Kristen Gyles | Amending the maintenance act

Some parents are still having heart palpitations from hearing that the Senate recently approved an amendment to Jamaica’s Maintenance Act to allow for a maintenance order to be made in relation to a child after they have turned 18. Although conversations surrounding the amendment have been ongoing within the political space for some time, very little input was solicited from the wider public. For what it’s worth, we, the public, still have a duty to make sure our opinions, though unsolicited, are both informed and reasonable.

The Maintenance Act currently puts an obligation on parents to maintain their children up until the age of 18, on spouses to maintain each other and on adult children to maintain their aged parents. The act also provides for an application to be made for the extension of a parent’s maintenance of their child beyond the age of 18, up to age 23, where the child is enrolled in an educational programme. The provision for such an application to be made is not new but prior to the amendment required that the application be made before the child turns 18. However, the amendment to the act will allow for an application to be made between the child’s 18th and 23rd birthday.

Some parents have been lamenting the additional financial burden the amendment to the Act will place on them. However, the amendment does not change the status quo in relation to child maintenance by any significant extent since it simply extends the period in which a maintenance order can be made in relation to a child and does not actually have an effect on the age up to which child maintenance can be mandated.

EVOLVED

Both the Jamaican job market and economy have evolved far beyond what they were 50 years ago. No longer can a parent expect their 18-year-old child to find meaningful employment without a tertiary education. Perhaps this expectation could easily be met in the 1970s, but we are now in 2024 when many low-skill and entry-level jobs require a bachelor’s degree. Further, the job market is now so competitive that even in instances where jobs are advertised without a requirement for tertiary education, university students and graduates vie for these positions making it even more difficult for less-qualified people to access these job opportunities. And without meaningful employment, how will an 18-year-old support him or herself?

To expect that an unemployed, high school-educated, 18-year-old will flap their wings and fly out of the nest without any financial or material support and manage to find somewhere to live and find food to eat is like expecting snow in the heart of Kingston tomorrow. From this standpoint, the proposed amendment to the Maintenance Act is well-intentioned. While legally an adult, the average 18-year-old is functionally still a child.

With that said, other legal adjustments must be made in recognition of the fact that functional adulthood does not start at the age it did 50 years ago. For example, the retention of an age of consent of 16 years is incompatible with the government’s position regarding child maintenance. A 16-year-old should not be in a position to choose to become sexually active and have a child if he or she is him or herself a child and needs to be maintained. Furthermore, in the first instance, an individual who does not have the right under the law to vote in general elections or drive on our roads should not be contemplating raising a child. So, there are quite a few inconsistencies that we need to address regarding the way we view adulthood.

GOVERNMENT’S INTRUSION

One of the most widely repeated criticisms of the amendment to the maintenance act so far, is what is perceived as the government’s intrusion on the family. However, if the premise of this criticism is that the autonomy of the family is just now being compromised by these amendments then there really is no argument. Firstly, it is the government who initially declared that an individual magically becomes an adult on their 18th birthday. This decision was not made by popular vote or referendum and was not made at any island-wide citizens’ meeting. It was dictated to us and we accepted it – just like we accepted an age of consent of 16 years old and a legal voting age of 18 years old. In like manner, nothing prevents us from now accepting a child maintenance age of 23.

Another objection which has been raised is based on the view that the Maintenance Act hypocritically binds parents to support their children until they have attained some level of financial stability while there is no legal provision binding children to take care of their parents in old age. This is not so. Part V of the Maintenance Act rightly obligates adults to maintain their parents who need maintenance due to old age, ill-health or disability and to maintain their grandparents where the children of those grandparents have died or are themselves ill or disabled.

In a perfect world, families will stick together. Parents will support their children for as long as they are able to and are relied upon to and children will begin supporting their parents as early as they are able to and are relied upon to. If both parents and children take this approach, families would be stronger and children would leave the home better able to stand on their own and contribute to society.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com