Child Support for Custodial Mothers and Fathers Two parent custodial families are not a common aspect of American culture any longer. Many families have custodial parents who have divorced and left children in single parent homes. The facts presented here are intended to show that statistics do not always present the facts accurately. The U.S. Census Bureau says, In 1998, an estimated 14 million parents had custody of 22.9 million children less than 21 years of age whose other parent lived elsewhere. Custodial mothers represented 85.1 percent of all custodial parents while the remaining 14.9 percent were fathers. This has statistically been unchanged since 1994. About 25.8 percent of all children less than 21 living in families had a parent not living in the home .The statistics for child support among custodial mothers show that many custodial mothers do not receive child support due to various reasons. The United States Census Bureau completed a report on the poverty level of custodial mothers in the time period between 1993 and 1997, reporting the results every two years of that period. In 1993, the poverty rate for custodial mothers was 36.8 percent below the national poverty rate average. In 1995 and 1997, the poverty rates for the same group of mothers was 33.3 percent and 32.1 percent, respectively. I state these facts to prove the point that, even though legal agreements were made to provide support for these parents, the custodial mothers do not receive adequate financial compensation to sustain the minor child in day-to-day activities. However, the same Census Bureau reported in 1997, that the income was higher and the poverty levels lower for those custodial mothers and fathers who received all of the total amount of child support due them in that calendar year. The poverty rate experienced a dramatic drop from 32.1 percent of the same year to 15.2 percent for those receiving full support payments. The facts show that cust...
