Child Support

[Babymama]

My daughter will be three in january. Her dad went to jail six weeks after she was born. I am applying for cash assistance and i know that you have to file for child support to do it. I was just wondering how that will work. He is in jail in North Carolina for about 17 years.

 

[RightTheWrongs]

Even if you have to file for child support to be able to apply for Cash Assistance, when the child support conference comes around, you can tell them that you don't want him to pay anything. As long as the two parents agree, child support can be set at any amount lower than the amount they would give you based off income. I am going to assume that he makes next to nothing (or absolutely nothing) considering he is in jail, so whatever amount they would come up with would probably be pennies anyway.

Do you have contact with the father? If you do have contact with him, I would notify him of what your plans are so that when he gets papers sent to him, he doesn't go into "attack mode" and think you are up to no good.

Does the daughter ever see him? If the daughter never sees him, why haven't you terminated his rights? You wouldn't have any issues in the future with anything regarding your daughter if he has no rights. I don't know about this, but when your daughter goes to college, you might run into issues. Even seemingly small things - like the need to file for support in order to get Cash Assistance.