examples: Some immediately think negatively about a single African American parent deserted by the father of the children, about a parent who performs limited caring for and about their children, or about families plagued by drugs or alcohol. While this is true of some poor families, there are more white poor parents than African American, many of both who love their children very much, want to do well by them, and who do not have drug or alcohol problems. Any family in poverty might nevertheless be geographically unstable, requiring regular changes of schools, neighborhoods and social connections for the child. This negatively affects academic and social development. Any family in poverty might be unable to afford extracurricular activities, which also correlates with academic achievement and social development. Poverty is often associated with parents with limited education, which is associated with challenges for children’s development. Such parents might not provide the level of intellectual stimulation that children need in order to thrive. Poverty in many cases might also include relationship instability with the parents, which also is associated with problems in child development. Prejudices aside, poverty creates unique challenges to raising children.
What does this mean for children with separated parents? If the separation plunges one or both parents into the level of poverty, a serious risk factor has been introduced into the family experience of the children.
However, research on the other end of the scale does not indicate that families above the poverty line produce more successful children, consistent with the more wealth these families enjoy. In other words, families do not need to be rich to have more successful children; they simply need to stay above the poverty line, in both homes. They do not need to have the resources to put their children in expensive dance classes or ice hockey leagues. They just need enough money so these children can afford the local soccer league, school basketball team, Spanish club and so on. They just need enough money to be able to stay in the same school district and neighborhood through childhood. They do not have to take expensive trips to Disney World; they just need enough to go camping or to parks. They do not need fancy hardcover books; they just need enough to buy used children’s books or get a library card. Most libraries have free programs to stimulate children in their intellectual development.
All too often, especially in a divorce, parents engage in conflict over money and sometimes use the children as leverage and reasons for reaching favorable financial settlements. Most parents are financially insecure at the time of a separation and divorce, and look, in part to child support, for financial security. The lower earner might want more child support and the higher earner might want less child support. However, when focusing on the children, at a minimum, the solution should be to make sure that both parents stay above the poverty line.
However, there is an even more important point to be made. Parents, as part of their financial planning, focus on the experiences and opportunities that they want their children to have. Part of the responsibility of parents is to pay for those experiences and opportunities. Income sharing, in the form of child support, should be directed at those goals, not trying to get more money or trying to give less. The discussion should be about the life style that they would like their children to enjoy, in both homes, what they can reasonably afford and what amount of income sharing accomplishes those goals. Many jurisdictions have child support guidelines, often based on good research on actual child-related costs, but by focusing on their own goals, parents might have higher or lower levels of income sharing in their plan.
The take away from all this is not about level of wealth or poverty. The lesson is that children need geographic stability, intellectual stimulation at home, involvement in extracurricular activities and social programs that help with social development and to eat healthfully. This requires a minimal amount of money in each home, almost always involving the efforts of both parents and an exchange of income in the form of child support, where appropriate. The good news is that the level of income, when over the poverty line, makes little difference in child outcomes, with the exception that people with more wealth have more choices. Parents might have a sense of unfairness if one home seems to be operating at a higher level of available money, but the child-focused issue is simply that both homes have enough resources to maintain geographic stability, stimulation, participation in social activities and healthy food.
Separated parents should focus on a Financial Plan for their children, not trying to get more money or trying to give less money. Most importantly, parents should focus on the best physical custody schedule for their children and pay what is needed to make that work.
Allan Koritzinsky, JD, is a retired partner with Foley & Lardner LLP in Wisconsin. Mr. Koritzinsky focused his law practice on divorce law, alternative dispute resolution and has authored or co-authored numerous articles and books and lectured in lawyer and judicial continuing education seminars throughout his career.
Kenneth Waldron, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Monona, WI. Dr. Waldron has published research on topics related to children of divorce and provides training to judges, lawyers and mental health providers in the U.S. and internationally. He provides forensic services, including custody evaluations and expert testimony on divorce-related issues.
Dr. Waldron and Mr. Koritzinsky are co-authors of the following books:
