So far you’ve done little to establish that it does these things. Not so clever quips aren’t a reasoned argument. It only leads people to think you don’t have one.
I happen to support welfare limitations for women who continue irresponsible behavior. I don’t have a cite but I believe I read that several years ago that the female governor of NJ imposed limits on how much welfare single mothers could receive. Something like a certain amount for one child. More for a second child but that was it. No increase for a third or fourth child. She got alllll kinds of crap for that decision but over the next few years the birth rate for well fare mothers declined. How are we to interpret that?
I think a few women will reproduce for profit and laws like that are effective and reasonable. I think a few women will become pregnant in order to trap a man into a relationship or at least into CS. I think those numbers are the exception. I also believe we should not subsidize irresponsibility. The challenge is to have laws that do not punish the innocent more often than they prevent abuse of the system. No matter how you change the laws there will be those who manipulate the system to serve their own selfish ends. There will be those who seem to be punished excessively or seem to fall through the cracks. The challenge is to create a system that continues to serve more than it harms or lets down.
What a load. There are lots of possible scenarios out there and this one is pretty dam limited. Even if a woman gets pregnant from a one night stand where contraception failed should the Dad just skate free from any responsibility? What if her moral concepts won’t allow her to terminate the pregnancy. Is that just tough shit for her and a free pass to the guy? She and the child, or society or all those, has to bear the consequences of the risk he knowingly took while he just walks away. Is that something like your master moral plan?
What a great idea that is. Take the child away from it’s natural mother even if she is willing to care for it just to teach her a dam good lesson. Never mind if this is good for the child or not. We have to teach these irresponsible people a lesson.
In any system there will be injustices and the innocent will suffer. We try to establish a system that minimizes this. I don’t think you’ve offered anything even close.
So if a parent actively avoids their moral responsibility by working under the table and moving from state to state they should not owe child support for those years?
Your suggestions seem to penalize the child rather casually and reward some forms of irresponsibility in order to prevent others. With all your smart aleck ranting you have no real viable solutions to this glaring injustice you seem to see.
It takes more than a few flippant remarks to find that balance. I’d say good try, BUT I"D BE LYING!!
If you’re actually reading and thinking about what I’m writing it shouldn’t sound like that. At the last I’m saying the specific men who are the genetic parent of the child. I’m also not suggesting that women don’t pay their share. What I’ve said repeatedly is that both men and women are responsible for the child they contributed toward. There’s a major difference between that and what you think it sounds like. Listen much? Any good at it?
You haven’t shown they are being denied anything except where they simply cannot be equal because of basic biology. Society is not responsible for that.
Again it’s the biology. You can’t make it equal through laws. Men choose by being aware of how biology works and being responsible with it. So all things being equal if two people responsibly choose to have sex and use contraception but it doesn’t work and a pregnancy results and the woman decides to have the child, the man should have the right to just say 'No thanks, not for me thanks" Is that it?
I think you’re being incredibly naive and disingenuous about mens moral compass. I don’t think men are any more or less despicable pigs than woman are. I just think if you give either gender a way like the one you’re suggesting for them to avoid the responsibility of their actions then they will take it and the burden will be transferred to others. It’s not gender related. It’s human related. All you’re suggesting is we trade some problems we have now for a different greater problem.
This is false and you know it. No one is suggesting women should not pay their share and it’s been pointed out to you that the law asks them to pay as well.
Now you’re contradicting yourself. You were complaining that women can easily opt out of parenthood {how do they do that}but now you claim society feels it’s important for women to keep pumping out kids. Is that the same society that let’s them opt out of pregnancy?
Even folks who are against abortion support contraception so obviously we don’t feel the way you just described. What we do feel is that once a woman is pregnant nobody should force her to abort if she decides not to. In that case we are forced to deal with a child and consider it’s well fare. We need to decide who will foot the bill for this new citizen. We’ve decided the genetic father should be held partly responsible. You’re saying he shouldn’t be if he so chooses. I think that’s just asking for irresponsibility of a different kind and more of it.
But the* just as* is decidedly not the same for both.
Nobody is asking one parent to be more responsible. We’re asking them both to pay their share.
It sounds like you had a hard way to go. I hope you get your unanswered questions answered. It might help.
Are you implying this is some sort of double standard? Not gonna work. The scenario I gave you before was two intelligent adult students hooking up at a party and using contraception , but with a pregnancy still resulting. That’s an accident for them both. In that case both bio parents share responsibility.
It’s obvious to me we won’t agree on this issue. Post again if you like. I will read it but probably not respond.
If he bowed out of contact because he thought the contact would harm the children, to me that’s fine - as long as he’s also willing to let the children establish contact if and when they want to.
Auntie’s first husband claimed that the second and third children weren’t his (the third never got to term; the second looks so much like Afh there’s no need for DNA testing). When they separated and, later, divorced, he moved back with his mother, 6 blocks away from Aunt’s. Getting child support was a long battle but Aunt finally got it.
For years my elder cousin idolized her absent father. Aunt wasn’t exactly a glowing example of a Mom; cousin managed to gloss over the memories of the fights and vase-throwing and assign all the blame on the present parent. Until that day when she ran into her father on the street (as he was leaving his house) and when she greeted him he claimed that yes, his name was Afh but he had no daughter… he said something like “whatever that bitch delivered wasn’t mine.”
He was paying. But “deadbeat” is a compliment, for someone like that
Only personal reasons, not a global one. I chose not to pursue child support because my ex-husband was not in a stable place in his life and I wanted to limit the contact my daughter had with him until he straightened himself out. My daughter had also formed a very close relationship with my husband. First husband’s choice not to pay child support opened the door for my husband to legally adopt her, which he did.
Frankly, had it not worked out that way, I still would not have pursued child support. Not because I didn’t feel my daughter was worth it, and not because I didn’t need the financial help because I most certainly did, but her bio father was a good person with a horrible drug addiction and she didn’t need to be exposed to that on a regular basis. We encouraged her to maintain a relationship with him and his family, but not a father/daughter relationship.
Rubystreak No self respecting woman would use a child’s father as an ATM.
Thanks for sharing your story. Sometimes it is just not worth it to pursue CS. The idea is to do what is in the child’s best interest and sometimes that means getting by on less money like you did. That’s courageous.
I’m sure my daughter is worried about what her ex will do if she pursues CS. He has shown himself to be a vindictive, spiteful, jerk who wouldn’t hesitate to use his daughter to hurt someone he felt had wronged him in some way. When mu granddaughter, his daughter, still lived in the same state he would take her occasionally. My granddaughter, then very small and barely talking would become visibly upset at the idea of going to “Daddy’s” house. My daughter called one morning to discover him still asleep while his toddler daughter had been up alone for several hours.
The thing now is that he is 2/3 of the country a several thousand miles away and she has more control. I certainly understand her concern and reluctance but I wish she’d at least look into it. She doesn’t have to tolerate any abuse from him over the phone. I’m sure he would threaten to sue for custody and all sorts of shit but at this point his chances are very close to zero so she shouldn’t worry about that. He clearly does not want the responsibility of any children so such a threat is pretty empty.
He’s got the kind of job that would allow him to work partly or entirely under the table if he decided to but he would eventually pay a price for that too. Having no reported income creates some problems.
The only real concern is visitation. Can he demand his daughter come to where he is or can my daughter insist he come to where she is to visit, and how exactly does that work?
What happens if he insists his daughter goes there and my daughter just refuses? Things like that. I wish she’d show enough gumption to at least find out what her options are.
Cosmosdan, visitation and support are separate issues as far as the government is concerned. They can order and enforce payment of support on the one hand, and on the other hand decide appropriate visitation, including all kinds of restrictions placed on the non-custodial parent if that seems appropriate. Visitation, or the lack thereof, does not change the requirement to support your children. Non-custodial parents can take the custodial parent to court to enforce visitation, just as custodial parents have the options of the court to enforce child support payment.
The order of support can take into account what the non-custodial parent could be making by imputing the wages of people who are un- or under-employed based on previous ability to earn. We did this with my step-son’s mom. She wanted support modified based on my husband’s increased income. She insisted that she only made $300 a month; we showed that she could be and in the past had been making more like $1500 a month and that her willful under-employment should not be a burden on mr.stretch. Her excuse to the judge was that she needed to be home with the kid after school and such–the judge found that less than credible when the kid in question was 14 years old. It made a difference–she was asking that support be modified to $800 per month and we ended up with it being $450–which is the amount we tried to negotiate with her before going to court.
A friend of mine’s ex-husband, who has been fairly lax about making child support payments, has decided that she should put their 5 year old daughter on a plane ALONE and let her fly from Georgia to New York. My friend has offered to pay his way here and get a hotel room for him so he could visit his daughter, who he has not seen since she was two, but that isn’t good enough. She then offered to use her vacation time to drive the baby up to visit. That isn’t good enough either - he (actually his parents, with whom he lives at the age of 32) doesn’t want to have to see her. Now he had decided that if she doesn’t do this, he doesn’t have to pay child support anymore.
Is it just me, or is this guy out of his frimpin’ mind? The baby doesn’t know him from Adam’s housecat, and to even think of a baby flying alone gives me cold chills. I guess this is his way of getting out of child support.
In my admittedly limited experience, child support and visitation are two distinctly different issues legally but are often tied together in Joe citizen’s mind. Some fathers withhold child support when they are dissatisfied with the visitation schedule. Some mothers withhold visitation when they are dissatisfied with child support. (And then there are the really selfish ones who disregard both child support and visitation but that’s a different kettle of fish).
Frankly Cosmos, were I faced with dealing with the father of your grandchild, and he is as you’ve described, I’d skip pursuing child support, tighten my budget, and continue life without rattling the dad’s cage. Sometimes the child support just isn’t worth the continual disruption for the child and drama that accompanies it.
That’s sure what it sounds like to me. If he has a order from a court for him to pay X dollars then it won’t work. She needs to show no mercy. He’s ordered to pay and he should pay. If he stops she needs to do whatever she has to ASAP to force him to pay. Some states attach wages so it comes directly out of his paycheck and he has no choice. I’d suggest she go for that.
I have very little doubt that this is exactly the kind of bullshit justification my daughters ex would use. While sending a little money in dribs and drabs he suggested he’d buy his daughters ticket out to where he is and my daughter could buy hers to come with. When she said she couldn’t afford it, {because she’s a single Mom not getting regular child support he got pissed and said “You took her away from me so it’s your responsibility” When she informed him he could fly to where his daughter is he declined saying that “there 's nothing to do there”
Evidently visiting his daughter was not enough of a motivation.
Ahhhhh So it seems she could sue him for CS and still demand that he come to where his daughter is for visitation out of concern for the child. I’m guessing he would never do that. At least not until he grows up a hell of a lot.
Also very interesting. So if he’s been filing taxes on his income from his legit job for a few years it will be harder for him to go underground and claim poverty to avoid paying. I’m not sure how his state works but some will pull your drivers license if you don’t pay. Good to know Thank you.
I’d like to see my daughter have zero contact with the abusive jerk but still get the CS. She could designate her brother or myself to be the contact person for visitations arrangements We wouldn’t tolerate his crap for a second. I will continue to encourage her to make the effort. I hope she sees that she can get CS without having to deal with him and without having visitation forced upon her daughter that isn’t desirable.
Maybe you’re right. I believe she can claim CS without having to deal with him at all but I am concerned about what visitation he might demand. If they were still in the same state I’d be more inclined to agree. Since they are literally thousands of miles apart I feel it’s more likely she can get the CS without dealing with too much of his crap. I think he’d threaten and throw a hissy but if she didn’t allow herself to be intimidated he’d just pay and leave them alone because he really doesn’t want the hassle of dealing with his daughter.
The previously existing system subsidized irresponsibility and encouraged reproduction for profit?
What if Dad’s moral concepts won’t allow him to terminate the pregnancy? Should Mom just skate free from any responsibility? Is that just tough shit for him and a free pass for the gal? He and the fetus, or society or all of those, has to bear the consequences of the risk she knowingly took while she just walks away.
She’s come to the court claiming she is incapable of providing adequate care for the child and requesting relief by whatever means the state can provide. The current default is to coercively appropriate the labor of the body of a man. The reason for this inequality? A woman’s body is her own and no one can tell her what to do with it.
I’ve never actually heard of such a case, but if the mere specter of a child support judgment is enough to drive some people underground, the system is far more out of whack than I suspected. In the examples I know of similar to the situation you describe, the deadbeat goes underground upon finally being actually notified (v. legally notified) of an already onerous sum of already accumulated or retroactively awarded CS payments.
Putting measures in place to ensure the child receives a minimum standard of care rather than merely throwing someone else’s money at them is to casually penalize the child?
The “rewards irresponsibility” charge is dubious, since all that the current system gains the child is a higher total of unpaid child support. Joe Deadbeat is going to tell them to put future payments on his $60,000 tab and go back underground.
If you’ve got some point to make with a valid argument to make it please do so.
If you read the post you just responded to you’ll see I did not and am not claiming that that type of thing never happens. The associations you’re making are not valid, or at least you haven’t presented anything to show them to be.
OOhh what a well thought out argument,…for a 12 year old.
What exactly are the consequences for the Dad and society when she decides to terminate?
Incorrect. She has come to court seeking the support of the specific man who was the conscious responsible adult who is the co creator of her offspring. She is saying to the court, why should this offspring not enjoy the financial support of the other conscious adult that shared in his creation. Of course the child should also enjoy the emotional support of the co creator as well but the court cannot enforce that, so it does what it can and tries to find a formula to ensure the care and well being of the offspring. People being what they are the formula is not a perfect one. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but the primary concern is the care of the innocent child.
Please stop. It’s just ridiculous. You’ve completely ignored the cases presented that show this to be incorrect. If a responsible man steps up to pay his CS voluntarily there will be few cases where he owes an onerous sum of back CS.
People go underground for a variety of reasons. Some of which is simply to avoid their adult responsibilities and sometimes it’s because of animosity toward the other parent.
The biggest problem the broken system has is the lousy parents of both genders. If grown ups would just agree to do what is best for the child and show each other a little reasonable consideration the courts would have a shit load less to do. They don’t and so the courts have to step in a try to sort out the mess. The blame doesn’t belong on the court system but on the jackass parents who make it all so necessary.
Bullshit!!
The current system actually does collect millions of dollars to help children so your “all the current system gains” is just a load of crap.
It’s not just “someone else’s money” we’re throwing at them. It’s the bio parent. When you suggest we not collect back CS then you are encouraging the non custodial parent to run and hide. When they’re finally located they don’t owe any back CS, so others can foot the bill for their irresponsibility all the time they’re hiding and there are no penalties when they are caught. How the hell is that any kind of solution?
She’s not saying she’s incapable. She’s saying she’s not the only one responsible for the situation. Two completely different things. You’re arguing this point as if the father is the only person providing support to the child. In most cases, the mother is already providing well over half the support required to raise a child in an adequate manner. It’s not about enslavement. It’s about responsibility. The foster care system should not be held responsible for the care of a child when the parents are capable of providing that care.
Talk about arguments fit for a 12-year-old. That one’s more like fit for a 6-year-old.
You keep saying the same things over and over again like the more times you say them the more true they’ll become.
One the one hand, you think it’s perfectly valid for a woman to decide to have a child because she’s anti-abortion and force a man to pay for it, then in the same breath you ask, what harm to a man if a woman kills an unborn child the man was morally opposed to killing?
Yeah I have strong opinions about this subject. No apologies. Maybe you’ve noticed one or two people agree with me. That doesn’t prove anything other than people like me with direct personal experience in the matter tend to agree and those who are arguing against us have some 2nd hand anecdotal accounts and opinions they can’t support with anything practical. Let’s also consider that the courts tend to agree with me after looking at this matter for more than a couple of decades. Do you think there’s a good reason for that?
It isn’t repetition that make my arguments ring true. It’s the weight of the combined experience of other posters with direct personal experience like myself and the weight of a court system that has looked at this issue a few thousand times.
BTW, a woman doesn’t force a man to help conceive a child. Men , like myself, are usually all too willing. They also can’t force a man to help support it. THE LAW of the land does that right?
If you’ve got anything substantial to offer about the question you criticized then let’s have it.
I was dealing with the attitude of a specific poster who was making claims he couldn’t support about child support which is a financial issue. It was in no way a comment about the whether abortion is morally correct or not.
The question was what* financial* burden is placed on the father or society if she terminates? The answer seems fairly clear.
The issue of what emotional damage a man might suffer if his child is terminated in pregnancy is a separate question. If you were reading the thread you should have known that.
Without making any moral judgements or taking sides either way here, let me try to restate levdrakon’s position:
A woman can force a man to be a father if he doesn’t want to by having a child that he did not wish to conceive, even if he took reasonable precautions to prevent conception (even vascectomies can spontaneously reverse themselves). He cannot stop her from having that baby. She has the right to choose to keep it, and to make him pay for it for 18-21 years (varies by state).
A man cannot force a woman to be a mother even if he finds abortion morally abhorrent and would fully pay for and support the child if she had it. She has the right to terminate that pregnancy and he cannot make her do otherwise.
Is this accurate, levdrakon? Cosmodan, do you agree with the above statements? I’m not sure what case law exists for men preventing women from having abortions. Maybe someone can enlighten me. It does point out a grave inequity, IMO, in the reproductive rights of men and women, though I have no idea how it can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. A moral quandary indeed.
Gotta dispute one or both of those points there. Men are usually perfectly willing to engage in sex, but that’s not necessarily the same as being willing to conceive a child, is it? At least, one pro-choice argument that I’ve seen a lot of suggests that by engaging in sex a woman is merely using her vagina for pleasure, and if this results in a parasite in her uterus that’s hardly her fault; and we have to be consistent to both sides, surely?
Again, what results after the man’s contribution is not a child, and will not be a child until it is permitted to be born alive, so how can we say that a man helped “conceive a child”? As well say that the man who dug the lead out of the ground murdered the person who was shot with the bullet made from it!
Similarly, are you seriously excusing the antebellum slave owner for exerting the power of life and death over his slaves? It wasn’t him, it was THE LAW of the land, right?
When I make that argument then this will be relevant.
Both people know the risk of pregnancy when they engage in sex. My gripe with the equal rights for men posters is that they’ve offered nothing in the way of any realistic practical solutions. We are all aware of the biological differences that make it unequal. Yes woman have all the choices from conception to birth , for one dam good reason. The fetus grows in their body. Men know this before they have sex.
I’m in favor of equal rights for men within the parameters of biological reality. I’ve asked those preaching it here to offer something , anything , reasonably workable. They can’t. They just bitch and make snide remarks.
Sheesh… I love these analogies of yours. Colorful and inappropriate at the same time. Correcting the semantics doesn’t change the biological reality or the point I was making.
Again, is there any relevance to the subject in discussion here? What are the *crucial *differences?
Oh, OK. The responsibilities of conception, pregnancy and childbirth fall unequally upon women for one dam good reason. The fetus grows in their body. Women know this before they have sex.
It’s good to know that the “That’s just tough, that’s biology” argument flies with you. If she doesn’t want to get pregnant then she should keep her legs together. That argument flies around here.
Oh well, maybe they just notice that “equal rights for men within the parameters of biological reality” tends to entail snide remarks like “when men have wombs they can demand equal treatment”.
Sheesh… I love these rebuttals of yours. Colorful and inappropriate at the same time. Saying you love the analogies doesn’t point out the flaws in them.
You tell me. What are the crucial differences? When we’re arguing about the iniquities resulting from the application of a law that we are arguing is unjust, what’s the point of saying “But it’s the law”?
