When parents divorce in New Jersey, one of the major issues that must be addressed is who will be financially responsible for the care and raising of the children. In many cases, this will depend on who is awarded custody of the children. Then, child-related expenses are divided according to a formula and based upon the split of child-rearing responsibilities.

Once the amount of these child support payments is determined, failing to make these court-ordered payments is not only considered against the law, but for one father, it ended up affecting his parental rights.

In that case, the father and mother of a girl were divorced in 2000. The mother was awarded full primary custody of their daughter, and the father was ordered to pay $1,000 a month in child support for his daughter.

Over the next seven years the father continued to make these payments, but then stopped all together in February 2007. In fact, the only time he gave anything in terms of money to his daughter was a $125 gift card as a present in 2007, and $60 for her birthday in 2008.

However, his lack of child support payments was never an actual issue until the daughter's stepfather filed a lawsuit in order to legally adopt the girl. The stepfather was arguing that the biological father's consent was not needed since he had stopped paying child support years earlier.

In this case, the court ruled that the gift card and birthday money do not count as paying child support. However, that ruling was just looking at the difference between small monetary gifts and child support, not the adoption issue.

Additionally, in this case, when it came to why he had stopped paying child support, the father said he had justifiable reasons, which may be true. However, if you are a parent who can no longer make your court-ordered child support payments, instead of just not paying, contact a family law attorney to see how you could possibly go about getting a modification to those orders.

Source: 13abc.com, "Ohio court: small gifts don't equal child support," Jan. 26, 2012