Children, fathers, secrets and lies.
An interesting case is brewing in the UK. The mother seems determined to place this child with an adoption agency, but it begs the question why?
If the father in this case was informed and did not wish to offer the child a home then adoption seems a reasonably solution. HOWEVER, as the biological father why has he no input into the future of his child? Perhaps he might like to raise his daughter, perhaps he might provide her with a home and all the love she needs. What about the baby, does she not have the right to her kin? When she is old enough to search out her biological parents, she might well ask why they gave her up for adoption. What then? The father didn't give her up, he didn't even know he had a child.
For whatever reason this woman kept her pregnancy a secret, maybe through shame, maybe her parents are assholes, whatever. That is her right. But to make a judgement on the future of this tiny infant without even considering the father strikes me as an abuse of power.
Like I say, maybe he wouldn't be interested, but he should at least have the choice, the same as the mother does.
If the father in this case was informed and did not wish to offer the child a home then adoption seems a reasonably solution. HOWEVER, as the biological father why has he no input into the future of his child? Perhaps he might like to raise his daughter, perhaps he might provide her with a home and all the love she needs. What about the baby, does she not have the right to her kin? When she is old enough to search out her biological parents, she might well ask why they gave her up for adoption. What then? The father didn't give her up, he didn't even know he had a child.
For whatever reason this woman kept her pregnancy a secret, maybe through shame, maybe her parents are assholes, whatever. That is her right. But to make a judgement on the future of this tiny infant without even considering the father strikes me as an abuse of power.
Like I say, maybe he wouldn't be interested, but he should at least have the choice, the same as the mother does.
Labels: A broken link.
posted by fatmammycat at 9:39 a.m.
54 Comments:
Awful to think of an unwanted child floating in limbo as a result of a one night stand of unprotected sex. How irresponsible is that? On both their parts.
I suppose these things just happen Pat, always have always will. The thing is what to do about it once it has. If you're going to carry on the pregnancy then you owe it to that child to provide the best future you can for it. And that needs some tough thinking.
This is a bit of a sticky one. The girl is just starting to do well in her chosen career. She had a one night stand with a colleague who has a fiance. Nobody at her job knows about her pregnancy, and she had refused the social services permission to inform either the father or her family. However, her family know as the social services contacted them. I think in this instance, the girls wishes should be respected. There is a huge waiting list in the UK for adoption babies, so why not let the baby have a good start with somebody who desperately wants a child.
I agree with the last part but only if the father has first refusal (That is terrible terminology I know, but I can't think of a better way to describe it at this moment) Why is okay not to inform him he has a biological child? Does he not have a right to know? Why should the mother's future career be of more importance to his being a father? Perhaps he'd like to raise her? Perhaps not of course, but the moment he is not in a position to make any choice at all.
She said she didn't want to tell her parents because "she did not think [they] would provide a good home for the baby". She obviously feels the same about him. If she doesn't feel able to raise the child herself, doesn't consider either her own parents or the biological father suitable, then adoption is the most responsible choice. Like Shebah says, there are thousands of couples who could give the child a good home and all the love she needs.
If she is big enough to jump into bed she should be big enough to take a bit of responsibility, how could you favour your career over a little dinger. That will be a great confidence booster for him/her should they ever decide to trace their parents, if that is her attitude maybe the child is better off without her. The father should be told, perhaps he has more compassion or at the very least a sense of responsibility.
Nonny - there but for the grace of God.......have you ever woken up the morning after the great party next to what was "a tall dark handsome stranger" the night before? Jeez. Lives can be destroyed by drunken mistakes. What I don't understand is why she didn't have a termination. Unless she was scared to.
No I have never woken up beside a randomer (Loser I know). I can't understand why she didn't have a termination either. In saying that the last drama I had was not long ago and I would not have had an abortion but at the same time we both resolved that had things come up trumps we would have married before the the little ducky reared his little ugly head. I'm all for the little dingers.
The automatic, state sanctioned obliteration of the rights of the father is disturbing to say the least.
No doubt he was a deadbeat 'Knocked Up'esque loser but he should still be aware that his little fishies helped create a life.
"If she doesn't feel able to raise the child herself, doesn't consider either her own parents or the biological father suitable, then adoption is the most responsible choice"
I disagree with this view, it's not up to her to determine wether he is a good choice of father or not, the reality is he is the father and should at least be given the option to decide, like she had herself. It might be a case that he feels adoption is the correct course too, in which case if the child should ever seek out her biological parents they can present their case, in this situation the father is not even permitted the knowledge that such a child exists.
That's a doozy alright.
I would tend to agree with FMC - irrespective of how good a father he may be, the guy has a right to know that he has a child.
What baffles me though, is how the judicial system can speak out of both sides of its mouth (so to speak). Presumably they can, when required, force errant fathers to accept responsibility for their actions and provide adequate supportfor their child's wellbeing.
Now they want to deny the rights of this father, who may be more than willing to provide for and care for the child?
On a personal nots, the close personal friend has a son from another relationship - she was very young when she had him. His father is an out and out waster - never calls the child, lives in the UK so only sees him once every six weeks, never asks his mam if he needs money for school or clothes (then buys him clothes that are too small)... and he is always going on about how great a dad he is, how he is so hard done by and how his rights are being impinged. When the close personal friend says "fine we'll go to court to discuss it all, including the last 9 years during which you never paid a penny towards his food, clothes or shelter" he shuts up pretty sharpish.
As such, when I see the Justice for Fathers campaigns, I feel a certain amount of sympathy - but at the same time my sympathy is hardened by the knowledge that there are some wasters like said twat among their ranks. I know its wrong - that my opinion is being clouded by my experiences with the one twat - and I try, really I do.
But that is pretty outrageous.
My apologies for the mini rant.
My concern in this kind of debate is that it opens up the debate to men having a say over what happens to a woman's womb. There are plenty of MRAs in the U.S. who think that when women are pregnant that they need the father's permission to get an abortion and if he wants the baby, she has to carry it to term. Some dudes in Ohio were trying to pass that in to law.
This is different Medbh. This is not a challenge to autonomy. This child has already been born and her future is being decided without one of her parents even knowing of her existence. I cannot see how that is right.
It would be nice if the father could at least be involved in the discussion so that their views might be taken into consideration.
It is sad that the father may well be a waster and perhaps the courts know more about him than we do. More often than not it is the women left holding the baby but at least give the man an opportunity particularly when it may well be the case that he would want the child. Many a bad peson (both women and men) turned over a new leaf when the little nippers arrived.
All that aside imagine the poor little pet, it is like nobody wants her.
In principle, I agree that fathers should have the same rights as mothers. In individual cases however, there may be mitigating circumstances. We don't know what the circumstances are in this case. Maybe, as you say, the father would be willing to keep the child and would be an excellent parent, or maybe he's a half psychopath. I can't help but get the feeling that there's some really pressing reason why she doesn't want him to have anything to do with the child. I can think of at least one one-night stand I had (in my young and stupid days) with someone I would never have handed a child over to. Thankfully it's a decision I've never had to make.
Jesus Caro, I hear you. There's very few of us who've never stood fretting with our fingers crossed over the calender at some point in our lives.
I suppose my objection is to how this man's paternal right have been so easily dismissed. This little girl is his flesh and blood. If that was me and I found out I had a child somewhere I would want to know, I would want to allowed decide if I was ready to be a father or not.
Nonny, there will be plenty who want her. Of that I have no doubt.
What I can't understand is why the court ruled that her parents had to be informed? She wasn't a minor.
19 weeks and still no real family, it is really terrible how could anyone do that to her. There is more contraception out there than anything else I hope karma has mighty sharp teeth.
Nonny contraception sometimes fails, condoms break, a kidney infection can render the pill useless. We don't know what happened.
At 19 weeks they baby will be in a foster home, they have to allow time in case a parent changes their mind before they place her for adoption. No point placing her with a family until then.
That's an odd one too Caro. I wonder what the thinking was behind that? Surely once you are 18 you are entitled to privacy.
I don't think this is an issue about father's rights. Where a man has been the father to a child and built up a relationship with that child, and perhaps the mother wants to emigrate or refuses access to that child - that is wholly different. He is/has been a participating father in the real sense of the word. In this case there is no relationship, the man is an inadvertant sperm doner. It would seem fair that the mother's wishes for anonymity be respected. She could have lied about knowing who the father was. She could have left the baby in a doorway. She didn't. It would also be a shame if this case becomes a cause celebre and resulted in more girls in abandoning newborns or having dangerous late terminations, rather than have the baby and go through this kind of rigmarole with the social services and the courts. In some countries they have anonymous "drop boxes" where girls can place unwanted babies.
Good point miss cat but there is always the moring after!! Or a termination I would much rather that then a foster home where anything could happen to her. What about bonding? What about knowing how she likes her bottle or her favorite song. It is cock rot.
Caro, I am not 100% sure about the UK but in Ireland Grandparents have no natural right to their Grandchildren but like the UK our judicial system is based on common law, there has been huge call from various bodies to amend both the constitution and current legislation governing family law in the hope of giving grandparents more rights to their grandchildren. I am not sure if this has been done of late (I am open tp correction). A number of cases have been brought before the courts and grandparents have won access to their Grandchildren or indeed full custody. It has set president of sorts and inadvertently given Grandparents rights so perhaps the fear of backlash should those particular parents find out down the line.
Maybe she just doesn't believe in abortion.
Shebah I remember reading about those a few years back, specially heated drop off centres, most odd, but prevented many a baby form dying form exposure.
They've just opened one of those heated drop-off cot type things in a hospital in Milan. It's an excellent idea.
I'm with Shebah on the father's rights thing - it is different.
Nonny how can you say a termination would have been better? She's giving her child a life, the baby will be adopted as soon as the law allows and will make a family somewhere very happy, as I hope she will be herself. It took a lot of courage on that girl's part to go through a pregnancy with no support, knowing she didn't want to keep the baby. An abortion would have been easier and no-one need ever have known.
The whole thing is sad. I hope the baby never knows of it.
I agree that the father is entitled to know. There may certainly be extenuating circumstances and he may indeed be a dead-beat but there is nothign in the report to indicate that's what's going on here. This seems to be purely a matter of law.
I think fathers are more than sperm donors, potentially at any rate. An egg might be bigger than a sperm but the information leading to the future human is equally given from each. The woman carries the baby, for sure, but that's an accident of biology rather than a barrier to paternal entitlement.
It strikes me that, in this case, the woman doesn't want him to know because then people will find out about it and her secret will be out. That's no reason to deny a child its father.
I agree that if she has no interest in the child then it is by far the lesser of several evils to put the child up for adoption, rather than say, abandoning it at a bus shelter. But there is an intermediate option that, if it worked out, would benefit the child more, and that is to let its father have a chance to be heard. It may cause the mother a red face but that is hardly important under the circumstances. She must have a clever lawyer.
She may well have good reasons for wanting to deny the man access, but more than that she's denying him knowledge and that's a whole other kettle of fish.
Courage eh no I don't think so a courageous act would have been to have abortion or stand on those to feet she used to get herself into this mess and rear that little child, if she is able to condemn her own parents and the child’s father as unfit then surely she has the cop on to realize that the faith that awaits her child will be as uncertain as if she had left her by the side of the road. I know they do all their interviews and checks but that amounts to fuck all, this is proven time and time again, the child is almost five months, have you ever seen a five month old baby? As soon as it boils down to this battle of the sexes bollocks the welfare of the children seems to go out the window. What sort of person would put a little child in a home where anything could happen to her, the father should have been told. They should fine the fuckers for the hurt their irresponsible carry on creates for a child.
Did she have particularly attractive feet?
It's a difficult one, it seems that the mother must be opposed to having and abortion, but also wants to save face socially, not having anyone know etc. However, the father should defo have a chance to rear the kid. If she believes him unfit, then they can argue it in a court of law where he has a chance to state his case on front of an independent arbiter.
Shebah, even if he is an inadvertent sperm donor, the end result is still that he is the child's biological parent, and if he is able and willing to provide a home, when the mother doesn't or can't, shouldn't he be allowed the choice? Doesn't the same argument apply to the mother, isn't she an inadvertent egg donor?
Re the baby drop boxes; there is one at the fire station around the corner from our house, well marked and displayed. It's such a good idea, and simple.
Re the baby drop boxes; there is one at the fire station around the corner from our house, well marked and displayed. It's such a good idea, and simple.
What with the what now?
Twenty,
Shebah said, "In some countries they have anonymous "drop boxes" where girls can place unwanted babies."
Thats what I was referring to.
Thats right Twenty you can go off a spawn a sprog drop him in a little box, no strings attached not only will the little blighter never know of his birth parents or their medical history mammy and daddy can't skip off like they never ever existed. Ain't it just swell. Cunts.
Fathers rights or no , it's all very unclear why the local authorities decided to become as involved as they have done. It all smacks of an ahem paternalistic attitude towards the woman and the decisions she made. I hope for the baby's sake that the court proceedings do not delay the eventual adoption process.
Better they leave them there than in a door way or a dumpster. There are worse fates than abandonment.
You keep finding stories that make me want to call the main players cunts.
"Lady Justice Arden said the father's rights had not been violated because he did not have any to violate."
In California, after a rash of dead dumpster babies a few years ago, they enacted a law offering amnesty for women who chose to abandon their babies. You can drop them off at a fire-station, library, police-station or hospital within 72 hours of the birth and no questions will be asked. Noone will attempt to contact you about it ever again.
The notices are very visible but unfortunately nobody thought to publish them in Spanish. As the majority of So Cal's population is Hispanic, and the problem was largely confined to poor, illegal immigrant women with no health insurance and strict cultural mores and morals about unmarried mothers working against her (strong patriarchy, contraception is taboo, she can't get it anyway without registering at a doctor and she's scareed she'll get deported if she does), there was absolutely no change in the rate of dead babies. Studies showed the Hispanic community wasn't aware of the programme, and despite everybody and their granny being able to see we needed bilingual signs it was resisted for the longest time, in case the government could be accused of racism by some militant perpetually aggrieved nutter somewhere. Meanwhile more babies died and people gradually grew more disgusted with government.
There was an argument at one point that it was racist to declare that this was primarily a problem of Hispanics and that piece of foolishness cost several children their lives. I don't for a minute believe that Mexican women are in any way more inherantly "bad" than the rest of us, but the facts are that illegal immigrants live in a different America, traditional Hispanic culture still dominates and declares a woman a disgrace to her family if she bears a child out of wedlock, and typically, Hispanics are living on the bread line. They operate under different and more difficult circumstances than the average American, and while this is not an excuse, it is certainly not a reason to accuse someone of being a racist if they point it out adn want to do something practical about it, say like posting bilingual signs. The figures are stark - it is primarily Mexican babies who are abandoned to die in this state. Not all, by any means, but the majority. It is perversely a sort of soft inverted racism to ignore these figures in favour of a reactionary, pc, "you can't say that!" response. For these people everything is academic, to be opined over canapes and a nice Syrah - the real world doesn't exist and they don't have the imagination to get further than spurious abstract arguments about racism which cause more harm to the Hispanic community than a bilingual poster could ever do. Hell, we get bilingual yellow pages here, what's the problem? You want to deny a whole segment of the population valuable information that could save lives? That's racist.
Sorry for going on all over your comment box, fmc. Stupidity like that makes me seethe though. And rant too apparently. And get off topic.
"Better they leave them there than in a door way or a dumpster. There are worse fates than abandonment."
Like I said if you are big enough to do the deed be a bit responsible. If you completely miss the vast array of contraception and then on the off chance you get caught and neglect to take the morning after pill and somehow ignore the possibility of aborting the baby and suddenly find yourself with no other alternative but to drop the child in a box you are a fucking idiot and should be put down. Mexico have one of the most thorough adoption process in the world, a Mexican baby costs in excess of 80,000 euro plus the parents have to stay in Mexico for three months to ensure they bond with the child. How they can justify not going home and giving the child up properly it is beyond me. But sure excuses, excuses eh.
Fear is very powerful..This girl may not have the support available to her that she seems like she needs in all this. She's quite young and sounds like she is trying to arrive at the least terrifying end.... I do think the father has a right to know though...
on another note, just think of all the men who've heard the story and are now thinking back to a one-night stand they had round about a year ago.... i wonder if any of them will pursue this, claiming it could potentially be their baby.
she may also not even know who the father is.....
as for why people wouldn't return to mexico in order to give birth, raise the baby for three months, and then give it up for adoption.... well, to keep it brief, it comes down to the almighty dollar. they can stay in the states where they are paid an immense amount more than in mexico (which isn't necessarily saying much) as well as have some chance at decent care for the child. there is SO much involved in the situation that i don't think i could do it justice here, but sam is dead on. and going back to mexico is not an 'excuse', it's not an option.
The father has a right to know. However he choses to process that information is up to him, but jay-sus dusty why on earth wouldn't she tell him in the first place ? I can understand not telling him if she had an abortion, but she chose not to. It just doesn't make much sense in my simple brain.
I'm not getting why some people think it's likely she doesn't want to 'lose face socially'. It seems to me that she would hardly be going to all this trouble just so she didn't have to admit she slept with a minger.
Far more likely she doesn't think the fella is a fit father, and not just for a frivolous 'he's not ready' reason (sure if that was it why on earth wouldn't she have told him, and he could have okayed the adoption like she is). The overwhelming balance of probability is he's violent or a nutter.
I also see where Medbh was coming from with the parallels to men wanting a say in decisions about abortion. In particular, when bills are proposed that mandate husband notification when a wife has a pregnancy, the argument is the exact same - that it's his DNA too.
Those laws exist because while 99.9% of women tell their partners when they get pregnant and involve them in the whole decision-making process, the ones that don't aren't doing it because they're controlling bitches. They don't because they're afraid to, and they have good reasons for it.
At the end of the day, if this fella had wanted to find out if she was pregnant, he could have. And if there ARE fellas out there who had a one night stand a year ago, and think this could be them - ring her up for heaven's sake. And if you didn't bother to get her number, that's your fault.
See, I just think that these things fundamentally come down to the tyranny of biology. Men don't automatically know when they father a child. They just aren't made that way.
Morning folks.
Sam, I can't believe they didn't post in Spanish. How short sighted. As to traveling to Mexico to live for a few months, I doubt migrants who are extremely poor and illegal can afford to risk leaving their adoptive country for a few months and then re entering the country.
Dinogirl, there's no evidence at all that this man is anything other than an unwitting co-worker. She told no one, neither friend or family, and I doubt everyone she is in contact with is a violent nutter.
I think this girl made a mistake, had a drunken fling and on discovering she was pregnant made her decision to have adoption. It can't have been an easy few months for her and I think her decision in and of its self is an admirable one. There are hundreds of good people who through no fault of their own cannot have children that will doubtless give this little girl an excellent home.
My only gripe is the assumption that the father doesn't count. That his rights are of such little importance that no one need inform him that he has a living breathing daughter somewhere in the world.
Also to look at it from another angle what of the rights of that child? What if-hypothetically- that man said, 'no, I'll raise her, my family will help.'
what if that was the case? Wither the child's right to be raised with her own? Ot at least to have that chance.
Like I said all along, he might not even be slightly interested, but again I would say he should have at least been given the chance.
Cheers, John Mc. It's just a bizarre concept though, isn't it? If it works then great but it's sort of like returning a video to Xtravision in its way.
Like I said if you are big enough to do the deed be a bit responsible. If you completely miss the vast array of contraception and then on the off chance you get caught and neglect to take the morning after pill and somehow ignore the possibility of aborting the baby and suddenly find yourself with no other alternative but to drop the child in a box you are a fucking idiot and should be put down.
All a bit simplistic, isn't it? You're leaving aside other factors like 'real life'.
Twenty, are you flirting with Nonny again?
No, I'm just saying that there are more issues than bad contraception and not having an abortion that might leave somebody in a position where they drop their baby in the 'quick return' slot.
Without causing a riot or getting all mushy about it my point is simply that girl should have acted more responsibly. She had three different opportunities (contraception, morning after pill & abortion) had she have availed of them she wouldn’t be in this position and neither would that child. Yes the child may be in for a life of good fortune but there is just as much of a chance that a life more sinister awaits her, she has already suffered five months of care what makes that mothers or any other mother/fathers quality of life so important that they can put the quality of life of another human being in question. You can’t just say ‘real life’ happens, it is just not good enough.
Nonny, nonny - get a grip! Very few people are responsible at 19. Irresponsibility is the whole point of being teenage, innit? The kid will be fine - people will be falling over themselves trying to adopt it and love it. Sinister happenings are thankfully extremely rare - you'd have more chance of winning the lottery. It's the mum that's likely to have the long term probs. She is damned for doing the right thing for her. It took a long time for women to gain some rights over themselves and their bodies - we don't need to go backwards now.
Would you stop, "ah sure your only 19 pet go and do what you like, fuck everybody else and the consequences", that is absolutely pathetic. You are confusing this with women’s right issues it is not a battle of the sexes it is about the future of a child, a father being denied the rights to his child so she can save face is disgraceful. Yes women are normally the primary care givers, yes they should have more rights and yes they should have the full protection of the law but hiding behind the courts, denying the father an opportunity to meet his child and sending her off to care because you’re a 20 year old woman is absurd and surely an abuse of the very powers/equalities women’s rights movements fought so hard to gain. I feel really sorry for that child, when it comes to her future, a future her mother wants no part in, the mother should have no say and the father should have been told.
On a lighter note I already posted a link on how to cook lobster but this is the definitive guide and perhaps a better alternative than putting your child in a box.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBBrhTSZKdM&feature=related
oi nonny, i don't think that 'sure you're 19 do what you like' is the message. i think it's more of the fact that at 19 every one of us has made a choice that was irrational, not grounded in sound judgement, and quite frankly stupid. it doesn't excuse her behaviour.
what is lamentable is that the court system itself has made a decision on par with the reasonings of a 19 year old. yes, she made a mistake, but the courts should be holding her accountable...
FMC - what you said about her right to be raised 'with her own' really clarified what I think about this. That fella is no more the child's father than the girl is her mother. The child HAS 'real' parents out there, though she might not have met them yet. Her adoptive parents are far more her family than the woman who doesn't want her and the father who never bothered to check on her existence. Even if she's not with them yet - they are out there, and they are her family in every way that counts. My niece and nephew spent a whole year of their lives with their feckless neglectful drug addict biological parents - but they were nevertheless a part of their real family from day one.
And I think that concealing the pregnancy from those around her is different to concealing it from the father (I hate even using that word because he's NOT a father - anyone with any interest in being a father could find out easily. It's not like she fled the feckin country). I still think that embarrassment is a really implausible reason someone would go down a path this intense and difficult. He's a nutter. Sure why else would she not have caved in under the pressure of a court case, media attention, and so forth?
(And a final thought - ONE reason you might brave all that is if you had told the father, and he had very strong reasons not to want anyone to know about it - like already having a wife and family himself - and told you under no circumstances to mention his name, and he'd sort out whatever expenses.... or am I going a bit mad-conspiracy theorist?!)
But yeah. Doing all this because 'Oh, scarlation if someone realises I slept with that minger!' - not very likely.
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