I used to periodically have to issue opinions as to paternity in a national benefits program (Soc Sec.). If it isn’t extremely clear from the above discussion, as of 10 years ago, it depended entirely on state law, and laws WRT paternity (and marriage for that matter) vary WIDELY from state to state.
(There is a maximum benefit amount to be paid to secondary beneficiaries of any one wage earner. So the more kids, the less any 1 kid gets. So people would challenge paternity both ways - trying to argue that another kid was NOT eligible, or trying to argue that a kid WAS eligible. Some people really lead messy lives.)
Has the reverse ever happened, where a woman moves in with a man and his prior children and then later the woman is required to provide child support? Assuming that the woman holds herself out as the mother of those children while they were living together.
I am adopted (along with my siblings) and absolutely agree with you. Certainly if a father has been raising a kid and loves them they should continue to do so.
But, we can imagine a (say) soldier who was deployed for six months and comes home to a pregnant wife and the math ensures he was not the father.
Should he be on the hook for that kid?
That happened to me. My mom re-married and my step-dad took on that role (very intentionally…no one was complaining about it).
A cousin returned from Vietnam to find his wife 6 months pregnant. He was gone 14 months. This ended the marriage and they moved on. 7 years later he was notified by the state of Washington he owed 7 years worth of child support. My cousin checked his divorce papers that he never read which stated he was to pay support for this child. He fought this for 5 years and spent a bunch of money only to lose. At his last court hearing, the judge said he was refusing to bastardize the child, my cousin’s name was on the birth certificate and he was the father of record. Over the years she has become part of our family inner circle and is included in all family gatherings. They did confirm about 5 years ago through a DNA test that they are not related.
I have never personally seen it happen, but I’m sure that the law would have to treat both genders equally.
Right. The law assumes that a child is the product of a marriage. In that situation, the man needed to take affirmative steps to disprove his paternity which it seems he failed to do in a timely fashion.
Would the child be seen as a debt like any other in a marriage, where the debt is owned by both parties? Would it be like if one spouse takes out a loan to get expensive medical procedure ($100k+)? Upon divorce, the debt from the loan is shared debt and both spouses are responsible for it. It doesn’t matter if the other spouse agreed to the procedure or not. A child from an affair could be viewed in the same way.
With the soldier example, if the soldier came back and found out their spouse spent $100k+ on plastic surgery without saying anything to the soldier, the soldier would be responsible for 1/2 the debt if they were to get a divorce. Perhaps if the soldier initiated divorce immediately the court would shift the debt to the other spouse, but not if the soldier did nothing for 2 years. So whether the soldier comes back to find their spouse pregnant or with a lot of plastic surgery, maybe it’s the same from the court’s perspective.
No, and he’s not. He knows the baby isnt his and there are generally steps to repudiate paternity.
But if a man raises a kid for 5 or 10 years, knowing or not, and then the “real” father shows up, he should have his parental status legally recognized and protected. “Have to pay child support” and “can’t lose your child you raised because someone else exerts a claim” are inextricably intertwined there.
I’m a little bit confused , because I’m not sure exactly what “taking a parental role”, etc is referring to. A stepparent who adopted the child would have to pay child support in the event of a divorce, as far as I know, and a stepparent who didn’t adopt the child might end up de facto supporting the child (if for example, the bio-parent didn’t have a paying job and either had a child-support order or custody). But are you saying that someone who didn’t adopt the child and maybe didn’t even marry the parent might be liable for child support after a break-up just because they lived with the parent and did parental things like pick the kid up from school or coach the kid’s baseball team?
They might depending on the state and even the individual judge. It would be very fact specific. The big question would be where is the biological father? If he is taking an active role in the child’s life then almost certainly not. If he is absent, that would be a first indicator. Another, as mentioned, is the length of the marriage. Do the kids call him “Dad” or “Bill.” Does he refer to them as his kids.
I don’t think simple household errands like picking a kid up from school would be the same, but if you coached baseball only because that kid was on the team? Seems like something fatherly.
California law is supposed to be gender-neutral in this area, so it could happen. However, as I have explained in other threads (I’ll see if I can find them; I’m not feeling like typing out all the details again):
the courts have drawn at least some lines against forcing stepparents into parental roles they didn’t mean to sign up for, and
the law has always preferred exactly 2 parents. So while it’s possible to become a legally presumed mother or father to a kid who already has one of each (or two of one), it’s a higher standard to meet, if you even want it.
I seem to recall the case that went to the Supreme Court of Canada involved a 6-month-old child.
But yes, as I recall the discussion, loco parentis (acting as parent) involves such mundane things as signing school permission slips, involved with medical issues, etc. that indicate a role beyond “friend of the mother and child”.
Suggests to me a lawyer that didn’t clarify things with his client; after all, that was a major thing to be on the hook for. You’d think it would rate a mention, especially since the divorce was over the paternity issue. You’d think a lawyer would consider due to that whether the birth certificate should be amended at the time… Or was Washington at the time unwilling to consider a child of marriage anything other than a child of marriage? Sounds more like the judge was acting out his own stodgy prejudices.
I might have missed it mentioned, but who’s responsible for child support isn’t entirely determinized who’s the “husband” or “wife” (mother/father), but more who has what capacity to provide support… which usually boils down to who has the higher income and who the children reside with.
A wealthy but irresponsible flake of a mom who walks away and leaves her kids with the bell-boy who fathered them could well be ordered to pay that father child support… or perhaps even to the non-related line cook ex-boyfriend whom she abandoned the kids with and who raised them as his own for 10 years. Two parents with equal income and sharing custody 50:50 could/should owe each other the same amount so it cancels out and neither pays the other support.
It just happens that in many cultures the father tends to earn more money while the mother tends to take on a larger percentage of day-to-day child-care. The law often doesn’t specifically say “dad pays mom”.
That’s true - but I think the situation in the OP can only happen in one direction, where a man is legally considered to be the father of any child born to his wife while they are married unless he takes steps within a certain period of time to deny paternity. I don’t think there is anywhere where a woman who did not give birth to the child is legally the mother of a child her husband had with another woman.
I don’t see why it can only be one direction. My baby’s biological mom dies shortly after childbirth (or just Fs-off leaves the baby with me), I then move in with a young female lawyer (or a woman who obviously earns more than I do) who loves children and we raise the baby together as parents for 10 years and I’m the stay-at home parent both of whom she supports. Then she decides to upgrade her social life when she makes partnership in the firm and dumps me and the child she’s been acting as a mother to. Why wouldn’t she be considered in loco parentis and have a responsibility?
You’re describing something different than what the OP and Doreen were describing. They’re talking about an affair resulting in a pregnancy where the spouse of a bio parent is on the hook, despite not acting in a parental role. You’re talking about an adult taking on a parental role. As I stated upthread, at least in California, your scenario can (but doesn’t necessarily) lead to that non-bio stepparent acquiring parental rights and responsibilities. But the OP scenario is not gender-neutral. A man whose wife gets pregnant by another man can be legally the father, perhaps even against his will if he doesn’t act quickly. A woman whose husband knocks up another woman will not legally be any kind of parent to that child unless she goes out of her way to act like one.
That part can go both ways - but the OP wasn’t about someone coming in after the child was born and being considered in loco parentis. It was about a husband being a legal parent to a child he was not the genetic parent of. A legal parent by definition cannot “act in place of a parent”
I’m pretty sure almost anybody who did that would be glad to have their rights protected. But the business about the husband being the legal father actually isn’t only about deceit. I have known what I find to be a shocking number of people who have split up without actually getting divorced until years later , if ever. And as long as they are legally married, even if they haven’t actually been a couple for ten years, the husband will legally be the father of any child the wife has unless someone takes action to prevent it.
* my sister’s ex-husband wouldn’t agree to an uncontested divorce for at least ten years - as best as I could ever figure out, it gave him an excuse not to marry his girlfriend.