The Legislature recognizes that children have a right to share in their natural parents' level of living. Expenditures in families are not made in accordance with subsistence level standards, but are made in proportion to household income, and as parental incomes increase or decrease, the actual dollar expenditures for children also increase or decrease correspondingly. In order to ensure that children properly share in their parents' resources, regardless of family structure, these guidelines are structured so as to provide that after a consideration of respective parental incomes, child support will be related, to the extent practicable, to the standard of living that children would enjoy if they were living in a household with both parents present.
West Virginia Legal Code