At first glance it might seem a father paying child support is always ethical. After all, he was part of the equation in bringing the child into the world in the first place. There are rare times when a father should not be forced to be child support. They should be taken into account only as some form of punishment to the mother not doing right in the deal.
After watching several of my nephews, friends and such go through messy deals with their ex-wives I think there are a few occasions when withholding child support is in order. This would force the mother to comply with the court’s orders and not take matters in their own hands. I will give a few examples.
In one case, the two parties lived 9 hours apart. The court had ordered the parties meet halfway when exchanging the children. This rarely occurred. The mother had custody of the children the majority of the time. The father had to repeatedly go the full 9 hours to pick up his children. This was a blatant flaunting of the rules of the court. The mother should have been penalized by holding back child support until she complied with the order of the court.
In a second case, the mother had taken a live-in boyfriend. The children had been told to call the new live-in “daddy” which they did. This is just wrong and sends a wrong message to the children. In this case child support should have been cut off and the children should really have been sent with the father to live.
In a third case, the mother signed every paper the court put in front of her and then broke every condition. She did as she pleased as if the court did not exist. Child support payments should have been withheld from her until she complied with the orders of the court.
Forcing a father to pay child support when a mother does wrong is unethical. It is the only way to punish the mother and bring her in line to make it fair for all involved. Withholding this money would be a last resort though as the ones who would be punished in all probability would be the children. Sometimes it would be necessary to force a mother to comply though.