Hypothetical Regarding Child Support

[MysticSang'ha]

The one you specifically quoted wasnt.



I find your case very different because both wanted the children initially and furthermore I understand you were married when you had them?

I would say your ex definitely has to pay, but there is no reason to use the same legalities for this case than for the other one when different clauses and cases can be postulated in the law.

So I am just not arguing kids happening within a marriage that were wanted to which one of the parents doesn't want anything to do with after the divorce.

We met. We moved in together. One month later I was pregnant. So no, this was not a case where we were married, and both of us wanted children.

This was a complete, blind-sided to the both of us, case of unwanted pregnancy. I was a professional dancer not even making minimum wage. He was working the local deli. We were dirt poor and didn't want any children. We didn't want any children. I'll repeat it again.....we didn't want any children.

So, found out I was pregnant, and I was in no mood to get an abortion. I chose to go through with the pregnancy. Suddenly all the talk about the two of us being together forever suddenly vanished, and I was met with nothing but bitterness from my ex. He never said i should get an abortion, but he felt that the timing of the pregnancy was unfair. So, we married even when we never really wanted to for the purpose of having an intact family for the baby after he was born.

During the pregnancy - which is 9 months and a lot of attitudes can shift at that time - my ex became supportive and excited for the prospect of being a father. But he was reticent about supporting the child saying that he didn't think it would be "fair" if I "got" to stay at home with the baby while he was "forced" to go and work.

Nevertheless, I gave birth, and then 6 months later I was pregnant again, though I was becoming more and more familiar with the attitude of my first husband. It was this: I like having my picture taken with the baby, but the minute that baby needs to eat or have his diaper changed, I'm out.

He liked the idea of being a dad without doing anything to support the position. That attitude continued through our eventual separation and divorce. He was a deeply troubled man who was suffering from alcoholism at a level I was not aware of when we first moved in together. Everything was always everybody else's fault, and he was very quick to find fault in me.

After we separated, he spiralled further down. He would call me several times a week, never wanting to talk to the kids, but to talk to me and threaten me with legal action.....he stated unequivocally that he wanted to hurt me and make me suffer because I was an unfit mother, that I caused him to be thrown in military prison, that I was ruining his life by demanding that he pay child support. And that he was going to ruin my life by taking the kids away from me, since as an unfit mom because I was a full-time mother and not someone who REALLY "busted her ***" by getting a job.

On and on that went for years. I naively thought he and I could work this out without taking him to court. But after a hospital stay where my health was at risk, I realized the kids deserved better, and that they were entitled to support payments and health care. I filed with the state to enforce support payments.

That was when he disappeared.

At the time, I met my current husband, who even though the kids were not his biologically, was appalled at the lack of support they were getting from their biological father. He took them in, fed them, took them to the doctor and the dentist. They began to call him "daddy". And even though he never planned on caring for children that weren't even his own biologically, he tells me that outside of the birth of his children and our wedding day, that when my kids began calling him "daddy", it was the best day of his life.

My ex hit rock bottom, cleaned up and sobered up, faced the justice system, and finally began to own up to his responsibilities. He has since remarried and had two boys with his current wife, and is paying child support every month for our kids. No complaints now.

In fact, now that he is fully aware of what it takes to raise a child, he is only worried he's not doing ENOUGH.

Fathers simply cannot and should not brush their responsibilities under the rug. If they have a family member who is a dependent, I think as an adult man he has the responsibility to care for and support them. It's what my husband and I, AND my ex, are teaching our kids.

None of us want to see what happened to the kids happen to future generations of our children's children. We may have suffered, but THEY were the ones who suffered the most.

 

[Me Myself]

We met. We moved in together. One month later I was pregnant. So no, this was not a case where we were married, and both of us wanted children.

This was a complete, blind-sided to the both of us, case of unwanted pregnancy. I was a professional dancer not even making minimum wage. He was working the local deli. We were dirt poor and didn't want any children. We didn't want any children. I'll repeat it again.....we didn't want any children.

So, found out I was pregnant, and I was in no mood to get an abortion. I chose to go through with the pregnancy. Suddenly all the talk about the two of us being together forever suddenly vanished, and I was met with nothing but bitterness from my ex. He never said i should get an abortion, but he felt that the timing of the pregnancy was unfair. So, we married even when we never really wanted to for the purpose of having an intact family for the baby after he was born.

During the pregnancy - which is 9 months and a lot of attitudes can shift at that time - my ex became supportive and excited for the prospect of being a father. But he was reticent about supporting the child saying that he didn't think it would be "fair" if I "got" to stay at home with the baby while he was "forced" to go and work.

Nevertheless, I gave birth, and then 6 months later I was pregnant again, though I was becoming more and more familiar with the attitude of my first husband. It was this: I like having my picture taken with the baby, but the minute that baby needs to eat or have his diaper changed, I'm out.

Still not the case here then. Even when it was unexpected for both of you, both of you decided to be parents, but even though he wanted the rights he did not want the duties, so there it goes the big difference.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Still not the case here then. Even when it was unexpected for both of you, both of you decided to be parents, but even though he wanted the rights he did not want the duties, so there it goes the big difference.

It was unexpected. We both didn't want children. I went through with the pregnancy. He thought the expectations were unfair.

Hmmm....this sounds very familiar to the rhetoric I hear around here lately.....

 

[NIX]

The one you specifically quoted wasnt.



I find your case very different because both wanted the children initially and furthermore I understand you were married when you had them?

I would say your ex definitely has to pay, but there is no reason to use the same legalities for this case than for the other one when different clauses and cases can be postulated in the law.

So I am just not arguing kids happening within a marriage that were wanted to which one of the parents doesn't want anything to do with after the divorce.

There is no reason to assume that a married partner wanted the children initially. Marriage is not an agreement to have children. Marriage is an agreement to build a life together as a couple. Each couple makes their own plans together- whatever they might be- including, or not including children. When it turns out that joint plans were not as foolproof as they were first assumed to be, this can easily be the beginning of one or both spouses coming so deeply into a scenario of irreconcilable differences (and resentment) that divorce becomes the only natural thing to follow -either right away, or sometime later as things spiral towards their inevitable low.

The marriage situation in question here is really no different from the one put forth in the OP.

 

[Alex_G]

It isn't actually clear to me why you won't address the question of false and misleading statements made by the man in an effort to get laid. Are they any different from false statements made by a woman?

Having a contract in writing does have superior standing for all kinds of reasons. In particular, a contract reviewed by a lawyer is more likely to comply with any relevant statutes. He could, for example, advise the man that he has no legal right to compel the woman to make specific personal choices about her own health in order to make his life less complicated, and ensure that a child support clause is included in the contract.

Well, you assume him to be misleading up to engaging in sex. What if he wasn’t? Very possible. But even if he was embellishing the truth slightly, compliments aren’t promises, and any promises he did make need to demonstrate that she justifiably relied on those promises, rather than just simply accepting them or wishing them to be kept/come true. That’s not really a tangible reliance.
If he promised to take her on a holiday for example, what measurable stake did she have in that promise that she could claim to have lost through its breaking? In contrast as a different example if he promised her a job, then she quit hers, and then he said no, that demonstrates justifiable reliance on a promise. So she's got legit grievance there re loss of job as the consequence.


Also given the circumstances of such cliché promises, out drinking, in the whole context of the situation, its not really that believable anyway? I mean when people say 'I’ll give you the sun and the moon if you marry me' it isn’t a real promise of delivering such, just a way of expressing feeling. So my point is i used the promissory estoppel of contract law because i thought my example was quite good at showing justifiable reliance on a promise. The promise also being directly related to the issue of grievence, namely the keeping of a pregnancy that he's obliged to support.

 

[Me Myself]

It was unexpected. We both didn't want children.

Initially, then you did.

He thought the expectations were unfair

He wanted to be the father but wasnt taking up the duties, this is a different scenario.

 

[Alex_G]

And if you thought my words were harsh, I asked my husband what he thought of Bill's scenario, and his opinion of Bill was MUCH more colorful than my own. I thought Bill's scenario was absurd. He thinks of Bill as not much more than an immature, whining, disgusting excuse of a human being.

Although the way he put it was in words that can't be repeated here.

Sorry I’m a bit delayed here. But wow, i mean are we sure we're reading the same words here? Going back over the OP, the hypothetical simple delineates circumstances. It doesn’t portray Bill as whining, complaining or refusing anything. As the hypothetical stood, he was actually paying the child support. I just followed it with a simple question regarding fairness, that still has a pretty substantial response in the poll thinking it to be unfair.
'An immature, whining, disgusting excuse of a human being' seems like a pretty big over-reaction. Perhaps you delivered the case to him in somewhat of a biased manner eh?

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Initially, then you did.

That desire to have children didn't happen overnight. It took time....months, even.

He wanted to be the father but wasnt taking up the duties, this is a different scenario.

Except anyone with half a brain can note the duties come with being a parent whether one likes it or not.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Sorry I’m a bit delayed here. But wow, i mean are we sure we're reading the same words here? Going back over the OP, the hypothetical simple delineates circumstances. It doesn’t portray Bill as whining, complaining or refusing anything. As the hypothetical stood, he was actually paying the child support. I just followed it with a simple question regarding fairness, that still has a pretty substantial response in the poll thinking it to be unfair.
'An immature, whining, disgusting excuse of a human being' seems like a pretty big over-reaction. Perhaps you delivered the case to him in somewhat of a biased manner eh?

No. I read to him the OP as stated.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

No. I read to him the OP as stated.

Note also the reactions of many of the fathers in this thread, too. They're pretty hard core about manning up to the responsibilities of fatherhood and to quit whining.

My husband is not alone, methinks.

 

[Me Myself]

That desire to have children didn't happen overnight. It took time....months, even.

Sure, but it happened.

Except anyone with half a brain can note the duties come with being a parent whether one likes it or not.

I agree. I am simply saying that being a parent is not simply a biological thing. If he didn't want to be a parent it would be a different scenario.

He did want to be a parent, what he didn't want was the responsibilities of it. So your case is 100% different to this one we are arguing.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Sure, but it happened.



I agree. I am simply saying that being a parent is not simply a biological thing. If he didn't want to be a parent it would be a different scenario.

He did want to be a parent, what he didn't want was the responsibilities of it. So your case is 100% different to this one we are arguing.

I said he liked the "idea" of what it means to be a dad, but to him it amounted to wanting the baby on his lap as I took a picture of him holding his child. That's what he wanted.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't make him wanting to be a parent. He wanted the attention.

 

[NIX]

Sure, but it happened.



I agree. I am simply saying that being a parent is not simply a biological thing. If he didn't want to be a parent it would be a different scenario.

He did want to be a parent, what he didn't want was the responsibilities of it. So your case is 100% different to this one we are arguing.

Is it presumptuous of me to say that not wanting to ACTUALLY BE a parent (ie- be responsible for parenting), means that the person actually does not want to be a parent?
(it's inherently self explanatory)

 

[Willamena]

I see where your coming from, and i can see how in other cases it could become difficult to judge, but in this example its the mutual agreement and use of contraception, plus the verbal statement of aversion, with the qualification that she 'would do anything to avoid having kids.'

This all together seems enough to support a defence that the conclusions the male arrived at were pretty reasonable.

Of course if even in such a blatant example as my one specifically constructed to demonstrate him as reasonable, his belief and reliance on this is still 'not good enough' yet his participation in said interaction is however unquestionably clear enough to constitute valid consent to be on board with parenthood, enough so to justify it be enforced, strikes me as quite an unfortunate state of affairs. To not see some degree of unfairness in such seems hard to imagine.

The child support regulation doesn't enforce parenthood--when she gets pregnant, their legal status is "parent" until and unless they take steps to change it. All it enforces is that both parents will care for the child until and unless they take steps to change it.

The only unfairness is in not recognizing responsibility to your future DNA.

 

[Me Myself]

Is it presumptuous of me to say that not wanting to ACTUALLY BE a parent (ie- be responsible for parenting), means that the person actually does not want to be a parent?
(it's inherently self explanatory)

Parent= both rights and duties

So if he indeed felt involved in the childs life, had legal right to see him/her , etc then he has rights as a father. Now in this circumstance he doesnt want the duties even though he does have the rights.

My argument comes from the side of a man who expects no rights of parenthood and thus no duties towards it. In otherwords he is not picking one and letting the other behind, he is truly not being a parent at all.

 

[Alex_G]

Note also the reactions of many of the fathers in this thread, too. They're pretty hard core about manning up to the responsibilities of fatherhood and to quit whining.

My husband is not alone, methinks.

No i think it is a pretty ridiculous reaction to the content of what i wrote in the opening hypothetical to be honest.
I bet loads of fathers feel strongly about supporting their kids. Thats normal. I mean i imagine in the majority of cases, many of these men do decide to 'man up' if i dare use such a sexist description. But all im stating here is the scope for injustice to occure with a blanket rule and no consideration of context and circumstance. What any one guy decides to do is his own choice, with merit and shame to various roads taken in different scenarios. Telling me they all 'should man up' doesnt really impact the central point what i had to say about poiting out the scope for injustice.

 

[Me Myself]

I said he liked the "idea" of what it means to be a dad, but to him it amounted to wanting the baby on his lap as I took a picture of him holding his child. That's what he wanted.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't make him wanting to be a parent. He wanted the attention.

If he is not a parent then he hasnt even the legal rights to visit.

The child was still born inside the marriage or wasnt it?

If you marry someone, you become the parent of any kid they have.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

No i think it is a pretty ridiculous reaction to the content of what i wrote in the opening hypothetical to be honest.
I bet loads of fathers feel strongly about supporting their kids. Thats normal. I mean i imagine in the majority of cases, many of these men do decide to 'man up' if i dare use such a sexist description. But all im stating here is the scope for injustice to occure with a blanket rule and no consideration of context and circumstance. What any one guy decides to do is his own choice, with merit and shame to various roads taken in different scenarios. Telling me they all 'should man up' doesnt really impact the central point what i had to say about poiting out the scope for injustice.

Of course you feel that way. You think Bill is a decent guy. Hypothetical or not.

No matter how well your story dresses him up, he's acting self-centered for complaining about paying child support when he'd rather be out saving the world. He'd rather not be paying child support even though he is of sound mind and body.

What does that make him? For many men who have been in situations where an unplanned pregnancy occurred, and that the pregnancy was carried out to term, they see it as an opportunity to grow and to be a good influence for another human being. For many men who have been in situations like Bill's, they may have originally thought they didn't want to be a father, but when faced with the situation that they have helped to create a life.....with a successful pregnancy and childbirth they realize the impact they have by service and support.

I think your hypothetical greatly demeans men overall, and to whitewash it by suggesting that men who face such a situation are at a great disadvantage disrespects the vast vast majority of men who take it upon themselves to honor their responsibilities as fathers.

I think this is the reason why you're finding the dads in this thread reacting more harshly than us chicks. Hypothetical Bill does not represent men in general. The dads are the ones who are taking this a bit more personally....and probably because they once were blindsided by an unexpected pregnancy but not once ever felt like it was ever "unfair."

 

[Alceste]

Because we have not established that Harry made any false or misleading statements?

I think you can already sue for emotional damages and stuff, so technically I would think women could sue a guy lying in such a way. I wouldn't even mind if the court took it seriously enough to make the man pay, I see people lying for sex as to be being pathetic, especially if they don't care to hurt the woman emotionally just to have some ephemeral pleasure.

But that is still just another scenario for another thread to be discussed.

Now, now. That's just unkind. I think most men believe it at the time. Then they change their minds. My girlfriends and I used to get a laugh out of comparing the post-coital promises we'd heard from men we'd slept with. "I'll call you tomorrow" is just the tip of the iceberg.

You may really believe yourself when under the influence of hormones, just like you may really believe what you're saying if you're under the influence of alcohol. In your desire to make a connection you may find yourself - as we all do - coming down with "ME TOO!" syndrome, where no matter what the object of your interest says on any subject, you are completely prepared to believe you feel the same way, until you wake up three months down the road and realize that's not what you think at all.

Well, you assume him to be misleading up to engaging in sex. What if he wasn’t? Very possible. But even if he was embellishing the truth slightly, compliments aren’t promises, and any promises he did make need to demonstrate that she justifiably relied on those promises, rather than just simply accepting them or wishing them to be kept/come true. That’s not really a tangible reliance.

If he promised to take her on a holiday for example, what measurable stake did she have in that promise that she could claim to have lost through its breaking? In contrast as a different example if he promised her a job, then she quit hers, and then he said no, that demonstrates justifiable reliance on a promise. So she's got legit grievance there re loss of job as the consequence.

Also given the circumstances of such cliché promises, out drinking, in the whole context of the situation, its not really that believable anyway? I mean when people say 'I’ll give you the sun and the moon if you marry me' it isn’t a real promise of delivering such, just a way of expressing feeling. So my point is i used the promissory estoppel of contract law because i thought my example was quite good at showing justifiable reliance on a promise. The promise also being directly related to the issue of grievence, namely the keeping of a pregnancy that he's obliged to support.

There you have it: it is not believable. "I will do anything to avoid having children" is not a believable promise, coming from a man or a woman, unless they've had surgery to definitively prevent the possibility of ever having children, and the scars to prove it. You would have to be a total fool to believe a promise like that.

We met. We moved in together. One month later I was pregnant. So no, this was not a case where we were married, and both of us wanted children.

This was a complete, blind-sided to the both of us, case of unwanted pregnancy. I was a professional dancer not even making minimum wage. He was working the local deli. We were dirt poor and didn't want any children. We didn't want any children. I'll repeat it again.....we didn't want any children.

So, found out I was pregnant, and I was in no mood to get an abortion. I chose to go through with the pregnancy. Suddenly all the talk about the two of us being together forever suddenly vanished, and I was met with nothing but bitterness from my ex. He never said i should get an abortion, but he felt that the timing of the pregnancy was unfair. So, we married even when we never really wanted to for the purpose of having an intact family for the baby after he was born.

During the pregnancy - which is 9 months and a lot of attitudes can shift at that time - my ex became supportive and excited for the prospect of being a father. But he was reticent about supporting the child saying that he didn't think it would be "fair" if I "got" to stay at home with the baby while he was "forced" to go and work.

Nevertheless, I gave birth, and then 6 months later I was pregnant again, though I was becoming more and more familiar with the attitude of my first husband. It was this: I like having my picture taken with the baby, but the minute that baby needs to eat or have his diaper changed, I'm out.

He liked the idea of being a dad without doing anything to support the position. That attitude continued through our eventual separation and divorce. He was a deeply troubled man who was suffering from alcoholism at a level I was not aware of when we first moved in together. Everything was always everybody else's fault, and he was very quick to find fault in me.

After we separated, he spiralled further down. He would call me several times a week, never wanting to talk to the kids, but to talk to me and threaten me with legal action.....he stated unequivocally that he wanted to hurt me and make me suffer because I was an unfit mother, that I caused him to be thrown in military prison, that I was ruining his life by demanding that he pay child support. And that he was going to ruin my life by taking the kids away from me, since as an unfit mom because I was a full-time mother and not someone who REALLY "busted her ***" by getting a job.

On and on that went for years. I naively thought he and I could work this out without taking him to court. But after a hospital stay where my health was at risk, I realized the kids deserved better, and that they were entitled to support payments and health care. I filed with the state to enforce support payments.

That was when he disappeared.

At the time, I met my current husband, who even though the kids were not his biologically, was appalled at the lack of support they were getting from their biological father. He took them in, fed them, took them to the doctor and the dentist. They began to call him "daddy". And even though he never planned on caring for children that weren't even his own biologically, he tells me that outside of the birth of his children and our wedding day, that when my kids began calling him "daddy", it was the best day of his life.

My ex hit rock bottom, cleaned up and sobered up, faced the justice system, and finally began to own up to his responsibilities. He has since remarried and had two boys with his current wife, and is paying child support every month for our kids. No complaints now.

In fact, now that he is fully aware of what it takes to raise a child, he is only worried he's not doing ENOUGH.

Fathers simply cannot and should not brush their responsibilities under the rug. If they have a family member who is a dependent, I think as an adult man he has the responsibility to care for and support them. It's what my husband and I, AND my ex, are teaching our kids.

None of us want to see what happened to the kids happen to future generations of our children's children. We may have suffered, but THEY were the ones who suffered the most.

What is this real life scenario doing in here? This thread is for silly hypothetical situations where nobody has any feelings, or changes their mind, or says something today that they realize they didn't mean tomorrow, or learns to feel any attachment to their own born children.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

If he is not a parent then he hasnt even the legal rights to visit.

The child was still born inside the marriage or wasnt it?

If you marry someone, you become the parent of any kid they have.

Wrong.

If you create a baby with someone, you become the parent. My current husband does not have any legal right to the children that I bore. I have sole custody of them, but he has chosen to provide the majority of their living expenses, their education, and their medical care.

My ex husband is legally the father of the kids, but as he does not have sole custody of them, has no right to decide where they go to school, which doctor to take them to, what medical procedures they are to have, etc. But, because of the responsibility being put squarely on my shoulders to decide what is best for them, his payments are relatively small as a result.

He does not shoulder the burden of responsibility for their well-being. I do. It's the nature of sole custody.

But just because somebody is married does not automatically give them parental rights. My ex could, if he wanted to, relinquish his parental rights and the kids can then be adopted by my current husband. But he doesn't want that. He is following the original government mandate that recognizes him as the parent along with me, and that custody arrangements that we agreed upon are being carried out with regular visitations and support payments.