So curious your thoughts on this...

[JagFarlane]

Alright, so this isn't the first time I've heard of it happening, so I'm curious everyones thoughts on things like this, and how, perhaps, this could be done differently, if you have an idea.
The background story is something like this:
Mid-40's guy gets a phone call from a woman he used to date years ago. Turns out he has a teenage daughter from her. Also turns out she's now decided to take him to court for 16yrs of back child support. He's a decent person, a father of two whom he spoils as best he can, works two jobs to support his family. But this will basically destroy his familys finances. The judge tells him point blank to get a 3rd job. When he inquires about the 16yrs of lost time with his daughter, asking how fair that is, he's just told to get a 3rd job.
The first time I heard about something like this, was a neighbor, married with a toddler. Woman he dated before he dated his wife calls them out of the blue. He has a 6yr old son he never knew about. She successfully took him to court to order child support and 6yrs of back child support, putting a huge strain on his familys finances.
In both cases, neither man is/was allowed visitation rights to his child, because he owed back child support. Both men are good men, loving fathers to the kids they knew of, and emotionally distraught, because they just found out they had another child, and now were financially crushed under large payments, with angry wives from the financial pressure.
Whats your thoughts on this? How could we fix this system? Should the mother be punished for withholding knowledge of a mans child from him?

ETA: This all came from a long discussion I was having with someone over fathers rights, which, I hate to tell you, in a lot of places don't exist. When my parents divorced, my father was one of the first fathers to actually win custody of his kids. A couple years ago, a friend of mine found out he'd had a son, whom his gf had given up for adoption. When he consulted a lawyer, he was told point blank that it would be a long, slow, expensive process, that his name would be dragged through the mud, and he only had a very slim chance of gaining custody of his child because it would be argued that the child had already bonded to the adoptive family.

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately that is where things get alittle screwy.

I am going to use a small explanation of my own life to illustrate why and how things could get screwed up:

I am in Indiana.
In this state in order to put a father's name on a birth certificate the mother and father have to be married. A father's name cannot be listed. The mother cannot even petition the court to have the name added. This also puts the mother into a sticky situation. In this instance because she cannot put his name on the birth certificate... she has to fight to get child support help.
Unfortunately, IN is not the only state like that... there are several others that will not allow a single mother to put the father's name on the BC without some legal maneuvering.

Now in regards to the women that go after a man several years later..... I would wonder at their motivation. Why after so long... and then add to that... why make the father pay all of the back child support for a child that he clearly did not know existed. If and that is a big IF the mother can prove through documentation that the father knew about the child and simply ignored the responsibility of the child well then okay but if the father knew nothing at all then I think that special findings should be made for the father. Visitation, partial custody, and only making the support from the time that the father actually KNEW about the child.

 

[oggbashan]

In the UK we had the failed Child Support Agency (CSA) - I know that abbreviation means something else in the US.

The CSA tore up court approved maintenance agreements and replaced them with their own assessment of what the father should pay. Even if the father had been supporting his child/children he had to pay the CSA so that they could pass on the money to the mother.

But they fucked up big time. They made assessments that the father could never pay, didn't collect money they should have done, and didn't pay the mother on time even if the father had been able to pay.

The result?

More mothers on state benefits because they couldn't get the money the fathers had been paying.

Even though the CSA has been scrapped and replaced by another agency, the mistakes and fuck-ups will take years to sort out. In the meantime, mothers, fathers and kids are suffering financial hardship.

The CSA was supposed to make it easier for mothers to get money from defaulting fathers. It didn't. It made it more difficult for mothers to get money from fathers who were already paying child support.

Og

Edited for PS: The CSA would stop a mother's state benefits unless she named the father and cooperated with the agency in pursuing him for child support payments. When the mother didn't KNOW who had actually fathered the child the CSA might chase all the possible fathers.

 

[xssve]

Uh, ever heard of condoms? You play you pay, I don't see what's so hard about that.

 

[jomar]

I hope those guys got paternity tests done. I know a guy who paid child support for years before finding out the child wasn't his. The lying mother knew it wasn't his.

 

[epiphany65]

As far as I know the laws regarding this sort of issue vary from one jurisdiction to another. But when a father pays child support, along with that duty comes the right to see/visit his child. If that's what the father in this case wants he should be allowed it -- although it's been denied him for years. Also, his child has been denied knowing their father, which I think is equally sad. I don't know if this is the case anywhere, but I think there should be a statute of limitations on how long a mother has to seek child support. This is a troubling case and it seems to me there could be no "winners". A man has missed out on years watching his child grow and a child has missed out on years of knowing their father. Better late than enver, I guess, but I think maybe (not knowing all the details) the mother has a lot of explaining to do to both parties. I think this would make a great story. Not necessarily an erotic one, but very compelling and moving anyway.

 

[JagFarlane]

Uh, ever heard of condoms? You play you pay, I don't see what's so hard about that.

Condoms are only 97.9% effective. Even with taking precautions such as condoms, it is possible. Hell there are even cases where a woman and man, both of whom were snipped, conceived a child.

I hope those guys got paternity tests done. I know a guy who paid child support for years before finding out the child wasn't his. The lying mother knew it wasn't his.

Both of them did have paternity tests done, court-ordered I believe.

 

[Liar]

Uh, ever heard of condoms? You play you pay, I don't see what's so hard about that.

I don't think the issue here is about not paying. What's fucked up here is that the entireness of the payment terms is dictated by the whim of the mother.

 

[rgraham666]

If this sort of thing was common, that is occurred in more than fifty percent of the cases involved, I'd say there was a problem.

This case isn't a problem, it is a fuckup. The judge is a dolt. The woman is being greedy. The man, his current SO and his kids are victims. A sad case all around.

But to conflate this single incident that into 'Fathers have no rights anywhere in this country' is an amazing leap of imagination.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

If this sort of thing was common, that is occurred in more than fifty percent of the cases involved, I'd say there was a problem.

This case isn't a problem, it is a fuckup. The judge is a dolt. The woman is being greedy. The man, his current SO and his kids are victims. A sad case all around.

But to conflate this single incident that into 'Fathers have no rights anywhere in this country' is an amazing leap of imagination.

I'm with Rob on this one. However important judges are in our society, there are so many that the occasional great thundering idiot does slip through. This looks to be a similar case. He should take it up with the state bar as well as appealing the decision.

 

[3113]

A couple years ago, a friend of mine found out he'd had a son, whom his gf had given up for adoption. When he consulted a lawyer, he was told point blank that it would be a long, slow, expensive process, that his name would be dragged through the mud, and he only had a very slim chance of gaining custody of his child because it would be argued that the child had already bonded to the adoptive family.

The adoption case is a whole different kettle of fish. In this case, you're talking about a man that a child does not know ripping that child from the only parents he/she has ever known or loved. Yes, he has a biological tie to the child, but the adoptive parents have however-many-years of emotional ties to the child.

In this case, it is the child who is being put first. Now what the father could ask is to be part of his child's life, and that may be allowed by the courts. But to ask that he have custody of the child after it's been raised for-however-many-years by some other parents, who did so in good faith and see this child as their own...no.

Yes, the gf should have offered the child to the father if she didn't want it. She didn't, and now it really is too late for a stranger to walk in and take custody of the kid from *his* family.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

When I worked for the state I saw every kind of crap you can imagine.

In many cases the mother had no idea who the father was, and picked guys she remembered. Most of the guys failed the paternity tests.

One woman had us process a whole team of guys, and then we discovered that Grandpa was the real daddy.

Another woman, with a biracial child, identified the father, who turned out to be white. WRONG. The real father was dead.

A teen mom had us process all her brothers, cousins. uncles, and neighbors.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

3113

Nope. In most jurisdictions women can no longer fuck daddy over by concealing his identity.

We had a case here where a girl was raised in a very abusive home, then it turns out the 'parents' arent her real mom & dad. Real dad was found and took custody of the girl.

 

[sr71plt]

I do think the legal system is out of kilter on this, although my impression is that it is moving somewhat to the center. I agree that the man should keep it in his pants or fully understand and accept the possible consequences--but it usually takes two to do that particular tango, and the woman, unless she's being raped, should jolly well do all of those calculations too. At present, the legal ramifications of not doing so fall more heavily on the father, if he can be tracked down and the mother is willing to go through all of the legal red tape to do so (which means that, on the whole, it's still mostly the mothers behind the eight ball on this, because few go the legal route to pin the father down).

But when it gets to the point that the father is told to pay significant support, I do believe the father should be given that much of a share of contact and parental decision if he wants to have it.