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A spokesman for the CSA said: “All children have a right of support from both parents. If the parent with care applies for support we are legally bound to assess and collect maintenance.”
Oh yeah? Anyone know what abortion laws/abandonment by mothers laws are like in the UK? I don't. I'm just curious if this guy's statement is fact, if it's another case of the law favoring women, or what the UK's definition of "right of support from both parents" is.
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I don't know about abandonment laws in the UK, but in many states women can legally abandon their young children by simply dumping them off at a fire station or hospital. The claim is made (surprise, surprise) that this is allowed for the sake of the children, but (wonder of wonders) men are not allowed to walk away from responsibility to their children.
This is, of course, because when a man kills his children, he is a monster; when a woman kills her children, the poor darling is a victim of the patriarchy.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday November 08, @07:13PM EST (#4)
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Maybe it's just me, but I think it's sad that so many people are arguing that children DON'T have ANY right to expect their parents to provide financial support for them.
This particular news story isn't a very good example, because this guy didn't even know he had a kid. The examples of a mother abandoning her kid at a hospital, and a father just walking away from his kid, are examples of what I'm talking about.
I think it's a sad state when instead of encouraging parents to care for their kids, we're encouraging them not to.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday November 08, @08:26PM EST (#6)
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Dan, I did not say that 'most' men walk away.
I'd like to THINK that most men don't. I'd also like to THINK that most women don't. If it sounds like I have doubts, they are rooted in negative experiences with my own parents. I admit I am biased. This is a difficult subject for me.
I don't think the child support system works at all. I think it should be eliminated.
I DO have trouble with people who support baby-abandonment laws, and make the mothers sound like they are heroes for dumping their kids off at hospitals. I DO have trouble with the "Choice for Men" movement, which makes fathers sound like they are heroes when they do walk away from their kids.
Instead of encouraging men to leave when an unplanned pregnancy occurs, instead of telling them all the reasons why they shouldn't stick around, would it not be better to encourage them to be fathers to these children? Would it not be better to promote the joys instead of talking about how awful parenthood is?
Of course, at the same time, we would make sure they can be fathers to their children by striking down all those visitation access laws. Basically, there should be no limit on how often a kid can see or speak with either parent.
I think it would be better to promote people parenting their kids, instead of promoting people dumping them off at a railroad station or signing away their parental rights and forgetting the kid ever existed.
Like I said, this news story isn't a good example, because this guy had no idea he had a kid. All I can say about this is that we shouldn't keep teaching boys that sex with older women should be a normal "teenage fantasy." I'm using his words, from the article. Even Warren Farrell, supposedly a leader in the men's movement, claims that boys are not badly scarred by "relationships" like this. As long as people keep saying that, especially men who claim to be men's activists, things will never change.
I don't know what should be done in this particular case. Maybe the kid should be taken away from the mother and put into the foster care system, then adopted by someone from another country. I don't feel sorry for the mother at all. I feel incredibly sorry for the kid, which is why sending him to another country, where he can start over with a new family, might be the best solution.
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Of course it's a bad example of a child's "right to expect their parents to provide child support." That's the point.
It is a spectacularly good example of how this "right" in real life has been reduced to the formula: sperm donor = wallet, no exceptions.
If you have any ideas about how to encourage parents to care for their kids, I'm all ears. Unless, that is, you want to force parents to care for children they don't want, financially or otherwise. I can't see that being in the best interests of the child.
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You're right that parents, male and female, should be encouraged to nurture children. Laws that define fatherhood merely in terms of the results of a DNA test are totally inconsistent with the idea of a father as a person building a loving relationship with a child. This oppressivly narrow construction of fatherhood has been particularly damaging to black men.
You write:
I DO have trouble with the "Choice for Men" movement, which makes fathers sound like they are heroes when they do walk away from their kids.
If you actually listen to it, the "Choice for Men" movement doesn't sound like that at all. The basic point of the movement, as I understand it, is that fatherly love is best built on an active, free choice. In the current moral, social, and legal context, that means that men should not be legally defined to be a father merely by virtue of having sex. The example of the boy who was raped just highlights the absurdity. Particularly in the US, where a women's right to a partial birth abortion has been found in the US constitution, and where naming or not naming a father on a child's birth certificate has no legal significance.
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That is a rather interesting article.
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I find it interesting that when a boy is raped and a child is conceived, he is held financially accountable for the child's well being until the child reaches the age of majority. Yet, when a girl is raped she not only is free of financial obligation to the child, but she actually has permission(and encouragement from some) to kill it(with financial assistance in many cases) so she doesn't have to endure any additional pain. Quite a chasm of rights don't ya' think?
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 09, @01:07PM EST (#11)
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That is why I don't think this case is a very good example of what I'm talking about, namely parents dumping their kids. This guy didn't even know he had a kid. He didn't just dump it.
It gets complicated further by the fact that, in his mind, he wasn't raped. I'm going by what he said in the article. He said he didn't report the sexual encounter to the police because he said it was a "teenage fantasy."
Want to make it even more complicated? Say a boy has an encounter with an older woman, and like this guy, claims he enjoyed it. Should we put him in therapy and convince him that he didn't enjoy it, that he was raped? You can apply the same scenario to a 15-year-old girl who has consentual sex with a 35-year-old man. It's not right for adults to be having sex with teenagers, but if the teen consents, is that really rape?
Obviously a 9-year-old can't knowingly consent to sex, but when you get to talking about high schoolers, it gets complicated. Even Warren Farrell says he doesn't think teen boys who have sex with older women are necessarily damaged by the experience.
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 09, @01:25PM EST (#12)
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Legally, it doesn't make a difference, but I assure you, it does make a difference to the kid. I'm an adult, I haven't spoken to my parents in years, and I still fantasize about them changing their minds and deciding to love me, even though I know that's impossible.
Maybe kids bond more deeply with their parents than vice versa. It appears very easy for parents to walk out on their kids, and never think about them again. It is not easy for the kid to accept this rejection.
It is not good to subject a kid to a parent who hates and resents him/her. It's also not good for a kid to be rejected by their own parent.
There are no good solutions, only bad ones. The only good solutions are for individuals to make use of birth control, for women to have abortions if their partners don't want an unplanned baby, and for doctors to be more open to sterilizing people who know they don't want kids, and who ask to be sterilized. Right now, if you're 20, childless and WANT a vasectomy or tubal because you absolutely do not want kids, good luck finding a doctor willing to give you one. That is wrong. That needs to change.
Rather than encouraging people to have kids and walk out on them, it's better to encourage birth control, sterilization and abortion. All three of those things prevent an unwanted kid from being born.
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It gets complicated further by the fact that, in his mind, he wasn't raped. I'm going by what he said in the article. He said he didn't report the sexual encounter to the police because he said it was a "teenage fantasy."
Doesn't matter what his thoughts were on the subject at the time it happened. He was a minor, and if he has sex (consentually or not) with an adult, most states consider it rape. In strict legal terms right now, the boy was raped.
We also must consider the word "damaged." The 15-year-old boy may not be emotionally scarred by the rape, but he could have very well been psychologically altered. Even high school age folks are still very impressionable, and his relationship with this adult woman probably shaped his future relationships with women.
I don't pretend to know this guy's history or what affects (if any) there were, but I might wonder about how he perceives women as authority figures after that incident. Legally, he was sexually abused by an adult, and now that authority figure has returned to abuse him more.
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 09, @03:03PM EST (#14)
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I really don't know what to do about cases like this.
I don't think it's right or appropriate for adults to have sex with teenagers, but I fear forcing teens into believing they've been traumatized when they don't think they've been. If they don't feel bad, why make them feel bad? It's easy when you're talking about a 9 year old. That's obviously child molestation, but there's a big difference between 9 and 15.
When I was a teenager, I had sex with men seven or eight years older than me. Did they take advantage of me? Maybe, but I cannot in good conscience advocate their being put in jail. They didn't hold me down and rape me. I consented. I thought it was way cool to snag an older guy. I don't know about anyone else, but when I was a teenager, it was considered a badge of honor for a teen girl, or even a boy, to snag an older lover.
The best solution in this news case would have been to force this woman into an abortion, but no one knew the father was so young. It doesn't seem right that he should have to pay child support. This is not a situation of someone wilfully walking out on their kid. He didn't even know the kid existed.
The only solution I can come up with now is to immediately seize this kid, put him into the foster care system, and attempt to find a couple in another country that's willing to adopt him. People usually don't want older kids, but maybe someone will take pity on his situation, IF they can get over the circumstances surrounding his birth. Most people wouldn't want him just because of them.
No matter what happens, the kid's life is ruined. The mother should have just had an abortion. She didn't abort this kid, and now it has to spend its life suffering. Life is such a beautiful choice...NOT. There's nothing beautiful about this child's life.
There are no good solutions, only bad ones.
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Let's forget about C4M, abortion and all this other stuff for a minute, and talk about real solutions.
What does everyone think should happen in this case? I absolutely think that parents should support the children they bring into this world, but this is not a usual case. As has been said, this case involved a teenager, taken advantage of by an adult, who had no idea "his" kid even existed.
Making him pay child support doesn't seem right. Here's a thought--If we don't hold minors responsible for committing crimes, why do we hold them responsible for creating children? If a kid steals a credit card and runs it up, we don't make him pay for it. The cc company must absorb the loss. Why then do we make them pay child support?
Beyond this, what are the options?
Should the mother be put in jail? For how long?
Should she be put in a mental institution, as is often done with sex offenders?
Should she be made to pay restitution to the "father" of this child?
Should she be made to pay restitution to the child itself? I agree, this kid's life is going to be hell, and she's morally responsible for his suffering. Should she be held legally responsible?
What should be done with the kid? Should he be put up for adoption? If family members of the mother or father want to adopt him, should they be allowed to, or would that put the kid through even more pain?
I'm in the camp that says he'd be put through even more pain if he's raised by his "biological family." I think he's better off being raised by someone else, even if it's in foster care.
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a very honest post, and thank you -- there's not much honesty around these days when it comes to the subject of teenage sexuality
deny deny deny
if that doesn't work, then conceal and scapegoat and punish
the hypocrisy boggles the soul
there is only one law, and that is "do not coerce"
leave the paradoxical distinctions and moral judgements to those qualified to make them -- that would not be your mom, the district attorney, the newspaper editor, or the warden
there is your "solution," but it's price translates to an enormous loss of power for many individual and collective entities
we'd rather destroy one another than strip off the costumes of power
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The best solution in this news case would have been to force this woman into an abortion
That is utterly repugnant. A state that would force a woman to have an abortion is totally barbaric.
Want's wrong with the civilized solution of just not forcing the male sperm donor to assume that legal status of father, particularly since under the law he was raped?
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Here's what I think should happen: the child custody system should back the hell out of this and allow the father to decide FOR HIMSELF whether he wants to support this child of his, or even be a part of his or her (I don't remember if the story identified the sex of the child) life.
The father is most definitely not a responsible party in this case because he was 1) a minor, and 2) raped (in legal terms). Therefore, his level of involvement with his child and his level of support FOR his child should be determined by no one but he.
This is how I see it. And if the father of the child were me, this is exactly the choice I'd want to have.
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I agree that he should not have to pay child support, for the reasons you stated. He was a minor at the time of conception, and he should not be held responsible for the pregnancy. I actually sent this article to a few of my co-workers, and they all agree that he should definitely not be forced to pay up.
But, there are two victims here, him and the kid. Whether or not he decides to accept the kid, and from what he said, I doubt he will, what should happen to this kid?
This horrendous excuse for a mother is obviously not fit to parent a child. If she had this kid's best interests at heart, she would have kept her bleeping mouth SHUT and not brought all this dirty laundry out into the open. I usually don't advocate parents lying to children, but in this case, lying to him would have been better. I'm bordering on saying she committed child abuse by bringing out the terrible truth regarding his conception.
My heart aches for this child. I can't imagine how he must feel. Should this child be taken away from this awful woman? I shudder to think that he's still being raised by that...THING!!!!
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What should happen to the child is, indeed, a problem, and it is one to which (I am sad to say) I do not have a solution. Yes, this child is a victim here, too. The child has been reared by a liar and an abuser. He or she has also been deprived of a real relationship with the father. Perhaps the child is the greater victim.
But it should be his monster of a mother who pays. I'm not really a religious man, but it is my sincere hope that somehow, some way, some kind of karma comes into play. That the universe will serve its own justice on this woman. Stephen King likes to write about ka, and maybe that's what I'm hoping for here.
I find this story, and the one about the string of penises, particularly disturbing and depressing.
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be disturbed, but please do not be depressed – you are needed and there isn’t time
there is perfect justice in the universe, despite appearances, and every heart will be cracked open for all to see, in the fullness of days
one may find that horrifying or comforting, depending upon who one is
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by Anonymous User on Thursday November 15, @03:09PM EST (#22)
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Am I the only one here who has noted that the man involved in the case was 15 at the time, and the woman involved was 17? In most states in the US, this wouldn't be considered a statutory rape case, as the age of consent is generally 18 (not everywhere, but most everywhere). I'm guessing by the claim in the article that it was a "rape" (big big difference between statutory rape, which is often consensual sex, and what we normally term "rape") because the age of consent in the UK is 16 or 17. Add into this the complication of calling any girl of 17 a "woman" who has calculatedly "raped a boy" and the claim of rape becomes ridiculous. Depending on when their birthdates occurred, they were 1-2 grade levels apart in school -- even in the US with a reversed gender scenario cases like these are very rarely prosecuted (e.g. a senior boy dating a sophomore girl and impregnating her). Age and supposed consent or lack thereof really shouldn't be an issue here, but whether the mother involved informed the father in a timely manner, requested assistance, and what his response has been. A man crying "rape" to escape the responsibilities involved in participating in sexual intercourse is no different than a woman doing the same, and is just as reprehensible.
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Sorry, but the article says the woman was "twice his age", which would place her at around 30.
Simple mathematics.
"This is John Galt speaking." -Atlas Shrugged
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