Reply #7: Speaking generally on the other side of this debate

[Giant Robot]

I am for the most part for paternity tests to determine who the father is to find child support, and then that person being responsible. I guess I would feel differently if this had been something like this dad was raising the child for the past ten years then tries to get out of responsibility. No sorry buddy. You were the only father that child has known. But other than that, I think it should be the biological father that gets tagged as the responsible party.

And here is why...

The ex-Mrs Giant Robot and I split up because things were not working out with us. It was obvious, neither one of us was happy, and neither one wanted to do anything about it. No harm no foul. We decided to separate and eventually divorce; being relatively naive I was ok with remaining legally married to her so that she could still have health insurance.

Two months later, she comes to me and tells me she is pregnant. And thinking back to our sex life, it was obvious the child was not mine. She was not labeling it as mine, nor was she trying to get anything from me. But according to the law of our state, I was the child's legal father. Our divorce took longer, as they had to wait until after the child was born. I had a Friend of the Court case opened, and she and I went to an intake together. As a funny aside, during that intake, I was trying to answer all the caseworker's questions quickly and easily to make this go faster; the ex kept answering every other question with, "Do you understand he's not the father??" It was funny to see that in action. At our divorce proceedings the prosecuting attorney had a representative there for the rights of the child, which scared the bejesus out of me. And the ex happened to bring in her new boyfriend, who was the child's father. That was just a random event. I found out later from the attorneys, that if he had not come forward, then the child would still have legally been mine. We needed him to admit this under oath. Why I am not sure, since she and I both were saying the child was not mine. But I got lucky.

The law needs to be adjusted so that situations like mine don't happen. I think, as I said above, that if it has been the only father the child has known for a good portion of his or her life, then yes that man should be responsible. But if not, then I don't believe the husband should have to pay for whatever the wife may have done.