It's not always clear if it's okay for parents to pay for non-essential personal items with their child support. In an anonymous essay published on KidSpot, one mom is taking on this issue and argues that she has every right to use her child support to pay for anything she wants — including her manicures.
In the post, the woman talks about arguments she has with her sister-in-law and her friend (who she calls "Dave") about using her child support money on personal luxuries. Her sister-in-law thinks the money should go into a separate account that is used only for the kids, and Dave thinks she should use the money she earns from her job to pay for her nails. But she disagrees, writing, "Yes, I do use child support to get my nails done, and no I’m not sorry."
Allllllllllrighty then.
She lays out a few reasons why she thinks this is okay: first, she says that she uses her income to pay for the essentials like food and shelter, as well as other basic needs for the kids, like a new coat or a pair of shoes. "If at the end of all that I have some ‘play money’ (and let’s face it, that is not often)," she wrote, "then that extra cash for me to enjoy — I do earn it after all."
I am not a single mother and don't have many friends who receive child support, so I admit from the start that I am judging this from an outsider's perspective, and if I were closer to the issue my opinion may be different. That said, I have to side with Dave and her sister-in-law. It seems to me that child support should be used for child support, and anything left over that would go to a manicure could be used to do something fun with the kids.
It's not that I believe that single parents should have to deprive themselves of any personal joy or that her spending any money on herself is selfish, something she refers to when she writes about "the selfish-gold-digging-ex trope." I agree. That's nonsense. But it's not so much about where the money's spent as it is about where it comes from. If it's child support, then it should be used to care for your child. And manicured nails have nothing to do with that.
She also argues that her child support fluctuates depending on her ex's job situation and his mood. "Because the needs of our children do not change based on the mood he is in, the amount of overtime he has worked or whether he has enough sick leave to cover flu season, I take care of their needs out of the income I can rely on," she wrote. "If I am reimbursed for some of that by way of a child support payment then damn straight that income is mine and I will use it, however I see fit."
That — to put it bluntly — sucks. She's absolutely right that her kids' needs don't change depending on what's going on with her ex, and not being able to rely on that financial support from week to week or month to month must be stressful and scary. That said, using that money when it comes in for things like manicures feels like an act of vengeance rather than an act of self-care. And that's not fair to her kids.
Finally, she says that as the custodial parent, she earns that money and shouldn't have to justify how she uses it to anyone: "It baffles me that so many still see child support as a generous gift for which custodial parents should be notably grateful, rather than a token contribution to the financial support of children each parent helped to create. Custodial parents, bearing the full cost of raising the children, should never have to explain away or justify their spending. They have every right to receive child support payments, to claim them as their own, and to use them however they see fit."
She's right that child support shouldn't be treated as a gift and is, in fact, a right for the parent who needs the extra financial help. But I can't help but feel that, regardless, her child support money should only be used for child support. Being a parent is (not a newsflash) hard as hell. You give up a lot when you raise kids, and sometimes circumstances require you to give up more than others do. It could be that I am getting too caught up in the semantics of whether or not the money for that $50 manicure comes from her checking account or the wad of bills her ex just gave her. But to me, it doesn't feel okay. I don't know what I would do in the same situation, but I like to think that I would use money designated for the care of my children on them and them alone.
