6 ms·

#1) Don't moralize the situation. The woman may have been raped, her partner may have lied to her. She may just have wanted to get off and the condom broke. She

#1) Don't moralize the situation. The woman may have been raped, her partner may have lied to her. She may just have wanted to get off and the condom broke. She may be a prostitute, willingly or unwillingly.. Doesn't matter. The only reason any of these are an issue is the unremunerated responsibility of the woman to raise the child. #2) Yes, your prison comment overwhelmingly impacts the poor, particularly minorities. #3) The burden is on the woman, if the woman is poor she may not have the resources to force the father to pay.

d0100 9y ago
It kind of is a moral situation isn't it? Excluding rape, all the others are in the sphere of womens control. Accidents are only accidental in intent, not in results.
SpliffnCola 9y ago
My mother cheated on my father and he left her because of that. He was required (by Texas law) to pay child-support to my mother up until we were 18 (I am 29) to my mother who cheated on him; he still owes back pay on that and refuses to pay until they put a warrant out for his arrest. My mother demonized him to us by crying about not knowing why he left her; she never once mentioned until 5 months ago that she cheated on him. Dad regrets leaving us (his kids, not my mother) because it put a rift between us. We never knew the truth until recently when my mom let it slip in a conversation. At this point I feel like he has been punished enough by the state of Texas for leaving my cheating mother. Recently my eldest brother had a girl and my father has been in her life as much as he can and I'm incredibly happy for that (not jealous one bit) because at least my niece will have something my brother and I never had because he was soured by her behavior. We grew up poor because of my mother's infidelity...
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > We grew up poor because of my mother's infidelity... No, from your description you grew up poor because your father abandoned you, and his legal obligation to support you, as retaliation for your mother's infidelity.
  - SpliffnCola 9y ago
    So because my mother cheated on him it's his fault for leaving...get a grip. If my father had cheated on my mother I'm assuming it would still be his fault if she left him; that seems to be the gist of what you're getting at. Once a cheater, always a cheater. We grew up poor because my mother cheated, not because of my father leaving. And we grew up poor because my mother relied entirely upon my father for financial support and negated that benefit by cheating.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > So because my mother cheated on him it's his fault for leaving No, independently of your mother cheating on him, it's his fault for refusing to uphold his legal obligation to materially support his children. Leaving the spouse is not the issue. (Leaving the children may be an issue, but to the extent it is it is at a minimum mitigated by fulfilling the legal support obligations a parent who is not raising their children has to those children.) > If my father had cheated on my mother I'm assuming it would still be his fault if she left him Whoever's fault leaving is, it would be his fault if he chose to refuse to meet his legal obligation to support his children. > We grew up poor because my mother cheated, not because of my father leaving. From your own description, the poverty was at least in large part because your father refused to pay legally-required child support after leaving you and your mother. Assuming that there was not a custody contest that you omitted in which your mother was awarded full custody, leaving children is not necessary with leaving their mother, however justified the latter is, and in any case, neither requires being a deadbeat on child support.
  - dang 9y ago
    Please don't go after someone about the details of their family story. There's enough heartache already.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      I will respect this moderation decision, but I think, in context, it seems to indicate an approach that is ultimately detrimental to the quality of discussion on HN. If someone is using a personal story with blaming statements as a means to make commentary about a more general topic of discussion, either the appropriateness of the blaming statements given the narrative must be just as subject to challenge as it would be if the narrative were a third-party news story and the whole style of argument of using such stories in a discussion needs to be viewed as out of bounds, otherwise you've created a specially privileged argument style for which only silence or agreement is allowed.

d0100 9y ago

It kind of is a moral situation isn't it? Excluding rape, all the others are in the sphere of womens control. Accidents are only accidental in intent, not in results.

SpliffnCola 9y ago

My mother cheated on my father and he left her because of that. He was required (by Texas law) to pay child-support to my mother up until we were 18 (I am 29) to my mother who cheated on him; he still owes back pay on that and refuses to pay until they put a warrant out for his arrest. My mother demonized him to us by crying about not knowing why he left her; she never once mentioned until 5 months ago that she cheated on him. Dad regrets leaving us (his kids, not my mother) because it put a rift between us. We never knew the truth until recently when my mom let it slip in a conversation. At this point I feel like he has been punished enough by the state of Texas for leaving my cheating mother. Recently my eldest brother had a girl and my father has been in her life as much as he can and I'm incredibly happy for that (not jealous one bit) because at least my niece will have something my brother and I never had because he was soured by her behavior. We grew up poor because of my mother's infidelity...

dragonwriter 9y ago
> We grew up poor because of my mother's infidelity... No, from your description you grew up poor because your father abandoned you, and his legal obligation to support you, as retaliation for your mother's infidelity.
- SpliffnCola 9y ago
  So because my mother cheated on him it's his fault for leaving...get a grip. If my father had cheated on my mother I'm assuming it would still be his fault if she left him; that seems to be the gist of what you're getting at. Once a cheater, always a cheater. We grew up poor because my mother cheated, not because of my father leaving. And we grew up poor because my mother relied entirely upon my father for financial support and negated that benefit by cheating.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > So because my mother cheated on him it's his fault for leaving No, independently of your mother cheating on him, it's his fault for refusing to uphold his legal obligation to materially support his children. Leaving the spouse is not the issue. (Leaving the children may be an issue, but to the extent it is it is at a minimum mitigated by fulfilling the legal support obligations a parent who is not raising their children has to those children.) > If my father had cheated on my mother I'm assuming it would still be his fault if she left him Whoever's fault leaving is, it would be his fault if he chose to refuse to meet his legal obligation to support his children. > We grew up poor because my mother cheated, not because of my father leaving. From your own description, the poverty was at least in large part because your father refused to pay legally-required child support after leaving you and your mother. Assuming that there was not a custody contest that you omitted in which your mother was awarded full custody, leaving children is not necessary with leaving their mother, however justified the latter is, and in any case, neither requires being a deadbeat on child support.
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't go after someone about the details of their family story. There's enough heartache already.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    I will respect this moderation decision, but I think, in context, it seems to indicate an approach that is ultimately detrimental to the quality of discussion on HN. If someone is using a personal story with blaming statements as a means to make commentary about a more general topic of discussion, either the appropriateness of the blaming statements given the narrative must be just as subject to challenge as it would be if the narrative were a third-party news story and the whole style of argument of using such stories in a discussion needs to be viewed as out of bounds, otherwise you've created a specially privileged argument style for which only silence or agreement is allowed.