Once again, the laws of the land have to relate to the reality of how biology works and try to protect the rights of everyone involved. The mother the father, the child, and society in general. Not all parties can be treated completely equally because the biology isn’t equal. There’s nothing that can be done to make it completely equal so it’s a balancing act of rights and the welfare of children.
That’s why men aren’t financially responsible for all the resulting babies care. See how justice works?
Great idea. Men should only have sex with woman on the pill. Although, my daughter was conceived when my girlfriend was on the pill.
And up to here we are on the same boat. I agree that if A needs the support and asks for it, and B is able to provide it, then B should pay, no matter what they want or think. Is this how it works? I get the feeling from other people’s comments (and with nothing else to back it up) that B always pays, no matter whether A needs it or not, and no matter whether B can pay or not.
Making B pay an A that doesn’t need it is just punishing B for no good reason.
Wrenching money from a struggling B to pay for the baby is just transferring the poverty from one person to the next. The state will still need to pay for the deficit, except that it will do it to B in a very inefficient manner of reaching the baby, who is supposed to be the motive for this law. Paying the baby directly (with programs such as WIC which gives milk and other non-cash help) makes it more likely that the help will reach the baby and not be filtered by B or A who might want that money for something else.
Very true, I agree that this is not something to be taken lightly. Still, it is not harder nor more expensive than the case were both A+B want to surrender the baby. In fact, it is cheaper since there is no need for foster home, adoption procedures and all that.
And if A wants the baby but is not able to provide for him, then it is not different from single parents (widows, unknown father, etc) who are not able to provide for their babies.
The provisions exist and are used regularly. They are not cheap and they are not pretty, but they are in place.
ETA: I see that your post #180 addresses some of my questions.
Because he helped create it.
There are several points of decision from sex to child, and the financial responsibility that brings. Biology dictates men and women do not have the same choices.
If there wasn’t any input the decision wouldn’t be necessary at all.
You seem to be suggesting women bare the greater {or entire} financial burden and the resulting children just make due because women’s biology gives them more choices. You also seem to be suggesting that men , because of a lucky biological circumstance, get to do all the screwing they can without any financial responsibility. That hardly seems to promote responsibility or consequences for choices in the male portion of society.
Fortunately the courts that deal with those consequences have decided you’re wrong. Individuals have to take responsibility for the choices they have, and they make. They can’t use the fact that others have different choices as an excuse to escape the consequences of their choices.
Yes, but the mother is more equal than the father.
We accept biology isn’t fair as an explanation in this case but it would never be acceptable if it went against the woman or against a minority or against a handicapped person. In those cases there is never enough reason to say “sorry, nature is just not fair”.
Once a woman is pregnant if she decides to carry the pregnancy to term and the prospective father does not want to be a father then, IMHO, he should be let off the hook. It is her sole decision and she solely should bear the cost and consequences. Just my POV.
Not really. Prebirth, both a woman and a man can determine if their gametes may be used to possibly result in a child. Each has 100% control over that, until their gametes, or the result thereof, leaves their bodies.
After birth, each party has equal responsibility for the upkeep of the child jointly created.
Not sure I see an inequality there.
I think, reading the rest of your post, that we have a lot of agreement. I’m all for changing the preference thing as it stands currently. It just isnt fair
Its been my experience that mothers get some bizarre ability to say that they have to get as much money in order to maintain the lifestyle of the kid (allegedly) before the divorce/separation. Maybe reality is different, I dont know, I certainly hope so. I also agree that this should be changed. I cannot fathom why a child should have the expectation of the exact level of lifestyle if their parents separate. No child should be worth thousands a month. Perhaps this particular point is better stated that I want a cap on the maximum amount of alimony. How much does it cost to raise a kid for a month? A few hundred bucks? Definitely nothing over $1000 unless the kid is special needs
I should have been more clear, sorry. I meant that its unfair that the only way the father can get sole custody seems to be only when the mother decides to give up her rights. Now that I think about it, I believe you’re correct on this. :smack:
You’re right. My main point of contention here is the custody part. Mothers get preference, fathers get screwed. Its not right. There are many loving fathers out there denied an equal chance to raise their kids. Part of the archaic Victorian values that I railed against earlier
I am totally for holding people responsible for their actions, but not when they are not given equal chance to correct those actions in the first place. As far as social burdens, I’ve addressed that above. Society takes on certain burdens that individuals cannot or should not. Nothing inherently unfair about that
Kids are definitely worse off in an orphanage, but thats irrelevent. Its simply their circumstances and nothing says one must be born wealthy. While I am essentially forcing the state to take the child, as I’ve said above, I’ve no problems with communal burdens. We all pay for roads we dont use, parks we dont go to, museums we dont visit, schools when we have no kids. This, to me, is no different, and certainly the lesser of many evils.
To answer your example, I am unswayed by emotional pleas, so yes, it would be fair. If the poor woman in that example can opt out of the kid’s financial future with an abortion, then the rich man should be able to opt out of paying too. He’d be an ass, but I would definitely not have any legal objections to that scenario. And what kid needs $1000 a month anyway?
I’ll take your word for it that he was guilty. But still, he can contest the ticket. And with clever lawyerly tricks, its not a forgone conclusion that he would have to pay anything. A father in the custody situation we’re talking about has no such option. His only hope is that the mother or the kid dies.
My opinion would not change if she was anti-abortion from the start, because she can change her mind. The father has no power to change his alimony payment at all. Only by allowing him to pay or not pay, being solely his decision, would make the example equal.
Also, I never said he had 100% responsibility. This is about what powers the mother has to decide. She can decide to have herself the responsible party (by taking custody and not accepting alimony), both to have responsibility (take custody and make the father pay), or someone else (giving the kid up for adoption, absolving herself of all parental responsibility). Now as far as I know, if the mother gives up the baby for adoption, the father can claim it as the biological parent, but has no power to go back and force the mother to pay alimony. I may be wrong, I hope I am, but thats what I think the law currently stands. And its wrong. The father should have an equal right to give the kid up for adoption and remove himself from all financial responsibility
I’ve kicked that idea around too. I think it would be great.
You do know alimony and child support are completely separate things?
And moreover, complaining about the way the law is enforced (which certainly has problems) is a fundamentally different thing to saying there is an inherent unfairness in the law (which seems to be the basis of many of those who want fathers to be able to abandon financial responsibility for their offspring).
Mine is. I’m assuming as well you don’t have children, based on your lack of knowledge as to the expenses involved.
How is that Victorian? I still don’t see how we’re in a Victorian-esque era. In a divorce, the father pretty much always just got custody of the children during the Victorian times in the rare cases a divorce occurred.
No actually, I didnt
Cant it be both?
I probably shouldnt have said “worth”, as you seem to have confused worth with expenses. No child, unless special needs, requires more than $1000 a month to live in relative comfort. The types of payments I’ve read about that’s maddening seems merely for the mother to maintain her lifestyle rather than the child
In context, its Victorian because the mother is usually assumed to be the one that should be taking care of the kid. Certainly back then, when women were generally unemployed dependent on their husbands, they gave the kid to the one who wouldnt be living on the streets. But their values are still archaic. In a family, the man was supposed to work and the woman stay home. Imagine the outrage if it were the other way around.
Oohhh boy. Don’t have kids.
I’ll agree on the $1000 a month. However, it’s the ‘unexpecteds’ that will kill you.
Or, if fairness to the man is really an issue the country needs to worry about, we could outlaw abortion all together. Then neither Mom nor Dad has an option the other doesn’t. I’m sure everyone would be happier then…
No the mother isn’t more equal. Because of biology the mother has more points at which to make a choice. That’s nobody’s fault , just a reality we have to deal with.
Please explain perhaps with examples. Be specific. I honestly don’t get it. It’s biology that some people are black and they had to fight for equal rights. Women had to fight for the right to vote and get equal pay. Now men are whining that they have to support their offspring against their will. What a unfunny joke.
But please, explain with specifics.
We are talking about a human life rather than a car they went in on. When pregnant it is the woman’s choice because it is her body. Once the baby is born the man has some choices and they aren’t all hers, but then the baby’s welfare comes into play as well as the rights of the parents. The Dad can sue for custody if he feels the Mom is unfit. He can assume a parental role if the woman decides to give the baby up. He can even choose to court the woman and convince her that he’d be a good partner and parent. He is not without choices, so no it isn’t her sole decision. What he can’t do is abandon the welfare of a child he helped create and walk away without consequences. To allow men to do that would be a horrible encouragement of irresponsibility.
Alimony is a payment to the ex-spouse independent of children, usually for reduction in earning capacity caused by marital duties - for example, a woman may have been out of the workplace for a long time, and is thus less employable.
It can be both, but nothing you have said points to actual unfairness in the law, rather than its application. Given that the thread was about unfairnesses in the law itself, you are going off on something of a tangent.
I know what you meant, and I pay significantly more than $1000 a month in child support, especially when full value of things I pay for is considered. And my son is fully deserving of those things. If we say $1000 a month as your cut off, how much of that goes in the difference between a one-bedroom apartment and a two-bedroom. Quite conceivably $500 in a big city. So out of the $500 left, how much goes on health insurance? Likely to be at least $100, probably more. So we are down to $400 to feed, cloth and entertain the child. That’s before transportation costs, of course. Better hope there are no emergencies, no co-pays for medical treatment, no prescriptions to buy, no school trips.
Good to know. I speaking strictly of child support then
I dont see how you can only point to only application when it comes to not letting a father have the choice, as a mother can dictate at her whim, whether or not to force the other into 18 years of monetary commitment. At least offer a compromise, even a bad one that would prevent mother from changing their minds years later. I dont know what the law is currently, but if the mother decided she doesnt want child support, and then changes her mind a year later, is that allowed? I dont want to be a guy who has to look over my shoulder for 18 years hoping his ex would be kind enough and not get into a financial rut in which she can declare out of the blue a part of my paycheck.
I think you’re looking at it from the wrong perspective. I believe that child support is just that: support for the child that you would pay if you were there with the mother. You dont need to spend $400 a month on a child’s entertainment, food, and clothes. You may want to shower him in gifts and Playstations, but if a woman, by herself, is on that kind of budget, then the child should probably have gone to the father instead. Here’s what I think you are not getting: We are talking as if the child’s welfare is independent of the mother. What happened to her sharing part of the upbringing? Take all your expenses up there and cut them by half, that’s how much the mom should be paying independent of child support. Its as if when the father leaves, he’s paying all of the child support. $500 for rent? Sure, you pay $250 and she pays $250 and boom, $500 right there. $100 health insurance? That’s $50 from you and $50from her. Dont look at it as if its all your burden, she’s gotta share it too
Child support isn’t the entitlement of the mother, it is the entitlement of the child. The mother doesn’t have the right to determine that on the child’s behalf. It’s not her financial rut that you would be helping out with, it would be your child’s.
And people have said repeatedly the father has a choice. That’s just not true. In the creation of a child, the father has control over his donation of genetic material. You make that choice, and a child results, then you face up to the consequences.
Actually, $100 a month is closer to half of the payment for health insurance. And notice I didn’t mention anything to do with child care. Do you have any concept of the cost of childcare, especially where it has to run beyond traditional school hours to allow a person to work a normal job. A custodial parent is likely to have their earning potential reduced by being a sole physical custodian as well. And if you think $12.90 a day is extravagant for feeding, clothing and equipping a child for life, well, I am willing to guess you don’t have kids or experience of looking after them.
Please don’t assume I am not getting something you are saying. This is something I see every pay check. My son did not cause my divorce, and the fact I got divorced should impact him as little as possible. You are thinking of children as an obligation, as something you should get away with as little as possible to do with. If that truly is your viewpoint, have a vasectomy now, or at least abstain from sex that might result in pregnancy. Of course it is possible to raise a child on the money you talk about - but a father who is partially responsible for creating a child has a responsibility to that child. It’s not a matter of just ensuring that the child has a box of macaroni and cheese a day. Whether he chooses to be a part of the child’s life or not in other ways, he has a financial responsibility to that child. Any arbitrary cap that allows bankers or basketball players to live in luxury while ignoring the well being of their offspring is foolish in my mind.
Repeating this over and over doesn’t make it a fact. Men have a right to have intercourse without needing to worry that the woman is going to have a baby the man doesn’t want and never did. There is no reason these days, since women are able to work and all that, for a man to be forced to pay to raise a child he didn’t want, simply because the woman decided not to abort and decided not to put the baby out for adoption. Anything else is trying to push women back into the days when they were viewed as helpless little ninnies without a man to take care of them. You may be completely misogynist with your idea that all women are just baby factories and all that, but fortunately the majority in this country don’t agree with you (well, I hope…some days I wonder)
I’m not getting this. How does encouraging women, who cannot afford to pay to raise their child on their own, to have babies solve anything?
I thought that I had the right to not be taxed without representation. Sorry I made that mistake - can you tell me when I lost that right?