Sexism and Men's Issues

Just make paternity testing culturally expected. That clears up a lot of problems. If I ever choose to have kids, or end up with kids despite not wanting any, I'll definitely have one done as routine part of becoming a parent.

"Just make paternity testing culturally expected."

Your making this sound far easier than it actually is.

Plus Mandatory anything is a direct violation to American culture (for better or worst).

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

I didn't say mandatory, i said expected. Encourage people to get a test without a specific reason. It's not like you create cultural change overnight, but we should try.

There is a reason this knowledge isn't readily available: the American government tries really freaking hard to keep families together. They don't want parents just bailing on their kids regardless of the circumstances.

And let's be real here, mandatory or expected paternity testing is nonsense!

1) It's damned expensive. The state's paternity test costs anywhere between $800-1200. You can buy your own, but the problem with that is they are still hundreds of dollars plus, the average person is not skilled enough to actually do it right. Even not contaminating the swab is hard.

2) It's punishing the majority for the sins of the minorty. Most women are very honest with their partners. Most men don't abandon their babies. But if we are going to make paternity tests expected, then custody orders should be expected to protect the mother. After all, men bail a lot more on pregnancy then women lie about paternity, so why not be draconian to both genders? Because it's divisive and foolish. When this becomes epidemic, maybe I'll reconsider. But we've already hashed how stupid this is.

3) Imagine the consequences this sets for the mentality around family. By automatically making women prove their honesty with paternity tests, you're singlin out a demographic that has thousands of years of being oppressed. You're telling them that they as a gender aren't worthy of trust. You're also insulting men. You're telling them their knowledge of their partner isn't good enough so an outside agency has to come in and make sure you made a good judgement.

To do that would to create an air of disconnect families don't need at all.

Most divorces are from serial divorces, not first time. Those numbers are going down because people aren't getting married at the rates they did a generation ago. Cohabitation or just commited relationships are more and more common, with and without children. The family unit is shifting to reflect a change in values. It doesn't need something like expensive paternity tests to muck it up more.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I don't see regular paternity testing as draconian. It does nothing more than give the father the information the mother already has. Also if you do it as a matter of routine it's no longer a comment on the honesty of the mother. What I want is for cultural change to result in a world where paternity testing is just a routine part of becoming a father. As such it would not be any comment on the mother in any way. That's why it should be endemic because then you wouldn't have to ask whether you trust your partner because it's no longer about her.

I guess cost is a restriction, but a totally reliable test wouldn't be needed for this so if it caught on a cheaper less accurate method would be found.

edited 5th Oct '12 7:02:23 AM by Kzickas

Eep? How would a less accurate test help matters if it throws up false results? Be they false positives or negatives?

Wait a second, I want to see if I understand you right:

You're wanting to make men feel more comfortable with their children (when the vast majority already do) by encouraging making DNA tests expected and culturally acceptable, but because of cost you're willing to encourage less reliable tests just so that works?!

You're willing to attack a majority with tests that could bring back a false negative, just so the minority of cases where this does happen feel better or lessen?!

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

A high number of cases where the paternity is found is okay because the women who would lie about paternity would be dissuaded by the high chance of getting caught. If it says you're the father when you're not in 20% of cases that's still a 4 out of 5 chance of getting caught. Even without any deterring effect it's still a five fold reduction. A false result that he's not the father can simply lead to a more rigorous test.

Edit: The difference is that I don't see paternity testing as an attack, any more than I see std testing as an accusation against your partner.

edited 5th Oct '12 7:06:56 AM by Kzickas

What about all those relationships that fail due to a father falsely being told that his partner cheated?!? How does that help the family unit, let alone him?????

Not to mention the times where a guy is falsely told the child is his? Think for that for a second, then.

edited 5th Oct '12 7:09:37 AM by Euodiachloris

You know what, he's making a lot of sense.

But yeah, it's something that can only happen if society accepts it or if paternity tests become as routine as taking blood pressure.

Depends on the number of people it affects and the severity that it affects him weighed against the consequences of flat out paternity fraud.

Then we're in the same position as regular old misattributed paternity, except it's less likely to be discovered. And if it's discovered anyway, the man has someone to blame whom he can actually hold accountable.

edited 5th Oct '12 7:16:02 AM by KingZeal

from above: "A false result that he's not the father can simply lead to a more rigorous test."

You seriously believe a guy is just going to sit back and say, "well, this was false and cost hundreds of dollars so just relax honey! We'll just pay double the amount for the better test so we can confirm what I already know!"

WTF man...

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I thought we were talking about the first test being relatively cheap. Where did that cost come from?

As I said it was relying on the assumption that decreasing the reliability would push the price down. As long as you present the results of the first test as "your's" and "inconclusive" it should work.

Edit:I must say the high price did suprise me a little however. Where I live a paternity test is only around 250 dollars, and Norway has a much higher wage level than the US. I don't think it would be viable at US prices.

edited 5th Oct '12 7:22:14 AM by Kzickas

Though to be honest, we would probably be best with a first test that has an accuracy of at least over 95%. Anything less than that, and it might not be honest. Even with that figure, you're talking thousands of mistakes and millions of dollars in damages.

There are two kinds of reliability though, the risk of saying the supposed father is the father when he's not (not bad) and the risk of saying he's not the father when he is (bad). Even by allowing more room for error of the first kind you should be able to decrease costs considerably.

Do you realize how expensive a baby is? $250 is a TON of money! My kid's daycare alone was $125 a week. A case of diapers runs between $30 to $70. If your kid needs special formula or other medical needs that's expensive.

Hell, just having a baby is expensive. My son's bill was $18,000. My bill was $30,000.

And even if you got it to an affordable price, you are still completely ignoring that most people don't need this service nor will they want it! Inconclusive is just as bad as negative. If the tests are that wonky, they're not worth the pain it can do to a family.

It's asinine. It's like saying because a minority of people drink and drive every year, everyone driving on the road has to be breathalized.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

So, most people don't want this service, therefore nobody should ask for it? Really?

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

No, it really isn't. One of the crazy things about people is that just changing a word from negative to neutral can stop them from losing their shit.

By using $250 as an assumption for the current price I was imagining something like $50 after the reductions coming from lowering the standards to something appropriate for routine testing as well as economics of scale.

Presumably if people don't want it they wouldn't get it, I'm working on the assumption that people do want to know. I'd compare it (again) to std testing. It can be read as an accusation against your partner, but it's generally only seen as a reasonable precaution.

Edit:

Also if the test doesn't manage to establish paternity, even though he's the father, the most common result is going to be "you're probably the father but we can't be sure", not "you're not the father"

edited 5th Oct '12 7:49:57 AM by Kzickas

@ DG, never did I say it should never be offered. I just said making it mandatory or trying to make it culturally excepted for everyone to get tested is asinine and needs to stop.

Again, a majority of people don't drive drunk. And it would be completely stupid in both cost and social consequence to start breathalizing everyone on the road.

@ Zeal, yeah, tell that to the dad.

Again, how many dad's are going to wait calmly to dish out more money on top of what they have to confirm a positive identity? The men who are capable of this won't want the tests to begin with.

And I'm probably the only one in this thread who has gone through a paternity test so let me break the Maury myth for you. To get a test result back the same day costs roughly $1000 to $2000 a test on average. If you make a deal with a private lab like those talk shows do, you can get it down to about $700 each if you do more than 15.

A state issued DNA test takes 3 to 6 months to come back. So that's 3-6 months of anxiety for that family. Again, those that are completely confident won't need the test to begin with.

It's not worth it. For those who want it we already have it available in different forms. There is no need to "normalize" paternity tests.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

"A state issued DNA test takes 3 to 6 months to come back. So that's 3-6 months of anxiety for that family. Again, those that are completely confident won't need the test to begin with."

They won't need it, but they could still see it as nice to have. I've already agreed that to achieve this the price would need to be reduced drastically. You're assuming that people will be worry while waiting for the results to come back, in a culture where it was routine people wouldn't think about it unless the result gave them reason to.

@Gabrael: Hang on, how many people here are actually saying it should be mandatory? So far I've seen one person (Besser) say that, while the rest of the people here seem to be saying that it should be made more freely available upon request.

Edit: I also don't see what the problem with wanting it to be more culturally acceptable is.

edited 5th Oct '12 7:59:41 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

I flirted with the idea of making it mandatory a while back. It would certainly be easier than creating cultural change, and probably easier for the women to swallow too if it was framed as needing to run a test on the father before officially putting him on the birth certificate.

However as long as it becomes wide spread enough to serve as an effective deterrent to paternity fraud I don't really care how it happens.

Are we talking about an actual test here, or just some hypothetical one where we can juggle the numbers to get whatever sensitivity, specificity, cost etc. we want? It's absurd to debate relative harm with no concrete numbers.

You can't discount the great deal of stress experienced by the family with "oh, we'll just do another test". Only a minority of the population understand statistics; fewer still can apply them calmly in situations like this. Both false negatives and false positives must be taken into account when evaluating a screening test.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj