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Child Support and the Forced Father
The Opinion ^ | 20 Jan 03 | Angelica Haycook

Posted on 02/03/2003 11:48:56 AM PST by Mr. Silverback

It goes now, and always has gone, that the father of a child (if absent from the child's life) is to pay child support in order for the mother to better care for the child conceived by the two people. This is a good idea, for many women have a hard time holding down a full-time job that pays well, while taking care of a child. Also, the father should have a responsibility towards the child they conceived together.

However, some cases have come to my attention in a personal incident, and I cannot help but think that the legal system is overlooking something important. There are women, who are in a relationship with a man, who have promised the man that she is on some form of birth control. Then the man comes to find that she is not, in fact, on birth control or, the woman stops taking her birth control without informing her partner.

The man, being in a relationship, feels that he can trust his partner and then finds that he has been deceived. The woman has become pregnant without his knowledge or consent, therefore inflicting the responsibility of a child upon herself. The man, feeling hurt and angered by her deception, leaves the relationship and later receives papers for child support.

The courts overlook the fact that the man had no knowledge of the woman's failure to continue the said birth control she was supposedly taking. He has been forced to be a father without his consent. They just look at the fact that he had unprotected sex with her and force him to pay child support. They forget that he was deceived and, if one cannot trust a person with whom they are in a long-term relationship, who can they trust?

Should this child truly be his responsibility or should the mother, who inflicted the pregnancy upon herself, without her partner's consent, have to take on the responsibility of raising the child on her own based upon the fact that she wanted the child in the first place and the man did not? In saying that she was on birth control and never telling the man that she had discontinued such medication, she has essentially promised him that he will not be having any unwanted children. So, any children that result from her negligence to take the birth control she informed him she was taking, should be solely her responsibility.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: safesex
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To: Mr. Silverback
There is a contract for the support in the common law. This contract was legal in all fifty states until 1973, when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

It was known as marriage.

41 posted on 02/03/2003 1:10:28 PM PST by Jim Noble
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To: Mr. Silverback
There is a contract for the support in the common law. This contract was legal in all fifty states until 1973, when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

It was known as marriage.

42 posted on 02/03/2003 1:11:09 PM PST by Jim Noble
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To: PetroniDE
You've heard that aspirin is an effective method of birth control, haven't you?

.....if the woman holds one firmly between her knees :-)
43 posted on 02/03/2003 1:13:00 PM PST by T Minus Four
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To: Mr. Silverback
Let me share my story.

My wife and I are divorcing. This was not my choice. My wife was having an affair, and she left. Even with that, I was willing to attempt a reconciliation, and was rebuffed. My wife was not an abused woman. Her grounds for divorce is simply that she wants one.

In Texas she is entitled to 20% of my net income in support, up to $2500 per month. Additionally, the IRS assumes that, as the "custodial" parent, she will bear reponsibility for more than half the child's upkeep, so she gets the tax credit and the deduction for a dependant.

Here's the rub. I have calculated my wife's expenses for our child. If I add his schooling to 1/2 of all of her expenses (rent, utilities) AND assume she spends $150/month feeding him AND $150/month clothing him, I am paying for 67% of his upbringing.

Now, let's remember that I have custody of him 37% of the time. We haven't added in any expenses I incur while he's with me. Not only do I also have to feed him, I need to buy extra clothes because the law requires that anything he comes to my house with goes home with him. In essence, he has to have 2 complete wardrobes. We also have not deducted from any of her expenses for the 37% of the time she doesn't have him.

No matter how we look at it, I'm bearing the brunt of the expenses.

If we want to get totally accurate, we need to remember that the rent she pays for him is not half, but the difference between a 1 and 2 bedroom apartment. She would have to pay some rent even if there were no child. She also receives subsidized rent because she has a child and is a single parent. If she spends $300/month on food, I would bet he eats less than $75 of it. With the exception of a small part of the gas, water and electric, utility expenses are unchanged by her having my son. And $150/month on clothes? Not even close. She has always been a frugal shopper. A complete outfit for him is less than $10.

Now, lets remember that she gets $600 in tax credits, plus, she is now eligible for the EITC, so her tax expenses are reduced by roughly $3,000 per year.

I have no problem paying for my son's upkeep. I have a huge problem with the assumptions that are automatically made that I am not paying my fair share of his upkeep, and that the "custodial" parent is being unfairly burdeoned. We are forced to bear the majority of the expenses, and are treated as if we are absentee parents and less responsible and loving than our former spouses.

Child support has become a way for parents to get alimony in situations where they wouldn't be entitled to any. The formulas are concrete, and there is no appeal.
44 posted on 02/03/2003 1:13:43 PM PST by sharktrager
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To: Cultural Jihad
Their responsibility. He should be able to sign away all rights and walk away. At least while abortion is legal.
45 posted on 02/03/2003 1:14:46 PM PST by AppyPappy (Will Code COBOL For Food)
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To: T Minus Four
Never heard of that one.

As a single male approaching 40 (subject to recount) I often get pestered about "when am I going to get married and have grand-children". My typical response in a joking manner is "I don't have to get married to give you grand-children, if you want them that badly".

Usually good for a laugh.

46 posted on 02/03/2003 1:19:11 PM PST by PetroniDE
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To: sharktrager
Are you SURE the child is yours ???
47 posted on 02/03/2003 1:21:28 PM PST by PetroniDE
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To: sharktrager
$2,500.00 per month is astronomically high, but it's because your income is high.

The court is, essentially, assumming that because of your income, this is about what you would have spent on the child if there had been no divorce.
48 posted on 02/03/2003 1:21:55 PM PST by Quester
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To: sharktrager
I got divorced in VA and due to faulty calculation by the court, I was ordered to pay more than my takehome pay which by the time it was resolved, resulted in me being $13,00o in arrears. I had to pay it all back even though she wasn't entitled to it. On top of that, she spent not a single penny on the kids and everytime I had visitation I would have to buy them new clothes, school supplies, etc. I later found out that she spent $5000 of my child support for a vacation and a wedding to her second husband. If I have an obligation to pay, shouldn't she have to prove it went to the kids? Damn those feminists!
49 posted on 02/03/2003 1:24:41 PM PST by 44magnum
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To: Mr. Silverback
This problem of society sheds light on the fact that you cannot exclude the possibility of human life from the marital embrace, and that all sexual relations should be open to life.

We have created a psyche of lying, where men do not trust women, and women do not trust men, and the children are the ones that get hurt the most.
50 posted on 02/03/2003 1:24:47 PM PST by matthew_the_brain
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To: Vic3O3
My take? Don't screw around out of wedlock. And if you're married to someone you don't trust, wear a condom. After all, even faithfully taken oral contraceptives have a 1-2% failure rate.

You're right, but so many don't even know that the pill has up to a 2% failure rate. A former coworker of mine knew, so he sometimes jokingly described his son as "one of the 2% that didn't work."

51 posted on 02/03/2003 1:25:10 PM PST by mafree
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To: mafree
wow, what a nice term for his son.
52 posted on 02/03/2003 1:27:19 PM PST by matthew_the_brain
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To: sharktrager
I'm really sorry about your divorce- sounds like you're getting the bad end of the stick. Women like your soon-to-be ex-wife make me ashamed to be a woman. I wish you the best.
53 posted on 02/03/2003 1:31:11 PM PST by mafree
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To: mafree
The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment

Malcolm Muggeridge
54 posted on 02/03/2003 1:32:56 PM PST by matthew_the_brain
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To: Mr. Silverback
I regret to inform you that your profile neglects totally to mention from what planet you just arrived.

That little tidbit might explain the off-the-rails naivete of your "argument".

Wrap your mind around this concept: it's for the children.
One cannot punish a mother (no matter how bad she is) without punishing the children. Q.E.D.

55 posted on 02/03/2003 1:33:22 PM PST by Publius6961
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To: Quester
I don't pay the $2500. Even at a lower level, she's not even close to paying half of his upbringing.
56 posted on 02/03/2003 1:46:27 PM PST by sharktrager
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To: PetroniDE
Oh yeah, he's mine. The affairs started much later. Plus, he's the spitting image of me.
57 posted on 02/03/2003 1:47:17 PM PST by sharktrager
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To: sharktrager
If I was in your situation, don't know what I would do.

I know one person who was fleeced during his divorce; the real "kicker": the two young boys (think 5 and 3 at the time) weren't even his !!!! That was about seven years ago and don't think he has even looked at a woman since.

58 posted on 02/03/2003 2:01:38 PM PST by PetroniDE
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To: Mr. Silverback
No one forces anyone to be a father. Men should keep their pants tucked in if they want to avoid this problem. Choose your wife wisely, sir.
59 posted on 02/03/2003 2:02:22 PM PST by mlmr
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To: Blood of Tyrants
Actually there was a woman who carried a baby after a hysterectomey. A conceived zygote landed on her bowels. A true ectopic pregnancy. Both baby and mom did well and lived.
60 posted on 02/03/2003 2:06:06 PM PST by mlmr
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