So, every so often there's a story in the news like this:

[conuly]

This Great, Upstanding Guy has a kid. And he's somewhat involved in the kid's life - the occasional birthday party, presents at Christmas, whatever. How involved depends on the family (and I like to believe that really good fathers never fall into this stupid game), but it's not just a check every month when Mom can make him.

At some point, years after the kid's been around - generally after a divorce - he gets it into his head that it's "not really his kid" and so why should he have to pay? And maybe they do paternity tests and, lo and behold, he's right - Mom was cheating on him at the right time. Whoops. So he won't pay up! Not his kid!

Yeah? Well, fuck you, asshole.

If you're gonna decide that a kid's not yours, you have to make that choice in a reasonable time after the kid's birth - or, for more convoluted cases, after you find out about the child. Once you decide to be a father to this kid, you don't get to take backsies on that. You don't get to be a dad to a kid for seven, eight, nine years, and then up and decide that because things didn't go just your way before the kid was even born that hey, you don't have any obligations anymore, no more trips to the zoo. It doesn't work that way, you already took the responsibility of being a parent, and now? Now you're stuck with it, like it or not.

Because it's not about you and the fact that you couldn't keep your wife/girlfriend/whoever from sleeping around. And it's not about her and the fact that she couldn't be honest with you from the start, either. It's about the kid. And if your kid is stuck with your worthless ass as the only dad s/he's ever known, and you've played that role already? Be an adult, suck it up, and deal. When you signed on to be a parent, part and parcel of that was the fact that from now on, you had to be an Adult. No matter what, gotta be more grown-up than the kids. Even if they're "not really yours", your responsibility is to keep them from thinking it should ever matter.

Man, stories like that piss me the fuck off. (And the fact that this guy's kid is grown up now doesn't make much difference to me.)

Note: I'm not claiming that sleeping around on your husband and lying about the results is a good gameplan. Monogamy means just that. Can't handle it? Don't want to? Marry somebody who doesn't mind, or don't get married at all - or, alternatively, get some self-control for a change. I'm just saying that what's done is done, and it's no good punishing kids because (both!) parents have issues.

Note the second: Yeah, Don't Read The Comments.

Comments

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Legally, in New Jersey, if the child views you as the father, you are the father. (And if you're married to the child's mother, whether or not the child views you as the father, you're the father.)

That said, I did once do a divorce mediation where they warned me going in that it was likely to be messy because the father's attorney requested it because they'd just found out the six-year-old wasn't his (but the nine-year-old was). And we got into the room and the man was like, "Look, I don't know why we're here, I already told her that of course I'm going to keep treating him as my son no matter what she did to me. You didn't really think I'd want to keep coming to get David for visitation and have to tell Jason he couldn't come with us anymore, did you?!?!" I mean, the father was really insulted. (And, erm, I gather the mother had realized that the husband was a far better man than the younger child's bio-dad and was Very Sorry, but that's another story!)

[conuly]

See, now, that's how people should act. He should have felt insulted - no matter how unpleasant the divorce, there is a basic standard of human behavior that, until proven otherwise, we should assume others will live up to!

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

I should add, though, that NJ's laws can swing too far the other way--a lot of people don't get divorced until they want to remarry, so many of them will have a child with someone else years after they've stopped living with their spouse, and it's a great big hassle for a mother to get her husband's name off the birth certificate and the actual father's name on. And it's even more of a hassle if you get a situation where the mother is no longer with the child's father, either, especially if Welfare gets involved (if a child is on welfare, any non-custodial parent has to partially reimburse the state, so often they'll go after the mother's husband rather than the child's father).

[conuly]

But... that one doesn't make sense.

If Mom knows who the dad is, and Dad knows who dad is, and the husband knows who dad is, and they're willing to put down the actual father's name on the birth certificate, then that should trump "married = fatherhood"... shouldn't it?

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

No. You legally have to put the husband's name on the birth certificate unless you get a court order. Getting said order is a hassle if the real father is there and willing, but nigh unto impossible if not.

[conuly]

Yeah, that's going too far, out of the realm of sense and... uh, sense.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much.