# Paternal Responsibility **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 24, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708 "2012-03-24T20:24:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/221 "2012-03-27T21:19:19Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > That is really stupid. I’m sorry, it is stupid. If I said it. It is if you cleverly snip out the middle part of my post to portray the first and last part as one sentence. How fucking disingenuous and dishonest of you. For the record, everyone else, what he “quoted” and condemned as stupid is not what I said. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/222 "2012-03-27T21:25:17Z")
Everyone can see what you said. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/223 "2012-03-27T21:26:38Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > Everyone can see what you said. Yup. Differs from what you quoted. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/224 "2012-03-27T21:27:42Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > Everyone can see what you said. Yes, he said to take reasonable birth control measures if you don’t want to have a kid. What is stupid about that, again? ETA: > [@erislover](#): > > That is really stupid. I’m sorry, it is stupid. If I said, “Hey, repairing a car is expensive, we should have this mechanism for people to share the costs of accidents,” and you said, “Don’t want to pay for an accident? Don’t drive a car!” it would also be very stupid. What he basically said was, if you don’t want to pay for an accident, get insurance. If you don’t want to get insurance, don’t drive. By cutting out the middle you change the entire meaning if what he was saying. It’s also against board rules. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/225 "2012-03-27T21:28:55Z")
> [@](#): > > We’ve decided that isn’t in the best interest of the child, since child support supports the child. But it appears that the best interests of the child aren’t always considered. For example, it may be in the child’s interests for you (as a taxpayer) to cover their costs. We both agree that it isn’t fair to have the mother bear the full cost just because she made the decision not to abort (or use contraceptives, birth control, ensure she only slept with people that had vasectomies, etc.)… Yet why is it so inimical that the father should be uninvolved with the child’s life if they didn’t want to bring them into the world in the first place - in my hypothetical scenario, that desire was the mother’s alone, even if she required a partner in the venture. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/226 "2012-03-27T21:31:20Z")
Nope. I omitted the part of the vasectomy. If you suppose telling people to have surgery makes your position more reasonable, it is even stupider. If you’d like me to address your suggestion of people having surgery, I would happily do that, too. Here you go: don’t want to have a father skip out on child support, get your tubes tied. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/227 "2012-03-27T21:35:24Z")
If fatherhood becomes a voluntary-but-state-enforced obligation, you’d have to be a blathering idiot to choose to support your child. Just like pre-nups, nobody with any common sense would father a child without making sure they have the minimum legal liability possible. Nobody’s lawyer would let them sign the “Hey, sure, I’d like to be on the hook for something voluntary” form. Of course by the time the woman is pregnant, what is she going to do? You could easily tell the woman “Hey, of course I’d take care of the child- I love you so much and we’ll have beautiful babies.” Then when she is pregnant he says “Oh, baby, our love doesn’t need a contract. How could you assume I wouldn’t take care of junior. I’ll stick with you, but my lawyer says I shouldn’t sign the form.” What is she going to do? Abort the child they both want and tried for? How heart wrenching would that be? And if that’s what all the men are going to say, you don’t have other options. The guy gets the results he wants (his genetic code gets spread), he’s still going to be able to be a father on a voluntary basis all he wants, and he has a “get out of jail free” card if he should ever at some point feel like abandoning his child. Essentially we’d have just gotten rid of fatherhood. This worked fine in low investment societies, where the common reproductive strategy was to have as many kids as possible, invest as little in them as possible, and hope some of them lived to adulthood. But this works less well in a society where we invest a lot in educating children, keeping them healthy and preparing them for the needs of an advanced society. We all benefit from well taken care of children- that’s where our technological innovation is going to come from. That’s our future. And children need fathers. Children with active fathers have better health, better education outcomes, happier lives, and end up contributing more to society. If we lose fatherhood, we lose a lot. We’ve tried a lot of models for fostering fatherhood. Marriage and public shame used to work, but in today’s society it’s a bit outdated. So we encourage fathers to make at the very least a financial contribution to their children. At least some of them may say “I’ve got to pay for the kid, I might as well be a part of their lives.” Making it easier for men to abandon their children is bad for children, bad for men (who also benefit from holding responsibility- crime is caused, for example, almost entirely by idle men- and is bed for society. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/228 "2012-03-27T21:35:34Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > Nope. I omitted the part of the vasectomy. If you suppose telling people to have surgery makes your position more reasonable, it is even stupider. If you’d like me to address your suggestion of people having surgery, I would happily do that, too. Here you go: don’t want to have a father skip out on child support, get your tubes tied. Yes, you omitted the important part. You want to force surgery in women though? A quick snip is too much, but an abortion is OK? Your mysogynism is horrific. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/229 "2012-03-27T21:38:13Z")
Since neither party opts for surgery, they share the cost of the risk they take. How is that so difficult to understand? ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/230 "2012-03-27T21:42:14Z")
> [@maggenpye](#): > > Since neither party opts for surgery, they share the cost of the risk they take. How is that so difficult to understand? Exactly. It’s simple, really, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/231 "2012-03-27T21:43:28Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Yes, you omitted the important part. > > You want to force surgery in women though? A quick snip is too much, but an abortion is OK? And here it is: men should just undergo surgery, but not women. Why tie their tubes when we can force men to pay. Hey, if they don’t want to pay, just undergo surgery. But telling _women_ to have surgery, well: > [@](#): > > Your mysogynism is horrific. Yeah, the guy who said he’d rather have a system which ensured women get support rather than have to chase down fathers themselves at their own cost and no guarantee they can squeeze blood from a stone is a misogynist. I sure hate women, you got me there! ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/232 "2012-03-27T21:44:05Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > Nope. I omitted the part of the vasectomy. If you suppose telling people to have surgery makes your position more reasonable, it is even stupider. If you’d like me to address your suggestion of people having surgery, I would happily do that, too. Here you go: don’t want to have a father skip out on child support, get your tubes tied. Women do this ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Women use and pay for birth control and sterilization at rates MUCH higher than men. Women already do what they need to do to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Why is it somehow a tragedy if a man has to consider birth control or (gasp!!) not having sex because a child might result. **This is the position women have been in since the beginning of time.** Now that there is _finally_ some equitably between the sexes and men aren’t free to run off to another town once they’ve knocked up some poor girl, it’s suddenly the job of society to raise these kids. Well, sorry, but no. Men have birth control options. Men have the right to choose their partners. If men refuse to act responsibly with their semen, they reap the consequences. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/233 "2012-03-27T21:48:03Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > Women do this ALL THE FREAKING TIME. They seem to be very reasonable. Would that such reasonable people would be in this thread. > [@](#): > > Women use and pay for birth control and sterilization at rates MUCH higher than men. Because they bear all the responsibility. Your little moral high ground doesn’t actually change that. Doesn’t matter how responsible my dad was, my mom was flat fucking broke. No one cares about that, though, do they? Oh, it is about the child! Yeah, when we found my dad, he was doing ok… for a guy with a wife and kid. So sure, we could go after him, but it’d be taking money from one child to pay for another. If it is about the child, how are _you_ going to judge? Well, I already know: you’re not. Because “it’s simple.” You don’t give a fuck about the actual problems in society. You just want to make someone responsible and say your job is done. Well it wasn’t fucking done and it isn’t done. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/234 "2012-03-27T21:52:50Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > And here it is: men should just undergo surgery, but not women. Why tie their tubes when we can force men to pay. Hey, if they don’t want to pay, just undergo surgery. > > But telling _women_ to have surgery, well: Are you completely misunderstanding the basics of biology? You know what an abortion is, right? > [@](#): > > Yeah, the guy who said he’d rather have a system which ensured women get support rather than have to chase down fathers themselves at their own cost and no guarantee they can squeeze blood from a stone is a misogynist. I sure hate women, you got me there! More misrepresentation. To be clear: I think you hate women because you think a vasectomy is a terrible burden, but that women should treat an abortion trivially. That makes you a misogynist. Clue: vasectomy: easy. I’ve had one. It’s a snip. Literally. Abortion: horrible. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/235 "2012-03-27T21:53:00Z")
> [@](#): > > And children need fathers. Children with active fathers have better health, better education outcomes, happier lives, and end up contributing more to society. If we lose fatherhood, we lose a lot. Cite? Would probably come as news to lesbian mothers and Laura Ingraham. > [@](#): > > Since neither party opts for surgery, they share the cost of the risk they take. How is that so difficult to understand? Except if the father opts for surgery that he cannot enforce on a woman then he still bears the costs. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/236 "2012-03-27T21:56:58Z")
Yes, if a father has the child and does not choose to contribute time to their upbringing as a custodial parent, they do in fact have to contribute financially. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/237 "2012-03-27T22:00:06Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > And here it is: men should just undergo surgery, but not women. Why tie their tubes when we can force men to pay. Hey, if they don’t want to pay, just undergo surgery. > > But telling _women_ to have surgery, well:Yeah, the guy who said he’d rather have a system which ensured women get support rather than have to chase down fathers themselves at their own cost and no guarantee they can squeeze blood from a stone is a misogynist. I sure hate women, you got me there! If women don’t want to be mothers they can get sterilized. But if she has the baby, it doesn’t matter whether she wants to take care of it or not. We’re going to make her take care of it, either by finding someone else willing to take full responsibility, or by paying the father child support for 18 years. The only reason you don’t see women constantly complaining about having to pay child support is that women are much more likely to end up being the custodial parent. I guess I can’t understand, if you don’t want to be a parent, why you’re so upset that women can have abortions, but men can’t. If there was no such thing as abortion, then you’d be even more likely to end up a father by accident than you are now, so why are you complaining? The alternative to abortions for women but not for men isn’t abortions for both men and women, it’s abortions for no one. Is that what you want? Because we sure as heck aren’t allowing men to decide which women can and can’t have abortions. You see that right? And, in an unrelated matter, we aren’t allowing fathers to abandon their babies. Yes, fathers can’t have abortions in they don’t want a baby. But you can do plenty of other things to avoid having a baby, so why not try a couple of those? We’re not going to make abortion illegal or mandatory just because men can’t get pregnant, and we’re not going to allow any parent to walk away from their child unless that parent can arrange for someone else to voluntarily pick up the slack. Two social policies and neither social policy is unfair in isolation, and they are not unfair in combination either. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/238 "2012-03-27T22:01:59Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > Cite? > > Would probably come as news to lesbian mothers and Laura Ingraham. > > Except if the father opts for surgery that he cannot enforce on a woman then he still bears the costs. But he has the option of his own surgery - why should he force a risk on another person that he’s unwilling to take himself? And bears a \*portion \*of the costs. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/239 "2012-03-27T22:02:46Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > They seem to be very reasonable. Would that such reasonable people would be in this thread. > Because they bear all the responsibility. Your little moral high ground doesn’t actually change that. Doesn’t matter how responsible my dad was, my mom was flat fucking broke. No one cares about that, though, do they? Oh, it is about the child! Yeah, when we found my dad, he was doing ok… for a guy with a wife and kid. So sure, we could go after him, but it’d be taking money from one child to pay for another. If it is about the child, how are _you_ going to judge? > > Well, I already know: you’re not. Because “it’s simple.” You don’t give a fuck about the actual problems in society. You just want to make someone responsible and say your job is done. > > Well it wasn’t fucking done and it isn’t done. Your post is incoherent. You are obviously upset about your dad, or something else that only tangentially relates to this thread. I urge you to work out whatever your issues are with a therapist and return when you can post something sensible. And, nothing abut this is simple. No one said it was. Avoiding unwanted children is certainly _possible_, a fact which ought to hearten the men who are so utterly paranoid about being taken for a ride by some unscrupulous woman. However, since they didn’t reason themselves into this nonsense, it seems it’s impossible to reason them out of it. Oh well. I’ve already said they system needs reforming. I’ve already said custodial parents ought to get more help with the costs of child rearing, including from the state if necessary. I’ve already said I don’t think parents who are genuinely unable to pay their support should receive help, and not jail time or condemnation. However, I draw the line at the law creating a new “right” for men to fuck irresponsibly and suffer no consequence for that. I do not feel such a right is in the best interests of the children involved, society, or frankly the men who would take advantage of it. I think it’s a sick, sociopathic idea. Women have been taking responsibility for their fertility since the dawn of time, and even now spend more money and effort on it. This is mainly caused by biology, and so it is probably how it must be. But asking men to be careful who and how they fuck is not the end of the world. It’s basic common sense. As has been pointed out in this thread, _repeatedly_, it is relatively simple for men to control their fertility; simpler even than it is for women, and with less negative side effects. Take advantage of it, and shut up. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708/240 "2012-03-27T22:21:11Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Yes, if a father has the child and does not choose to contribute time to their upbringing as a custodial parent, they do in fact have to contribute financially. Yes, we all know what the current situation is. What we’re discussing us how we’d like to change it - or not. There are only, like 240 posts on the subject, so I can see how you’d miss them. Thanks for the useful info though! I’m sure it’ll be useful to someone! 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paternal-responsibility/616708.md?page=13)