[Lady Sidhe]

Originally posted by Clodfobble
Alright, I'm probably gonna get reamed for this, but hey, I appreciate a good reaming if you can genuinely provide a persuasive argument counter to mine...

Why does this society not place any responsibility on the choice a single woman makes to keep her baby? That is, standard scenario goes along the lines of 1.) Woman gets pregnant 2.) Woman decides not to give baby up for adoption 3.) Child support payments from father ensue for the next 18 years. Why is it a given that women may decide step #2 without any input from the father, but then he must pay for it for the next 18 years?

Obviously, a man should not be able to force a woman to give the baby up for adoption, but shouldn't his opinion be valid? I think that if a man wishes to not have the child, he should be precluded from both visitation and child support payments. Then it is up to the mother to decide whether she will CHOOSE to be a single parent, or whether she will choose to give the baby up for adoption.

The deadbeat dads of the world aren't paying their child support anyway, and the good dads would be paying because they'd want to know their kids.

There, I said it. Go on now, tell me why I'm wrong.

Well, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. I will say, though, that if the guy doesn't want to have to support a child, then he should do the same thing that I believe a woman who does not want a child should do: either keep it in your pants, or make damned sure that you use birth control.

A little responsibility isn't going to kill anyone. The reason the dads have to pay, even if they want nothing to do with the child, is because he helped to create that child; because he is not there to help raise it, there is more of a burden on the mother who wishes to keep the child (do you know how hard it is to afford daycare? You have to have daycare to get a job, but you can't get daycare till you have a job. Plus diapers, food, the list goes on.) One can't go around sowing one's wild oats without expecting to have to eventually pay for it. It's very hard for a single parent (of either sex) to raise a child by themselves.


That's my two cents.

Sidhe