Gotta love a double standard

So, from 1999 until both kids came to live with me in 2008 I paid my ex-wife a LOT of child support. When I was paying on both kids (which I did until 2007) it was over $700 a month, later when my son came to live with me I paid about $150, the difference between what I owed on my daughter and what my ex owed on my son. The one time that I was a couple of weeks late, is was a horrible moral tragedy and I was told that I was personally responsible for her inability to pay her rent on time (she'd been paying rent late for almost a year by then) and everything else that was wrong with her finances was all due to that one late payment (even though she'd had bad finances longer than we'd known each other.)

So now there is an order in place where she is required to pay me support. Now that it is her responsibility to pay, it's horribly unfair and her not paying is not responsible for our troubles with things like groceries (which wasn't a problem until after we weren't getting the money she owes my kids.) She always has an excuse and seems to have the view that I'm being unfair when I ask her when she's going to pay.

Back when I was paying, we'd set it up so that I paid her directly. This got the money to her faster, and avoided nasty paperwork and dealing with the state having to collect the money (which could have messed up my credit.) I tried to be fair and give her the same option. As of right now she's five, yes FIVE, months behind.

Now what makes this worse is not only does she not pay and complain that she and her husband are broke when we ask for the money, but then she goes out and spends lots of money taking the kids out to eat and buys them toys and comic books. But she can't be bothered to get them shoes or clothes.

Well, we've had enough. Recently we filed paperwork to open a case with the local office of the Department of Child Support to ask for help collecting child support. I'm now at the point where if I ever hear about "Deadbeat Dads" and the "Poor Moms" from someone I'll give them an earfull about "Deadbeat Moms" seeing as how it seems like no one wants to admit that failing to fulfill responsibility is not a uniquely male trait.