End Mandatory Child Support From Fathers

*sigh*

Kiamat - YOU called my entire post BS. I think you were out of line. My point was that you can think my opinion is BS, but my post was at least reasonable. You may disgree with them, but I wasnt calling the sky pink. All the statements I made were supported. If you disagree say so or even refute my points, dont call my post BS. I have done nothing to be dismissed so disrespectfully.

Eboni is correct, women can and do "trap" men , of course they arent trying to trap them into paying child support, they are trying to trap them into marraige. This is of course not at all an Ethical thing to do. This is a difficult situtaion. However it doesnt invalidate the other aspects of the problem.

However, lets think a moment what will happen if there is a "level playing field" as Kiamat calls it.

Jill becomes pregnant , she doesnt beleive in Abortion she chooses to have the baby. She wants to raise it.

Jack doesnt want to "ruin" his life so he tells her he will pay for an abortion, he says if she brings the child to term he will sign a "non consent" paper and will not pay child support.

Jill is now faced with the prospect she will have a child out of wedlock, which she will recive no money to help raise. She doesnt earn enough to raise it on her own.

The child will still need to be raised.

Therefore Jack , by his non consent to pay support is forcing Jill to either

a) get an abortion
b) give her child up to adoption
c) Live of Family and friends
d) Live off of Government support.

-You may not know people personally in this situation but I have known many. Many men do not pay their support and women are already living this "non-consent" scenario out. Most had to use C and D as described for years to even try to get a normal life. And even after gettign decent paying jobs, their child's standard of living is much less then it would have been if the father paid for his child.

The other side ..

Jack is required to sign consent before Jill gets an abortion,

Assuming Jill doesnt just lie and say Father "Unknown",

Jill will be forced to carry a child to term she doesnt want. Pregnacy can be very difficult and will most certainly change Jill's life in profound ways. It could cuase her to have to drop out of school. And will very likely result in her losing income.

When the child is born I assume by your other statements , she will not be required to nuture the child , nor pay child support.

So the man has to right to cuase a child to come into this world who will never know her mother.

Not the most Attractive prospect. It also gives too much control to the man in a country where abortion is legal.

Now then the arguement of whether or not we should allow abortion is seperate from all of this. The arguement that all non custodials would have to pay support is of course easier when no abortion is allowed. Since then neither will be able to stop the birth.

But then the arguement becomes Jack saying he wont pay and wants Jill to give their child up for adoption. Or telling her she cant give it up for adoption.

Ultimately I feel the decision has to be up to the mother. It makes the most sense

As a practicallity it will be any way. Since if she has to she will lie and fill out "Unknown" under the father question.

This is also a very good point.

Most law in the United States is originally derived from property rights. Right for people to keep their money being part of that.

Why should the taxpayer pay the burden just becuase Jack doesnt want to? Its his DNA.

Goes back to what others said. IF he doesnt want that risk, he should be more careful where his DNA goes.

Collete,


Jill also has the option to bust her ass and raise the kid alone. I know a couple of girls that had babies in HS, worked and supported them without welfare and took these children to college with them. Both of these women graduated with Engineering degrees, and completely support their children on their own with no assistance from anyone.


Are all women supposed to be poor and helpless? Come one. You want to have a kid, you want to live comfortable, you bust your ass. Having a kid isnt some handicap that prevents you from being successful in life, that is just a bullshit cop out from lazy people.

If i expand this arguement,

No one should be poor .. no one ever needs governement assistance. People should bust their asses , there is no need for welfare.

It is good to say that women can do it on their own. This is a possitive idea. Its good to say people should work and theres no need for welfare or government assistance.

But theres going to be women who wont , or cant , motives arent important .. the result is the same.

There will be people who wont earn a good wage for whatever reason,

In the history of the world theres never been a society without poor people.

I dont think were gonna manage it by just saying work harder.

-----
You dont mention whether the women you mention had help from their families. It is truley difficult to pay day care and a night time baby sitter so you can go to college and work at the same time.

Its all about taking responsibility for your actions. Jill gets pregnant, she has no choice but to take responsibility for her actions by either ending the pregnancy or raising the child. Its her body, her decision - just how it is. If she chooses to raise the child its the fathers responsibility to contribute his half atleast financially. You might say, well the woman has a way out and the man doesn't , thats not fair , level the playing feild. bullshit, life isn't fair and if you dont want to father a child think about that before you have sex. My girlfriend was pregnant a few months back. I was scared shitlesss, wasn't ready for that kind of responsibility but I made the CHOICE to have sex with her and was goin to take responsibility for my actions regardless how it would change my life from then on. I firmly believe everything happens for a reason , and unfortunatly soon as I was finally getting use to the idea she ended up having a miscarrige. My point is some of these "fathers" need to stop thinkin about their bank accounts and more about the human life they helped bring into this world.

Colette,

Please don't use a straw man argument for an important topic.


The constant argument always in these cases/conversations is that the woman and child will just STARVE on the streets without a man. No one ever says "why doesn't that bitch get a job?"

It does women a disservice for the negative reinforcement that "a woman can't make it without a man" to constantly be reinforced by women. Its like women asking to be treating equally but always complaining about their menstrual cycles and PMS and acting like being a woman is this massive burden and hormones rule their life, then topping it off with "but I'm just like you! Only better because I bleed every month and don’t die!" This is the failure of modern feminism.

Im not usuing a straw man arguement , im sorry if you see it that way.

My point is for practical reasons whether people say it or not,

There will be a good portion of mothers in this situation who wont make it without financial assistance.

There will be women who can make it on their own and women who cant in this situation .. we need to prepare for that.

Reguardless of whether they feel empowered or feel helpless.

You are right entirely that women should not be made to feel like they cant make it.

But for practical reasons you cant make a system assuming they can.

Of course the woman shouldnt have a baby the father doesnt want if she needs him for support. She should probably put that baby up for adoption. But im not goign to be one who says she HAS to.

Therefore you are left with the father paying his child support. Even if he didnt want the baby.

Yay! The moral is, women suck. Men win!

If women just sucked they wouldn' t get pregnant in the first place heh

why do you say that?

Im consused at that comment.

Are you saying EVERY woman who is going to have a baby the father doesnt want but chooses to keep it can make it on her own?

That there should be no provisions for her if she cant?

Touche

I think that everyone can strive for success and be successful if they want to, but most people don't.


There should always be emergency provisions for the poor, but that is not what we are talking about.


We are talking about placing and unfair burden of support on men, and pretending women can't handle it on their own if necessary. The standard arguement is always "Ohh poor Jill, how will she ever make it wtih that baby." It is never "Damn, Jill better finish college, I hope she majored in Engineering or she is fucked. You hear "Wow Jack better take care of his kid!" You dont hear "Wow, Jill better lose that shopping habit, work hard and save some cash for the baby."


It is SEXISM, plain and simple. Blatant sexism. I don't think I can paint it any clearer.

IMHO this is the ONLY appropriate answer.

People are constantly looking for ways to absolve themselves from responsibility for their actions, decisions have consequences and people need to face them. If they make an agreement and the mother does not desire the support then all the better. Otherwise, the father needs to step up and be a dad or at the very least help take care of the child.

On the abortion issue, I'm not pro or against I think its situatuional and if anyone makes the decision it should be the one whose anatamoy is most directly involved, if the father doesn't want it, see the previous paragraph.

Whoa.. there are plenty of women who support their children and do quite well without men paying or having to live off their family. Jill isn't forced into any of those scenarios. Jill makes an informed and heartfelt decision and those are possibilities, but there are other options as well.

There are alot of other scenarios too. The tracking of receipts mentioned earlier is not effective. Many mothers would simply go nuts when they could buying all kinds of things and then sticking the dad w. 1/2 the bill. What if he cannot afford the $300-500 expense of his half of, dance classes, brownie outfit and soccer uniform on top of the $400-700/mnth support payments? Is he not allowed to spend money as he sees fit or is he enslaved to the spending whims of his ex wife, girfriend etc..?

There is no perfect solution to fit all scenarios. Sadly alot of relationships end on sour notes and the parents wind up in power struggles in which the child is a pawn in one way or another.

The best thing would be for the parents to sit down and decide what can and would be best for ALL parties and do things amicably on their own and not through a bitter court process. Being bitter is not going to benefit the child and is going to make all thier lives rougher. They need to reach a mutually agreeable arrangement and stick to it, even if that turns out to be absolving the father of responsibility and giving up any parental rights, though I feel this is a poor decision not only for the child but for the BOY or GIRL who takes no responsibility for their actions. (Men or Women have already learned this lesson and will face their responsibilities even if doing so reluctantly.)

I was trying to figure out how requiring child support could be considered sexist. I'd say it is in one way: If the father were to adopt the child and raise it, he'd have a much harder time compelling the mother to pay child support.

If there is something to fix about child support, it's making sure that the money is used for the child's benefit. I've thought that a good solution for this would be to require half of the money be put into an account in the child's name that could only be accessed for education, medical emergencies, or saved until the child reaches the age of majority.

I'm all up for alternatives!

A man who indulges in sexual intercourse must accept that it may result in 18 years of financial commitmment to honor the obligations to the child which he entered into by creating it.

Thats ok, but only if:

A woman who indulges in sexual intercourse must accept that it may result in nine months of physical commitment to honor the obligations to the child which she entered into by creating it.

So, if no escape for the man from child support if the woman wants it to live, no escape for the woman from pregnancy, if the man wants it to live.

That leaves us to discuss, if the man brings up their child, what support is he entitled to from the woman? The same? Less?

Perhaps we need to negotiate a legally defined cash value for the discomfort of pregnancy and childbirth, to even things between the two parents. Difficult but not impossible. Maybe a 20% discount over 18 years? A contribution holiday for the first three or four years ? Full financial support from father to mother during pregnancy and for 3 months longer ?

At any rate, I see no justification in allowing the woman to unilaterally deal out death to a defenceless child who the other parent may desperately want to love and cherish. Or an adoptive parent may desperately want to love and cherish. Just to avoid seven or eight months additional inconvenience. While the man faces a possibly crippling financial commitment 27 times longer.

My only consolation is that eventually the enthusiasm for abortion may reduce in the population, because those carrying the genes for this enthusiasm are being sadly killed in very large numbers, reducing the frequency of these genes in the population.

My opposition to abortion does not mean I want to compel people to bring up their children. Just to let the innocents live so that others can love them. Other parent, or adopters. I understand there are enough of the latter to love every child conceived in the west. No need for death. Just follow through on what you started, for 7 or 8 months more.

First off, Eboni, I wanna be the father of *your* children! Bravo to you for standing up in the face of overwhelming opposition and sticking to your guns. Good on you!

Second, lemme clarify my own position on a coupla things.
1. Collette, I wasn't saying that your post was BS. You've made succicnt and well thought out contributions to this thread. However, I believe that your scenarios are a cop out. (see everything Eboni said)
2. My personal feeling on this issue:
a. Abortion is murder (except in the RARE instance that the mother's life is in danger) and should be relagated to the back alleys with the rest of the murders. (I do, however, believe in the morning after pill)
b. However, so long as women have the means to unilaterally opt out of parenthood, then so should fathers. In the absence of abortion "rights", I feel that child support should be compulsory.
c. I feel that the rights and feelings of fathers have been completely overlooked in this situation. It seems the only role society sees for us is as a bank. Our contributions to child development go far beyond our check books. Yes, I realize that in large part we have brought this stereotype on ourselves. However, research has shown that children develop better with a single father than a single mother.

-Kiamat Dusk

Your entire supposition rests upon the fact that if women can "opt out", so can men. However, this argument by symmetry fails because the situation is not symmetric. Men are not women. Men do not deliver children. Abortion is not child support.

This is why each of the topics, abortion and child support, are not referred to nor legislated as a pair in the real world. They are instead treated as the very separate topics they are.

All statements which begin with "research has shown" must finish with a reference. Please find that research and post it here (research does not consist of neocon blogs, rather refereed journal and conference papers).

~Ulrika~

-Kiamat Dusk

Your assertion is false. I never mentioned killing babies nor leeching from a dad rather I was pointing out your argument's faulty parallelism.

One can either persuade logically or rhetorically. In your previous post you are doing neither well. Oversimplification to demonstrate symmetry, while citing nonexistent research, is anathema to both logic and rhetoric as the arguments don't stand up to scrutiny in the case of the former and the attempted logic doesn't provide the emotional connection required by the latter.

~Ulrika~

Liberals always love to have everything in shades of grey-it's like a fog covering the inherent faults in their arguments.

Simply put: BOTH men and women can opt out of sex-the ultimate function of which is reproduction. But, currently, only women can opt OUT of parenthood. That's not fair. So long as women have that ability,so should men. Again, they BOTH made the choice to have sex.

-Kiamat Dusk

This is a generalization followed by a false statement and a false supposition. First, no single group collective shares the same desire without deviation. Second, it does not follow that a nondiametric viewpoint directly leads to obfuscation of an argument. Third, it is presupposed that the arguments have faults without actually presenting the arguments.

Your statement that women can only opt out of parenthood is false. Men can opt out of parenthood by abandoning their family.

That's four generalizations/logical errors in a single post. I'm still waiting for your reference, as well.

~Ulrika~

Men cannot legally opt out of parenthood like women can, except by giving up all parental rights, though I'm not sure if this gets them off the child support hook.


-Kiamat Dusk
PS: Keep waiting. It was from a paper a friend wrote. I'm trying to get her to send me the original article.