Child support is often one of the most contentious elements of divorce, but parental disagreements about child support and what it should cover often endure long after a divorce is finalized. As long as a child is under 18 or is still in high school, child support payments are usually required so one parent is not left meeting the entire financial burden of a child’s needs.
Texas child support laws are quite conservative compared to many other states. Child support is intended to cover the basic housing, clothing, health, educational, and nutritional needs of a child, but will often cover nothing else. This can leave the parent who has a child most of the time scrambling to meet the child’s needs. If you are a parent who needs childcare in Texas, read on to find out whether you can ask your child’s other parent to help cover this important expense.
Childcare Costs Are Rising Around the County
While the cost of childcare varies depending on the part of Texas in which a family lives, even less expensive areas have childcare costs that can far exceed one parent’s ability to pay by themselves. Parents of infants can expect to pay at least $1,000 a month, and childcare for older children is not much less.
For married families with a stay-at-home caregiver, this cost is often offset by having a parent stay home with the children rather than work outside the home only to spend their entire paycheck on childcare. For divorced families, however, the stay-at-home parent is simply not an option.
Texas courts will take each parent’s circumstances into account when ordering child support payments. These include a parent’s ability to work outside the home while finding a way to provide childcare during their working hours. Courts can order child support to cover daycare and other childcare costs, but these should be anticipated in advance and parents should agree on when daycare will end. However, courts can certainly limit childcare expenses to something that is reasonable and not luxurious or unnecessarily expensive. For example, a local summer camp that cares for children during a parent’s working hours may be reasonable, while an out-of-state summer camp will likely not.
Meet with a Collin County Child Support Lawyer
If you have questions about whether child support should be paying for certain expenses, contact a Wylie, TX child support attorney who can help. At Law Office of Brian Bagley, we will go over your options for requesting more child support if necessary and can also help you recover any back child support you are owed. Call us today at (972) 843-7158 to schedule a free consultation.
Source:
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/child-support