He can. If the woman remarries and her new husband wants to adopt.
Without a signed contract absolving him from liability he pays. Let’s say a woman enters into a deal where her man of choice fathers her child but they have a signed contract absolving him of financial responsibility but also providing he has nothing to do with the child. I think either of them might have a chance in court of breaking that contract when the court has to put the welfare of the child as it’s primary concern.
One thing that hasn’t been brought up.
Child support payers are not usually victims of a one-night-stand-sperm-doner situation. Few women set out to become single mothers. Usually the fathers told the woman they loved them. They made plans together. They may have been married. They may have even chosen to get pregnant together and made all kinds of plans for the baby. Maybe dad even stuck around for the first year or two.
And then something went wrong.
Sometimes the woman did wrong. Sometimes it was just a relationship that wasn’t going to work. But often- plenty often- the man ran off.
THIS is what child support is for.
exaggerate much?
Fathers pay based on their ability to pay. They face consequences if they are able and still avoid payment. Same with Mom’s. Women don’t usually casually give up children to foster care because they woke up and decided being a Mom was to hard. I’m not sure how the law works exactly but I’m sure their income and ability to care for the child emotionally comes into play.
Yes, some women get pregnant on purpose to either obligate the man or to have the state support them. It’s unfortunate if a man let’s his sex drive get him into a long term obligation he didn’t really want but that’s called being a responsible adult and consequences for our choices. The alternative of men having the fun of sex and waving of the responsibility of a child seems morally wrong as well as bad for society as a whole.
You’re assuming a lot not in evidence. I’ve acknowledged that pursuing dead beat parents does cost taxpayers dollars. You haven’t presented a shred of evidence that it’s not cost effective. I at least offered a link with some facts.
That’s how these threads work. I asked to try and understand what point you were making. You’re welcome to your viewpoint. I’m only saying that kind of non factual personal opinion doesn’t establish much in the discussion. I’m not knocking it. You may be correct. It does seem rather obvious that more children means somebody, either parents of society in general, has to take responsibility for caring for that child and helping them to be a productive contributing member of society.
Don’t assume you understand my main concern. Getting father’s to share the responsibility is all about helping mothers pay for their children. Should Mom and child subsist on welfare while Dad is able to help? It’s also about developing a society of personal responsibility for choices. You made a point that pursuing dead beat dads was not cost effective.{ I think}
If you choose to stop defending or clarifying your point that’s fine.
The real problem with the current system is that a mother is free to reject the father, even when he wants to take responsibility for her and the child. The father is forced to fight an unfriendly court even for visitation. This situation effectively strips him of fatherly authority over the child. He’ll have very little practical influence over how the child is raised. It takes an incredibly selfless man to submit to these circumstances, especially if the woman is vindictive. A mother truly interested in what is best for the child would marry the guy and raise the kid together.
Accidents happen and people who had no intention of a long term relationship have children together. People who try to work things out fail and discover their differences are to great. A child raised in an unhappy household filled with fighting and animosity is another set of problems. Yous last sentence is far to simplistic.
Both women and men can be vindictive and it’s very sad when people use the children as a weapon against each other. Children feel the bitterness and resentment and it’s not good for them.
I know men feel the loss of fatherly authority is an emotional issue , as is a lack of control about how the money is spent, but neither of those translates into a lack of real responsibility. The bottom line is , it’s your child so you provide whatever aide you are able. Even if the woman remarries and the step dad is the primary provider and father figure. You still have a moral and legal obligation to assist in the support of that child.
Even if you are states apart and have a very limited relationship with that child a man can continue to make the best of whatever situation he finds himself in. One thing to remember is that eventually that child will be an adult and perhaps you can have a relationship with them. If you have to explain why you weren’t in touch and avoided aiding in their support it’s a lot harder.
We should all pay -> to get deadbeat dads to pay -> to support kids
We should all pay -> to support kids
If you cannot see that one is less effective than the other without a cite, no cite in the world could possibly help.
Yes a cite clearly would help. Cost effectiveness is not all that complicated.
X dollars of tax dollars spent yields 10X dollars in collected child support. or 4X or even 2X, that means it’s cost effective. On the other hand if X dollars only yields X dollars or worse , say 3/4 X then yes I’d agree it’s not cost effective. That’s just the simple math of a more complicated issue.
If you have no facts to support your opinion that’s okay but let’s not pretend it’s obvious or clearly correct.
It’s unfortunate if men decide to go underground or whatever to avoid child support and I can see where the debt might seem insurmountable in some cases but it is based on income and ability to pay. In many cases they are able and do pay when the court says they have to. I’m sure the threat of court action and the laws in place serve as motivation enough so that many men with established jobs and careers pay rather than have to be pursued by the courts. That makes the cost in tax dollars for them minimal.
In one case I know of the father was a successful plumber who lived in the same area as the son he never acknowledged. Eventually when the Mom decided to sue for support he had to pay back support as well as continued support. He and his plumbing business survived just fine. It may, depending on who ultimately paid court costs, have cost her a couple of thousand out of the collected money. My guess is court cost was small compared to the next few years of enforced support.
I think you’d be hard pressed to show that the enforcement of laws in place are not cost effective overall.
That’s not what I asked. Why can’t a man who fathered a child he doesn’t want give it up for adoption to another father at the time of birth?
You have failed to understand my position at all. It may be that we collect more from deadbeat dads than we pay. I don’t care one way or the other. If our motivation is to help mothers, we should help mothers. Part of that plan may after all be to pursue deadbeat dads, but I am not sure how this helps mothers as much as alternative plans.
I believe that women are perfectly capable of weighing the risks of getting pregnant, including the risk of a dad running. In fact, I believe they are in the absolute best position for it, if for no other reason than that the woman must always be the one to bear the biological cost, and the consequences that has on things like employment and perhaps long-term earnings.
I believe it is irresponsible to suppose that chasing deadbeat dads is a solution to the underlying problem of supporting mothers. Even if the father sticks around and supports with all his heart and wallet, they are still bearing all the cost while society reaps many benefits. Therefore, society should definitely bear some of the costs.
Since I’ve decided we should bear some of the costs (and I am, after all, dictator of the US), my proposal is to make the transfer as simple as possible. By putting a court system and a runaway dad in front of a woman sharing the costs that should, after all, be shared, as we all agree, we’ve introduced a transaction cost to collecting money that I feel is unnecessary when we could just give her money directly and save us and her the time and effort. If pursuing deadbeat dads is cost effective, we can add that to our program in the way you’ve already mentioned, which is that the mother gets the money and the government seeks its own restitution. Fine.
Which is, as I’ve maintained, a position based on getting fathers to pay and not one based on helping mothers or children.
It’s not that I don’t agree with what you are saying. It’s that a woman who really cares about her child first would try to make it work out with the father. That should be part of the equation. If the father shows an interest in taking responsibility, and wants to marry the mother, the courts should take that into consideration. Barring some evidence that the marriage would put the child, or mother, in danger I think she should be obliged to give him a chance to be a good husband and father to the kid. If she chooses to reject him at that point (and not marry him), that’s fine, but he’s off the hook, legally. Like you, I think he’s still committed morally to be involved the best way he can.
I don’t think anyone thinks a guy should just walk away from his child without at least paying support. It’s when he wants to be a good father and the mother rejects him that we see a real breakdown in the system.
I think the formula still applies. If more money is collected then Moms have more money , or more help correct? In some cases it may not, while overall I think it does. In the case I mentioned the extra incomes means money for extra activities that may not be affordable otherwise. I also think having laws on the books that make a man financially responsible and the negative consequences of breaking them, tend to help mothers as well. If there is no attempt at collection would those laws still serve as motivation to pay? The number of cases in which attempts at collection yields a negative result can be outweighed by the cases in which Dads pay the money to aid the Mom or the society footing the bills. IMO not attempting to enforce those laws would have a far reaching negative effect. If the authorities did not attempt to enforce the laws concerning breaking and entering and theft what impact would that have on society once it was widely known?
I’m in favor of educating girls and women and birth control. Still, the laws we are discussing are an imperfect attempt at sharing that responsibility with boys and men who should be equally concerned about fathering children.
I’m not proposing this is a final end all solution. It is merely one facet of a social problem and promoting a responsible society where individuals weigh consequences against their choices. If you remove consequences you may be encouraging irresponsible behavior. Clearly there are other social factors involved. Um, no fathers are not bearing all the costs. They are paying their fair share. Good responsible parents tend to have good responsible children which benefits them and society in general. The laws help promote good responsible parents and citizens.
Since fathers are a part of the society and enjoy the benefits of that society I don’t think them merely meeting their parental responsibilities means the society owes them something extra. If Mom and Dad both work, support their offspring, and pay taxes, they have the benefits that those tax dollars pay for.
I think that’s how it works now. Some Mom’s get money from the state to support the needs of the minor. Then the state goes after the father to be reimbursed for that money. It does cost the state money to do that but I fail to see some reasonable alternative other than men coming forward to pay voluntarily as they should. Without the laws and the cost of enforcing them where’s the motivation for those Dad’s and what might be the long term results to that society if we just didn’t bother to try and collect?
These are not separate issues or separate goals. Getting fathers to pay is one facet of the ultimate goal of helping Mom’s and children. {and in the long run helping society as a whole}
You need to read the thread. One post at least said men should be able to walk away without any responsibility. It’s not the first time that idea has been supported in threads like this one.
Often an unexpected pregnancy does result in an attempt at raising the child together. I think that Dad rejecting the Mom is a lot more common than the other way around.
Yet my proposal always helps. In all cases.
I have not argued that we should stop enforcing laws.
I’m not sure they should be “equally” concerned, and I’m not sure how we can make them equally concerned. The incentives are unbalanced from the get-go. But we can find out what it costs to have a child and help the mother directly.
I’m saying it doesn’t matter. The woman can choose entirely not to have sex since she bears the primary cost. If we make some shady deal where a man might be held accountable to some fraction of his unknown future income, we are making it harder for women to make informed choices, not easier.
For the man. But we are encouraging responsible behavior in women. Since everyone in heaven and on earth agree women bear the primary burden in childbirth, this seems wholly sensible to me.
I said parents bear all the costs, but my sentence wasn’t very clear, “they” could have referred just to the fathers. Sorry. I meant “parents.”
Thankfully, that has nothing to do with my point, which is that society benefits from more people without generally covering the bills for new people. I’m not suggesting a father receive a bonus because he supports his child. I’m saying the mother should get a bonus for being a mother, to help us (everyone else who isn’t the mother) account for the benefits we get from having more people in a society. (Mothers being the only ones in a position to do this, you see.)
Time and time again you return to a father’s moral duty and obligation, as if I somehow disagreed with you on this point.
If you’re saying we just give child birth bonus money to every woman who has a child I’d say that helps in the short term. In real life women having multiple children who receive increased state aid per child creates a burden on the state and on tax payers. If the state has to pay for all the needs of single parent families from birth to 18 that’s a considerable expense.
okay. It appeared you were saying going after dead beat Dad’s was not cost effective and actually added expense to the mother and the system. Is that not the case? Pursuing fathers to compel them to pay child support is enforcing the law right?
I doubt we can make them equally concerned. We can try to create a society that holds them equally responsible for their own choices and the consequences of their actions. We already do help mothers directly, so what exactly is the new aspect of your plan?
I have no idea how that would be the case. It’s unrealistic to think recommending abstinence will work. We have to deal with how society actually is. There’s no shady deal involved. We’re merely asking men to be held responsible for their own choice. How could that possibly make for a less informed choice by women? Do you think they don’t know what the possibilities are?
They bear the physical burden. There’s no reason to think they should bear the primary financial burden as well since the child has two parents. We want both genders to make responsible informed choices correct?
Either way I don’t get the point. Society already bears some of the cost in that childless people or people like myself whose kids are grown, pay taxes that help support children. The amount of benefits a society reaps from more children depends on a variety of factors. It’s not a given that more children equals benefits for society.
You’ve made this point repeatedly without explanation. I fail to see how more children benefit society if more and more children require societiy’s financial support. There is a cost associated with taking an infant and making them into a responsible productive contributing adult.
It seemed you didn’t think those duties and obligations should not be legally enforced. If you’re saying it benefits society to enforce those duty and obligations then we agree.
As an interesting side note in a discussion about socialism a friend who had been living in Eastern Europe said there Moms get three years unemployment to help their kids. I would say in some sense that sounds similar to what you’re suggesting and I’m not opposed to that kind of program. This particular discussion was specifically about Dad’s paying child support.
My take is yes they should and if they don’t then there needs to be legal consequences to encourage them to do so.
Is there a reason to think he can’t?
In the spirit of Swift, I have my own modest proposal which I realize now deserves its own thread.
Let me know when it’s posted. I’d like to read it.
So, basically you feel society needs to just accept that women can’t control themselves, and they’re just going to go out and get pregnant. No biggie honey, we know you can’t help it. You are, after all, just a woman. Men, OTOH, better know what they’re doing because we’re going to hold you responsible not only for yourself, but also for that helpless woman who can’t keep from getting pregnant. Is that about right?
It seems to me when you say “that’s how society is” what you really mean is “that’s how women are.”