There are very many articles published on the web about paternity. Many of these have a naive theme: "stop worrying about biological paternity - what matters is raising children".

ignatiusloyola · 2012-06-06T18:19:06+00:00

If that is the case, perhaps all children should be put up for adoption by default, and then parents get assigned a random child?

earl_sleek · 2012-06-06T20:03:08+00:00

Men becoming wise to paternity fraud lessens female privilege. Female supremacists cannot abide by that. Thus, we are being shamed into accepting paternity fraud as normal.

mikesteane · 2012-06-07T06:01:58+00:00

Yes, that's why women don't really care if they go home from the maternity ward with the wrong baby.

Whisper · 2012-06-07T01:44:18+00:00

If biological paternity doesn't matter at all, then no more child support. You girls cool with that?

Ma99ie · 2012-06-06T19:20:54+00:00

Back in 2009, I had the following e-mail exchange with one of these authors, Leslie Cannold:

My email:

Dear Ms. Cannold:

I just read your paper, "Who's the father? Rethinking the 'moral' crime of 'paternity fraud'. The heart of the argument you present is distilled by the following quote:

"...At the heart of cuckold paternity fraud discourse is the claim that real fatherhood is biological fatherhood. However, neither this assertion nor assertions about the threat to children's health posed by non-disclosure of paternal genetics stand up well to scrutiny..."

I find it rather absurd that you argue that real fatherhood is not biologically based, when you use the pejorative term "cuckold" to describe men who's wives have been unfaithful. If such men are subject to derision, as must be true since you use the word "cuckold" to describe them, then how can one seriously derive from your article that a biological connection to children is either unimportant, or minimally so? Attendant with your decision to use the word cuckold was surely your understanding of the baggage associated with the term.

Cordially, Maggie

Her reply

Leslie Cannold via messagingengine.com 8/30/09

to me

Hi Maggie,

sorry for the delayed reply. Unfortunately, when people are not in my contact book, they often end up in junk mail.

The definition of cuckhold is actually "the husband of an adulteress, often regarded as an object of derision.". It has nothing to do with a child being born that is/is not related to the man.

I use the term because it seems to me - as I argue at length in my papers on this - that the infidelity issue is at the heart of the anger and betrayal men feel about having discovered that they are parenting the "wrong" child. I understand this as a source of upset, and when a child is conceived, it also leads to men losing the right to consent to parenting and loving a child who is not genetically connected to them. My arguments are not about denying the legitimacy of men's feelings about adultry, or of excusing women who cheat (not the sole cause of misattributed paternity, but one of them). My point is to say that these are the things that are really wrong about "cuckold" fraud and to argue that the man's feelings and his denied right to consent does not justify him "taking it out" on the child by disowning them and or trying to seek refunds for funds spent on their care. I think this is cruel, and punishes the wrong person. Men voluntarily parent children who are not biologically theirs all the time, through adoption and IVF where donor sperm is used. Most would prefer to have a child genetically related to them, but they rightly see this child as theirs because they love and parent it.

When I cite this example, people say "well, yes, they chose to do that." I agree, this is the point. That the problem when extra marital encounters of the which the man is ignorant results in a child is that the man ends up parenting a child he did not chose to parent, because he wrongly believed the child was genetically his. He didn't give informed consent to parenthood.

The problem is not that, inherently, the man who parents is not "really" the child's father or the child has been wronged by being parented by an unrelated man. You're right, I don't believe that being there at the time of conception makes a father. I think being there for the 20 odd years it takes to raise a child - parenting - is what makes a man a father. Interestingly, most adopted children agree. They do not call their biological father Dad, but the man who loved and raised them.

Hope this help. thanks for wring. ,

best wishes,

2012-06-06T22:09:38+00:00

Which is some of the legal basis of "best interests of the child." Fucking jurisprudence decides to make you pay anyways, who cares if you were deceived and defrauded?

iongantas · 2012-06-06T20:02:46+00:00

No, what matters is raising my children.

ZimbaZumba · 2012-06-06T19:02:54+00:00

They started peddling this crap some years ago, it seems to be going out of fashion as men aren't buying the idea. It was basically an attempt at social engineering.

rightsbot · 2012-06-06T18:12:17+00:00

Post text automatically copied here. (Why?) (Report a problem.)

A_Nihilist · 2012-06-07T01:40:39+00:00

Women already know if they're the mother of their children. Thus, they're incapable of understanding this male issue and need to check their privilege.

2012-06-06T23:34:14+00:00

This attitude emphasizes the distinct, emotional disconnect that women have from men on this issue. If you are arguing this line of logic to pacify men upset about paternity fraud, you are essentially saying that only Mothers matter and fathers are just a tool used by the mother and do not have feelings. It's pathetic, and almost sociopathic.

sixofthebest · 2012-06-06T18:18:04+00:00

Excerpts:

"DNA Paternity Testing: Public Perceptions And The Influence Of Gender" by Lyn Turney, Michael Gilding, Christine Critchley, Penelope Shields, Lisa Bakacs, Kerrie-Anne Butler.

This paper appears to try to polarise something that shouldn't be polarised. It makes it appear that DNA testing is a plot against women! A reminder. The first real use of DNA testing was for a "fatherless maternity test", that enabled a child to enter the UK to join his mother. The second real use was to identify and convict a man who had murdered two school girls. And the fact that it sometimes reveals that a mother has brought someone else's child into a relationship is hardly the fault of paternity testing!

2012-06-06T19:41:50+00:00

Extra up votes cause of cake day

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