Child Support from Conception in Texas

Single mothers in Texas are burdened by costly peripartum expenses necessary for the health and safety of themselves and their children.

While Texas has established child support ordinances and norms, statute does not require fathers to equitably discharge a fundamental duty of parenthood, namely the support and maintenance of maternal and childhood well-being in both the prenatal and postpartum periods.

Key points:

• To actualize childhood well-being, children require healthy interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships and maturation of stage-specific capacities in a social ecology supported and shaped by parental human capital investment.
• Parents lacking resources for human capital investment reduce childhood well-being and perception self-efficacy as a parent, in turn increasing the likelihood of negative outcomes for children.
• The economic costs of single motherhood are burdensome during the peripartum period, when mothers must pay for products and services necessary for the health and safety of themselves and their children.
• Fathers have a responsibility to equitably discharge their duties toward the children. Some states have required fathers to pay child support from conception to aid in covering peripartum expenses.