"If There Were No Such Thing As Child Support, Would You Still Fight?"

[Milton Acevedo, Esq.]

This is a question I ask many of my clients. I am not too sure how child support calculations work in other states, but in Florida, a major aspect is the amount of overnights the child spends with each parent. If you are the parent paying child support, the more overnights the child is with you, the less you will pay in child support. If you are the parent receiving child support, the more overnights you have with the child, the more child support you receive.

I ask this question of my clients, because it should never be about you or the other parent. All too often the fight is because one party does not want to pay or one party wants more money. They begin to use the child/children as their bargaining chip and it is wrong.

So I ask my clients, "If there were no such thing as child support, would you still be here?" Of course, no one will want to admit it, but I feel that I put the idea in their head and they will think twice before hurting the children.

I am not here to be a millionaire, I am here to help those in need. If I become a millionaire while doing that, great. But, my main purpose in becoming an attorney was to help those in need and not to take advantage of those less fortunate, or more fortunate for that matter.