Until yesterday morning, this was my car.

Today, it’s a smoking heap in need of a new engine.

The engine for a 2004 Dodge Intrepid costs twice as much as the car is worth.

Not good.

And to add insult to this obvious injury, I just paid off the car.

Being a one-car-family, LE and I are kinda stranded.  I do have a loaner car for a few days, but I’m torn as to what to do.

• Do I go and get a new car and another car payment?
• Do I buy some basic-transportation-car  in order to avoid the payment issue?
• Rely solely on public transportation and go green?

Then the Laptop Failed

When I got to work I placed my laptop in the docking station and the hard drive failed.

My IT guy (a true Saint in a human disguise) cloned the drive to another so I could work and will get my original HD replaced next week. With many deadlines looming, I can’t be without the laptop. Luckily the laptop is still under warranty.

Make me wonder about those voice mail messages I received trying to sell me an extended warranty for my car.

In this series if posts, we’re going to examine 31 ways you can work toward becoming the Solo-Dad you want to be in your kids’ lives.

This is not a 31 day crash course and I don’t expect you to work on each of these areas of your parenting on subsequent days. Rather, it’s an invitation to examine those areas of your solo-parenting that might be in need of enrichment or attention.

So, with that in mind, let’s get started with the first post in the series.

Pay Your Child Support On Time

Yes, I know. This is a sensitive subject and it’s one that I’ve lived through from both sides. I’ve been a solo-dad ordered to pay child support as well as a solo-dad who isn’t receiving any support from my child’s mother.

It’s tough on both sides of the issue.  Let’s see if we can make it less emotional and more practical.

And while most US family courts will order that child support payments are deducted from the parent’s paycheck, some situations still depend on manual payment of support directly from father to mother or vice-versa.

The Sole Reason for Child Support: Provision for the child’s needs.

Obviously, the main reason family courts order child support payments if to help provide for your child.

No Solo-Dad I’ve ever met wants their children to have less,  go hungry, or live in a household where hand-me-downs are the rule.

Dads want all these things and more, for their kids. Some dads will say, “Let me take Junior to Target or Walmart and I’ll buy him the clothes  or other items he needs.”  While this is a laudable goal, I’ve rarely seen it work as a regular feature of visitation.

I may get some heated comments about this but, Solo-Dads aren’t, as a rule, as in touch with the ins-and-outs of childhood fashion and decision making it requires to stay on top of the daily clothing needs of a small child or a teen.

In most situations where the kids only visit their dad, mom is better suited for this. As the custodial parent, she’s the ones doing the laundry and see the wear and tear on the child’s wardrobe.

Why Your Payments Should Be Made On Time

Making ends meet is tough any way you slice it.  In current economic times, it’s even tougher.  Kids in solo-parent households are twice as likely to do without daily necessities as kids in two-parent families.

Making your child support payments on time enables you to do your part to ensure your child is able to enjoy the necessities of life. Unless your Ex is addicted to drugs or just a very poor money manager, your children will most likely be better off when your child support payments are made on time because they will have enough food, water, and power to live a normal existence.

There were times when I didn’t make timely child support payments.  I recall one time in particular when I learned that my kids didn’t have enough food. It broke my heart to know that I could have prevented that. It taught me a valuable lesson and I never again viewed child support payments as a necesary evil.

This brings me to another point and that is how a lot of Solo-Dad view their child support payments.  There is a common misconception about child support that needs to be mentioned.

The Punitive Stigma of Child Support Perhaps perpetuated by both sides, child support has often been perceived as a punitive measure, a disciplinary sentence of sorts. This sets up both parents for battle and often the children lose.

Too often, Solo-Moms who feel that their Ex is responsible for the end of the marriage use child support and spousal-support as tools to taunt and hurt. Again, I’ve seen this first-hand and it’s nothing but counterproductive.

Gender roles and conditioning play a part here.  When child support and spousal support are used in this way, a dad often feels emasculated. And counter to the original intent, it doesn’t nothing to make him more likely to make payments on time. If anything, it results in hurt feelings and a reaction that, while inexcusable, too often includes  further delays in payment of support.

Dads Need to Set the Example

Taking the easy way out and not doing what we know is right weakens the example our kids need from us.

“I don’t like the way she spends the support.” This is another common cry among Solo-Dads when it comes to making child support payments.  Guys, this totally misses the point.

The act of paying the support an the expression of love for your child.

Plain and simple, we pay it because we love our child and we want to make sure we’re doing everything in our power to provide the necessities for them. This is one excuse that child support paying Solo-Dads need to get over.

How to Make Your Child Support Count

Perhaps a better way is to work with your Ex to make child support work for both of you. This may not be possible now, but in the future perhaps you and your Ex can work together to make your child aware of how you help support them financially.

To my first Ex’s credit, after she remarried, she put the child-support money into college funds. This was a choice she and her husband made together.  They informed me and the kids about it and the kids knew that the money I paid in support was still making a difference.

If Solo-Moms and Dads could work together for the good of their kids, a lot of the relationship strain that exists between Ex’s could be reduced. I know this isn’t possible in a lot of cases, but as a Solo-Dad, keep it in mind.

Application for Day #1

Consider asking for help. Marriage, divorce, and single parenting are stages in life that don’t come with an owner’s manual.  Instead of flying by the seat of your pants and learning the hard way, why not come together and ask a qualified third-party professional for assistance?

Many counties employ divorce mediators to address custody and visitation issues.  If you have this service available, consider them as a resource for establishing an understanding between you and your Ex about how to address the issue of child support.  Both parties will gain a better understanding the responsibilities and issues the other faces.

When both of you can agree on the principle for and the mechanisms behind timely child support payments, everybody wins.  It doesn’t make coming up with the extra money any easier but it does decrease the amount of emotion, frustration, and stress around the situation.

Paying your child support on time is a win-win situation.

Ultimately, your child is the biggest winner. And isn’t that what you really want?

In Day #2 of the 31 Days to Become a Better Solo-Dad series, we’ll take a look at Making Time With Your Child a Priority.

Care to Comment? Does this post anger you as a Solo-Dad?  Does it resonate with truth? Solo-Moms – I know you’re reading too and that’s cool – am I off base?  All comments are welcome.

The Central Illinois Proud website is reporting that a single dad has offered to sell his arms as ‘tattoo advertising space’ for local businesses. Purportedly, it’s to help offset the cost of nursing school.

WMBD/WYZZ – BLOOMINGTON — You’ve heard of parents saying they’ll do anything for their children.  One single father in Bloomington is taking that to the extreme.  He’s selling his right arm on E-Bay for tattoo advertising to help make ends meet with his daughter.  Douglas Hall says he hopes to make several thousand dollars by letting companies ink him with their logos.  The money will help Hall go to nursing school this fall while raising 3 year old Mya.

“It comes down to my daughter.  I mean, I don’t want her to feel struggles so this will give us a better life from here on out,” Hall says.  As part of the deal, he’ll have any tattoo removed after one year.

I don’t know about you, but I managed to get through college and graduate school without resorting to this.  I worked 36 hours per week while carrying 24 semester units at three different campus during my senior year alone.

While attending graduate school I worked a full-time night teaching job for the first two years and a part time job during the final two.

I’m not walking in Mr. Hall’s shoes, but it seems like getting a job would be a smarter route. I mean what kind of revenue can this guy hope to raise?

Show me a single parent household and I’ll show you a household in need of more income.

Now, I realize there are exceptions to this bold statement, but I’m confident that 8 out of 10 single parent households don’t realize the kind of income they need to provide a lifestyle that ensures:

• Bills are paid on time.
• Kids aren’t left alone to care for themselves.
• Lack of money isn’t what drives a parent’s thinking.
• Vacations actually happen every year.
• Emergency expenditures don’t automatically trigger financial ruin.

This post is a mix of personal rant (mainly against the attitude I’ve allowed to inhibit my income growth) and part vision for the future of Solo-Dad (and yours as well).

Since the Great Solo-Dad Blog Meltdown about a month ago, I’ve been looking at Solo-Dad.com in terms of its mission and asking myself these questions:

• What’s the value that Solo-Dad brings to readers?
• What are the most prevalent needs among solo-parent families and what can I do to help meet them?
• What could Solo-Dad adopt as a secondary focus in order to help other solo-parents?
• What’s the best way to make this a reality?

Like I said, this post is personal.

I’ve realized over the last year that I hold many false beliefs about myself and mainly about money. I grew up in a middle class family where my dad worked and mother was home with the kids for her entire life.

This was good and bad. It was good because I never came home to an empty house.  Sure, there were times when mom was out running an errand or sick and in the hospital. But for the most part, my brother, sister, and I weren’t left to fend for ourselves or police our own homework completion.

It was bad because there were limitations to what a single wage earner income could provide.  Although my father is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, he didn’t earn a college degree.

And although he worked in aerospace and helped put Niel Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969, he was never paid what he truly needed to earn in order to provide his family with the lifestyle he envisioned. And this brings me to the topic of stability.

The link between money and family stability.

In my experience, the more discretionary income I have at the end of the month, the more content I feel.

There are those that will say, “Oh Barry, how can you be so superficial? Having LE in your life should be more than enough to feel content.”

Yes, I would agree in theory. But LE doesn’t pay the bills or save for his college education. He doesn’t have to find the money for a new tire or a nice dinner.  He simply doesn’t have to think about these things like I do.

More money leads to greater contentment.

I’ve never met a single parent who thought otherwise. The more money we have, the better able we are as solo-parents to provide for our kids. Being in this position leads to more contentment.

When parents are more content, their children are more content as well.  Kids have an uncanny ability to soak up our emotional states.  They know when we’re worried or anxious.  It’s nearly impossible not to telegraph our emotional states.

If my logic holds up, it stands that  one way to ensure our families are more content and happier is to increase the amount of discretionary income in our lives.

The concept of enough.

Rather than a quest for unspecified riches, there are limits to what’s possible for a solo-parent provider to accomplish in life. One of these limits is time.  We only have so much time.

The other limitation is the concept of enough. What’s enough for you to achieve that state of financial contentment that translates into a happier and more secure household?

• $10,000 in the bank?
• 50% more than your current income?
• $100K per year?

Different people will have different answers.  I firmly believe there is no ‘right’ answer to this question. But, too often, most of us never bother to ask or answer this question.

Solo-Dad’s primary and secondary focus.

The concept of enough not only involves money, but lifestlye choices.  It includes what we do for a living as well as the role we play in the lives of others.  For me, that includes the readers of Solo-Dad.com.

In determining the focus for Solo-Dad, I’ve realized my experiences in raising 4 kids in various solo-dad existences makes this Solo-Dad’s primary focus.

The secondary focus for Solo-Dad is taking shape and -while still in the fuzzy-vision stage- it involves helping other solo-parents make more money.

Fuzzy-vision means I haven’t decided how to make this a reality. There are many options, but I want to undertake only those that have the potential to provide real value to readers without resorting to hawking snake oil or making money simply by people clicking on ads.

Your Thoughts?

If you’re interested in or turned off my this topic, why not tell me about it? Feedback in any form is always useful.