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Can’t you just get a paternity test online? Otherwise that’s an insane situation, do they expect a dad to raise a kid that is not his?
by huytersd 3y ago
Can’t you just get a paternity test online? Otherwise that’s an insane situation, do they expect a dad to raise a kid that is not his?
- sneak 3y agoIt's not insane. Genetic lineage is the least important factor in whether or not a given kid is "yours".
- huytersd 3y agoIt’s by far the most important factor. Who are you to say it isn’t?
- hcrean 3y ago[flagged]
- huytersd 3y agoThe welfare of someone else’s child doesn’t register very highly on a majority of people’s radars beyond basic humanitarian considerations. How about government provided daycare and forcing the mother to work.
- sneak 3y agoPossession is nine tenths of the law. It's not someone else's child if it's in your house and you need a genetic test to deny responsibility. This idea that bloodlines are relevant is anachronistic superstition. Several of my friends are not genetically related to their children. It's simply not relevant.
- cm2012 3y agoAdopting is no big deal. Being cuckolded is generally considered one of the biggest betrayals in the human experience. It's incredibly relevant to know if your spouse is faithful to you!
- mark_up 3y agoIt might matter to you, but it has no bearing on the welfare of a child or the greater good of the community.
- huytersd 3y ago[flagged]
- Dylan16807 3y agoWe can prioritize the child without forcing someone nearby to become the parent.
- dahfizz 3y agoI assume you foster children, then?
- sneak 3y agoYou are conflating infidelity with lack of knowledge of a child's paternity. They are not remotely the same.
- huytersd 3y agoWhy are you trying to play off your limited anecdotal evidence as universal? It has been the most important thing since the dawn of human civilization and continues to be so. What if someone just dropped off a random child at your doorstep and tells you you’re responsible for its upbringing now. I can understand people that want to adopt but that’s a conscious decision they made on their part.
- komali2 3y ago> It has been the most important thing since the dawn of human civilization Technically this is appeal to tradition. Certainly it's true that our various worldly cultures are strongly influenced by this idea, but factually speaking... before paternity tests, there was literally no way to know for men if a child was their paternal child, especially in societies with very little physical attribute variance. Therefore , it's not really true that "it's the most important thing," because we've never been able to tell for certainty who a child's father is until very recently. Even with physical attributes, our knowledge of genetics is relatively recent in human history, so there's probably lots of false positives / negatives (with hair or eye color for example). > What if someone just dropped off a random child at your doorstep and tells you you’re responsible for its upbringing now. This doesn't make sense in the context, is this a red herring or a strawman or similar? I believe the discussions is around situations that would normally involve a paternity test, which to me all essentially double checking whether a woman could have been impregnated by some other person than the expectant father.
- kortilla 3y agoIt’s the same thing. If a man has sex with a woman and the government then drops off a foster child 9 months later, that’s no different than being expected to raise a child fathered by another man with the same woman.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- barrysteve 3y agoStep-fathers and step-children are well known vectors of abuse. The Cinderella Effect was verified to produce more abuse from step-relationships up to and including lethal beatings from step-fathers. Legally it might not be relevant for whatever structural reason, but the reality is that it matters a lot.
- dumpsterdiver 3y agoWhen it comes to "justifiable reasons for leaving your partner, the person you love and trust", infidelity is right up there near the top. You seem to be implying that the victim whose trust was irrevocably shattered should also be saddled with the financial burden which resulted from the act of infidelity. If that's how you truly feel then I'll just leave it at, "I disagree." There's not enough common ground to argue upon constructively otherwise.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cm2012 3y ago"Slighted" is doing a lot of work in this sentence, wow.
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoI can certainly see the other side of this argument though, it feels very unfair to saddle a third party with the responsibility to support a child they had no part in making.
- AussieWog93 3y agoDo you have kids? I remember when my wife was pregnant with our first, I kept half-joking about getting a peace of mind paternity test. After actually meeting the kid and getting to know our love her, I couldn't think of anything more devastating than finding out she's not mine. Honestly wouldn't want to know, because losing my little girl would be worse than misallocating resources or whatever the Darwinian theory would be.
- huytersd 3y agoYou may find being willfully ignorant acceptable but that’s really not the norm. I do have kids. If I knew they were not mine I would not leave them but I would have kids that were biologically mine. Either ways I want to know.
- goles 3y agoAs someone else pointed out in the thread. The question wasn't would you want to know. The question is does a father have a right to know if they want to.
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoOh sure, I totally understand that. I wouldn’t care a bit about genetics in that case. Imagine a different scenario though. Imagine you are on the point of breaking up, or even already separated, and she is suddenly pregnant.
- ryandrake 3y agoI think the importance of the "making" part greatly depends on how long it's been since the making happened. The more time that elapsed, the less important it is, and the more important the child's existing bond to their (assumed) father is. If I suddenly found out my 10 year old didn't happen to biologically come from me, it's not like I'd love her any less. What kind of monster says "Oh, so the kid's not 'biologically mine', I'm going to stop loving them!" I'd have words with mom, though, obviously...
- ecshafer 3y agoIf the state decides that it is better for a child, of no relation to you, to be taken out of foster care and you are now their legal guardian: you would be happy with this turn of events? You have a job presumably, surely that would be better than foster care or an orphanage.
- jalapenos 3y agoI think this is the most bizarre statement I've read on the internet this year. And this is the internet.
- lmm 3y ago> Can’t you just get a paternity test online? You can, but it's a crime, much like buying banned drugs etc. > do they expect a dad to raise a kid that is not his? Yes.
- seszett 3y ago> do they expect a dad to raise a kid that is not his? You just need a court order to do a paternity test, they're not banned but regulated by law.