It is the responsibility of both parents to financially support their child. This includes taking care of all the child’s needs, whether they be emotional, mental, or physical. In order to make sure that both parents are providing their fair share for the child, support orders may be put in place forcing either or both parents to pay a portion of their income to the other party for child support.
In many cases, one parent is going to end up with more physical custody of the child than the other. In these cases, determining which parent is obligated to make child support payments is simple, as the party that is currently caring for the child is already financially providing for the child more than the other.
Therefore, the parent with less physical custody will be forced to make child support payments making up for the amount of money he or she is saved by not having to take care of the child. Ideally, the money that the parent would spend taking care of the child if the child was in their custody is then given to the other parent so that the other parent can use it to pay for the child's expenses.