If you had good reason to suspect that a child was yours, but that the mother never told you about it, and had never attempted to claim financial support from you, would you still attempt to seek paternal rights and be part of the child's life?

Blarty97 · 2016-01-02T11:55:29+00:00

I would want to offer my child, my time, love, attention and support to give them the best opportunities they could have.

I would never want them wondering why their parent did not love them, when they eventually found out the truth.

TDCRedPill · 2016-01-02T15:24:39+00:00

In the context of Men's Rights, whether we would act upon those rights are irrelevant, but we would not want that right taken away.

You can be pro-abortion even if you would never choose to abort. We can be for those rights being available even if we would not act upon them.

chmbrs · 2016-01-02T11:18:52+00:00

If the child has a good life, probably not.

tedcase · 2016-01-02T12:12:04+00:00

KrisK_lvin · 2016-01-02T12:28:42+00:00

The answer depends partly on whether you mean the mother has never attempted to claim financial support because she has independent means or whether you mean she is claiming financial support but she’s taking it from someone else other than me.

If child support is being claimed from another man, I would take that as evidence that he (if not she) has already had a DNA test to prove the child was his at which point it would be case closed - it’s not my kid.

If she’s independently wealthy and that’s why she hasn’t made a claim for financial support, that’s a bit trickier. She may not be claiming now, but she might well do in the future if her circumstances change. More importantly, at some point the child might want to track down the biological father and if that’s me then I’d rather now sooner than later.

For those reasons, I would probably try to make contact with the mother first and suggest DNA testing if she hasn’t already done this. If it turned out I was the father, then yes, I think I would be likely to try and become involved in some way in the child’s life for the sake of the child.

Mythandros · 2016-01-02T16:35:37+00:00

It depends, really. It's a hard question. I would be torn between having contact with them or not. Depends on who the mother is, and what kind of person she is, I guess. Truthfully, I don't know.

stiff_butthole · 2016-01-04T10:28:03+00:00

No.

But, I would be open to being contacted by the child as they grew older, and I wouldn't be opposed towards trying to intervene if the living environment was unsuitable (through CPS instead of directly).

I'm definitely influenced by my own family dynamics though, here; myself and my two siblings were all adopted at birth from different families, and all took different attitudes towards this fact.

They'd push much harder than me. I'd be more worried about traumitizing the kid in the process, or turning them against their parent; I wouldn't want to exercise my rights if it cost the child's stability in their life or ruined the relationship they had between caregiver and kid.

Too heavy a burden.

kragshot · 2016-01-06T09:13:29+00:00

This is no different than if you were "forced" into paternity by a woman deciding to bear a child and not telling you that you were a father for years and then suddenly and out of the blue expecting you to pay support for it after the fact and only when she couldn't afford to. You are being denied the right of informed consent regarding your status of paternity. If you sired a child, then it is your right to know about it and to decide whether to be in the child's life or not. She would be wrong for keeping that knowledge from you.

But for me; the answer to that question would be "yes." I have always wanted children and considering that both my wife and I have health issues with fertility (she had cervical cancer and I have diabetic damage to my testicles), we would be quite happy about it.

In addition, my ethical compass would drive me to do no less. But, I would not condemn a guy who would choose otherwise. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss....

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