Posted on 01/09/2006 12:19:01 AM PST by RWR8189
A former Broward County man has been ordered to continue to pay child support for a child he did not father. He said his wife cheated on him; she denies it.
Richard Parker said he never suspected that his wife had been cheating on him when she got pregnant seven years ago.
When the Hollywood couple divorced in 2001, he agreed to pay her $1,200 a month in child support.
But less than two years later, when his son was 5, he says he learned the awful truth: The boy he had raised as his own wasn't his.
Parker sued his ex-wife, Margaret Parker, claiming fraud. He wanted to terminate his child-support payments and recover the money he had paid out. His court battle, so far unsuccessful, raises delicate questions about fatherhood and men's rights in an age in which it has become relatively simple to prove -- or disprove -- paternity.
For the most part, courts say the bonds of matrimony trump biology.
A Broward County judge dismissed Richard Parker's claim of fraud in January 2004, and an appeals court in November upheld the decision, effectively ending his quest for return of the child support he had paid to his ex-wife. Moreover, Parker must continue to pay $1,200 a month in support.
The court said Richard Parker should have questioned the blood line sooner -- within a year of the divorce -- if he had any doubts.
''It could have been over, and I could have been in control of my money,'' the 55-year-old dental implant salesman said of the dismissal, an outcome that didn't surprise him.
Margaret Parker, 41, insists that she never deceived her husband. She said they had trouble conceiving, so she had sex with a ''mutually agreed upon individual'' in order to get pregnant.
''He is the fraud,'' she said, describing her ex-husband as a louse, eager to dodge his responsibility.
Richard Parker, who now lives in Boston, said he didn't question his son's paternity until someone else suggested that there wasn't much of a resemblance.
''When kids are all really little, they all look the same,'' said Parker, a man of Irish and Italian ancestry. He said that both he and his son have dark hair, and that the boy has dark eyes shaped like his mother's.
But when his child was 5, his girlfriend's 90-year-old grandmother looked at a photo his father was carrying and told him that the child was certainly not his.
Parker confirmed the elderly woman's hunch with a DNA test he saw advertised on a billboard.
In June of that year, he sued his ex-wife.
In a petition before Broward Circuit Judge Renee Goldenberg, he said Margaret Parker intentionally misled him to believe that he was the father, and he asked the court to make his ex-wife pay him damages to compensate for past and future child-support obligations.
Goldenberg rejected his claim without wading into the issue of whether Richard Parker had been deceived. In late November, an appeals court upheld the decision.
`A TIME LIMIT'
Time was not on Richard Parker's side, said Joanna L. Grossman, a professor at Hofstra Law School in Hempstead, N.Y.
''The law provides a remedy for fraud, but imposes a time limit for raising the claim,'' Grossman wrote in an e-mail. ``Since his wife made the representation about the child's paternity during the divorce action, that proceeding was the appropriate time for him to raise any concerns he might have had.''
His lawyer, Scott A. Lazar, questioned the fairness of such a time limit, considering, as he alleges, that Parker was duped into believing he was the father.
''No one's going to tell you they are having an affair,'' Lazar said.
But Margaret Parker said she wasn't having an affair.
She said her ex-husband was infertile, a claim he called a ''a total lie,'' adding that, in fact, he has impregnated women in the past.
As part of her ruling, Judge Carole Y. Taylor of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach acknowledged that Richard Parker might feel victimized by the court's ruling. But she said the child's needs are paramount.
She said that the father's appeal could trigger ``psychological devastation that the child will undoubtedly experience from losing the only father he or she has ever known.''
Moreover, Taylor noted, cheating is hardly rare. Quoting from a law article written by Temple Law Professor Theresa Glennon, the appeals judge wrote:
``While some individuals are innocent victims of deceptive partners, adults are aware of the high incidence of infidelity and only they, not the children, are able to act to ensure that the biological ties they may deem essential are present. . . . The law should discourage adults from treating children they have parented as expendable when their adult relationships fall apart.''
Andrea Moore, executive director of Florida's Children First, a statewide advocacy organization based in Coral Springs, applauded the court rulings.
PUTTING CHILD FIRST
''Why would society allow a child to suffer for the mistakes of the parents?'' Moore said. ``If you look at it from the child's perspective, the child needs parents who consistently provide and care about them. That should come first. I am not so sure the youngster would care who the biological father was if the man had acted like the father.''
The child, now 7, still believes Richard Parker is his father, both parents said. His name has been withheld to protect his identity.
To be sure, Parker said he still wants to help the child. He said he would like to control where the money goes, and added that he and his current wife are already starting a college fund.
Miami attorney Gerald Kornreich said that courts sometimes order an accounting of such payments, but added that it's not standard because the amount -- in this case, $1,200 a month -- is based on a guideline stemming from the parents' combined salaries.
''Disgruntled dads often say, `I am giving all this money and the mom is using it to go out at night or use it with her boyfriend,'' he said.
''But usually it's too little and not too much'' support.
Biology isn't everything, conceded Parker, himself a child of adoption. He said his son should know as much as he can about his biological father's health history.
''Let's find out who this guy is,'' Parker said.
I addressed this earlier. Joseph was told before hand by God and by Mary that the child wasn't his. He accepted the child with full knowledge and accpeted responsibility for it voluntarily.
The man in the article was defrauded, cheated on and lied to. then finally enslaved by the court system to pay for a child that was not his, and never could be his. You are trying to compare apples to oranges here.
I think you are leaving out in Joseph day there were harsh roomers he had to live with...
I can see this is futile many of you want to go kicking and screaming what a bum deal you got!
For eons women treated in many area like a pocession, even now the women of the radical left women did no favors for women!
Don't get me wrong I am not excusing what this women did!
You really should have a back ground in history before the 60'
This has always been a man's world you poor youngsters to think you feel like, this is such an awful thing to do man, you want to a line women like this with rapist and murders etc, listen to yourselves!
Many are dealt hands in life they did not bargain for but it is a test to see what we are made of!
Still in the world today little girls were killed because she was born a female instead a male in Red China, there are awful song written about women call the Hole... or the C word, other places the women genitals are mutilated because of man sickness...
Please stop crying over split milk when you compared the things women have endured at the hands of man on this planet!
I am so bless that things that were done to women in my younger days only effected me a little!
Lets get a prospective it is not all but enough to effect many lives!
Women's right's has only been a thought since early 1900 hundreds! But it was started by the communist who purpose was to divide and conquer it had nothing to do with equal rights and pay for work, but to have the results to day where women foolishly think they can morph the male roll.
This whole sorted thing don't benefit anyone who exercise this movement!
It seems the only ones it seems to advance is Same Sex, and other Deviants who wish to vilolate the social norms!
I know this. They indeed were subject to such. What made the difference, IMHO, was that both Mary and Jesus were in ACCORD. There was integrity and honor to their accord and with God. And with such, they could indeed move mountains.
I agree with most all of your post, I quibble with this:
For eons women treated in many area like a pocession
If, indeed, it took 4,000 years for "females" to end oppression, it doesn't make them look very strong or smart as a sex.
I posit instead, that the realities of existence over the past 4,000 years tended to seek its own levels -- as in, survival. It made sense for men, the stronger sex, to be aggressive. It made sense for women, bearers of children, to be in the home.
Since the post-industrial revolution, "survival" has changed: Men need no longer hunt down meat, stave off, himself, aggressors to the home. We've 9-11. We've police. We've public DAs. etc. etc..
This change in "survival modus" has opened up new fields of "existence and survival" and for both men and women.
Property Laws. Most property laws did name "men" (sons, brothers, uncles, nephews) -- and why? Women tended to die in childbirth, and suffer more serious health risks than males. It made expedient sense, IMH view, for men to be named as successors in wills.
But what you never learn from "women's studies" and "agit-prop" is that women were, in those times, in fact, named as "inheritors". Exceptions to the rule, no doubts.
And are there, have there been abusive males? Without exception. And, this holds also true for the female sex.
What you also never hear about are townsmen, and kinsmen of abused and battered women, tracking down and "dealing" with the assaultor.
Instead of celebrating that we are in a new age with so many more options for survival/existence realities, where is the celebration? Certainly -- never -- heard in feminist quarters.
Some wish to rewrite history -- revisionists.
The very same communist feminists who wish to present such a biased, limited, unrealistic comprehension of "gender" relations and legalisms of the past ultimately cause women more harm than good.
Feminists mouth that "women are strong"; but study their rhetoric. You'll see they think women ARE mindless twits -- and have been through all time. That women only became "strong" and because of "feminism".
BS! ! !
I posit, from all my study, that women are strong. And smart. And have been making assertive choices, aided and supported by men, throughout all history. The evil and wrongdoing that were exceptions to the norm in past -- is the same evil in the here and now as exceptions to the norm.
But IMHO, women are dumbed down when they simply do not question assertions made by so-called "speakers and leaders for all women".
The women who do not study or question their assertions, therefore, dumb themselves down.
And herein lies, the cynical underpinning of the feminist "choice" agenda.
Many are dealt hands in life they did not bargain for but it is a test to see what we are made of!
This is as true now, as it has been true throughout all histories of mankind walking the Earth.
Women's right's has only been a thought since early 1900 hundreds! But it was started by the communist who purpose was to divide and conquer it had nothing to do with equal rights and pay for work, but to have the results to day where women foolishly think they can morph the male roll.
I fully concur with you here. Fully.
And I agree with you about KNOWING history. In history, not "herstory", we learn of how women have been at the forefront in guiding and directing world history. Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Dorothea Dix, Betsy Ross, Golda Meir, etc.
In the mid-60s, I read their histories -- which were not "revised" or made into celebrations of "womanity" -- instead these accounts were presented in professional fashion -- And, I learned how strong women are, and how when they involve themselves, they move mountains, and can move men to proper action when such is required. Why, I have my own ancestral account of such wonderful women. And men. The women of my ancestral lines were never oppressed by "men" nor "society". Had any such attempt been made to "censor" or abuse their civil liberties, the females of both my family lines would and did involve themselves to great purpose. And suceeded, and on the terms they LAID OUT FOR THEMSELVES. Not a single one sought to do what they did for a "celebrity" purpose, or to steal taxpayer dollars, or to rob another in any way.
Further, the women of my ancestral lines, had they wished to become "important, as defined by feminist agenda", they would have chosen so and SUCCEEEDED in doing so.
The females of my ancestral line won, through their lives, and on their own terms.
And as I've read much, and studied much which is never presented at "feminist" sites, I see that my female ancestral lines are so very much like so many other womens' ancestral lines throughout history.
The women of my line never saw themselves as victims. And not because they were brainwashed or deluded, or ignorant. They were in fact quite educated.
They saw a much larger picture -- as opposed to the tiny sliver presented by feminists.
So men owe women reparations? (I know that's not what you said but that is the tenor of your whole post.)
Almost all of your post has nothing to do with the case under discussion. This guy is being enslaved to pay for a child that is not his. Total miscarriage of justice.
Our Saviour Died for us to promote Eternal life for the children of God, the Leftist take life to get GAIN!
I know Abortion is nothing more but another form of human sacrifice, to satisfify the Left gods, it is like Baal worship or Brahmanism the left just don't tell the foolish who follow them!
Distinction of the Buddha's Teachings from Brahmanism and Sramanism
6. Ritualism, ceremonialism and sacrifices
(ya~n~na//yaj~na) [35] are the most prominent features of Brahmanism as reflected in the .Rgveda and the Brahma.nas. These are most important part of Brahmanical religion.
They govern condition of human as well as animals. "Thing animate or inanimate are all under the magical spell of ceremony. Gods, men, living beings, lifeless things can all be equally moved through the power of prayer or sacrifice."[36] Their existence was for the sake of the ceremony.
The practice of human sacrifice was also found in the Brahma.nas. A Brahma.na named 'Sunah'sepa about to be sacrificed in lieu of the son of a king was saved.
In the another passage of the Braahma.nas I. 8, this kind of immoral practice is mentioned in detail.
The gods killed a man for their victim. But form him thus killed the part, which was fit for a sacrifice went out and entered a horse. Thence the horse became an animal for being sacrificed. The gods the killed the horse, but for the part fir for being sacrificed went out of it and entered an ox.
The gods the killed the ox . . . sheep, goal etc. The sacrificial part remained for the longest time in the goat, thence it became pre-eminently fit for being sacrificed. Such bloody sacrifices were considered to be necessary to propitiate gods.[37] In the Pali texts [38] five kinds of bloody sacrifices are frequently referred, viz., horse-sacrifice, human-sacrifice, peg-thrown site sacrifice, drinking of victory or strength, and the bolts-withdrawn sacrifice or universal sacrifice.[39]
. Thus, the amoral ceremonialism and sacrificism of Brahamnism is contrastedly substituted with the socially human moralism of Buddhism, such as love, sympathy, liberality and humanity etc.
Did you ever see the movie The Wicker Man?
Remember in the 80's how many did die in fire of some kind a plane crash where our soldier were coming home for the Christmas in a Soviet Jet and crashed and all burn or One of the first suicide attacks in the mideast on our military basic and 280 soldiers burn to death and this type of evil goes on often!
I strongly believe when these things occur it is some kind of regilious ceremony taking place!
Sorry John O, you miss the option of living the higher law!
So men owe women reparations? (I know that's not what you said but that is the tenor of your whole post.)
No I don't feel that I told you these things to bring awareness of history!
You Gen X and on folks come to conclusions unlimited knowledge.
You might think anything going back beyond the 60's is useless, but I know in my short time here on earth history repeats itself.
Ignorance of your history and what you ancestor endure I don't think was so you could entertain myopic thornes, this distraction will only breed feudism which is a real form of slavery!
KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE DONUT AND NOT THE HOLE!:)
Yours is a fascinating post. I quibble with you here:
Well thank you for all of that back ground I my self came of age in the early 60's did not in many ways feel oppressed accept in equal pay and opportunity where are gender qualifies!
In the Commission Report on the Glass Ceiling -- it has since been revealed that the means by which pay grades were compared was falsified and not put on a statistical partiy considering all factors.
Secondarily, while I do agree that some pay inequities existed in limited nature, I do not agree that pay inequities "per se" existed as "weighted" fact.
The so-called "pay inequities" vaunted by the feminists never took in such things as "actual experience", "years of experience", absences, pregnancies, absences due any number of issues -- taking care of ill relatives, etc.
These are not pay inequities and because these involve "choice".
In short form, say a child is ill. Hubby says he can't get off to work to care for child, but you do so. Have you made a choice? Yes.
Does a woman have to get pregnant? No.
Is a woman FORCED BY LAW OR STRENGTH to take time off to care for an ill person? No.
The feminist worldview is a most curious one which I think speaks more of theft than of honor.
If you enter a business wherein a man is owner, and pretend to dictates the terms of the operational policies of that business.. what does that make you? And if you garner lawyers-and politicians-looking-for-ready-money? You've got a hostile take-over by so-called "legal means".
I've worked on and off under female bosses and owners since the mid-70s. I never found them to be more lenient than men when it came to my taking time off for "nurturing" type matters. In fact, I found the men to be more lenient. And of course, if excessive absences came out as a penalty on my job performance ratings, I took it on the chin, and didn't see the reviewer as being "sexist" or unreasonable. I didn't personalize the "event". When I did find the negative performance to be undue, I found another job or went elsewhere. Norma Rae had her place and in context. I learned early on, one doesn't need to "look" for a brawl; it will come quite naturally in its time, perhaps, to all and each us. Ya pick your fights.
The so-called "pay inequity" agenda has harmed more people than it has helped IMHE. I hated observing the men in my life being put down, merits be taken away -- simply in order to promote the notion that someone having female genitalia should "sit in the front of the bus", as socialists are commonly known to prate.
But nor did I like AT ALL witnessing women who wished to pursue a life at home as homemaker be forced into working a job in order to pay the childcare subsidies, the abortion subsidies, the EEOC mandated positions for individuals making other choices.
Since young, I've observed the free market usually corrects itself best, and without intervention from busy-bodies concocting grand schemes to "instanter" wealth for themselves.
I'm currently in the position of entering an entirely new market. And the jobs I'm getting are at minimum wage. Am I resentful? No. I'll find my way, thanks. I made choices to take myself into this position. Therefore, I am responsible for the choices I make.
If I decided to suddenly enter any new field, I should and would begin at the bottom.
When females began entering universities and the job market in droves, they were paid accordingly. They had not yet the overall savvy and experience as say, other workers, to provide on a resume.
I see this another way: I heard a rumor that Director Steven Spielberg requires that everyone who works on a film with him undergo Scientology programs.
He's the one with hiring ability, and the gold. It's his project. Further, should said employees or subcontractors choose to work with him and that is one of his requirements, so be it. On the plus side, it puts all employees on a linguistic set and understanding which overall CUTS costs and time wasted "attempting" to understand each other's "frame of reference" and/or dialectical semantics.
I support Scientology? No way. I have always found it dull and uninspiring. But it's his choice. And should I go to work for him, I wouldn't try to become some type of Norma Rae shrieking "discrimination". Now, if he uses public funds for his films -- there might be a bit of problem with his choice of a "cult" mandate in employment operations.
:)My eyes were popping out my head - it was such a lucid moment of TV presentation. :)
Which higher law. The bible doesn't tell us to raise others children (beyond providing for widows and orphans.
You Gen X and on folks come to conclusions unlimited knowledge.
I'm technically a boomer baby
I can't make sense of the rest of your post. What are you trying to say and how does any of it relate to enslaving this guy to pay for someone else's child?
I fully concur with your post, unseen.
But you might admit there is a bias FOR women, and a bias AGAINST men in our courts. Especially when it involves matters concerning FAMILY. Fraud is the natural result of a primary corruption.
Hey, buddy, life isn't always fair. You claimed the child as your own, and now you want to sever the bonds. You disgusting puke -- think of the child who has been calling you Daddy, and continue to do the right thing.
I disagree. The vast majority of husbands and fathers DID pay child support and before even the onset of these biased laws. The feminists just did what they always do: excerpt bad examples and then writ large "stereotype" the rest of men: Highlight the few that weren't responsible in order to insert a larger profit and power margin for themselves.
I don't think one can with good conscience countenance that all these high welfare "costs" are due to negligent "fathers". That's an irresponsible concept if one looks at actual stats.
That being said the new technology makes these biased laws obsolete and should be abolosihed and rewritten. Any divorce order should require DNA testing be performed before child support is ordered. IMO
I agree with you.
You might peruse the thread first, to get a better idea of what you think you are talking about.
The problem, and the reason why, IMHO? The adoptions and gay issues as concerns children. Artificial insemination, sperm donors, surrogate mothers and the like.
It's a big messy issue to wade through in re "bio" this or that.
In all due respect, I don't need to peruse the thread to see what the base consensus is among FReepers. I am perfectly capable of forming and formulating my own views. And I stand by what I've said in this matter.
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