I agree with your overall sentiment in the general case. “Child of unmarried parents” is exactly the situation.
But the thrust of the OP is that the Mom-to-be is (so far) making all these administrative decisions unilaterally. After the one joint “decision” that resulted in the pregnancy. Scare quotes since it’s all but certain at least one, and very probably both, did not want this particular outcome and didn’t consciously choose to create a baby.
So within the context of the questions and issues in the OP, the title isn’t too far wrong. But yes, it can be (mis-)read as placing blame on the Mom-to-be for the situation everyone of both generations is now in.
Society generally assumes that parents can mutually work together to make these decisions. We also recognize that sometimes they can’t, and that’s why we have literally a whole court system to deal with it. So if they can’t decide on the name to give the child, they can go to family court and the father can explain to the judge that he’s ashamed of the child and doesn’t want the child to have his last name, for fear that the father will have to admit his actions, shaming not just himself but his wife and the children he actually loves. The judge can then decide what’s in the best interest of the child.
Other than having a court system to intervene, how else could we possibly handle these things?
We couldn’t. Which is why the courts exist to handle any disputes of any nature the parties can’t resolve. Including ones like this.
For damn sure for many years US society has made a hash of this and by and large it’s the women who’ve ended up with the short end of a shit-covered stick.
My point was not about gender politics, court systems, the obviously shared responsibility for the pregnancy and all the life-long consequences thereof. It was simply that within the specific small episode of name-on-birth-certificate in this whole multi-decade saga just getting underway, the word choice in the OP’s title was not logical error.
Agreed, none of which matters. This is not ‘an unmarried woman’ having a baby. This is a man and a woman not married to one another having a baby. Fix the title of the questions. Or, take ‘woman’ out and plug in ‘man’.
Definitely not the ‘child of an unmarried man,’ because John quite simply is married. I know, I was at the ceremony.
I put the emphasis on the woman in the title and the OP simply because it is the woman who is making the telling decisions during the pregnancy and immediately after: she decided to go through with the pregnancy, she has (apparently, I’m hearing all this filtered through John and John’s wife, never met Alice,) she wants to name John as the father and seek child support from him, she is likely the person who will chose the name for the child.
None of which I am opposed to. Let’s face it, the woman does at least 95% of the ‘work’ of getting the child to term and born, and bears virtually all the pain/discomfort/possible danger of the birth. It’s the least she is owed.
At the same time, there’s no doubt that Jane and her children will suffer in various ways from the fact that John chose to cheat on his marriage and failed to do a good enough job of birth control along the way. I can understand her first drive is to do whatever she can to protect the future of her own children.
I agree with those of you who expressed skepticism of John’s attempt to downplay his own role in all this. I would totally believe he’s been playing around for years, and just finally had his ‘luck’ run out.
As for the future … it really doesn’t seem a great start for the child. My guess is that John will not be any kind of a good father to this child. In truth, he’s never been all that great to his original family. He had a ‘traditional’ marriage where he made money and taking care of the children was almost exclusively Jane’s job.
Well, Jane is already swearing that SHE is not going to raise this child. Period.
I’ve got to think the best possible outcome would be for Alice to meet and fall in love with a new man, one who does have it in him to be a loving ‘daddy.’
In general in the US you can use any name you want as long as it’s not an attempt at deception, but states may have different laws about how to record names and name changes. According to this website (specifically about Mass):
Unmarried fathers can go to court to dispute the last name of their baby, but judges almost never change a child’s last name without cause. Fathers will have a better chance disputing a child’s last name if the child’s paternity is established and on the birth certificate. In order to establish paternity in unmarried cases, both parents must sign a form called the Voluntary Acknowledgement of Parentage, or the father must get a court-ordered paternity test. However, even after this has been done, judges in Massachusetts will still generally honor the mother’s wishes in the naming of a child.
Someone would have to look at the specific laws and case law to figure out the odds of your John to be successful here, and if he’s the biological father he might as well not try.
I should have caught that. I got hung on on the part where they weren’t married to each other.
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For the rest of it, and without rereading the thread, it’s a rough shake for everyone involved but especially for the kids
Child support is gonna get paid if she files for it, at least here in Texas. Might be some court appearances if he contests but if it’s his then he’s paying, either now or eventually.
I was married to the mother of my children when I had all mine so I’m on there as the father by default, and at this point they’re all old enough that I’m their father regardless anyways. I do believe the hospital asked me to sign acknowledgment papers on at least a couple of them even though we were married.
OP, I understand your sympathy lying with Jane and the children of that marriage instead of John. However, if the paternity test shows John is the new baby’s father, I hope everyone agrees that all John’s children should get equal support from him. Who was born first or born in wedlock doesn’t matter to the court, nor should it. Yes, that means less money available for Jane and the kids at a time when John’s business is already suffering, and I don’t blame Jane for her anger and anxiety (I’d be furious.), but the coming baby is no less deserving than John’s other children. Maybe John will have to get a second job or Jane will have to go back to work if their kids are to go to college. That’s not fair to Jane, but what’s the alternative?
If I were Alice, I probably wouldn’t want my baby to have the same last name as the guy who’s been such a duplicitous jerk to everyone (I’m betting he’s fed Alice some BS, just as he has Jane.), and with so few people with that name in the country (I’m guessing it’s not a common name west of the Mississippi, either), it’s bound to be hard on the new child, too. But having lived in small towns, I’m sure it’d be pretty hard to sweep this whole sad situation under the rug regardless.
Whether or not Alice meets a better guy than John, that won’t let John off the hook financially, and if he opts to ignore the child, he’s an even bigger jerk than he seems right now.