I m not a parent, not even close to being mature…but I would like to know answers for the question written in this title.
During high school, I got acquainted with several questbridge kids through facebook, and some of them talked about that their non custorial parents(who are doing much better than parents who are in custody) would not care about them at all, and wouldn’t even bother to pay a cent for their college cost. Yes, some kids got matched with great schools and got pretty generous financial aid, but it seems like they still had some cost to cover, and their non-custodial parents seemed totally uninterested in what happens to their kids. I mean, if I divorced and become a NCP, I would still be happy to contribute some for my children’s education, and I certainly don’t think it would spoil my children.
Am I missing something here? I am occasionally appalled at how some parents can be so apathetic just because they no longer have legal responsibilities. Or, am I still not mature enough?
Divorces can be very nasty, and some parents do walk away because they just can’t deal with the ex-spouse. There is usually plenty of blame to go around, but the children get the brunt of the fall out. Sometimes parents are ordered to stay away. And some just don’t want to be parents and take no responsibility.
But it’s not only divorced parents. there are plenty of kids on this forum whose parents just aren’t paying for college.
Just because someone is able to have children doesn’t make him/her a good/responsible parent.
Being angry at the ex is just an excuse for being selfish.
OH okay…maybe it’s just cultural thing…I came from Korea, and divorces are much more serious than other countries in general and FROWNED upon(not that I frown upon…it’s their business), but parents, separated and hate each other or not, do reach out to their kids for the kids’ future. Yes, some people completely ignore their children after divorce, but they don’t in general.
IMO, parents have trouble sometimes separating the kids from the parents. If they separate, the parent with custody some how becomes one with the kids in the other parents eyes. The single parent has to make a conscious effort to separate the kids from the expartner in a psychological sense. Apparently this is hard to do.
I am not a parent, but I have a NCP who will definitely not be contributing to my education next year. You are definitely not missing anything. The parents who decide to not contribute ANYTHING to their child’s education despite the self awareness that they have the opportunity to make up for past parental mistakes that put them in a strained relationship with their family tend to defy logic.
My NCP father to this day will say I learned nothing in college I could not have read in a book on my own. It is not that he does not care about me. I believe he is partly embarrassed at not having been a regular presence in my life and partly embarrassed he could not really have afforded to help out. He did attend my graduation so I sense he knows it was something worthwhile.
He would tell you that my mother and step father pushed him out of our lives and that he eventually just stopped trying because he believed we wanted it that way. I was 7. My mother and stepfather dispute his version of events. They regularly took us to his parents’ home and that was when we would most likely interact with him. Everyone has their own perception of history.
It has been 30 years since I would have applied for FA. I don’t remember them asking for his info and we certainly could not have provided it. I did not qualify but was able to get almost full ride through merit scholarships as was my brother. I feel for kids in the same situation I was in without a man like my step father. He raised us as his own. But my NCP would say THAT was the problem. SIGH…
Not specific to my situation, but don’t forget about things like mental illness and alcoholism. These often lead to the non-custodial situation in the first place and contribute to the ongoing estrangement. Often a second or even third spouse is in the mix and the NCP is raising a “new” family that consumes time and money. With more children being born out of wedlock now, I don’t see this problem improving. Child support laws have certainly improved but paying for college is still considered an extra.
NCPs may not have bonded with their kids or have started new families, and the first group may get forgotten. It is very important in divorce/dissolution settlements to address the college payment issue. Of course, extracting the payment is another issue, but at least the settlement agreement provides some leverage.
After a nasty divorce, both the CP and NCP may have drained what was supposed to be the college savings for the kids to pay lawyer bills fighting each other. And then continue to fight over who pays how much for the kid’s college, if there is any money or willingness otherwise to do so.
A kid in this situation may want to build a large-merit-scholarship-seeking application list. A full ride merit scholarship can allow him/her to avoid being used as a financial pawn in the fights between the divorced parents.
Some people are narcissists, some people have other problems. You don’t really know what goes on in people’s lives. It can be devastating for the children, as you note. In my case, my kids’ NCP had a great career and high salary that he lost through addiction and mental illness. I think he is gainfully employed again but he has no contact with us and contributes nothing.
This. There are a lot of mentally-unhealthy ex-spouses. Yes, they can come up with all kinds of stories (half truths, outright lies) as to why they’ve walked away, but often it’s the result of a disorder that hurt the marriage, prevented real bonding with the kids, etc.
Just like to point out that there are NCP’s who do contribute. My sibling was an NCP who paid willingly paid for100% of his child’s college education. A cousin’s ex simply continued child support payments during the time his child was in college. It happened that the payments equaled about half of his child’s college costs.
Yes, of course there are NCPs that happily pay…many pay.
However, there are these two types of NCPs that are the issue…
the ones that only pay CS because the amount that is being garnished and the moment the order ends, not a dime more is provided for the kid. (some of these NCPs have little or no real regular contact with their kids)
the ones who don’t pay CS (or rarely pay CS), and of course, don’t help pay for college.
I do agree that the ones who don’t pay are often one who can’t mentally separate the ex(wife usually) with the child. They think they are punishing their ex’s by not paying. That kind of focus (black/white thinking) isn’t mentally healthy.
When I had children a decade later, he was the only grandparent who was actively involved in their lives. The others had no interest. He’s the one grandparent they remember now, as adults, because they spent so much time at his house.
And when my sister was trying to save up money for graduate school, she lived with our dad for several years, and they developed a deep understanding of each other as adults.
My point is that not having custody of your children is not always an ending. Sometimes, it’s a beginning. But if you don’t live up to your responsibilities, you’re closing the door to future opportunities. If my father had not contributed his share to our college costs, I would not have been inclined to facilitate a relationship between him and my kids, and my sister wouldn’t have wanted to have anything to do with him.
A family member fathered a child 20 years ago. He and the child’s mother had broken up before the child was born (they’d been dating just a few months when they found out about the pregnancy). No hatred there, or even animosity; they just didn’t want to stay together.
Mom did not request CS until the D was about 12 (don’t know why). The court did order substantial payments until age 18 as bio-dad had effectively been off the hook for many years. He very grudgingly made the payments, but by this time he was married with 2 younger kids and had no interest in establishing any type of relationship with his biological D. To my knowledge, he has never even seen his child. The second that court-ordered CS was finished, he was out of her life (financially, that is; he has actually never been part of her life). Paying for a portion of her college was something he was completely unwilling to do.
The whole situation makes me sad, as do the stories on here about NCPs who appear to feel no guilt over their lack of support (financial and otherwise) for the lives they helped, intentionally or not, to create.
If these are kids who qualified for questbridge, then you are talking low income all around. If the non-custodial parent is anywhere in the picture then their income must be included in the financial qualification process. We aren’t talking about a rich non-custodial dad who doesn’t want to help (even if a child might see that parent as “rich” because they have more money than the custodial parent.) In these scenarios, neither party is well equipped to pay together, let alone separate.
Love and support isn’t defined by the ability or willingness of a parent to pay for college. It’s certainly a kindness and one that most parents want to gift to their child but it’s not the sole definition of a caring parent. Now, if you are talking to a kid who hasn’t seen or heard from a parent in 5 years, then absolutely, be appalled because that is appalling! If the parent is abusive give that kid a hug and tell them it’s not their fault. Simply talking to a kid for whom neither parent is equipped to pay doesn’t assume they aren’t cared for on some level by both parties.
I never thought that mental issue could have a role in this kind of situation…interesting.
I wasn’t clear enough, but my question was more toward the NCs who have money but don’t bother to help their children even if they can