Nobody likes to think what they are doing is evil.
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.
The very heart and soul of liberalism is to contrive ways to have one thing treated as something else.
Obviously, we do. The kid isn't his. Period. He is not the biological father of this child and thus should not have to be forced to pay child support for this child. Period.
I'll give yet another example: Let's say a woman talks a man into adopting a kid, saying she'll stay with him, but then runs away from their marrage, hooks up with some other guy, and leavs him with the kid.
Since he was lied to by the woman, should he now be able to turn the child back in and say it isn't his responsibility? Because it would seem by your logic, that yes, he would.
I don't have a high tolerance for FRAUD so I don't think any man who took care of a child FRAUDULENTLY should bear any responsibility for that child at all and he certainly shouldn't be forced by courts to care for children that aren't his, especially if he was DECEIVED into believing that the child was his.
Maybe these women who do such things ought to think about what they are doing to these children. They are the ones ultimately hurting these children. It isn't the man's fault if he, through DECEIT and LIES, was made responsible for a child that the mother KNEW wasn't his. Maybe you can stand behind such deception ("for the children", of course) but I sure can't.
Company A and Company B enter a joint venture, contract stating that profits from products under joint venture will be shared. Company B approaches Company C, and creates a business plan unknown to Company A. Company B then presents business plan to Company A as the joint venture, and Company A ponies up the capital to start production. After a time, Company B leaves merger with Company A, continuing to sell products developed under joint venture with Company A, but sharing profits with Company C. Then, Company B takes Company A to court, claiming that 'since Company A ponied up the startup capital, despite Company B's sneaky side venture, Company A is still responsible for the capital for equipment upkeep and marketing plans despite the merger no longer in force'.
Under a corporate scenario, Company B will be facing serious legal issues in fines and perhaps some criminal prosecutions once the sneaky venture came to light. And, if this were not done, a deep chill would settle over other joint ventures and possible joint ventures. Talk about screwed up........
It's the classic morphing methodology of socialists. And people who couldn't think straight even if they only had one synapse working. But then again, maybe the "comparison morphing" is due to fried cranial synapses...
But if you are married and your spouse murders your unborn child, all is hokey-dokey!
Company A and Company B enter a joint venture, contract stating that profits from products under joint venture will be shared. Company B approaches Company C, and creates a business plan unknown to Company A. Company B then presents business plan to Company A as the joint venture, and Company A ponies up the capital to start production. After a time, Company B leaves merger with Company A, continuing to sell products developed under joint venture with Company A, but sharing profits with Company C. Then, Company B takes Company A to court, claiming that 'since Company A ponied up the startup capital, despite Company B's sneaky side venture, Company A is still responsible for the capital for equipment upkeep and marketing plans despite the merger no longer in force'.
I've always viewed marriage in this light of "contracts". Marriage IS a "joint venture", in my books. And the family courts agree; but only to the point where one "party" gets all the benefits regardless of contracts. That's feminist laws, under feminist activist judicial family courts.
I know. I was one of those children. Child support did not replace a father, nor did it necessarily go to support my sister and myself either. What it did do is allow my mother to conduct a lifestyle that would be absolutely unachievable by any other means - one which didn't make her happy either. In the meantime the courts (and the schools, and the religion of therapy) were the enablers for a process that tore my family apart.
Moreover they prevent new families from forming by making marriage a rationally unacceptable risk for sensible men. So these do-gooders who tell me how heartless I am, having already managed to destroy the family I was born into, sneeringly condescend that I must meekly accept the possibility of enslavement as a condition of getting married, or be branded a monster.
Dumbfounding, and stunning in hypocriticalness, isn't it.
Tom Leykis -I know, I know- has this subject on periodically with a man who suffered the same fate and started an organization to fight for change. The way this Child Welfare machine runs, the way money flows, is really shocking.
Good posts by you :)
Nobody likes to think what they are doing is evil.
I must meekly accept the possibility of enslavement as a condition of getting married, or be branded a monster.
And obviously you do not. I respect you. And stand with you.
Moreover they prevent new families from forming by making marriage a rationally unacceptable risk for sensible men.
That's the purpose of these biased laws and rulings. And meanwhile, the very same court(s) and activists demand "marriage" for gays. Right, like some "alternative" agenda is going to correct a bias in the courts? Nope. It will just translate into more money for females and especially LAWYERS. That's what no-fault divorce delivered to America -- enriched liberal ("we find capitalism to be so dirty") lawyers constantly lobbying for "political identity" group special rights and laws. Setting the stage for the haves and the have-nots.
has this subject on periodically with a man who suffered the same fate and started an organization to fight for change
There's quite a few fathers who suffered these fates and organized. Took years, but I'm glad to see them working together.
Thank you for saying so: I'm too wordy. Your posts on this subject are much more to the point and clear, IMHO.
Some actually revel in thinking what they are doing is evil. Were I to parse a certain position? Basically, translates to "for over 4,000 years, women who are naturally smarter than men, were violently oppressed, so therefore, all men should be punished, reparations-wise, for 4,000 years of women getting ripped off". "We are smarter, and the guys were jealous for 4,000 years. So we laid low.. and stepped carefully. See how smart we are? We did a "gentle" ahimsa" kind of rape."
Most family courts are a REPARATIONS SCAM. Guided and led by the usual suspects who for nearly 30 years have been doing this deceitful gaming right in the face of the American Public.
At least Cornel West and his "thumpers" are up front in the extortion practices they are doing. Feminists? "Oh! We have to be deceitful but only because we are so much smarter than men, and we'd hate to hurt their feelings by acting upfront. To act upfront would make us just like them -- MEN! "Who needs 'em".
I can't type very fast so I'm limited on length of posts
I'll think about taping two fingers together as a discipline.
Me too, brother. I have nothing but contempt for the doctinaire theoreticians.
I lived it!
You've passed two bar exams and you don't know about the principle I was speaking of?
Maybe you should scroll up to my post #47 and read where I said: "There is no doubt, as the person to whom you responded stated [I see now, that was you], that it is long-standing legal principle for the declared father at birth to be responsible for the child notwithstanding later contested paternity."
My argument is that the principle should change and will change due to the advent of DNA testing.
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