Newsgroups: alt.child-support

Here is the raw data used in the "Forced fatherhood" survey.
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Do you feel comfortable discussing your 'forced fatherhood'?

	Yes, most of the time. I do get a little uncomfortable when describing 
	the situation to women at times.

	If I did not before ( 3 years ago) I certainly have learned to
	become comfortable.

	Sure I feel okay with it.  Of course I want to make it clear that
	should you use anything I tell you my name will not appear with it.
	You can write about or reproduce all or any part of it but on the
	strict condition that my anonymity be maintained, there is a child
	that I care about very much, despite the circumstances that brought
	him into this world, that would be hurt were "our story" to appear
	in the wrong place.

	I would prefer not to talk on the phone since I have several 
	roommates who are unaware of the situation, and I would like to keep 
	it that way. 

	From his significant other: "Well, he doesn't like talking about it 
	to ANYONE.  Quite often, me included.  It's something BAD that 
	happened in his life, and he'd like to forget about it, just as much 
	as I would. I think he's embarrassed that he got tricked by the woman; 
	that he ruined OUR first child (it'll be my first child, but our 
	first won't be HIS first child); he doesn't want ANYONE to find out 
	about it. If you want to assume its an "embarrassment", go right ahead.
	It is.  Even if we did love the child and want to see it, we'd still 
	be embarrassed about how it came about.  We'd be embarrassed of what 
	the mother did in order to create the child.  Etc.  He's not really 
	"denying" it.  He says that I deny it.  And that I have to learn to 
	"accept" it.  But I won't. Well, my parents still don't know anything 
	about it.  Neither do his grand-parents.  It *is* hard to deal with 
	when you can't talk to anybody about it. Guess that's why I'm always 
	upset all the time."

	I don't feel comfortable discussing my forced fatherhood. I find it
	to be a devisive, complicated and almost taboo topic.

Were you and the mother married?

	Yes, for 12 years and had lived together 2-1/2 years prior to that.

	Yes. She was pregnant first.

	No.

	No

	No.
	
	No.

	No way.

Did you live together?

	Yes.

	We didn't live together until marriage.

	Yes, on and off.

	No

	Never.

Did you want to have a child?

	NO, not with this woman. Our relationship was not good and I knew it 
	would be impossible to co-parent a child together.

	No.  I was totally content being single and childless.  I had had a 
	previous 12-year marriage and remained childless by choice.

	Not at the time, and not with that woman. I have since learned to 
	love my son very much.

	No

	I told her as soon as she told me she was pregnant (when she was a 
	few (< 4) weeks pregnant) that I was not financially or mentally 
	prepared to raise children now.  I may have even said something 
	sooner, and I'm almost certain I did say something in passing to the 
	effect that I did not want children now.

	I told her I did not want to have a child. I never wanted another 
	child after my daughter, but I was forced into becoming a father 
	again. 

	Not with her I didn't.

Did she?

	Yes. She was bothered by her younger sister having 2 children and 
	her clock ticking (she was 35).

	Desperately!  Which, I now believe, was behind her "story" about not 
	being able to get pregnant in her previous marriages.  I have long 	
	since discovered a number of huge lies about her past so I can 
	easily believe she didn't tell me anything approaching the truth 
	about her ability to conceive.

	Yes, both to have a child and to force me into marrying her.

	Not sure

	She decided to have a child

	At some point she decided to have a kid. It may have been before
	conception or during her pregnancy. I do know that she decided to
	have a kid by the time the child was born.

Did you want an abortion?

	I considered it as an option that we should both include and discuss.

	It didn't come up.

	Yes, she had actually had an abortion before.

	Yes

	Yes. Initially, this was my preferred solution. After I thought about 
	it I decided I prefered adoption.

Did she?

	No. Well sort of no - she offered to have an abortion IF I would 
	sell my bicycle and cross country skis, curtail my involvement in 
	sport competition, etc. Otherwise it was out of the question.

	She certainly would NEVER have done it.  She's Asian (Vietnamese) 
	and she had the typical Asian female attitude about kids: the more 
	the better.

	No. 

	No

	She said she could not abort.

	No. She has "Christian values" and is adamantly pro-life


Did you want to put the child up for adoption?

	NO! This would never have been a consideration.

	No.

	Yes, I tried to discuss it.  Out of the question.

	Yes.

	Yes.

Did she?

	No.

	No.

	No.  She was going to raise the child.

	No.

	She interviewed a few adopting families then decided to keep the 
	child.


Did she sue you for child support?

	Yes, she and her attorney are attempting to make a wallet of me as 
	I write this - I also will be punished by being impoverished. 
	We ought to have the child 50/50 time and pay all costs when caring 
	for the child.

	Well, it was a divorce, so I guess you could say the State did that.  
	{:^)

	Yes.

	Yes

	[She] called on the AFDC to force me to support her and the child (she
	does not work) regardless of the fact that I was very much against 
	having any children right now.  

	Yes, rather trickily I might add. She invited me to discuss the matter
	with her and her attorney at his office. When I arrived, He through
	the paternity suit across his desk to me and said "Here, you're being
	sued!"

Do you know anyone else who has been forced to be a father?

	Yes. His girlfriend (who he married) had twins. He is in a miserable 
	marriage but loves his boys.

	Yes, a couple of guys from NCM (National Congress for Men), but I don't
	know how to reach them at the moment.

	Yes.

	No

	Yes. Several people. I collected the material you're reading here.

Any other thoughts?

	This entire system and set of attitudes toward men in these 
	circumstances MUST be changed. I don't know how to do it but would 
	certainly be willing to help when called.

	A large number of them, surrounding the issue of women's rights vs. 	
	men's rights in choosing to have, abort, or adopt out unexpected 
	children, but it's at least book length.

	I could go on for a long time about the injustice of family
	law, how unfair it is that after the man and woman spend one
	night togthere, and after that the man has absoulty NO say in
	what happens concernig the child.

	IMHO, the laws should also be set up to protect the father if the
	child is really unwanted and the mother has the option to do
	something about it.  The logic that I'm having a baby because
	I'm pregent escapes me.

	I agree with you entirely that this is like the abortion issue for
	women. I can't believe the power someone else can have over my life
	based on a short affair. I feel sorry for the kid...

	I am fairly young (i.e. 20) and she was the first person I had sex
	with.  She on the other hand was very experienced, and had taken
	college level human sexuality classes.  So I trusted her judgement on
	the issue of what was safe and what wasn't.  She told me that the
	rhythm method was reliable and even when I questioned whether it was
	really safe, she said it was.  Now that I have taken a class similar
	to the one she took, I realize how full of BS she really was.  Plus,
	jI have since found out that she is something of a compulsive liar, so
	right now I trust nothing she says.

	So that leaves me where I am now.  As soon as I am served papers in
	this county that I am being sued, I will file a response contesting
	paternity.  There is enough doubt in my mind about her to question
	whether the child is even mine.  

	It seems from my readings of ... there is a good deal of this sort 
	of injustice going around these days.  I'm Pro-Choice in a big way, 
	but I have always held that in the case where the woman wants the 	
	child and the man doesn't, she should be able to have it, but that 
	the man should be exempt from supporting it.  Several of my feminist 
	friends agree with this reasoning once I point out the ramifications 
	to mens rights this decision has.  I wish the court system understood 
	as well.

	Her Lawyer is an abusive asshole. His "legal" strategy is to convince 
	the presiding judge that I am a low life that should be forced to 
	quit school and find a job, so she can get 25% of a low wage. I will 
	always be stuck with this unfair situation.

	When I graduate I have to go back to court where they will try to 	
	attach 25% of my wages. This will not leave my enough for me and my
	daughter to live on. In Massachusettes, child support guidelines will
	consider past child support orders being paid by NCPs, but these
	guidelines don't consider cases, like mine, where NCPs have children
	living with them. Although she recieves a 15k/yr deduction, in the
	calculations for  child support, for the expense of having child
	live with her

	The issue of the unfairness of not having the second choice, I
	made a mistake by not using birth control initially, that she had is not
	even considered in court.

	So, I guess I'll just have to pay and try to live with all the
	feelings associated with being fucked by this women.