Seriously, as others said, do NOT pay her a cent. Depending on the state, providing support can put him on the hook, even if he’s not the biological father, until the child is grown. Maybe she wants to keep the courts out of it, or maybe she’s manipulating him and, considering he’s not sure, possibly other men as well, to try to get a bunch of money off the books.
As others have said, getting a DNA test isn’t all that expensive, certainly not when compared to 18 years of child support payments, parental rights, and all the emotional turmoil that would go along with trying to raise a kid that may or may not be his with a woman he’s not in a relationship with. By the same token, he’s probably best off consulting a lawyer NOW, before the child is born so he can avoid possibly errantly being listed as the father, consider getting a court ordered paternity test and, should he be ordered or so choose, get an order of how much he should be paying.
Either way, he certainly shouldn’t just give her money, even if he does pay by check or some other verifiable means, that doesn’t stop her from taking him to court at some time in the future and him possibly being held responsible for a large amount of back support.
I came back to concur with the other posters. I assumed the kid was his and he wants to pay. Make sure of the paternity above all else and dont write checks that will create proof of payment.
In the follow up OP the statement was made that the son lost his (biological?) father and didn’t want the child to have the same fate. While perhaps a noble reaction it is certainly an emotional reaction.
Two decades of support is a long time to commit to an ex-girlfriend who sounds like she is harvesting incomes through childbirth.
If your son wishes to be generous it’s his right, but under no circumstances create an obligation unless the obligation is warranted.
He will be 40+ when this is over. Half his lifetime. Ouch.
He doesn’t have a right to be at the birth itself because nobody has the right to be at the birth without the consent of the mother. Even if he were married to her if she didn’t want him at the hospital, he’d be asked to leave and if he didn’t leave he’d be escorted out by security.
He might have the right to see the baby at the hospital after the birth, but only if he has established that he is, in fact, the legal father of the baby. This could be done before the baby is born, but this would require an invasive procedure that couldn’t be done without the mother’s consent.
He doesn’t have any rights or claims over the child yet because he hasn’t been determined to be the legal father of the child yet. How else are we supposed to run things?
I’d do as she asks and go completely ghost on her - not a peep ever.
See how she reacts when realizing that no communication means no money either.
I bet a lawyer would have a field day with this in court if it’s proven she essentially black mailed your son while denying him the chance to identify the father.
It will back fire, she’ll look unfit as a mother and if the kid is his, voila solved - no Jerry Springer required.
For the record, it’s not actually true that writing one check automatically puts you on the hook for life.
When they decide these things, they look at how long you’ve been acting as a parent, among other things. The main idea is that you can’t decide to get a DNA test on your eight year old after a divorce and use that to say you don’t have to pay child support. Theoretically, this could lead to the nightmare situation people are warning about, but it’s unlikely.
The fact that you believe this enough to post it as fact when there is so much information out there to the contrary makes me think you just want it to be true to fit into some of your beliefs you’ve shared on the board.
To the OP: I’ll add my voice to those saying to really try to sway him to take a paternity test once the baby is born. You don’t want him paying for things that aren’t his responsibility if it isn’t his baby and you certainly don’t want him to bond with a child that’s not his only to find out later it isn’t and have his relationship with the child snatched away. Whatever game she’s playing, let her play it with someone else. Your son can find out if he is the father and then make decisions based on fact instead of speculation. Good luck.
Ok but put emotions aside. There is a huge difference between “this baby could be mine” and this baby is mine. And sorry as I am to say it the onus is on her to prove it I think?
Yes, at this point it really is. Simply because the only way to determine that the fetus shares his DNA with modern technology is invasive to her body. Unfortunately, we don’t shed fetal cells in urine or anything that can be collected without inserting something into her body. That’s your consent issue, and thus the onus of a DNA test. All that changes after birth, of course, but there may still be a court order needed. She may not be very cooperative, and for a legal non-parent to seize an infant and do a cheek swab…not cool. It’s worth asking her to see if she’ll play nice, but the reality is that this DNA test may also come with court costs, so it’s not quite as inexpensive as the price tag on the kit would have you think.
I’m not a huge stickler around DNA and parenthood, but given that he’s not a partner of the mother, I do think it best to know. As said upthread, he may for reasons of his own choose to father this child regardless. But then at least he’ll know, and there can be no ugly scenes when the truth comes out in 13 years (as it is wont to do, eventually).
penelope3d, are you still reading this thread? If not, this thread is just us talking to ourselves and not helping anybody. What are your thoughts now? What do you intend to do?
DO NOT PAY A DIME UNTIL A DNA-BASED TEST PROVES YOUR SON THE FATHER!!!
Making such payments can cause the courts to ORDER the payments to be continued - this is one of those “it-can’t-possibly-be-true” stories which can AND HAVE happened - even if subsequent test not only identify another man to be the father, but even if she marries the bio father, the court can rule that your son has “assumed the role” and MUST continue payments.
She could hit the jackpot and marry a billionaire - and your son would still be required to pay child support.
If she is living on the public dime, there has got to be a public agency with a serious interest in finding the real father (so they can stick him, and get out of the business of supporting them).
While it is noble for him to want to support his child, simple cutting checks could result in a legal nightmare.
Start with the desk at the Maternity Ward’s Nurses Station - tell then he wants it legally determined if he is the father because he wants to support any child he may have fathered.
No, they are not lawyers, but they have seen the involved paperwork often enough to know where it comes from. And they work free.
But paying with even ONE check will put that well-intentioned person into the gray zone. Why venture into the gray zone when you can play it safe and insist on a DNA test before paying?
He should absolutely insist on a paternity test before paying anything. Even if he doesn’t care that the child isn’t his and still wants to act as the child’s father, he can adopt the child.
As for those speculating that the mother must be a skank trying to scam this kid, there are perfectly reasonable (from her perspective) motives for her to “want to keep this out of the courts”. Namely, she’s a young single mother with an unplanned pregnancy, so she needs all the help she can get. But the person she believes to be the father of the child is potentially unreliable. She doesn’t want him named as the legal father of the child because she doesn’t want this unknown punk kid to have any legal say over her baby. Just like the father doesn’t want to potentially tie himself to the baby and mother for 21 years, she doesn’t necessarily want to tie herself to the father for 21 years.
Keep his name off the birth certificate, keep everything unofficial, and if she decides the father is a bad guy she can cut him out of the baby’s life and disappear, and there’s nothing he can do about it. From her perspective this is a feature, not a bug.
Well, that is one of MANY possible scenarios, Lemur866. Who knows? There may actually be another thread on another board where the mother of that daughter is getting advice from strangers on the “What can a mother do?” thread.
I was just tired of reading the “she’s a whoring grifter of a whore” posts. Maybe she’s a whore and a grifter. The fact that she has told this guy that she’s pregnant and he’s the father and she doesn’t want to get the courts involved seems to be pretty slim evidence of her whorishness or grifterness.