Child Support

You can seek a child support order if you are raising your child and living separately from the other parent. It does not matter whether you are married or unmarried.¹

If you are the child’s mother and married to the child’s father, it is assumed (“presumed”) that your husband is the child’s father.² However, if you are unmarried before the court can issue a child support order, the father’s paternity (legal fatherhood) has to be established. The father and mother can voluntarily acknowledge paternity by signing and filing an acknowledgment of parentage in front of a notary public or at the hospital at birth.³ Or, either parent can file a paternity petition in court, and the judge can order genetic testing and establish paternity through that process.⁴

Child support can be filed as part of a divorce, separation, custody, or paternity proceeding, or it can be filed as a separate action. You can also receive a temporary child support order as part of a 209A abuse prevention order.⁵

¹ M.G.L. 209C § 9; M.G.L. 208 § 28; M.G.L. 209 § 37
² M.G.L. 209C § 6(a)
³ M.G.L. 209C § 11
⁴ M.G.L. 209C §§ 2; 17
⁵ M.G.L. 209A § 3(e)