Posted on 06/06/2002 11:45:39 PM PDT by janetgreen
Edited on 04/12/2004 5:38:00 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
No.
If you have been living with the kid and acting as his father, then you are, as far as the kid is concerned, his father.
Right up until mom says different. Just because it is in Mom's best interest to get you to count a tail as a leg...horses still only have four legs. Of course she's going to try to get you to take some responsibility, but see what happens when you try to exercise it over what SHE wants.
The kid doesn't care about DNA. You're Dad. If you're Dad one day, how can you (with honor) discard the kid the next? If you loved him as a son (or daughter) one day, how can you not the next?
No you're not. Life is hard...especially when your mother's a tramp...but you figure that out eventually and she gets all the respect she deserves. BTW what do you think mom is going to try to get the next guy she shacks up with to swallow...hook, line, and sinker.
Do you have any idea how that will effect the child who, up until ten seconds ago, was yours?
No, and neither do you, so don't confuse your philosophical objections with experience that permits you to claim an informed opinion.
With the kind of mother posited in the hypothetical, the last thing the kid needs is abandonment by the man he knows as his father.
You just don't get it man. Mom's not going to LET the kid have a father...you or anyone else.
I think the key to your confusion can be found in your words: Thankless sacrifice is usually rewarded with bitterness. Parenthood, like marriage, or any other loving relationship, is indeed very much about sacrifice. And if you only sacrifice of yourself with the expectation of reward, you don't understand the meaning of parenthood, or even of love itself.
First, let's get one thing straight. I'm not confused: I disagree. Disagreement with you is NOT proof of misunderstanding.
Next, you can preach your pollyana-ist altruism all you want, just don't expect real adults to buy into it. Relationships, any and all of them, whether admitted or not, are based in some measure on reciprocity: not reward, reciprocity. Your brand of mindless self-abnegation is exactly the pernicious variety of altruism Ayn Rand condemned so forcefully. You would enslave other men just to make yourself feel better about the pedigree of your morals.
An honorable man does not abandon his children, even the cuckolded ones. He sucks it up and takes it like a man. (Didn't your father ever explain these things to you?)
The children are not his...get that straight. Your assertions are as dripping with vanity as the women who assert men are the head of the family, (so women aren't responsible before God) yet refuse to follow "their men" where they don't want to go. Pretty convenient shell game if you ask me: No resposibility OR obligation. You lay burdens on men, but don't lift a finger to make their burnens any lighter. All you can tell them is "suck it up." ....that remind you of anyone?
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