Conference quark::mennotes-v1

A related topic was brought up in PARENTING a few weeks ago.

In my view, if a man has accepted a child as his, especially for many
years, I'd think it would be awful for him to suddenly declare "That's
not my child!", especially if the sole intent is to avoid financial
responsibility.

Now whether a court should be able to prevent him from having the test
done is another matter.  I imagine the court is really saying he can't
force his child to submit to the test, and I agree with this.

But I don't see a problem in general with paternity tests in cases where
the paternity is disputed from the start.

		Steve

    The rightious anger in the basenote seems to me out of line. The case
    described sounded sad for everyone, but the facts were scarcely so one
    sided. The man made no suggestion of non-paternity until 13 years after
    the birth, 11 years after the divorce, 6 years after he was told he
    was "subfertile" (not "incapable of fathering a child"), and 3 years
    after he had stopped making court ordered support payments.
    
    The basenote seems not only selective but inaccurate. Nothing
    resembling the "quote" in the 3rd paragraph appeared in the Globe story
    I read. And it is incorrect that he has "paid up to $100,000 in support
    of" the child. Rather the story said he recently complied with a court
    order to pay $98,000 in arrears, costs, and interest for non-support
    since 1980. It doesn't mention his total support payments or total
    costs, but surely they are well above $100,000, given support from
    1973-1980.
    
    			- Bruce

 Since it has become the law of the land that fathers are required to support
their children until the age of majority, it is perfectly reasonable that
determination of paternity must be performed before forcing the father to 
support the child. Considering the cost of raising children, I find it 
unreasonable to demand that a man pay for a child that is not his simply because
he had sex with the child's mother. 

 In any case where the paternity of the child comes into dispute, the paternity
should be verified. 

 Why should one man pay for another man's child?

 The Doctah

Re: .3

I take it, Mark, that you don't believe in adoption?

			Steve

    RE: .3 (The Doctah) Thank You!  I couldn't have put it better myself:
    
    	"Why should one man pay for another man's child?"
    
    RE: .2  There was no intent to mislead or misrepresent the situation
    	    on my part, I simply did not have the paper in front of me and
            so relied on memory.
    
    RE: .1  What difference does it make WHEN the paternity is called into
            question?  In the case at issue, the finding of "subfertility"
    	    after failure to conceive by his second wife prompted a very
            reasonable doubt as to the paternity of the first child.
    
    	/Rick

>I take it, Mark, that you don't believe in adoption?

 Please send a map. I don't know how you got here from there. :-)

 Seriously, what would give you that impression?

 The Doctah

ps- I have two teenage stepchildren. Bio-dad contributes a pittance, believe
me.

Mark, you said "Why should one man pay for another man's child?"  Do you
pay anything for your stepchildren's care?  If so, your statements would
seem inconsistent.

What I was trying to bring out, as in my comments in reply 1, is that the
situation makes a big difference.  I have not read about the case described
in the base note, but I gather that the child was born while the man was
married to the mother, that he accepted the child as his own for thirteen
years.  Suddenly, he wants to say "hey, that's not my kid, I'm going to
pretend that thirteen years of being a father (here I mean in the emotional
and commitment sense rather than biological) never happened?  Give me a break!

Let's say that he got the tests done and found out that the son or daughter
that he had loved (well, let's give him the benefit of the doubt, here) for
thirteen years was not biologically his.  How can he just walk away?  Or maybe
he's not deserving of the term "father"?

I presume, Mark, that you love your stepchildren as if they were your own.
Why don't you just throw up your hands and say "they're not MY kids!"? 
There's more to it than biology, right?

				Steve

    I really find it hard to imagine that any man could parent a child,
    love the child, change it's diapers, hug the kid, play games with per,
    read to him, go to school meetings with her, but above all form
    a relationship with that child, to connect with that child..
    
    and then deny that relationship because the child wasn't his
    biological issue!  This to me closes in on my personal definition
    of obscene!
    
    Should my husband bring home a child that was half his genetically
    and ask me to raise the child I'd be that childs' mother in an
    instant...and I'd keep any issues about the engendering of the child
    separate from how the child was treated.
    
    I am nearly agast that men should say - about a child that they
    had known and raised and loved - should this child not prove to
    be my genetic issue then I owe nothing in child support..
    
    gag!
    
    Bonnie

Wow, I was pretty shocked that this father wanted to suspend child support 
(ie. to me this sounds like disown) his child if it turned out that there 
wasn't a biological link.

I really see an analogy to adoption.  Usually, it's the child who has
no option in the adoption, then when he grows up and understands what
has happened, it's apparently not uncommon to have some confusion over
who his "real" parents are.  

In this case, if we assume for a moment that the man isn't the biological
father, then he is the one who didn't have any choice in the adoption
(given that he didn't know), and now it sounds like he's confused over
who is really his kid.

But in both cases, it's clear to me that your parents, in a societal
rather than biological sense, are those who nurture you through childhood
and into adulthood.  There is no question in my mind that this man is
the boy's father, regardless of the biological issues.  As for the
legal issues, it may be true that the man will be able to suspend
financial support with this tactic, but I don't like it.

Personally I don't think the thought would never cross my mind if I was 
in the same shoes.  I think the issue I would have to deal with is my 
former wife's infidelity and lack of honesty.

Kerry

    Forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but what does the fact that
    he MAY be unable to father a child today have to do with if he was in
    that same condition 20 years ago (or whatever it was). Couldn't things
    happen to a man to change his fertility, i.e. accidents, illness, etc?
    It seems that while it may be that he didn't father his child all those
    years ago, doing a test doing isn't going to prove one way or the other
    what the situation was then. Like the previous replies, I can't
    believe a father of all those years would even consider asking for a
    paternity test. It does border on obscene.
    
    Debbie
      

Y'all seem to be missing the point.  To me, this is not about the man's 
relationship to the child he has been supporting, but rather about anger 
at his ex-wife.  It does not appear that he is trying to harm the child, 
but rather strike back at his ex....

Bob

    I suffer from the handicap of having read the article. In .7 - .10
    people are filling in missing details from their imagination, and then
    waxing indignant about them. So I get to switch sides (from .2), and
    suggest the facts don't clearly prove the man is an arch-fiend.
    
    He did not raise the kid for 20 years, and then boot her out of the
    house; it wasn't clear if he had even changed a single diaper. The
    marriage had been in trouble well _before_ conception, including an
    extended separation. It appeared he may think the mother got him to
    sleep with her in order to assure child support payments, though
    knowing or suspecting she was already pregnant by another man. He
    himself remarried a few years after the birth, and had his own family
    including four adopted children. It appeared his only ongoing
    connection with the girl involved signing checks. Indeed, tests on the
    girl would not establish his earlier _fertility_, but they might
    establish that she didn't share his genes.
    
    I am not arguing he was a saint or a villian. I am only saying that the
    known facts don't seem to support either conclusion.

    Modern genetic testing can just about prove whether he is or isn't
    the child's biological father (I believe the child is a girl, no?
    Several notes referred to a boy).  The odds are less than one in a
    billion that two men could have the same gene patterns even in the
    small portion of the gene structre that can presently be mapped.
    
    --bonnie

>Y'all seem to be missing the point.  To me, this is not about the man's 
>relationship to the child he has been supporting, but rather about anger 
>at his ex-wife.  It does not appear that he is trying to harm the child, 
>but rather strike back at his ex....

...while dragging his kid through an emotional mine field to do it.

Charming.


							--Gerry

	I think a lot of people here are missing the point.

	If the man is not the child's biological father
	then he should not be required by law to pay a
	court appointed amount of child support.  He should
	not be required to do so, whether or not he has ever
	seen the child, whether or not he raised and loves
	child, if he isn't the child's biological father.

	Having the unjust legal obligation to make the
	payments overturned does not then require him to
	financially abandon the child.  He could *choose* to
	continue to support the ex-wife, or to support the
	child directly in such a way that the ex-wife cannot
	touch the money.  It doesn't require him to
	emotionally abandon the child, either.

	Dan

    I disagree completely with Daniel in .15.  If the man has previously
    accepted the child has his, and some significant time has gone by,
    I consider it absolutely ridiculous and, yes, obscene, that he should
    be allowed to back out of his obligation to support that child, no
    matter what determination of biological paternity may follow. 
    
    I do agree, however, that if a man contests paternity from the start,
    and he is shown not to be the father, then he should not be legally
    obligated to support the child.  Unless, that is, he is married to
    the mother, in which case things get a LOT more complicated and there
    are no pat answers.
    
    				Steve

    in re .15
    
    so my husband should not support 4 of our 5 children?
    
    Bonnie

    Let me see if I understand the practical application of your logic
    in .15, Daniel.
    
    Neil and I have been together for 12 years. My daughter was 4 when
    I met him.  She never knew her biological father (he decamped
    before she was born), has never known any other father than Neil. 
    He legally adopted her shortly after we were married, she calls
    him her father, and they have never treated each other in any way
    other than as father and daughter.  We also have two sons much
    younger.  
    
    We aren't planning to split and if we did we'd take joint
    responsibility, but for the sake of this argument let's suppose 
    we decided to split up tomorrow, with the conventional arrangement
    of me with the kids, Neil with the support payments.  Are you
    saying that he should be required to pay support only for the two
    children he fathered and not for the child he raised for most of
    her life?
    
    --bonnie

>    <<< Note 406.17 by WMOIS::B_REINKE "if you are a dreamer, come in.." >>>

>    so my husband should not support 4 of our 5 children?

    Does this mean that ONLY YOU had a voice in the decision to adopt? That is
what it would take to make the decision parallel.

>Mark, you said "Why should one man pay for another man's child?"  Do you
>pay anything for your stepchildren's care?  If so, your statements would
>seem inconsistent.

 The answer to that rhetorical question should come from within.

>Let's say that he got the tests done and found out that the son or daughter
>that he had loved (well, let's give him the benefit of the doubt, here) for
>thirteen years was not biologically his.  How can he just walk away?  Or maybe
>he's not deserving of the term "father"?

 You are wrestling with the moral issues at the expense of the legal ones.

>I presume, Mark, that you love your stepchildren as if they were your own.

 You presume correctly.

>Why don't you just throw up your hands and say "they're not MY kids!"? 

 Because I made a CHOICE to support them. And if I ever got divorced from my
wife, I would be under no legal obligation whasoever to continue to support 
them.

 The issue at hand is whether a man should be forced by law to support children
fathered by other men simply because the children were fraudulently represented
to be his by the child's mother. I don't believe that the force of law should
be on the side of the person doing the defrauding. If the man chooses to 
continue to support the child, that is one thing. But to force him to support
the fruits of an illicit affair which was perpetrated upon him seems to be
rather unfair.

 "Your wife slept with another guy. She got pregnant. She had a kid. You get to
pay for this cuckolding until the kid is 18." Do you see nothing wrong with this
picture?

 If the woman wants the money so bad, let her chase the child's father. He's
the one that should be paying anyway.

 I don't think I could ever stop paying child support just because I found out
the kid wasn't mine, but that is heavily dependent on MY relationship with
my wife and my kids. It is a personal decision, and relates to my morality
and value system. I do not believe that I should make the decision for anyone 
else in this regard, nor should the court.

 The Doctah

> Are you
>    saying that he should be required to pay support only for the two
>    children he fathered and not for the child he raised for most of
>    her life?
 
 No, because of "He legally adopted her shortly after we were married."

 That makes it very different.

 If one of the daughters he fathered were actually the product of an illicit
affair between you and, say, the mailman, he should have the OPTION of not
having to support the mailman's kid. (You, of course, would be able to get
support payments from the mailman.)

 The Doctah

    in re .19
    
    good point, and it was (of course) a mutual decision to adopt.
    
    B

    However, he did not know that the children weren't his until
    recently, he is therefore not LEGALLY required to pay support,
    based on the fact that he is not the biological father and has never
    adopted the girl. Those noters who are so quick to rake his finances
    over the coals should go after the people really involved in this scam
    (if the story is true), the mother and her lover who is the real
    father. If he wants to contribute, fine, but its not his responsibil-
    ity to.
    
    Eric

>> .17   so my husband should not support 4 of our 5 children?
>>    
>>       Bonnie
        
>> .18    He legally adopted her shortly after we were married, ...
    
>> .18							    Are you
>>    saying that he should be required to pay support only for the two
>>    children he fathered and not for the child he raised for most of
>>    her life?
        
	When he adopts the children he voluntarily assumes the
        legal obligation to support them.
        
        Dan

    Okay, I think I've got the point now, and I can't say the point is
    necessarily permanently wrong.
    
    But are you thinking about the child in question?  She's been
    defrauded, too -- she's grown up thinking this man is her father,
    and whatever their personal relationship, it can't help but hurt
    when he suddenly repudiates her.  What's it going to do to her
    self-esteem to have him saying, "You're not my blood kin, I don't
    want you"?  
    
    And in this society, he's going to have a hard time convincing her
    that yes, he loves her even though he doesn't want to help support
    her, that it's just the principle of the thing.  I don't think
    she'll have any trouble concluding that he thinks money is more
    important than she is.
    
    --bonnie

    RE .25
    
    My understanding of the information given here is that he hasnt had any
    (maybe minimal) contact with her from the start.  So, for her to suffer
    "emotional pain" from this is not, in my opinion, a factor.
    
    If he hasnt had any contact with the mother and child, except to send
    support, how can she possible call him "daddy"?  Maybe she calls the
    man in her mothers life "daddy" now.
    
    I feel that there is a lot of information missing here. To really assess
    the situation properly, for me that is, I would need to hear more
    information.
    
    Just my opinion.
    
    Al

    .26 > I feel that there is a lot of information missing here. To
    .26 > really assess the situation properly, for me that is, I would need to
    .26 > hear more information.
    
    Maybe that's considered an acceptable approach where you grew up, Al,
    but that doesn't make it right for the rest of the world. Just look
    through most any notesfile to see how many people have discovered that
    its both more _efficient_ and _much_ more _fun_ to start with your
    conclusions, and dervive any "facts" from them as needed :-} .
    
    		- Bruce
    

    Yes, there's a general lack of information here, and I'm not
    passing judgement on the man in question.  He has a good case on
    his side.  I'm trying to understand all the issues, including
    those affecting the children.  I find it distressing that people
    are so willing to dismiss the child's feelings in favor of legal
    fine points. 
    
    In this particular case, there may have been minimal contact, but
    that doesn't necessarily mean there were no bonds of affection. 
    Even if there weren't, though, this child has always believed this
    man to be her biological father.*  Adopted children throughout the
    country are going through counselling, expensive research, and
    painful legal battles to find out just this one little piece of
    information.  Losing that link is going to hurt.  Ask someone who
    doesn't know who her/his father is.  
    
    Now maybe she's better off in the long run knowing the truth.  I
    don't know.  But it doesn't sound to me like he's doing her any
    favors.
    
    --bonnie
    
    *|Unless the mother told the daughter something she didn't tell
    the father when he was her husband, in which case all bets are
    off...

    Bonnie, I see your point now.  thanks.
    
    Being an adopted child myself, I can see better what you mean.
    
    I indeed wanted to find my BIO parents.  Not to say, "these are my
    'real' parents", but to verify memories that I had.
    
    If it wasnt for my mother (BIO), I probably wouldnt be here right now.
    
    As for the childs side, I dont think I am dismissing her feelings in
    this.  I just think that before I could honestly make full judgement
    on the man, or the mother for that matter, I would need to nkow a lot
    more about said case.
    
    For all we know, she might not even know that he is indeed her (or not
    as the case would presume) father.  She may or may not know anything
    about him.  If she does know that he is her "father", then this makes
    it a tad on the odd side, bt if not, what right does the "father" have?
    
    Sheould he be forced to continue paying for a child that neither
    recognises him as "dad", seen him (Ie Visitations), is HIS child
    Biologically, nor knows that he is her "father" at all?
    
    Without all information (FROM BOTH SIDES) can any of us (or anyone else
    for that matter) make judgement on these folks?  I dont think so.
    
      

.28�   Losing that link is going to hurt.  Ask someone who
.28�   doesn't know who her/his father is.  


    I am 44 years old and have never known who my biological father 
    is/was.  Indeed until two years ago I didn't know who my natural
    mother was either.  (I only found out by chance when my adoptive
    father died - I don't believe that she knows that I know.)
    
    Not knowing who my bio-parents were never worried me in the least,
    in fact I was never more than moderately curious.  This is probably
    due to the fact that I had a pair of very loving adoptive parents
                                                            
    Although a number of adoptive people do wish to find their parents,
    (or themselves) that is not true of all of us.
                    
    Bob
    

 re: Bruce

 Good one. :-)

re: Bonnie

>I find it distressing that people
>    are so willing to dismiss the child's feelings in favor of legal
>    fine points. 

 "The Law" is not moral, nor should it be adhered to in lieu of a conscience.

 When I make the statement "The man should not be forced *by law* to support
children who are not his," I am NOT saying that he shouldn't. Quite honestly,
if I had been a virtual father to the child(ren), I would most likely continue
to support them even if I found out they weren't mine. This is not to say I
wouldn't try to find some way to sanction their mother, but I personally
cannot justify sanctioning the kids for something the mother did.

 There are many things that I feel compelled to do that are not codified into
law. I would probably be pretty upset if I decided not to do one of those
things on one or two occasions and got hauled off to jail as a result. The law
is not a substitute for morality. It is used to club people into conformity
with some basic tenets.

 Doing "good" is so much better when one chooses it rather than has it forced
upon them.

 The Doctah

    It seems that everybody came to understand everyone else's point.
    But I have to say that I feel very fraustrated with discutions
    like this. People mixing the Specific with the General as well
    as the arguments in between.
    
    The Specific:
    I don't have sufficient info to make an opinion. Nobody here does.
    
    The General:   (This is further divided into 4 parts)
    
    Bio-father or not:  I think that a man has the right to have this
    tested no matter what or when, if he asks for it.
    
    Father by adpotion:  This a voluntary thing, and yes once done
    you then have all the rights and responsibilities that go with it.
    
    Emotional father:   You can feel like a father to anybody. Wether
    or not you are the Bio-Adopted-Legal father or not. And what you
    do about it is a personal choise.
    
    Legal father:   You can be a father in all 3 senses above and still
    not be the Legal father.  This is the simple fact that laws of the
    country/place where you live, consider you to be the father.  And thus
    may ask/give somethings of/to you in your relationship with the child.
    
    Gil