St. Louis County & Midwest Family Law Blog

Many parents in the Midwest struggle to find an appropriate work-life balance. While many people want to work as hard as they can to get ahead in life and support their families, this can come at the expense of strong familial relationships. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the child custody context.

For the longest time, family courts tended to favor parents who were able to spend the most amount of time caring for their children. This meant that many working parents were left in a noncustodial role with limited visitation. Fortunately, times have changed, and so, too, have the courts' views. However, while working parents are now much more likely to play an integral role in their children's lives, they must be diligent in their efforts to appropriately address any child custody and visitation issues that they face.

Child support enforcement is helpful for parents receiving child support and, likewise, parents paying child support to understand. Child support is also important for children receiving it which is why the legal process provides options for child support enforcement to ensure it is paid.

Methods of enforcing child support include withholding federal and state tax refunds; wage garnishment; seizure of property; suspension of an occupational or business license; suspension or revocation of a driver's license; or denial of a passport. In some circumstances, jail time may also be possible for the failure to pay child support. There are different methods of enforcing child support orders because of the importance of child support for the care of the child receiving the support.

The cost of raising a child is quite expensive. Daycare costs alone are enough to rock the financial stability of even those with well-paying jobs, but there are a whole host of other expenses that can be difficult to tackle. This is especially true when one parent has to go at it alone. Whether a child is born out of wedlock or his or her parents are divorced, divvying up the costs associated with raising a child can be of the utmost importance for all parties involved. However, each parent may have his or her own ideas as to the best arrangement.

One major area that needs to be addressed in a child support dispute is medical expenses pertaining to the child. Ideally, the custodial parent would insure the child so that most, if not all, medical expenses would be covered. The cost of that insurance could then be taken into account when a court orders child support. Yet, far too many families are being hit with medical bills that exceed insurance maximums or are not covered by insurance. In some instances the families simply don't have insurance. Who pays for these extraordinary medical expenses?

Family law matters can be complex. As we've discussed previously on this blog, child custody disputes can be highly confrontational when parent can't agree on what type of custody and visitation arrangement is best for their kid. In most cases, the focus of these disputes is on physical custody, which means where the child will live. However, physical custody is half of the child custody puzzle that must be addressed with care.

The other piece of the puzzle is legal custody. Legal custody is about having the right to make important life decisions on your child's behalf. So, a parent with legal custody is able to decide where a child will go to school, the medical care he or she will receive and even which religion the child will adhere to, if any. Of course, these decisions have a profound impact on the shape of a child's life, but they can also be meaningful to parents because they can reflect cultural and religious customs.