Child Support

The problem is that the decision of whether to bring the child into the world rests entirely with only one of the parents in the final analysis. The father is screwed either way if he doesn't agree with the mother. If he wants the child and she doesn't, she gets to decide to abort. If he doesn't want the child and she does, she gets to decide to have it anyway and make him pay for its support. She gets all the rights, and he gets the responsibilities.

edited 12th Jun '11 12:59:56 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Pretty much.

Enjoy the Inferno...

I'm with P Down on this. If you conceive a child, you have a duty to his/her wellbeing. I would even go as far as saying that it does not really matter if you did not use birth control or if you did and it failed for whatever reason: you conceive him/her, you are responsible for him/her.

This said, it is true that in case of separation the fathers tend to get the short end of the stick — not only in the sense of child support, but also in the sense of the children almost never being assigned to them (and, if the mother wishes to be petty, there are plenty of ways to prevent the father to build a relationship with his children during their allotted time).

edited 12th Jun '11 12:39:07 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Do you support abortion golden-avatar-guy?

Please.

Am I "golden-avatar-guy"? If I am, then no, I definitely don't support abortion.

edited 12th Jun '11 1:06:01 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

K. Your consistent. No point in arguing/debating/fighting with you then as it will go nowhere.

Please.

I'm actually with MRDA on this, but for different reasons.

Firstly, there's always State-run Child Support (which I assume is available in the US, as it is here). Secondly, from a legal perspective (can't help it, this is what I've been educated in) there are simply too many potential variables to lug the male parent with what is effectively a hefty fine every week or so for the rest of his life.

For example: What if (for whatever reason) the mother sabotaged their contraception? Or simply forgot to take the pill? And then the parents had a falling out? What if the mother was also from a well-off family? Or what if she dumped the baby with the father, would she then be obligated to send payments to him?

There's simply too much of a grey area to have one, easily-enforceable and above all, just, law. Unless you somehow manage to take every one of those variables into account (which could make for a highly-convoluted and impractical law), I'm opposed to it.

Besides, punishing irresponsibility is always slightly tricky in the law; because there's usually the question of what the "reasonable man" would have done (and the "reasonable man" test doesn't take into account the individual characteristics or circumstances involved in the case), so it's a balancing act.

edited 12th Jun '11 2:53:54 AM by DanEile

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."

Yes, actually, if he assumes formal custody. (I've known women who paid child support to the man who was raising her child; it's just not common.)

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

They're called judges, and yes, they can take into account all the circumstances you name. But really, their first obligation is to serve the needs of the child.

edited 12th Jun '11 6:28:10 AM by blueharp

I beg your pardon, I'm well aware of the judiciary. As I've mentioned several times, I am in fact a law student, and there's several generations of lawyers in my family. My uncle is an Irish Supreme Court judge, so I'm well aware of how the law operates. I was under the impression that we were discussing the creation of legislation legally obligating a male parent to pay for child support, regardless of the scenario. Judges don't make laws, they interpret them. And I'm not impressed by the implied condescension.

Again, I was pondering how that would be incorporated into formal legislation. It was merely a list of things one would have to take into account.

edited 12th Jun '11 6:38:36 AM by DanEile

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."

You added more points to my assertion; can't really disagree with any of them.

Enjoy the Inferno...

Well, I have no idea who you are, so I'm just going to respond to what you say in a given post, which failed to account for judges at all. Nor do I understand why you're talking about creating laws. They pretty much exist everywhere worth worrying about, so what's left? Wouldn't it be worth discussing the laws as they exist? Of course, most people would just rather focus on only the injustices they believe are occurring all the time, rather than look and see if they're actually happening very often.

But it seems to me you want to account for everything in one singular law, which I'd say is a guarantee for injustice no matter what you're talking about.

There's a reason why human beings are involved in making decisions directly, not just at several removes.

edited 12th Jun '11 6:38:39 AM by blueharp

The simplest way would be to rewrite any laws to specify "non-custodial parent will pay child support" rather than "father", (that's assuming that they probably do say "father" now, since they would be old enough that a non-custodial mother would be practically unheard of.)

Another would be to tie the payments to visitation and at least consultation on decisions regarding the child,barring a court-determined reason to waive such (non-custodial parent is in prison, or has been convicted of something that would indicate that the child would be endangered if left in their care.)

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Where I live, the non-custodial parent pays child support if the custodial one doesn't have enough money. That's a good idea (implementation is bad because fathers are almost always non-custodial and also because people who don't pay child support are rarely punished but that's the different thing)

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

I don't want that myself, I was under the impression that we were discussing specific legislation for the aforementioned scenario. Therefore, I didn't mention judges because judges wouldn't even come into that scenario, due to the separation of powers. It seems to me like you're misinterpreting what I was saying.

edited 12th Jun '11 6:41:22 AM by DanEile

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."

I can't speak for every jurisdiction, but checking a few, they do already apply to both genders.

And FWIW, in the US, states are obligated to review their child support laws every four years. Visitation rights and participation in decision making are also covered.

Ok, so you're not desiring it, but you are suggesting that the law would be formed on this grounds. Am I mistaken? Did you mean something else?

edited 12th Jun '11 6:47:09 AM by blueharp

But again, that's not what I thought was at issue. Admittedly, I skim-read, but I was under the impression we were discussing the creation of a hypothetical and specific law, not existing ones. My apologies.

And no, I wasn't at all proposing the aforementioned law.

edited 12th Jun '11 6:47:10 AM by DanEile

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."

I think the only law being proposed has been the concept of a male abortion, which would be some kind of legal severing of paternal rights.

My mistake, then. But I stand by what I said about the inherent difficulties in a law obligating all male parents to pay child support regardless of circumstance.

edited 12th Jun '11 7:15:29 AM by DanEile

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."

It's an interesting concept - does it also have limits of what times in the pregnancy it can be invoked?

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[[quoteblock]]If he wants the child and she doesn't, she gets to decide to abort. If he doesn't want the child and she does, she gets to decide to have it anyway and make him pay for its support. [[/qupteblock]]

Hit the nail on the head.

Except on cases of proven domestic abuse, I'm adamant on no child support without visitation. In my opinion, mothers shouldn't be able to strip the father of parental rights and demand he still fulfills the responsibilities.

Also, if the custodial parent is significantly wealthier than the custodial one, a demand for child support is not only inequitable, it's downright petty.

edited 12th Jun '11 8:28:12 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Child support isn't about equity.

But how often do people think that circumstances happen? The way people go on about it, you'd think it was the majority of the cases.

That said, the calculations for child support payments can account for differences in income.

edited 12th Jun '11 8:43:40 AM by blueharp

Even if it was indeed rare, there's no denying that those guys are being deprived of parenthood and yet forced to pay its bills. People should not be screwed unfairly.

And it's not nearly as rare as you might think. Mother skips State, father doesn't see the kids again, the child support payments are still taken from him under penalty of jail. It's relatively frequent, frequent enough to have many men pissed about it.

edited 12th Jun '11 8:40:34 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Burden Of Proof, everyone talks about how rare this stuff is or not, I'm failing to see statistics and if there are no trust worthy statistics around, we shouldn't be basing any arguments on that.

edited 12th Jun '11 8:40:51 AM by Usht

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