> but I assume you're being hyperbolic.
Paying to support children you make is a moral obligation. The justice of any given court decision is going to vary. But beneath it all is a social contract that says if you made the kid, you support the kid.
Paying to support children you make is a moral obligation. The justice of any given court decision is going to vary. But beneath it all is a social contract that says if you made the kid, you support the kid.
But regardless, this is consistent and a well-understood compromise not an accidental injustice. The priority is stability in the child's life above absolute fairness for the adults. If you occupied the role of parent to a child, you may have to pay child support regardless of biological connection.
We've settled on this approach over the alternative because when unfairness occurs, it is for the adults to experience not the child.
The government could provide the child support. I would argue that forcing the victim of a paternity scam to continue paying for the child that is not theirs just continually revictimizes them.
It is likely a few percent, but having draconian collection processes and lower levels of enforcement of child support fraud are issues. There have been problems with these draconian laws being exploited where the 'Mom' takes her judgement to a new state and starts collecting all over again. While it would be fraud to sign the initial affidavit, it can be tough for the target to shake it off. I have talked to two men whom this has happened to. I am in no way saying legitimate child support claims should be upheld but automated punishment that exposes the target to arrest rather than it being at least at first a civil court process with maybe failure to appear as part doesn't seem to help anyone but a vindictive or manipulative ex.
You draw the line of responsibility at having sex. Other people might draw the line at being in a committed relationship.
Why shouldn't Bob be required to support Alice as she raises their kid? What does availability of birth control change here?
Alice could've married Bob if she wanted a longer term commitment like marriage.
See the difference there bud.
Ascending from the moral to the societal perspective every unconnected man ever would file an order of NMPB (not my problem bitch) at every unplanned pregnancy with a woman they either weren't in a committed relationship or with whom they decided they didn't want to raise a kid with either at inception or at any time before the local limit to abort expired.
One might predict an uptick of abortions. There would certainly be some additional further decreasing our birth rate which is already below replacement but the truth is there is already a strong incentive in that direction. It's already hard to be a single mother. It's already hard to make a fellow contribute. Many women already do without. I think the majority would have their baby and go their own way.
We would see a generation of children raised with even less help, in greater poverty, in greater privation. Society would bear more costs in terms of medical benefits, food stamps, housing assistance or society would bear the cost in terms of crime and generally poorer social outcomes.
I'm not "close to getting it" You are advancing the same position as 16 year old me. I just had an extra 27 years to think about it.
Morally, sex is the last decision you get in the matter for both parties, or it is for neither party. No special pleading for how being the woman is special will be convincing.
"Think of the children" is also unconvincing for this line of reasoning, since we'd just ban abortions under that thought process and render the entire argument null and void. If adults matter enough to give one choice in pregnancy outcomes, then both adults should have some agency in how the pregnancy affects their lives. And if the government or "society" has a vested interest in making sure babies are made, they should be footing the bill rather than foisting it onto an unwilling father. Just like we did to women in the past, you would be taking away agency against his own body. A percentage of all of his efforts will go to something he doesn't want, enforced ultimately by the violence of the state, since you can lose your freedom of movement partially through a revoked license (idiotic) or completely through debtors prison if you fail to pay.
Since the pregnancy doesn't directly impact his body–only state imposed policies do–people don't connect the dots on it being a similar concern of "my body, my rights" for men. Or maybe they just don't want it to think about it as an issue of agency for men, because people generally do not care about men's agency or lack thereof (and to be totally fair, I believe people generally do not actually care about the agency of women, either).
Men do not exist to carry out the will of the state or "society".
He had a right to choose. The fact that his right to choose ended at an earlier point because his body ceased involvement at an earlier point does not change that the right exists and was exercised.
To be clear, I don't hold the above position, I just mean that your argument doesn't convince me because it's the same principle applied inconsistently.
If not, and Bob is more responsible for some undefined reason, shouldn't he be the head of the household as he can be held to a higher standard than Alice? Why must Bob accept responsibility without authority?
Alice can still choose to ignore all of that, have the child, and extract child payments from Bob.
That’s not moral.
- condom breaks, she refuses to abort
- condom does its job, she uses the sample to artificially inseminate
Does Bob still have the same obligation?
If yes, that’s batshit crazy. If no, it does seem like Bob’s consent is pretty important.
You can exercise absolute control by getting snipped. If that is too extreme you can keep it in your pants or insist on multiple concurrent methods of birth control.
The number of men who wish to opt out of responsibility is legion the number of weirdos who saved their dudes sperm to "inseminate" is microscopic.
The net average good of instituting the system you imagine is so far into the red its not off the page its off the continent.
Realistically, it tends to be responsible people who would have paid child support anyway who pay it, but often end up overpaying because money is fungible and it doesn’t take 15% of a good earner’s income to support a child. The irresponsible fathers who don’t care end up not paying regardless of court orders. Obviously most Alices are not blowing the money on nothing but it’s reasonable to question whether the current system is very useful for its intended purposes compared to other systems and what the second order effects are. There are probably better ways to ensure Bob Jr. is supported. For example, maybe in custody proceedings we should more highly weight financial ability to support the child when awarding custody.
I understand why the system in the article exists - you can’t force people to pay (they can stop working or work under the table or…), so you need some sort of threat as an additional deterrent. I doubt it increases collections much, though.
> Realistically, it tends to be responsible people who would have paid child support anyway who pay it,
This is a bold assertion that seems extremely unlikely. Most workers work for a wage and cannot trivially become an under the table construction worker to spite Alice. I would guess that given the enforcement mechanism most people who are able to pay end up paying. It's also pretty trivial to imagine that without the threat of at least garnishment or seizure lots of folks wouldn't pay. If you are going to assert it you should actually prove it.
> For example, maybe in custody proceedings we should more highly weight financial ability to support the child when awarding custody.
You already need to be able to support the kid including the other sides court ordered support in order to get custody in court now. Weighing it more heavily towards wealth to avoid charging Bob seems extraordinary. Why?
> it doesn’t take 15% of a good earner’s income to support a child.
You should probably redo the math on that and start with the median individual income and tell me how it went.
> There are probably better ways to ensure Bob Jr. is supported.
Bob Jr being supported unlike the many complexities of child rearing is a function of whether or not sufficient resources are transferred from Nonscustodial parent to custodial parent. Court orders, garnishment, seizure are the only way to get from A to B.
People working a steady job are more likely to be responsible people. Irresponsible people will tend toward various side hustles, personal businesses, frequent job-hopping, day laboring, etc., because employers get tired of them not being responsible.
Obviously this is a generality and we both know plenty of exceptions.
> You already need to be able to support the kid including the other sides court ordered support in order to get custody in court now.
This varies tremendously by state and the eccentricities of whatever chancery court judge you end up in front of. If you even end up in court - sometimes it can be done administratively.
> You should probably redo the math on that and start with the median individual income and tell me how it went.
I am. This is especially true if daycare is not a factor. I know one particularly egregious case with three children by different fathers and a live-in grandmother. (With the children. Alice here is usually absent. Right now she is living in a different county.)
> Bob Jr being supported unlike the many complexities of child rearing is a function of whether or not sufficient resources are transferred from Nonscustodial parent to custodial parent. Court orders, garnishment, seizure are the only way to get from A to B.
Why do the funds need to be transferred to the custodial parent at all? Moreover, remember this system is taking place in a world where we don't actually know the real custodial percentages; Bob was maybe assigned every other weekend, but maybe in practice Alice is often busy and Bob takes care of Bob Jr. approximately 50% of the time.
If for example - Bob is ordered by the court to pay for health insurance and daycare directly, which is very common...why not say "Bob must also fund a $200/mo SNAP allowance for Bob Jr." It seems clear that if the Bobs of the world believed the money was going to Bob Jr. rather than Alice, it would increase compliance. That's the number one complaint I hear and in many or most cases it seems absolutely justified. I know many particularly egregious examples in my own life, one of them collecting sizable checks from three different fathers and they are not being spent on the kids. In general, I don't think the old narratives apply anymore. In my personal experience nearly every case has simply been Alice felt she could do better than living with Bob, and was functionally rewarded for it. One recent more extreme example: mom of 5 left her husband, who she told me is still today her very best friend, entirely because she wanted more experience and he was all she'd known - she had no issue with him at all. He attempted to fight the divorce to no avail. Usually I hear from Alice she just wasn't in love with Bob anymore. Either way, the larger point is that cash payments to custodial parties is not an effective way to make sure that cash goes towards anything for the child, although in most cases at least some of it does. But that's not much comfort for Bob watching 15% of his check vanish.
I think it is worth considering whether we should try stronger disincentives on splitting households for shallow reasons. Of course, this also comes with the risk that we endanger people experiencing domestic violence. It's a hard tightrope to walk. Sometimes when I hear a particularly bad family court story (recently heard one about kid forced to stay with drug-addicted dad) I wonder if we'd be better off without the system at all and just improve the safety net.
I am speaking as a custodial parent who is owed child support and expects to never receive it, FWIW.
This in a reasonable world would be addressed by the court. Real performance obviously varies edge cases aren't a good reason to change the overall pattern rather its an argument for reforming the process.
If you want more fairness reform how the court calculates how much it costs Bob Sr. to live. I've seen from an associate how nonsensical that can be. I admit i have no first hand experience with the system and I wouldn't be shocked to find it unfair in many instances.
In the example given, you can go back the court, usually, and have it corrected to reflect reality if you’ve carefully documented it and the judge’s whims are with you that day, but even getting the court date could be months or years out and of course most people don’t have the confidence or knowledge to do this without a lawyer, which will be at least a few grand and which they’ll see as a lot of money to spend on a gamble that could make things worse for them.
Also, your spiel about the obligation being to bob jr is 100% bullshit. The mother can choose to give the baby up for adoption and voila, she magically has no more financial responsibility. Funny that.
A court system that forces someone to financially support another single parent they wanted nothing to do with from the outset is broken. The revenue to help a single parent with raising a child (if that is our intent and it’s not some just fallacy bullshit of making the missing parent “pay”) should not vary with that parent’s income.
There needs to be consent from both sides before birth that they want responsibility for the kid. If they don’t, they lose custody rights and obligations. If neither do, baby goes up for adoption. If it’s only one, the government can provide assistance for low income single parents.
Bob needs to ensure he can't cause the woman to conceive for this to work.
It is also important to note the while child support is the named purpose of the payment, in practical terms Bob is simply paying Alice and Alice treats the money as fungible and spends the money at her discretion; Bob may be (and usually is) directed to pay certain child-expenses separately and directly, such as daycare, school supplies, and health insurance. Child support is on top of these expenses and is usually assessed as a percentage of income; 15% is a common number. Generally, this number is much higher than the actual marginal cost of having a child living with you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternity_fraud#:~:text=If%2....
Less contrived examples are apt to be on average more complicated. The uterus isn't an egg timer. Exact date of conception is liable to be fuzzy. The person on the birth cert is more apt to be the long term boyfriend or spouse than the richer fellow. The failure to communicate uncertainty a function of shame not greed. Discovery might be years later after the obligation is deeper than a signature. At that point do you have a right to reject the child you asserted was yours. I don't think so. I think if you asserted that position you own that obligation for your life. Sometimes the law affirms what we as a society hold to be general true and is optimized for the general case not edge cases.
It you are unwilling to accept that responsibility it's easy enough not to do those things.