A Response to the Comments by Salt

Abstract

W A e share Salt's concern that too often persons tend to discuss divorce from the perspective of their own gender. In some cases, women may appear to be advocating for custodial mothers and men for noncustodial fathers, or they may be accused of doing so simply because they are women or men. Equally unfortunate, however, seems to be the tendency to discuss divorce from the perspective of our own ages. In other words, adults tend to address issues which seem unfair to other adults and perhaps to ignore issues which are unfair to children. The purpose of our article is to examine the effect of quantitative child support guidelines and to determine whether they are achieving the purposes implied by the policymakers who mandated their establishment. The focus is on the economic well-being of children above the economic well-being of either parent. We are well aware that what is fair to the child may not be fair to one or both of the parents.