What? Who’s advocating taking children away from stable families?
And what would you consider “unfit”? I considered him unfit because he was a 20 year old guy who bounced around crappy jobs (three in six months), had no ambition for the future, and just loved to perpetuate and extend white trash drama with his ex girlfriend. He was for all purposes a teenager, and gave no indication that he was interested in being an adult. What, exactly, do you think he had to contribute to my kid? I did an analysis, and the answer was - nothing helpful. So I didn’t want his money.
I see this in other situations too - I ran into an old friend not too long ago, and he was bitching that his ex wouldn’t give him access to his daughter. Hmmm…well, you don’t have any kind of job that allows you to make support payments, you’re an ex heroin addict who is still not on the right path, you still think you’re going to make waves as a skateboarder and get rich and famous, and you’re 35 years old. Plus all of the trashy shit that your life revolves around. I say, good on her for preventing that kind of bullshit around her kid. Just because you didn’t pull out doesn’t mean you have some kind of right to spread your trash in an innocent kid’s life. And I just read on FB he’s got another new kid with another baby mama. Great. That’s totally who I want to be in my kids life and teach her about what an adult man and father is.
I’ve probably spent thousands of hours hearing about women’s reproductive rights and abortion relelated stuff and this and that. Which on it’s own is all well and good.
But, you know what?
After all that discussion, when in the next breath some woman then states that she is choosing to have a child and the guy has to pay for it in my mind I hear that deflating balloon sound or maybe the scratching record sound.
Its like wanting to have your fetus and eat it too (eww).
Should a biological father get custody of his child or an adoptive two parent family with more financial resources than the single father?
You seem to be generalizing your personal circumstances (or your friends) to ALL biological fathers which is not always accurate, nor equitable. Should biological mothers lose their parental rights for living ‘a trashy life,’ in your opinion? These situations are not 100% black and white. If you bothered to read any of my links you would see that quite a number of men were denied their parental rights when they did nothing to prove themselves unfit and yet their biological children were adopted out.
Making the lifetime, life-altering commitment to raising a child in less than ideal circumstances isn’t cake. Every single minute, detail, and plan revolves around the huge responsibility of caring for another human at the expense of your own needs, hopes, and dreams. It’s a Herculean undertaking and not a payday, and it’s appallingly obvious that you are unable to get pregnant or you wouldn’t regard a human being you helped create as merely an expense.
But “you” (or in other words a bunch of women) claim its YOUR choice to do so or not do so. If the guy has NO choice then why does the guy get stuck with YOUR choice?
Birth control works for men, too. Even if it is not you who personally takes it, you can still make it a part of your sexual repertoire. I don’t actually wear the condom, after all, but damn straight I am going to use one with a new partner.
Seriously, just get snipped already. If you don’t want a baby, it is entirely and completely within your power to not do so.
And if you can’t afford it and it means neglecting the children who actually live with you, that’s just too bad. And it’s also just too bad if your ex lied to you and the children aren’t actually yours, you still owe money. And it doesn’t matter if you never see the kids and they’ve been raised to hate you; you are still required to pay for those child strangers who hate you. Nor does it matter if Mom spends all the money on herself and has the kids support themselves by having them beg on the street; you still have to pay.
It’s not always as simple as “Mom and the kids are the suffering victims of the evil selfish father”.
This isn’t exactly fair, mothers are just as capable of ‘spreading their trash into an innocent kids’s life’ because she didn’t use BC or insist on a condom. Ultimately, both parties are responsible for the accidental pregnancy and while certainly the woman bears the physical consequence of pregnancy (and thus can freely choose abortion) that does not negate the man’s parental claim after birth (even if she wants to adopt out the baby).
Here’s my friend’s scenario: Unmarried couple suffer an accidental pregnancy and she decides to keep it even though they are not together. At birth both parties circumstances are less than ideal (financially and emotionally), but father pays child support and develops a relationship with the child. He gets his shit together financially and develops a relationship with another woman (my friend) who he introduces to the child once they are engaged. The birth mother’s life is still somewhat unstable and perhaps she is jealous at the birth father’s new life and decides to move out of state to Las Vegas which makes visitation/custody much more difficult for the father. There, the child is in daycare all day and the mother lives kind of a party lifestyle. Child is now three or four years old, birth father is now married to my friend (a third year law student), has a good job, lives in a nice house in a good neighborhood, excellent school district, etc. Birth father and step-mom are both worried about the environment the child is being raised in, but since the state of Utah does not necessarily recognize or support unwed father’s rights (outside of enforcing support, which birth father has always willing paid), there is little to nothing they can do legally to seek a better arrangement for the child. All the while, it is them that drive the child back and forth from Las Vegas despite constant difficulty and conflict from the birth mother.
My point, it would be inaccurate to generalize my friends experience to all single biological fathers. So, while it’s fine and dandy you are able to cut your ‘unfit’ child’s father from your daughters life, when the situation is reversed unwed biological fathers are not afforded the same claim, and in fact, often must go to great lengths in order to “prove” they are worthy of parental rights to their own biological children.
Don’t get me wrong, I know there are a number of deadbeats out there, but lets be careful not to paint all single/divorced/unwed fathers that way. Also, if it’s really about what’s ‘best for the child’ – then mothers should be held to similar standards of parental ‘fitness and stability.’ Unwed/single fathers deserve the same amount of social support as unwed/single mothers, IMO.
Lastly, I don’t think paying child support should be as entwined with custody. If you are a fuck-up you are still required to pay up, even if you are denied custody or simply just don’t seek custody or visitation.
Custody and support are two different matters. I think there are a lot of problems with the way custody works, but whether or not one parent has custody has no relevance to the need for both parents to provide adequate support for their children.
Hell Maastricht your idea got as much traction as mine for a German mother solving teen drinking, when wine and beer are considered foods instead of “dangerous XXX liquid drugs” you don’t tend to romanticize it so much.
So clearly all those American teenagers just need a German parent
