Who's Your Daddy Smackdown!
Nov. 23, 2009 |
By Patt Morrison
Gloria Allred and Tom Leykis, both sparrers par excellence, went a few pretty amicable rounds about the rights and obligations of fatherhood -- the biological kind and the emotionally invested kind.
A New York Times Sunday magazine article got us thinking about new definitions of fatherhood. A lot of men have been thinking about that too, and they've gone off to the drugstore for a cheap DNA kit to find in some cases that the children they thought they begot ... they hadn't. So whose rights, whose responsibilities? Courts have tended to look out first for the welfare of the children, which has meant some non-biological fathers paying child support and others choosing to have nothing more to do with children they raised for years as their own.
A couple of callers said they'd found out the hard truth the hard way and one, Stan, said he was going out to buy a DNA test as soon as the program was over! Allred and Leykis did pretty much agree that mandatory DNA testing of newborns would spare a lot of people -- and especially the children -- a lot of personal stress and heartache and even bucks later on. What do you think? Should there be a limit on how long a man has to challenge, or accept, paternity? Weigh in here on the blog.
And New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin has one hunk of a book, ''Too Big to Fail,'' and it's full of absorbing and horrifying details, a ''tick-tock'' of events of the 2008 financial meltdown and bailout. There was a lot in there that I found appalling -- how little even the big CEOs understood of how these high-flying, high-risk financial strategies worked ... and how they were so absorbed in raking in their own mega-millions that, at a meeting with the treasury secretary and the head of the federal reserve, as the nation's economy was THIS FAR from total collapse, the first question one of them asked was whether he'd still get paid what he was promised.
Some people really did their best to save the economy but the extent to which deregulation and greed allowed these ''masters of the universe'' and their companies to put us all at risk with their hijinks just defies all logic and sense. And now that things are beginning to mend, Sorkin says worryingly, investment bankers and government officials seem perfectly happy to wipe the whole horror from memory and go on with business as usual -- the same business that nearly destroyed us just a year ago.
Where's Ferdinand Pecora when you need him? Or about ten of him?
Next time, a smart phone app that could help illegal immigrants find safe trails, water and friendly faces as they cross the border. You can imagine how this idea, dreamed up by a university professor, is playing ... and if you can't, we'll tell you.
-- Patt Morrison
Comments disabled after 14 days
Sponsor
Sponsor
Hettie Lynne Hurtes | Food | Pasadena
Ever decide not to go to a movie on a first date? There's usually not much opportunity to socialize -- except while you’re in line buying tickets or when getting to and from the theater? Well, you don’t have to eliminate a movie from your social plans for that reason any longer. Gold Class Cinemas has arrived in the Southland – specifically Pasadena’s Old Town. More...
Sponsor
Day In A Page Radio/Story Archive
2 months, 2 weeks ago
There should be no limit on how long a man has to challenge paternity. I find it hard to believe the government is forcing men to pay child support for children that are not their own. This segment brought to light a terrible injustice. I agreed with guest Leykis that these woman commited fraud and should face criminal charges. I completly disagreed with guest Allreds rebuttal that these woman may not have known. These woman knew they had sex with other men. If they told a man they were the father that is saying they are the only possible one. They were cheating on him obviously. Even more troubling Leykis pointed out mothers can just mark any mans name down as the father and the man might not know for years. Allreds point that men should monitor women 9 months after sexual contact to make sure there was no baby seems infeasable, plus what does having sex matter if she can put anybodys name? Just because a man has sex with a woman should not mean he has to pay for her babies with other men. Allreds comments if this man isn't forced to pay then we all have to pay is true. This lady is a feminist right? So is she saying force this injustice on some man so women taxpayers don't have to pay? I don't see how she could come off thinking to have one man bear the burden is better then sharing it amongst society. And the fact that the welfare system and big government services bear the burden is the other travesty. The reason these kids do not have a father is because having a father is no longer necessary. There was once a need for man-woman-child but now its woman-child-bureaucrat.
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Regarding the fatherhood rights, NO MAN should be required by law to pay for another man's child. The end.
Tom Leykis Rocks!
Women will do crazy things for money...so will men...but we don't have the ability to get pregnant against a woman's will, then charge her for the child like the woman can us.
2 months, 2 weeks ago
The tragic and unnecessary consequences of paternity fraud fall first and foremost on children. Not only do children learn that the man they thought was their biological father is not, but they also learn that their mother lied to them and had sex with a man other than the one they believed was their biological father. Both consequences can be devastating to a child.
The tragic consequences of paternity fraud fall next upon the presumed (through marriage) or named man who is in fact not the biological father because the mother had sex with another man.
In the absence of mandatory DNA testing at birth, the married (and subsequently divorced) or named man is obliged by the state to pay child support.
The only parties who would lose under laws requiring DNA testing at birth are wives who commit adultery or unmarried women who, for whatever reason, name an innocent man.
In no other area of the law do we punish the victim for the conduct of two other people.
2 months, 2 weeks ago
I agree wholeheartedly with mandatory DNA testing at birth. This would be a major deterrent to women intending to fraudulently name another man the father for financial gain, and maybe even deter married or monogamous women from cheating, knowing if they come up pregnant, they cannot just claim it was with their partner.
I'd be willing to wager that the cost of the mandatory DNA tests would be far less than the costs racked up through the legal system in these messy child support / custody battles later in the child's' life.
2 months, 2 weeks ago
To do any less than allow for the DNA test is criminal. No statute of limitations on this one baby! Further if it is proven a lie did occur and an innocent "father" was forced to pay unjustified support the mother should be fully liable and have to repay him, just as in any other criminal situations of fraud. Women have deceived men about paternity for years and somehow seem to feel no guilt whatsoever. The government can no longer enjoin them in this scam.
It is the only deceptive crime I can think of the the government turns its head and looks the other way from. It constitutes financial fraud, emotional fraud, and in the long run rewards a terrible and dishonest behavior while destroying innocent lives. If she acts like a whore, she should face the responsibility for her own actions, not point a finger at an innocent man and destroy his future.
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Saying "if the duped-dad doesn't have to pay, then we the taxpayers all pay" is stupid.
Then let's dissolve all Police forces across the country and let victims of crimes fend for themselves; it frees the taxpayers from the responsibility right? It's the very same analogy.
I agree with GoldCoastBachelor: In no other area of the law do we punish the victim for the conduct of two other people.
Also, exonarating the duped fraud-victim, will mean that the mother will have to go after the real bio-dad. Why isn't any responsbility put on either the mother or the bio-dad that she had sex with? Why is this positioned as rights-of-kid vs. rights-of-dupedguy? How about we put some obligations on the cheating mother and the guy who inseminated her to begin with?
2 months, 2 weeks ago
DUMP THAT BITCH