Should men have "the right to choose"?

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The problem is some child support payments are canted so heavily towards the mother that a man can essentially be supporting both her and the child fully. In other words, he will be doing EVERYTHING he was doing when they were actually together, but with none of the benefits of actually being together.

I dont resent giving money for my child. I DO resent paying out the same amount of cash as when I was actually living with someone, only to be treated like a free babysitter at best, or a reviled drain on emotional resource and a huge mistake at worst.

Also, in a real family, the wage earner will have some discretion about what that money is spent on. In a seperated one, it becomes akin to paying taxes. IE the government can spend it on a lod of s**t you didnt want, and theres nothing you can do about it.

A similar thing happens in divorces, wherein someone can end up supporting an ex partner completely, as if they are utterly incapable of ever earning money themselves.

Notably, they also dont take into account new partners, OR ex-partners job status. its one thing to garner a third of someones wages when mother and child are poor. Its another thing completely to take it when mother and child are substantially better off than you.

Thats actually one of the reasons my ex wife never bothered about the CSA with me. shes fully aware that, being on disability benefits, theres no point tapping me for a third of my money, as that amounts to about what she spends on takeout meals in a month. It would serve no purpose, and alienate me from the children, who do rather well out of me directly buying them things. I know from experience that all this harsh financial arrangement bollocks is not always neccesary at all.

I think she meant paying for childcare as in the mom works so she leaves the baby/preschooler at a childcare center. That costs $400-500 a month in many places.

If one partner enters into a relationship with the understanding that they will be supported while they raise children, it doesn't seem wrong to me that they be granted the support for the duration of the time when the child is to be raised. I'm fairly sure I wouldn't want to have children without some sort of understanding like this, and I wouldn't want them to suffer for it if the theoretically responsible adults involved weren't able to keep together a strong relationship.

And no, I was not suggesting that it's OK for Dad to have to pay for half of a professional daycare provider- I was suggesting that if Mum is at home instead of working, and the child is recieving a higher quality upbringing for it, it's quite reasonable for Dad to have to fill in financially for some of that work Mum is now not spending her time on.

Of course, our system is sadly sexist right now in the respect that there's not much respect, legal, financial, or otherwise, for Dads who choose to stay home and raise kids.. .

On the other hand, like housework, I think childrearing tends to be done more by women for much the same reasons housework tends to be done more by women- men, more often than not, just don't care as much about it. I have nothing like scientific evidence here, just general impressions; I'm reminded of my friend who, on living with just her brothers, learned that they would eat from tupperware with spatulas before doing dishes. It's not that they wanted her to do their dishes; it just wasn't a priority for them. Great guys, all. My generalization of this to childrearing is based on people I know. . . and I'm not trying to say Dads don't love their kids, just that they seem to have less priority on the nitty-gritty of childcare in their value system for labor.

Sure, much if not all of this is probably cultural, but one must respect how things sit and approach them gently rather than just telling them to change. . .




These strike me as exceptions- granted, exceptions that should be accounted for, but exceptions none the less- rather than the usual case.

When I was much younger I did what society said to do. I supported the woman in her decision.
She didnt want her mother to know she was having sex with me.

When the subject of who gets to say what on termination everyone always assumes the father wants the right to terminate.
I want the right to get my baby back.
No one evr asked me a damn thing, except to drive and pay for the operation.

I would have kept the child myself. And if she didnt want me as a husband I would have been more than happy to at least known what it was like to have been a father in this world.

Gee, that's sad. By doing this, your ex showed she was unfit to be a mother. If she were any decent kind of person, she would have "fessed up to her mum. I think you are in a group of men that society often ignores - the ones who would have liked to have kept the baby.

I think the man should not have that right. He should have some say in an abortion though, and if the parents do turn over the child, neither parent should maintain any economic obligation to the child.

The world would be a better place if more guys were like you. I hope you will have another chance to be a father, Dave. And I'm sorry you had to lose your child to an abortion that you would have prevented if you were able to at that time. This has happened to many young men, I'm sure.

Oh my. Wrong forum.

IMO, if men don't have the right to choose they should be exhonerated of responsibility. Not that I want men in control of women's bodies, but honestly. You get knocked up, decide to keep it and enslave the person you were stupid enough to get pregnant with for 18 years?

heh.

This is incredibly sad.

It leads to some difficult questions. I know for myself, I try to make sure that some understanding of what would happen in the case of pregnancy is discussed, and that my partner and I at least have compatible ideas about it- because I think if we don't, we shouldn't be having sex, no matter how "safe".

The only easy general solution I can think of, though, to this, is the development of incredibly convenient birth control, which would have at least prevented something like this from arising in the first place. . .

Another thought on this topic;

The initially described dellema on this thread, it would seem, is a product of two conflicting attempts to solve the same problem.

The problem? That, historically, at least, it's been very common for men not to appropriately contribute to the raising of their offspring. The two offered solutions are
a) to make it so that the offspring need not be raised
or
b) to attempt to ensure that equal contributions be made by both parents in the raising of the offspring

I would be completely fine with the second solution alone, were it not for certain special circumstances specifically related to the act of carrying a child to term which make the availability of abortion essential- i.e., cases of rape or threats to the mother's health. History has shown that laws enabling abortion in only these cases don't work as they should, so limiting the right to terminate to those reasons only isn't practical. . . My ideal solution(in the theoretical world where such a thing were possible without unacceptable consequences) would be to limit abortions to those cases, require equal contributions in childrearing from both parents, and push hard for the advanced development and unlimited availability of birth control.

If you're going to have sex, and you don't want children, wrap it up!

There is no human right to risk-free sex, one assumes certain risks when one enters into the act, just as one assumes assumes certain risks and liabilities when one gets in a car to drive. Sex come with the risk of STDs, pregnancy, being lied to about fertility status or about monogamy, having your heart broken, etc.. Unless a man is drugged and his sperm collected, there is no reason he should be able to sign his rights and responsibilities away if he voluntarily entered into the act. This stands even if the woman lied to him and said she was on birth control, since one of the risks in sexual relationships is deception, and you don't need to be a genius to know this. If a man feels strongly enough about not wanting to be a father, he should abstain or get a vasectomy.

The converse is also true-- if a man could not withstand his partner having an abortion, he needs to be extremely, extremely cautious in whom he enters into the act with, and thoroughly investigate her views and feelings about abortion, and wait until the relationship is as stable as can possibly be ascertained.

I just think that men should have the choice to stop a woman from being able to abort their child.

I think what we have now is fine. Men shouldn't control women since it's not their bodies and men should support the child since it's their child. Maybe it would be better if the number of years that men must support the child can be lowered slightly.

Ditto.
If they "kept it in their pants" in the first place...they wouldn't even have a kid. Or atleast made sure they took precautions...proper precautions...not JUST condoms but made sure the woman was on contreceptives!