Q: Why does my son have to pay child support to the mom when she hasn't had their child in 5 years but she gets the money?
A:
The obligation to financially support a child is independent of the right to have a parental relationship with the child through custody and parenting time. Child support is quite bluntly, a formula; you plug in some numbers and out comes a payment amount. All things being equal, the best, most involved parent pays the same amount as the parent who does nothing.
Custody and parenting time incorporate a whole host of other factors to determine what is in the child's best interest. Just because a person pays child support does not mean that it's in the child's best interest for that person to have custody or parenting time. For instance, someone accused of sexually assaulting a child could still have a continuing support obligation; it would obviously not be in that child's best interest to allow the perpetrator to have custody or parenting time.
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