On child support
For the anon asking about child support: Understand that child support is NOT a punishment. It is there because the law has determined that a child has the right to be provided for by BOTH parents. Often, the mother is the primary physical parent. She will be the one paying for most of the child’s expenses throughout their life. Fathers are often asked to pay some monthly amount that is determined using a formula that takes into account both parent’s wages.
If a father is the primary physical parent, it would be the mother paying the child support. Why? Again, because child support is about the rights of the child, not about whether or not the dude who helped in the creation of this child wanted to be a dad. Child support =/= forced into being a parent. It is simply ensuring a child MAY have the resources to be fed, clothed, and housed adequately. I say may because, honestly, the amount of child support that is usually ordered to be paid doesn’t even cover 1/3 of what it actually costs to raise a child.
Once a child is born, both parents are financially and legally responsible for that child’s well-being. That child has a right to be provided for because they can not provide for themselves. All these dudes who cry about the injustice of having to pay for their children can shut up. It is not about them and they are getting off light in comparison to what most primary physical parents have to spend, not to mention the pay that is lost when the primary physical parent has to stay home because the kid is sick or hurt.
The right to abortion can not be conmpared here. One is about the right for a person to control their body and reproductive choices (Men have this right. If they don’t want kids they have the option of taking the necessary steps to ensure they do not have any either through use of condoms, getting a vasectomy, or talking to their partner about the issue of pregnancy. Once the other party is pregnant, they have no rights in terms of that person’s reproductive choice.) The other is about the rights of a born child to be provided for until they reach legal adulthood.
This was submitted by face-down-asgard-up and I completely agree; I bolded my favorite parts. I am uncomfortable with the idea that child support payments are, in this common argument, being compared to bodily autonomy. And when I hear “men’s rights activists” complain about this it really just sounds like, “A girl is allowed to make a decision that I don’t agree with and will affect my wallet. WAAAAAH!”
Men are allowed to walk into a doctor’s office and get vasectomies; they can even get reversible ones. Women have to fight with their doctors for YEARS to try and get a sterilization procedure and even then they usually aren’t successful unless they’ve had children (because having one child is often times not enough to convince a doctor to sterilize you). Not to mention that when a man ends up being the physical parent he’s seen as a devoted, good person, who did the right thing whereas if a woman makes the decision to get an abortion she’s a horrible person and deserves to be harassed about it and if she KEEPS the kid? It’s even worse because then people judge how she raises her children alone.
Child support is not a punishment, it is a way to make sure a child is cared for. Because once that child is born it has needs that both parents should be paying for even if they didn’t want to be a parent in the first place.
Love,
Rabble
*there’s a lot of cissexism in this post. But I feel issues like this are deeply rooted in misogyny and gender roles (like how women have to jump through a billion hoops to be sterilized and men don’t).
