[jlokier]

"Required by law" as not as powerful as it sounds.

Law is not powerful enough to protect someone from a violent partner. Restraining orders don't stop violence from taking place. They only promise punishment afterwards.

So you do not pursue a violent partner for child support, even with the law on your side. It is too dangerous.

Online sex work is the safer option.

Oh, also, you seem to have the idea that child support money is enough by itself for the costs of raising a child decently. It often isn't, you need another income source to cover it. In the example we are talking about, the person could not do a typical job, so they had to find an alternative and OF provided it.

[immmmmm]

yes, thanks!

i forgot to mention her mom is an hardcore and highly manipulative evangelist, as if life was not hard enough.

[arodgers_la]

You pulled that assumption out of nowhere. I said feeding a child.

[jlokier]

The assumption comes from this:

> If she is resorting to sex work to feed her son, what is she spending the father's child support money on?

That implies:

(a) there is father's child support (a sweeping assumption that is often wrong), and

(b) the father's child support is sufficient by itself to feed her son without needing to resort to sex work.

It's also suggesting that the mother is misusing funds somehow.

The distinction between "feeding" and "raising" you might have picked on would be, in my view, a quibble over a technicality. Child support is to contribute to the costs of raising a child, it's not earmarked to specifically cover food, and if you need extra income to raise a child, it's acceptable common language to phrase that as earning money to feed a child.

[tclancy]

Stop. The problem is you need to feed your kid today. Not when the judge or law gets around to deciding you’re right. Just stop arbitrating other people’s lives. It’s not hard.

[arodgers_la]

If you genuinely believe that, then you should be campaigning for free child care for all.

[tclancy]

Who's not?