The general rule is: mom and dad (yes, both) must contribute to the needs of their children.
How much does each one have to give? Depending on the needs of the children, and the possibilities of the parents.
The needs of the children that must be covered are: food, clothing, shelter, education, healthy recreation and health. Let’s take as a case of analysis a family of 3 people: mother, father and daughter. If the daughter’s needs for sustenance are $100 per month, and both parents earn the same amount, each of them should contribute $50 pesos per month.
But it is important to highlight that each family is different. The rights and obligations of the parents regarding child support are determined as the family dynamics are agreed upon. If both partners were working when they were newlyweds, and when the daughter is born, both agree that the mother will take care of the house and the father will provide for the family’s sustenance, then it is different. In that case the obligation to provide the $100 falls on the father.
We upgrade the case under analysis: The father becomes unemployed, or has had a sharp reduction in his income. In such a way that he can no longer afford to put the $100 pesos of his daughter’s needs on the table. In this situation, the mother is obligated to get a job to complete the $100 for the daughter, as long as the mother (i) is at an age and condition to return to the labor market; and (ii) the conditions are in such condition that the mother can stop dedicating time to take care of the household and return to the labor market.
Subsection (ii) means that not because there is a need to make up the $100, the mother is obligated to work a “double workday”. The workday dedicated to the home, and the workday dedicated to the economically remunerated activity. The conditions for this to be possible must exist (getting help from someone else, distribution of roles in the family, etc.).
How do you know if the daughter’s needs for alimony should be $100 pesos per month, and not $80, $60 or $150? The general rule is that there is an obligation to pay child support to the extent and on the terms that the family has regularly provided it. In the measure that the same amount of needs continue, and the same possibility continues to exist.
The above is affirmed in the understanding that the parents will try to cover in the best way their children’s needs, to the extent that their possibilities allow it.
