Trying to get child maintenance is no easy task. My son Sam was born in March last year. The day after he was born his father, from whom I had split the previous December, informed me that he was no longer employed. That was almost 19 months ago and today the situation is much the same — despite the fact that Sam has grown and so have the costs of raising him.
Over the past 18 months I have received small contributions from Sam’s father, but not on a regular basis. Besides his protestations that he is doing his utmost to find employment, he remains unemployed. He has a degree, but says he is not willing to accept “just any job”. Recently I felt compelled to sue for child maintenance and approached a lawyer, knowing that it could become a costly exercise.
My lawyer kindly offered to act on my behalf for free, but I am very aware that hundreds of thousands of South African women are not so lucky. The fact that my ex and I were never married has, however, not made the task any easier: if we had been, child maintenance would have been covered in the divorce settlement. I have no ID number and no physical address for him. Without his ID number my lawyer cannot do a credit check on him and with no physical address the maintenance department cannot summon him to court. He is not willing to supply this information. As a result, I am barely over the first hurdle.
I have not denied him his right to have access to his son. He visits on a regular basis, so it hardly seems fair that he will not contribute to his child’s expenses. Absentee parents often lose sight of the fact that maintenance is actually about the child, not a selfish vendetta to seek revenge. A friend of mine receives cheques from her ex clearly marked “not for her use!” (as if childcare is free).
I am fortunate that I earn enough money to provide for my son, at least for the present. But, as Sam grows, so does the amount of financial support he needs — and so does my debt. Sam and his father have a good relationship, but his father fails to understand that parenting goes beyond giving gifts and spending a few hours playing together.
There isn’t much that Sam’s father and I agree on at the moment, except that Sam deserves the very best. In the near future this will include education and for the very best in this, I’m afraid, Sam’s father is going to have to accept that, for now, “just any job” will have to do.