NJ Teen Sues Parents for Financial Support

SuZir

Well-Known Member
I have to say, that I have been one of those women that back-pedal their career for their husband's career's sake, and that is not common around here. Still, even if we had divorced the worst possible time, when I had been at home for nine years and had very little work experience after Uni, I would had been in much better place to make a living for myself than for example my easy child would have in just few months, when he is still middle of High School, has no marketable skills and could own basically nothing (okay, he does have assets, but that is because he has inherited them an we as a parents have transferred our assets for him and his brother from early on.)

Even in that worst point I would had left with my Masters degree, bit of work experience and of course half of the assets me and husband had gathered till that point (and we even have pre-nup to secure inheritances and assets gathered before marriage.) Not at all the same as my soon to be 18 year old boy, who could literally walk out with clothes on his back, if we were not considered responsible of supporting him till he has had chance to learn the skills to support himself.

In today's world most jobs are so complex, that you just can't do them without training. And that training tends to be so complex that it is not possible to acquire that in those short years they are underaged. This is not the same world as 50 years ago, when 15 year-old could get a job, made a living and get training on the job and work in that same job till they retired.

And MWM, you have to understand that Europe is a big place, while we have less land than you, there are much more people and diversity is certainly something totally different than inside the US. There is no European model of this or that. There are hugely diverse systems and cultures. And of course our 'government' doesn't pay our child care or anything else or butt their nose to our private business. There is no separate entity of 'government', that would do this or that. Because one thing is quite common in different European countries, and that is, that they are democracies. In every parliament election we vote how we want to do things and according to that, our elected officials tweak the system. And while we have decided, that we rather share costs of health care, elderly care, child care and education between all of us and between different life situations and ages, it doesn't mean some 'government' would pay those things. We all pay them through our taxes. We just for example find it more convenient to use 7,5 % of our GDP to health care and make counties and state responsible of arranging it, than use 15,2 % of GDP to health care and let private companies to arrange it (and make a profit of those arrangements.)

Of course that means some people pay more than they receive services and I and husband are those, who do pay quite a lot more than we get, and we are totally okay with that too. And that I do believe is cultural. We consider ourselves responsible of not only ourselves, but also our kids and also those less fortunate and having less resources to do well in society.
 
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DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
From what I understand of alimony (and this comes from my parents divorce) is that much of it depends on the length of the marriage. If you are married under 10 years, well you are pretty much out of luck. However my parents were married for just over 30 years and my mother became a pretty much stay at home mom for most of my life. She did work part time from the time I was 12 until I was 17 but that really didnt count for much.

In their divorce assets were split in mostly my mother's favor and she got alimony until she became eligible for social security. She was able to get a larger amount of social security than she would have on her own because she could claim under my father's account. My mother also got half the proceeds of the sale of the marital home, one of our cars, several of the larger CD's and a good bit of money my mom had started taking out of the bank before she filed for divorce. The only thing my dad was allowed to completely keep was his retirement income. Now my parents were married in the 50's and they were divorced in the early 80s. At that time my parents were in their early 60's I believe. My father continued working until he was 76 I believe. Maybe 78. Its hard to remember now.
 
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