Utter, complete insanity.
The world has gone quite, merrily, mad.
I think I will join them. WOOO HOOO WHOOO HOOO WOOOOO HOOOOOO
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.
It may seem like "crap" now, but I'll predict that - someday - routine DNA-based paternity testing at birth will become the norm.
There have been several cases of late regarding cuckolded husbands and child support. I wouldn't be surprised if the issue eventually ends up before the Supreme Court....
- John
So, Would you a wife volunteer to have the test if she knew that there was a very good possibility that the child was not her husbands? I think not. That is why I believe that it should be made mandatory.
I have a friend whose wife of four years divorced him. He had done nothing wrong, but she wanted to be free. They had a child together and she had one before they were married. Her child was about a year old when they married and their son together was 2 when they divorced.
She took him to court after he offered her a certain amount for child support and she wanted more. After court she ended up with less than he offered. Since my friend had raised her son since basically birth, he tried to involve him when his son came to visit. He eventually had to cut ties with her son because he had no authority over the kid and the hateful woman could accuse him of all kinds of weird things if it suited her.
Two months after the divorce she sent his son to live with him "temporarily". Six months later he took her to court and got custody and has yet to see a dime of child support. I know a few men in similar situations that paid their support and the mother just gave the kid up to them. In only one of the four cases I know personally did the man get paid child support and in every case he didn't care whether he got it or not.
There is a verse in the Bible which talks about the heart of the children being turned to their fathers and the fathers to their children and I believe this is happening in spite of unjust courts.
The me, me generation is who could care less about children and family because the DeMARXocrats have very effectively one small step at a time destroyed family values.
Hard to fight all those shows that dwell on sex and unusual beauty or all those magazines that dwell on sex, body beautiful etc. I call them the Me, Me, Me generation as it is all about them.
Well, that's not exactly what the court has said.
He says, he had no idea, she cheated on him.
She says, they were infertile and found a mutually acceptable donor in order to concieve.
Either one of these is plausible.. and while some may not like the morality of it... the gals story is not impossibly far fetched. Been going on since the dawn of time, and will go on until time ends even if its not spoke about in polite society.
At the end of the day, you have a he said/she said regarding the conception of this child... so to simply boil this down to matrimony trumps biology is spin.
If it is true that he was thought sterile, then at the very bare minimum they should have the medical records to prove that they looked into it. If they don't, then I don't believe it for a split second. It is well beyond the reach of credulity that they would just conclude he's sterile, without consulting a physician, and then he would say: Oh, sure honey. Just go shag some guy and get yourself knocked up.
DNA says the kids not his.
Having been divorced in a time when that was not done, having raised three children on my own with only a high school education with totally no financial help from their father who was busy living his life of globe trotting. I have a tendency to get upset when the life of a child is put into limbo because of people such as these. Unfortunately, there are far too many parents around just like these two.
I understand you got a raw deal. But don't let your raw deal cloud your view of what's going here. An innocent man is getting raped for his ex-wife's crime.
Utter, complete insanity.
The world has gone quite, merrily, mad.
I think I will join them. WOOO HOOO WHOOO HOOO WOOOOO HOOOOOO
You mean like 'facts'?
I agree with you that the child shouldn't suffer any more than it will obviously do in this type of situation. However, this man has been proven NOT to be a parent of the child. If DNA can prove that, it can prove who is the father.
If the conception was deliberately planned and carried out without the knowledge of the former husband, why should he be legally responsibile for paying for the sins of the biological parents? The biological parents who planned the birth should bear the mandatory responsibility, imo.
Regardless of whether the ex-husband is a jerk (and he probably is for wanting money back - there should be a bond with the child anyway), the whole unfortunate, sordid, mess appears to be the fault of the mother and the biological father.
I hope this little boy has grandparents, or someone in his life who loves him, and who has some common sense and decency. He is going to need them to help him overcome the selfishness, and ignorance of his three parents.
Ya gotta personalize this, hey? If a spouse KNOWS they've breached the contract, they really should deal with it -- honestly. A child, no matter how conceived, stands a better chance in adulthood, longterm, knowing the truth rather than wondering about lies. Lies skew reality, no matter how well "hidden" the lies are. Something always feels "off". And the person "not in the know" can perceive it, and unfortunately personalize it as in "something wrong about himself" as opposed to knowing fully that lies SURROUND that individual, as do liars. This is a bad way to love another person. Little lies, in their time, have their place. But ultimately, little lies grown to bigger fabrications can bring down castles.
Put another way, if one party refuses to voluntarily submit to the DNA test, lots of questions should be immediately asked. Force the DNA test? By Law? Nope. Get rid of biased preferential "women can do no wrong" laws is what has got to take place.
Instead of Hester Prynne sporting an "A", it's now all men, regardless of race, ethnicity -- etc. And aren't the communists so happy about this?
NO MORE NEW LAWS -- GET RID OF THE STUPID "preferential" ONES which create equality for no one and raise all our taxdollars to boost and provide jobs for people in government who couldn't get a job in any other industry. Like feminists.
Do you really think I would trust a bureacracy to be able to HONESTLY never be corrupted in forcing DNA TESTS? The same bureacracies which reward criminals? Nah! Furthermore, would I trust the "forcing branch" of bureacracy to not sell PERSONAL AND VERY PRIVATE DNA MATERIAL? And in this age of "organs for sale"?
Yank the other one, it's got bells...
To answer your question about me, a wife, and would I lie about conceiving a child by another man while married to another?
Hell, NO!. I'd deal honestly with my consequences. And recognize that I had some serious life "introspection" to do.
That other women might NOT hold my values on this is neither here nor there -- except that I end up, as taxpayer, footing the court costs, the welfare costs, and dealing with "angry and hurt community members". Dramas like these are so tiresome. Get rid of the bad, preferential, laws.
This sounds like "squatter's rights".
Or, something the NEA would author. They own children when the children are in schools in some states...
Yes, there have been. I've been following these since the early 90s. However.. I'm against "mandatory" DNA tests for a host of reasons; The biggest being, the slippery slope. I have no problems with husbands voluntarily having DNA tests done on their offspring. They are the dads, after all, or they are not. Feminists are against the mandatory DNA tests and because this would chew into their biggest mantra of "women have a right to "choose".
Wrongo. Women who marry are signing a contract. When they breach that contract, as in sexual infidelity, and attempt to extort their husbands to financially pay (not to mention, emotionally), there should be penalties to the ADULT, EQUAL MEMBER IN SOCIETY, FEMALE. As it stands now, women are given every excuse in the world to not act as "equals" in the larger world, by laws designed by feminist/socialists to keep women infantile and dependent upon the Feminist Oligarchy.
I would assume, since this went to court, that these medical records would have been presented at trial by the man himself, if they existed. Since the only claim in the article is "I have gotten women pregnant in the past" instead of "I have tests showing I'm fertile".. I am not going to run to defend this guy either.
Whichever story is true.. one of these folks is a louse.
Again, this is a he said she said.. he says she cheated and got pregnant he knew nothing about it.. she says he was infertile an the both found a willing donor to help.
While you may not like it, infertile couples have been having kids by the second argument long before sperm banks existed, and will until there are no longer humans around.
This is a he said, she said.. either one could be lying. This isn't a clear cut case of courts saying DNA is meaningless.. in fact its far from it. The case for that would be when the woman clearly admits to cheating and having a child behind her husbands back... and the court still orders hubby to pay. While these cases may exist, this isn't one of those.
Might want to read the article, on this particular case, the story isn't he was told it was his... he claims he was told it was his, she claims he was infertile and they found a donor together to have a child. While you might not like it, and its not common, her story is not implausible and has been done since people first walked the earth and will be done until they no longer exist.
This boils down at least from whats posted here as a he said/she said.
This case is not unusual, sad to say- and it drives me nuts. This is completely and totally WRONG.
If you read this article, he claims it happened without his knowledge, she claims he knew all about it... This has boiled down to a he said/she said.. and given that's what it is.. where does the court go?
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