Dear Moneyist,

I have 2 children and I pay child support. I have a daughter I didn’t know about until she was 5 years old. My backlog on child support payments has let me down for most of my life.

My credit score never goes above 515. I’m having a hard time making ends meet, so I applied for the $ 1,200 stimulus check in September. I felt like I was going to get this much needed money. I planned to buy new tires for the winter. (I still don’t have any new tires.)

The money is:My husband, 67, would like to give his $ 2 million estate and home to his disabled daughter and sister’s children. Can he do that I could survive it

I think this relief fund should be just that: A relief fund for all Americans. I was hoping that regardless of debt owed, Americans could sustain this COVID-19 economy. But no! Minnesota’s child support program has cost all of the money.

The government could have left me at least some of that money, but it cost everything. This is so morally wrong and unfair. Please help!

John

Dear John,

I feel for you: You are playing catch-up with child support for a daughter you didn’t know you fathered. It is a complex and imperfect system and of course it would have helped if you had been informed earlier that you had a daughter.

I recommend that you do your best to pay your way and take care of your child. Just because you are in arrears with child support payments, you are NOT a dead father. Your child’s mother did not inform you when she had her child. That is the hand that you were given, and when you father this child, it will be the hand that you yourself gave. The good news is that you should get the $ 600 stimulus check. In contrast to the first round, she is not held back due to child support payments.

In the government’s view, the financial burden should not be borne by one parent alone, and “how should I know I had a child?” Is usually insufficient to relieve the father of financial responsibility for retrospective payments give birth. It just doesn’t wash. Here you also need to take a close look at your own part in this situation. You were there, you fathered this child, and whether or not it was intended, you must be held accountable in the eyes of the law.

The money is: “I’m lucky enough to get by on $ 75,000 a year”: The $ 600 stimulus plan doesn’t sound sensible to me. Why am I left out?

It’s also worth remembering: if you were this girl’s mom, you would feed and dress her, look after her 24/7, pick her up and drop her off from kindergarten, and adjust your work schedule to make sure you meet it can shoulder your responsibilities as a working parent while you advance your career. You would raise your daughter to the best of your ability, help her with her homework and, ideally, set an example of how to be a productive and responsible member of society.

The only person who needs precedence in cases like yours is, and should be, the child. You didn’t buy new winter tires with the $ 1,200 stimulus last summer, but you may have taken to heart the fact that your child’s mother might have been able to buy her a new pair of shoes.

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