One of my major career goals has been to develop and maintain a practice in the field of not-family law. I have successfully worked on this as a specialty and through talent and hard work I’ve developed quite a reputation for it.
Once, in about 1991 when I was a baby lawyer I made a gross error offending the deepest principles of not-family law when I attended at the Family Court of Australia for a directions hearing. I suppose I have to take responsibility and share some of the blame, but frankly I succumbed to pressure from a senior lawyer (a complete incompetent in not-family law) who was going on vacation and insisted. Luckily no one recognised me and my reputation for not-family law remained untarnished.
Consequently Gleena if you haven’t taken a course in not-family law, you are probably better placed than I am to assist Kam.
Kam has already explained her PoV, that it’s about child support. If he acknowledges the baby as his, he automatically owes it. By refusing to acknowledge the baby and even if it’s his, there was a chance that Kam’s daughter would eventually just give up (which she’s not doing) and get him off the hook.
My aunt’s first husband gave the same shit about both my second cousin and the third pregnancy; that third baby never got to term, but cousin #1 looks like she’s my aunt’s niece on her mother’s side (you mix her in with that gang, nobody will be able to pick out which grey-eyed, square-faced redhead is not like the others) whereas #2 is a deeper-chested version of daddy. He eventually rejected #1 too (that day when she ran into him in the street and he told her “I don’t have any children” may have been the most bitter of her life), never admitted that #2 was his, contested it when child support came up, etc.
With all due respect, is there any chance you could translate this for persons not in Australia, or living inside your head?
What the devil does Not family Law mean? Once in 1991? Wha? Reputation untarnished? From being in court? Haven’t taken the course=better prepared? Are these inside jokes, maybe?
Please, can someone, let the rest of us in on whatever this cryptic post means?
I’m not Princhester, so I can’t be sure, but I took it to mean that he or she does not practice Family Law, and so knows little-to-nothing about it. “Not-Family” law is not an actual thing; just a tongue-in-cheek way of referring to law specializations that aren’t “Family”. And apparently, once, in 1991, he or she *did *attend a hearing in a Family Court, but did not inhale, and that is more or less the extent of his or her experience.
I was going to let the issue die but since you brought it back up. His unusual behavior is the core around which this entire issue revolves. He has taken a very hard line position on not being involved with the baby. Assumedly,unless he is some kind of sociopath he has to have said something to the mother to justify this extreme position. Assumedly she has asked her daughter, the mother, specifically what he said on this issue, but all we have is the equivalent of a guess and a shoulder shrug by the OP as to his motivations.
As I mentioned earlier astro, his motivation is to avoid paying child support. There have been no other reasons forthcoming, although I suspect that making my daughter suffer is pretty high up on his priorities too. He knows full well the pain and anguish that wanting to see one child but not the other will inflict upon her. :rolleyes:
Unfortunately, the longer he drags this out, the greater his financial liability will be in the long run. It is not up to my daughter to apply for child support: in cases where a woman is unmarried and in receipt of a parenting allowance, the government in the form of the Child Support Agency makes the application and follows up on the payments. They will also seek back payments. She cannot opt out, although she would dearly like to: the pittance she receives for the first child (and she would be eligible for less with the second) doesn’t justify the hassle they are all going through now.
Because he has refused to sign any papers regarding paternity, the CSA takes that as tacit acknowledgement of his role, and it is now up to him to prove otherwise…IOW, he needs to apply for DNA testing to clear himself. He hasn’t sought any legal or other advice about this (that we’re aware of), and has ignored all correspondence from my daughter’s legal counsel. So she has been the proactive one, trying to sort this bloody mess out, and as I mentioned upthread, a court date has now been set. If he still chooses to deny paternity at that time, a DNA test will be scheduled, and if it proves he IS the father he will be liable for the costs both medical and legal.
Look, this isn’t a young fella running scared of obligations. This is a middle-aged man who thinks that if he sticks his fingers in his ears going la-la-la, the problems (and the child) will magically disappear.
In that case, I think I’d just work real hard on Daughter ignoring the man for all he’s not-worth. If this is just a support thing, then the court case will change his attitude one way or another. And eventually he’ll get tired of tormenting Daughter, unless there is, indeed, some relationship going on there, on some level.
So I’d carry on as if everything were already over, and help Daughter imagine life without the Dork. And hopefully the kids are too young to remember much of this in a year or two.
Thank you for your explanation, it’s clearer now. As a divorced dad who paid 15 years of CS for two kids I have to admit his behavior as you have described it utterly baffles me. For a man to “yes” to one of his bio-kids, but shun the other is just bizarre. It’s usually involvement or no involvement not splitting the pair.
I thought because he made a decent (off the books) living he had to have some common sense, but his behavior is that of an complete idiot if he thinks avoiding the issue is going to save him from the state
Just because she’s convinced Kambuckta, that this guy is the Dad, doesn’t make it so. Just because Kambuckta sees a striking resemblance doesn’t make it so. He’s willing to own one but not the other? Seems odd in the extreme. The Mom doesn’t want his money, just him to participate, but he’s only willing for the one child? Again, odd in the extreme. Perhaps he has cause to believe it’s not his, that Kambuckta is not privy to. It’s happened before, is all I’m saying.
Why isn’t the Mom leading the charge for the DNA test? She has enough money to support the kids, without his input, but balks at the one test that would settle this and, one assumes, prove her right. Smells a little odd to me.
DNA test the child, against his brother, already. End the drama. Everyone involved deserves to know the truth, in my opinion!
Then if you want us to join in with slagging the guy, I’ll join in. Until then it’s all just conjecture. In an age when such is entirely unnecessary.
You might end up having to accept that there is nothing you can do about it. And then have kid 2 do something else while kid 1 is out with Dad. Perhaps an uncle or something could step in and take kid 2 out, get them gifts, make them the favourite for them? It would be far less than ideal, but so are many things in life. It might end up being a really shitty thing that you just have to live with and mitigate as best as you can.
It does also sound like you’re - understandably - worrying pre-emptively. This man might change once he’s forced to support the baby, as others have said. Until he has been definitively confirmed as the father, there’s no point in worrying about it.
From my reading, the Mom is leading the charge for the DNA test. A court date has been set and a DNA test will be required. DNA testing the father would be much better than testing the older brother.
I agree that superficial resemblance isn’t conclusive proof, but it does make it very likely. And babies don’t all look alike - I’ve never understood anyone who says that. With some babies the resemblance to one parent is so strong it’s like they’re the little bald mini-me in Austin Powers.
Do you really think so? I can’t even tell the sex of a baby. Basically all I can see is skin colour and eyes - admittedly there’s quite often something in the eye, but meh most of the buggers look the same to me.
Yeah. The nose (even though a child’s nose is always smaller and more snub, you can tell how it’ll turn out), the face shape except the chin, the ears, the smile once the baby’s old enough to do that - and the eyes aren’t to be discounted either, shape as well as colour. Comparing baby photos helps. Often a child is a mix of its parents, or just more like one than the other, but occasionally it’s like somebody’s been doing cloning experiments on the sly.
Telling the sex is a different matter, though. You probably have better than 50-50 odds of guessing correctly even if the kid is dressed in neutral clothing, but not much better. I bet tests have been done on this, but the only ones I can think of are ones where the adults were told the ‘wrong’ gender and believed it, so acted differently to the baby.
Have you actually read anything I’ve written? Did you happen to gloss over the part where I mentioned it is in fact my daughter who has sought out all the legal redress, and that the court hearing that has been scheduled (at her behest) will likely order a DNA test unless Baby-Daddy has a sudden change of mind and decides to acknowledge paternity beforehand?
How do you read from that that ‘Mom’ isn’t leading the charge for a DNA test??
Good grief, sometimes ya just gotta shake your head in wonderment at the comprehension skills of some people. :rolleyes:
I don’t see why it seems soo odd that he’s seeing one kid and ignoring the other. Fucked up, yes of course, but not hard to imagine. There’s stuff just like that on Maury every day.
He probably has some stupid justifications like maybe he wanted her to have an abortion with the second one and she refused or he’s convinced himself that she tricked him into getting her pregnant. These things are not uncommon. People KILL their kids to get back at the other parent. Obviously some would also have no objection to not seeing the one he hasn’t developed a bond with yet, just to hurt the mother.
Sorry, I didn’t read, ‘seeking redress in court…which will likely order a DNA test’, as ‘Mom leading the charge for a DNA test.’
She doesn’t need to go to court to get a test, she can test one child against the other and successfully determine paternity. Were she leading the charge, in my mind, this would be already done, and there would be no room for any more conjecture. Everyone would know the truth with certainty.
The father of your child denies paternity and in 3 months it never crosses your mind to DNA test the children? Sorry, still smelly to me.
All testing the children would prove is that they had the same father, not that this man is their father. I don’t know if an Australian court would accept it as being as valid as testing the man himself, but I doubt they would. Also, we don’t know if he’sbeen denying paternity from the start or if it was obvious from the get-go that he’d be so adamant about it.
I’m not seeing the difference when he took the position makes? Or how adamant he might be. He acknowledges the first child. Proving they have the same father, proves everything to me.
How, and why, would any court, not accept the result? Or then simply move to force the father to further DNA testing? Win/win it seems to me.
