CSA

I guess this topic has been done to death. Here we go again. I've brought up 2 children on my own, with a contribution of £4.50 a week, for 4 years,  from one of my childrens fathers. The other father paid nothing. Neither father particularly bothered with the children. Instead one decided to go on lots of holidays, safari's , ski-ing 4 times a year, he got married again,  got divorced again,  smoked 40 a day and went on more holidays. Yet the CSA deemed that his self employed earnings meant he should contribute £4.50 a week. 

Our child, who i sheilded from this lack of financial and hands on support; started to grow up and ask more and more probing questions about why he went away without her, why he was always telling her he had no money when he kept going on holidays. I made up stories to protect her, i could see it was upsetting her deeply,  he rarely had time for her. 

The CSA told me that the  father of my other child was depressed, and therefore seemingly granted total immunity of all responsibilities towards our child. I wrote to my MP, i wrote to the CSA complaints department, i have a stack of papers knee high full of letters to the CSA going back 10 years. Most went unanswered by the CSA. Phone calls to the CSA revealled that my previous conversations had been lost, i was sent to wrong departments, told they'd be in touch, i'd never hear a thing again. I've been at this for 16 or more years now. Now both fathers dont pay a penny, the CSA remains silent and ignores my letters. The last i heard about father no.1 was that he owed me a lot of money in back dated non payments, they said they were going to take his driving liscence away, and take him to court. I never heard another thing, my letters requesting information ignored. 

And yet, not all government departments are so incompetent. I got a smashing letter from the working tax family people, asking me for the return of £8k in overpayments, to be paid by the next month. I sat in front of the WFTC papers for days, trying to work out what i'd done wrong, i got a mate to help, we discovered that it was the WFTC peoples fault. I had sent the correct information. I wrote back, they replied, "yes although we did miscalculate your earnings, you still have to pay the money back." ( that's basically what the letter surmounted to, it was full of jargon and complex rules and reasons explaining why even though they f***** up, it still wasnt their fault) 

Back in the naive days of my late 20's i was granted legal aid for my divorce. I used to own my own house, i sold it to buy another one with my husband, same price, different location. When i got divorced i went to court to keep my house, my husband wanted half. We argued through solicitors, it went to court. I was told i could keep the house, and then i got the 20k legal bill and the letter explaining that when i sold my house i was to pay the 20k back to legal aid.  20k to be told i could keep a house which was already mine. Solicitors dont you just love them. 

As i said, i've brought up my children virtually on my own, apart from the occasional weekend and night time stop over, which i had to beg the father to consider. 

I find myself sometimes jealous when i hear of other divorced couples arguing over visiting rights, because my childrens fathers seemed to want to see as little of their children as possible. I listen to single parents bickering with their exes on the phone, and i find myself wishing my exes  even bothered to reply, they ignored any pleas from me. I try to remain positive and not slide into a world of cynical eye rolling, but its a struggle sometimes. 

My children are now grown up, they both love their fathers, which i feel proves that i kept my mouth shut and did a great job of covering up. I worked hard to support my children and sometimes had to leave them for days while i worked away ( when they were older teenagers) . I did shift work from 3am to 2pm and managed to bring in enough to pay childminders .. I never seemed able to find registered child minders, they were as rare as hens teeth, so i couldnt claim assistance on child care fee's. It certainly was a scary struggle quite a lot of the time, often i'd think i was going nuts or was nuts, many times i defaulted on the mortgage repayments , and we often have baked beans and i'd worry that i might crack up and the children would be taken away. 

I think i probabably did crack up, but there was always work and homework and lots of things to do which meant i just had to get on with it. The children kept me going. I worked and worked, and cried with the unfairness of it all, i wept for myself and for the children who kept saying, why hasnt dad arrived yet? ( when yet again, father no.1 had promised to come and visit but never turned up .. for 10 years)

Thinking about the past sends a chill through me,  i  have a constant fear that tomorrow i might be back in that dark place of struggle and fear, with the children looking at me waiting for mum to make everything alright.

We've done it though, we came through, although i might have financially spoilt my children in their late teens, because finally i'd worked my way up to be able to afford to send them on holidays and buy them ipods, xboxes and buffy cd's :) In retrospect, the early hard days were best because i had more time with my children, but the more i worked, the later the hours, the more responsibility i took on at work, the less i saw of my children. The guilt is bad, and its compounded because i know i am the only parent really that they have, though i wish that wasnt the case. 

Anyway, there we go, yesterday it was my birthday and both children forgot , however my daughter asked me he other week to put more money into her account because she wanted to buy her dad a present,  obviously that has to be a good sign , i've managed to keep the truth away from my daughter, that her father is ( can i shout now? i've kept my mouth shut for so long ) A F***ING SELFISH NASTY HUMAN WHO DIDNT DESERVE SUCH A CLEVER BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER! AND the CSA are a load of *****! 

Thanks, i feel better for that, and to all the lone parents out there, who are left to do all the bringing up and financing of their children alone , well done keep up the good work and dont worry, you will come back as a meerkat next time and will never have to do any ironing again.