Dio, I have a question. Are there any circumstances in which you judge it to be morally acceptable for a non-custodial parent to remove herself or himself from the child’s life? For that matter, is it ever acceptable for a custodial parent to do anything to cuts the child
Suppose, for instance, that Carol agrees to reconcile without insisting that Bob absent himself from his child’s life, and he basically becomes the equivalent of a divorced father, paying child support and getting weekend visitation. Suppose further that he gets a chance for a long-hoped for career promotion that will take him from Memphis to London. Must he turn down that promotion? If the baby mama is the one offered said job, must she turn it down?
I suppose I could conceive of some crazy hypotheticals, but practically speaking, no. That’s not really what’s at issue, though. What’s at issue is demanding that somebody else remove themselves from the life of their child.
I have no idea what you intended to ask here.
You can go live overseas without removing yourself from the life of the child, dude. This is the internet age.
Depends on the child. And I don’t consider it abandonment if they were never together to begin with
It is also not the fault of the hurt party and that party should not have to make any sacrifice to correct for it. In fact, that party is more hurt than the child because a betrayed is worse than something you never get to know in the first place
Prove it
The reparations are from the other partner. The 3rd party is irrelevant. Their damage is by omission (of the parental figure), which is not the same thing as actively harming them
The child doesn’t enter into the equation at all. Age doesn’t give you an entitlement more than what you can survive with
It doesn’t matter what you consider it. It deprives a child of a parent for no good reason, and that harms the child.
If the hurt party wants to stay with a cheater, then the hurt party has to accept the consequences of that.
This is a giant load of crap. Abanding a child is infinitely worse than cheating on somebody, and being cheated on does not give you a license to harm an innocent child or to say one word about any relationship being the child and its parent.
Ask any child who’s been abandoned by a parent.
No reparations are owed by the innocent child.
You can say this all you want, but it’s amoral bullshit.
Yes it is. Abandoning a child actively harms it. Asking somebody else to abandon a child is ethically bankrupt.
Incorrect and patently ridiculous on both counts, but you obviously are never going to be able to comprehend why.
Even if we accept that keeping a father from his child only hurts some children, not all, none of the adults involved in this scenario are omniscient enough to know what camp this particular child belongs to. So ethically speaking, the decision should steer on the side of caution, not convenience.
Plenty of kids and adults who have absent fathers struggle with abandonment issues, even if they never had a relationship with their fathers. So I’m not sure where you and others are getting the impression that it’s not really abandonment if the kid and father are complete strangers. Denying the kid access to its father means denying it from knowing half of its heritage: siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, all of that. Stories, memories, and relationships with people who could be of help to them later in life. Why are people acting like that is a small thing?
I’ve surprised there is even a debate in this thread, to be honest. Even if you subtract the kid’s well-being from the equation, why would it be reasonable to demand that one’s spouse do something that a reasonable person would feel guilty about for the rest of their life? That doesn’t sound like a loving thing to me.
Are you talking about both situations, or just Bob & Carol? Because while I could never agree to what Carol is asking, I don’t think it’s at all immoral for Alice to give her child up for adoption, or even abort it if there is time. The problem in the second scenario is that Teddy hasn’t the right to ask what she is asking.
Doesn’t matter what you consider it either. And it’s a good reason for me. And to answer your next question, no, it doesn’t matter that it’s not a good reason for me
The hurt party wants to stay with a cheater and keep the child out of it. The child should accept the consequence of that.
Worse in what way? And 2, there is not enough harm suffered by the child to render Carol’s desires meaningless.
Everyone’s different, some get over it, some don’t.
The child’s not paying reparations. What he would be suffering from is merely due to luck and circumstance
I agree it’s amoral, but I don’t agree it’s bullshit. Sometimes you need to step back and look at it objectively, not from what the child wants, not from what society thinks is best, but from the viewpoint of one wronged party and the party that caused the wrong
It’s only abandonment if he knew the parent then lost him
Correct and not ridiculous at all. You’re not objective, simple as that
I’m talkng about Bob and Carol’s situation mainly.
But to address the other hypothetical, I don’t think it’s reasonable to demand Alice to do either of those things if Teddy knows that Alice would feel immensely guilty about abortion or adopting out. The reasonable thing for Teddy to do, IMO, would be to tell Alice how she feels (“I don’t want be a parent right now. If you do, that’s fine, but I’m outy”).
That’s not to say, though, she doesn’t have a “right” to ask.
There’s not enough certain harm that will come to the child if the father is not there, so I reject that caution should be placed over convenience, or that that dichotomy is the only option.
To clarify, if we can imagine that the child would be born to a human sacrificing cult, and the only way to prevent it is for Bob to be the father, then in that case, Carol’s request should be ignored. But if all that will happen is the kid growing up without his biological father (nevermind a stepfather, foster father, or any extended familial support group the mother may have)? It’s not the end of the world
It’s not small, but it’s not big enough to deny Carol her reparations. The only person who can be said to be objectively wronged here is Carol (and Alice), but most people are of the opinion that they are adults and should suck it up and that the child would always come first. Children are nice, but they’re not some epitome of humanity or morals. It’s not always a given that I would save a child over an old person in a disaster. Maybe the old person is better than the kid
I don’t see the love between two adults as less than the love between a parent and child. More things can go wrong probably, but Bob and Carol is no less a pair than Bob and kid
Poll fathers who take an active interest in their children and ask them if they think their children would be just as good without them. What do you think most will say?
Poll everyone who had a father who was active in their lives and ask them if they think their lives would have been just as good without them there. What do you think most will say?
Poll everyone who had deadbeat or absentee fathers and ask them if they think they would have benefited by having a dad in their lives. What do you think most wll say?
I reject the notion a father’s worth can be so casually discounted and discarded.
Amputating the child’s left hand isn’t the end of the world, either. Carol sucking it up and accepting that her cheating husband now has to be father isn’t the end of the world, either. As you can see, there are a lot things that aren’t the end of the world. It’s silly to base decisions on whether or not something constitutes the apocalypse.
If Carol wants reparations, she can divorce and get a settlement. Her husband’s ethical obligations to his offspring have nothing to do with her.
Bob should have thought of all this love before he created a child, don’t you think?
Bob’s obligations to his child supercede any obligations to Carol. Carol needs to take that into consideration if she wants to stay with him. Being Bob’s first priority is no longer an option that is open to her. Personally, I think she should leave.
Agreed, we each have the limits we have. But one of my limits is emotional blackmail. If they have those limits, they do; going into “or else” mode is what’s not acceptable for me.
To the people who keep saying that one’s child comes before one’s partner: what if Bob and Alice already had children with their partners? Would the new child supercede the old ones? I don’t think it would, but that’s me.
Both of the “wronged spouses” are demanding that their own insecurities take precedence over an innocent child’s. Said child did NOTHING to deserve being placed into this situation, the child DOES deserve a reasonable upbringing.
That said - I do understand the spouse not wanting this intrusion into her life - but the child’s needs must take precedence.
That is true in the case of Bob & Carol. I am not persuaded it’s the case with Teddy & Alice, especially since Teddy is willing for Alice to have the child so long as she or he is put up for adoption. Assuming it’s a white child – and probably if it’s a black or Asian one – she or he will be snapped up quickly. The harm done in that case is to Alice.
Of course it’s an ethical option. You just happen to disagree with it
So’s Carol and Teddy, unless you fault them for simply being with a person who cheated
Depends on the person
It’s not self-centered to want to be with a person whom you’ve loved and shared your life with. That person just happens to be an adult who cheated. People can still be redeemed. And the damage to the child isn’t certain, depends on what kind of person he is and how he’s raised
Neither does imposing on them guarantee a bad life
Then you should direct your ire at Bob for cheating and not Carol for asking
There’s a difference between active punishment and punishment by omission. I may choose not to save someone in a burning house. I’m not punishing them, I’m just thinking of myself and my well-being
Says you
Only because you feel I don’t direct my compassion to the right person. I feel for Carol and Teddy’s plight. They have already been hurt. The child only MAY grow up to be hurt, and his age doesn’t factor into it at all
Essentially, Bob was acting like a sperm donor. He got a woman pregnant and Carol wants him to pretend like the kid doesn’t exist. Do you get mad at sperm donors who don’t want to be found by potential offspring?
That is hardly an objective sample. And you cannot account for what may happen in a parallel universe with or without the situation you grew up in. Some people grow up fine, some don’t. While it may be that the statistics trend towards “don’t”, it doesn’t happen often enough, and the situation isn’t severe enough, to say that Carol’s fate should be completely determined by someone else
And the questions are biased. You’re essentially asking me if most people would do better with a good father than an absent or absent one. We don’t know what kind of father Bob would be, but we know he’s a cheater. How do you know he won’t cheat on his kid’s mother downt he line? How do you know he won’t take out the resentment on the kid? You should rather be asking simply if having a cheater father is better than not having one, while still not deciding whether or not there will be a male role model for the child.
It’s not the end of the world if the child sucks it up and accept he has no biological father in his life either. And I still reject that what you say is the cautious choice is in fact, cautious. There isn’t enough predetermined certainty either way for me to simply ignore Carol’s wishes
If Carol wants reparations, she can divorce and get a settlement. Her husband’s ethical obligations to his offspring have nothing to do with her.
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If her desires are that they remain together, and the OP says that both want to do that after some counseling, then what he does with his life IS her business. I don’t think that request is unethical as it doesn’t suppose that one person is more important than another. The child is not more innocent than Carol, nor is he more important. If anything, having spent years together, and having already been born years before, Carol deserves more, and is more human, than a potential future child.
That’s why I feel Carol’s request is a punishment directed at Bob. The child doesn’t enter into my equation
He deposited an amount of sperm into a woman through insemination vs. he gave some sperm to a sperm bank who sold it to a woman. The child isn’t part of the process at all. He appears 9 months later