Child Support--making deductions for visits

[skutterfly]

My kids' father has the kids a total of 6 week throughout the year.  He has moved around a lot and I can't afford a lawyer at the moment to enforce maintenance, and just hope that he sends something each month, and although he makes deductions that don't seem completely fair, he has been sending something.  I am hoping for feedback as to the validity of his practice of deducting his support responsibility on a per diem basis:  For example, he won't pay any support for the month he has them in the summer, and he deducts a week's worth of support in the other 2 months he has a week's visit.  I can definitely understand his reasoning, and in shared custody cases each parent has the children at least 40% of the time--this may be a way to calculate support--but that's not us (although the divorce judgment says shared custody).  He lives in the US and I live in Canada--so Canadian law takes precedence, but I haven't found a Canadian message board.

He makes very good money, more than 3 times what I make (not including his bonuses).  My lawyer didn't file the papers for Maintenance Enforcement and if I press my luck by trying to force the issue, the kids might suffer for it (i.e. he will really trash talk me and tell the kids how greedy I am, and the kids will feel guilty for existing).  I know I'm better off for the moment just taking what I can get, but I wanted to know if anyone has encountered something like this before.

[Lee Borden]

If the judge has ordered Dad to pay child support and he's paying less than the judge has ordered him to pay, you can afford to be patient. Most states allow an extended period during which you can collect delinquent child support, often even after the children are adults.

On the other hand, if there's no order about child support, Dad is free to make it up as he goes along, which he apparently is doing now. And the sooner you insist on clarity and a simple order for support, the better. And I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep worrying about the trash talk. If he doesn't think he has the duty to support his children, he's not going to be restrained from using them for all manner of mischief, and your letting him get away with being a deadbeat Dad because "he has been sending something" isn't going to keep him from talking trash anyway.