Paying maintenance

[throwaway005]

Just putting it on here to see others thoughts

chatting with some friends earlier about child support and a father being involved with the kids. I kind of think I know how this will go but here goes

So I agree with abortion, many women get pregnant and keeping the baby for a variety of reasons doesn’t suit her. Contraception fails, rape, financial the list is endless and a woman should decide what is right for her and her body. Which is her right but what about the father’s right to choose whether to be a parent or not? I’m not talking about men that have planned pregnancies with a partner or have agreed to be a dad due to an unplanned pregnancy. I’m talking about the men who say right from the start they don’t want to be a dad or be involved in anyway. On the other hand a man can’t force a woman to carry the baby the take full responsibility when the child is born and the mother to pay support.

as it is right now whether they want to be involved or not and if they say straight off that they don’t want to be a dad should why should they have to pay child support? A woman has the choice to keep or end the pregnancy but a man is forced to go along with the woman’s wishes.

for the record I’m a female and I had an unplanned pregnancy (2 types of contraception failed) I spoke to the father and said I was happy to go it alone and didn’t want or need anything from him. I was late 30s and child free.

im not sure how it could be policed or what the options would be but something like the man legally signing away parental rights from the start of the pregnancy and the mother signing to agree she won’t chase it etc

so my question is AIBU to think that if a mother chooses to go ahead with a pregnancy and the father says right from the off that he doesn’t want to be involved should he then be free to walk away with consequences?

Well no, he could avoid it by not having sex.

I’m not sure it’s much different than you having a child he didn’t want either. Sure, he doesn’t have to financially support it in your case, but what if he didn’t want a child born regardless, to have his DNA walking about in the world?

But let's be honest. With most accidental pregnancies, the man hasn't worn a condom.

Exactly @TeaForTheTillermanSteakForTheSun absolutely no consideration of the child in all this. That’s why I pointed out Op had made the decision for her AND her child not to pursue child support.

The fact is this will also affect the children as they are missing out financially.

Even if Op claims she doesn’t need it, if she was getting even £200 a month and put that in a savings account for 18 years he could have a nice lump sum when he’s an adult to help with a large house deposit or travelling or buying a new car etc

i guess I am lucky that my career etc allowed me to have the choice to continue the pregnancy with or without his support

we actually decided to try and co parent and he wanted to be involved and has been involved since the moment I told him. It actually brought us closer together and we gave the relationship another chance

we still live separately but we are both parents to the baby and so far the relationship is working and going at a pace we are happy with

From reading your posts I thought the father washed his hands and abandoned your child. I’m glad that isn’t the case - wonderful.

So now we have established that the father of your child didn’t walk away and so presumably you don’t have the experience of being a single parent with no support (ie. with no co-parent) but yet you’re pushing for other men to be allowed to put women and children in that situation?

I will admit there are lots of scenarios I haven’t thought about

I guess I was lucky that I could make the decision easily enough not to have the fathers involvement financially or otherwise

I do agree that kids should have both parents active in their lives and I also agree that any money from the father could go to savings etc

I guess the way I seen it when it happened to me was that I wanted to be a mum and thought this could be my only chance. I was happy to take sole responsibility and would have let him walk away. It was something we had discussed and he already had 3 grown up kids and didn’t want more. He was on a waiting list for a vasectomy. I thought I was too old to have kids (ideally I wanted the long term relationship and marriage first) and had agreed that kids weren’t in my future.

It’s an unpopular opinion but I agree with you, if I had a child with someone that didn’t want to be involved from the beginning and made that clear I wouldn’t claim maintenance.

I’m not pushing for it but I just wondered what others opinions on it were

I agree that fathers should be held responsible for kids that they have agreed they want and then walk away when it suits (mums too)

I guess it’s not just as simple as I thought and I hadn’t really given it any thought before today

Thanks I’m glad someone understands where I’m coming from

It really doesn’t take a lot of thought to realise that your own situation does not apply to a lot of other people’s situations. Especially when your child is still a baby and the guy decided he wanted to be involved anyway. You haven’t actually had to face the situation of considering an abortion purely for financial reasons, imagine if you desperately wanted your baby but couldn’t afford it, even though the dad could. You also haven’t had to raise your baby alone. Yes, you are lucky.

Ok well many of us have explained our opinions why it’s unworkable, impractical as well as unfair.

And I say this as someone who thinks both men and women, really need to tighten up on contraception so they don’t have as many accidental pregnancies with people they barely know in the first place.

Yeah condoms aren’t foolproof blah blah but in most cases of unwanted or surprise pregnancies they’ve not been used / used correctly.

But yeah you’ve not had to struggle to bring up a child alone, so you should have some consideration for the many women who do before thinking up ways to let men off the hook when so many abandon their kids anyway!

Why should the man be able to agree or disagree before being held responsible? The woman doesn’t get that choice! And yes there is abortion but that isn’t flipping a switch, it’s choosing to undergo often intrusive medical treatment to end the life of a potential baby, which not everyone finds easy. Bizarre that you think men should get more options than women.

Jesus OP, not only are you talking from the extreme privilege of being able to afford to raise a child by yourself (in a world where few others can afford kids without two salaries), you also have the hands-on help of the other parent, so you’ve never had to parent solo or in poverty 🙄

You’re offering a very “let them eat cake” “solution” to the single parent in poverty problem.

I don’t think men should have more options than women I think they should have similar options

yes an abortion is a medical procedure and no I don’t think it should be used as contraception but a woman still has the choice of what to do.

a man doesn’t have the option of that choice he shouldn’t and can’t make the choice for the woman to abort or not. If he wants to be a dad and she refuses the choice hers. If he doesn’t want to be a dad then again the choice is hers. So either way the woman holds all the cards and makes all the decisions.

i just think there should be something available for men to opt out of the pregnancy, the babies life and any support that child or woman may need right at the start of the pregnancy. In the same way a woman can choose to abort or keep the baby. He then can’t go back on his decision later and mum can’t then chase him for support.

I totally agree that once the pregnancy has gone beyond a certain point then the father should be help responsible. A bit like the point where abortion isn’t an option. These men that come and go or walk away etc would still be held responsible.

There’s not a sexually active man out there who doesn’t know that once he puts his penis into a woman, a pregnancy may ensue, and that he doesn’t have any rights to decide about that pregnancy.

He can reduce the risk of pregnancy considerably by using a condom or remove it by not having PIV. But he enters into the risk willingly and knowingly if he does have sex.

You do think they should have more choice because that same choice isn’t available to the woman. It’s not like women choose to have a uterus, it’s not our fault that we are the ones who fall pregnant. Your view is ignorant and small minded and ignores all the complexities the women and child would face, in favour of making a man’s world that bit easier for them.

I would feel differently if abortion was an easy option, where women are not judged and where they do not suffer psychological consequences (some not all) and every man out there used a condom each time he had sex and was also very discerning about who he had sex with. Also the government or other citizens (you perhaps OP) were willing to pay to make sure that no child lives in poverty due to the actions of one of its parents and that the parent doing the parenting got support in the form of respite.

Until that happens men need to accept the consequences of their actions.

It's about the child's rights, not the dad's. The child, once born, is better off with a (usually fairly minor) financial contribution from the father, even if they aren't bothering to actually parent.

You play, you pay. It's that simple.

OP, in your world, the mother and especially the child would be the one to pay by not having any paternal involvement, no financial support, and possibly bring put into the foster care system if something happens to the mom. You advocate a system of zero responsibility for a man who has sex, then says he doesn't want a baby. 🐂💩

He can keep it in his pants or have a vasectomy if he's determined not to have children to support.

Nope. The child is entitled to support from both parents. It really is that simple.

There's only one foolproof form of contraception. Not having sex.

Its the risk every man and woman takes when they choose to have sex... pregnancy.

The man's choice ends at this point.

A woman has a few weeks longer to choose a termination, if that's an option for her.

Ps. Vasectomy is nowhere near 100% effective

This.

A woman I knew made very little demands of her child’s father and the useless man hadn’t seen his kid ever and or paid a penny in support. His contribution was an annual phone call. No joke.

The woman became unexpectedly ill and died last year. That child who was now 12 had no one, as her mums family are all abroad and she had never met her dad.

Thankfully the woman’s siblings agreed to take on their niece. But she could have very easily ended up in care if that was another family.

Let’s advocate for more parents to each take responsibility for the lives they create and not try and lower the bar even further than it is for men.

I whole heartedly agree with you,

if a man states from the off that he doesn’t want to be a dad and an a pregnancy occurs and the mother should choose to keep it the man should then get to walk away with no financial or physical ties.

it is down to a woman to decide if she wants to have said baby as her life is the one that changes the most and physically mentally etc etc. o fully agree that this should be a thing. That their should be a thing in place where they cannot be held responsible full stop no child maintenance service nothing.

Women carry babies. Men don’t, so there there are no similar options.

No contraceptive is foolproof. The only way to avoid pregnancy is abstaining. That’s the only option for men who absolutely don’t want a child ( women too ). Other choices have consequences.