patrick.net

I always found smart, competent guys to be the most attractive. You have to be smart to be funny. And a razor sharp sense of humor is an extremely attractive quality in a man.

Dan8267 says

But the instinct to look for a bad boy is highly counterproductive today.

So you say: High Testosterone men still perform better on many tasks, including athletic but also some intellectual tasks:

http://www.livescience.com/7290-finger-length-predicts-sat-performance.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414174855.htm

They are generally more effective leaders:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-erdman/hormones-the-hidden-leadership-tool-you-are-overlooking_b_3742660.html

They must have a better immune system to survive:
http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/high-testosterone-men-have-the-weakest-immune-responses/81249287/

Of course they may be prone to cheating and so not as good fathers.

You can't blame women for liking them. Evolution is an on-going process.

Am I missing something? The average child support payment in this country is only $350/mo. Sucks for the idiot moms who get themselves pregnant by slackers, and more importantly pity the lives of their spawn. Legally mandated support for one child tops out around $2000/mo even if you make more than 10 times that amount. That's not a lot of money. I voluntarily pay my ex wife more than double the court mandate. If some pretty young thing wants to get pregnant in exchange for a $2k/mo tax free cash subsidy, send me your number, and let's talk.

am I missing something here? how can a woman "entrap" a man by buying a positive test? Wouldn't the man find out in a few months that she lied? When he does she and her false commitment that she extracted will be out with the trash...

My sister makes more money than her ex, and so she pays him support of like $1200 a month. That's for two kids, and she has 50% custody.
It does go both ways. She wasn't one of those ladies looking for a man with a good job, someone who can support himself and more. So she got a loser who she had to support. Took her a while to wise up, but her next husband makes more than I do.
Points:
1) don't marry a loser, male or female
2) child support is figured equally, and the least part of a parent's responsibility to their offspring .
3) alimony is criminal, I don't support that at all.

Sam1000 says

am I missing something here? how can a woman "entrap" a man by buying a positive test? Wouldn't the man find out in a few months that she lied?

Depends. For example, it could induce marriage. She could also have a fake miscarriage, which happens in a large number of pregnancies anyway. Also, maybe they stop using any sort of birth control because "she's already knocked up" so then she really does get pregnant and has a "late-arriving" baby.

The reality is that the type of women who do this are probably low income/low educated types who are also dating similar men. Think Jerry Springer stuff. They may not be able to afford a lot of prenatal care anyway, so it's not like they are going to 2-3 ultrasounds or anything before the kid is born.

The other option is that the man they are dating does have money, and they are just trying to extort money from the situation -- e.g. give me 20 grand to go away. Or give me $10K to have an abortion and deal with the trauma. Still done by gold digger trash, of course. The ruse isn't particularly sophisticated because the people engaging in it aren't particularly sophisticated.

Yes, the general rules should be:

1. If you can't afford to pay child support out of your after - tax income, don't screw around;

2. If state child support formula applied to the given prospect is inadequate for you to live as single parent, find a better prospect before putting out.

Fairly simple concepts for safety put options before plunging into the positions.

Reality says

Am I missing something? The average child support payment in this country is only $350/mo. Sucks for the idiot moms who get themselves pregnant by slackers, and more importantly pity the lives of their spawn. Legally mandated support for one child tops out around $2000/mo even if you make more than 10 times that amount. That's not a lot of money. I voluntarily pay my ex wife more than double the court mandate. If some pretty young thing wants to get pregnant in exchange for a $2k/mo tax free cash subsidy, send me your number, and let's talk.

Yes, you're missing a couple of things. First, child support varies from state to state. It is false to say that child support tops out at any particular number. Even if the tables only go so high, extraordinary income will also be factored in. For a man making $100k/year, paying $500/month for family health insurance, with two children and an ex-wife who doesn't work, selected states calculate as follows:

California: $2,112
Georgia: Between $1955 and $2380
Florida: $1737

Now let's see what happens when you make $200k/year:

California:$3275
Florida: $2664
Georgia: between $3841 and $4676

These calculations are from the alllaw calculator:

http://www.alllaw.com/calculators/childsupport

Extraordinary income which is typically anything above $250-300k depending on the state is handled at the discretion of the judge. In my experience, they aren't particularly kind.

Saying that the average child support payment is $350 is like saying the average house in the US costs $150k. It doesn't mean much.

The difference in numbers was due to my assumption of one child, and your calculation using two children. I presumed that a guy unwillingly made a father once by a woman (as in the con job illustrated in the title post) would not allow that to happen again with the same woman. Twin births are rare.

Reality says

The difference in numbers was due to my assumption of one child, and your calculation using two children.

Okay, we can assume one child, $100k/year income, and $500/month for family health insurance paid by non-custodial parent. You might be surprised to learn that the support amounts aren't half.

California: $1375
Florida: $1121
Georgia: between $1445 and $1955

Now, let's look at $200k/year in salary:

California: $2047
Florida: $1747
Georgia: between $2839 and $3841

The better a job you have the tougher it is when it comes to non-payment. You guys with good jobs are a Child Support Enforcement agent's favorite kind. For the dollars they collect, they can get federal matching funds... So they like to go after the guys with solid jobs because you are easy to find and your income is easily garnished.

Reality says

Hypothetical question: if your dear husband had an extramarital affair and produced a child, would you prefer paying that other woman $2000/mo to make them go away, or fight to have your husband be the custodial parent and probably you adopting the child yourself . . . Or take a really sharp knife and castrate the ducky? LOL. Assuming the third option is not available, I'd be curious about the answer from the both of you. I divorced my ex wife because I did not wish to potentially put her up to the dilemma while we were still married. So a divorce would free me up to pursue girls half my age, and her having flings with guys too.

I would appreciate the opportunity to fight for the right to have our household assume the care and custody of the minor child. No castration option would be considered!
I think most American women would divorce their husband under your hypo, though. So I admit that I am different than a lot of women this way.

turtledove says

The better a job you have the tougher it is when it comes to non-payment. You guys with good jobs are a Child Support Enforcement agent's favorite kind. For the dollars they collect, they can get federal matching funds... So they like to go after the guys with solid jobs because you are easy to find and your income is easily garnished.

That's generally true in the collections business. A collections agency is more likely to go after $300 from a doctor than $3000 from a guy who works at Starbucks.

turtledove says

We tried so hard to include expense accounting in the new law. I think the issue is the practicality of having to treat each and every child support case as a unique situation. With standard rates, you simplify the cases a bit. Even though the amounts were reduced, you still had padding. For example, 7% of the GA support amount was for activities.

I agree that this lack of expense accounting and the lack of individuality is rather lazy on the part of family courts. Child support should be treated as if it were a trust account for a child. If the money were in an actual trust, the trustee would be liable if the money was not used according to the terms of the trust, i.e. for the best interest of the child and for the basic needs of the child. The trustee, the custodial parent in this case, should be liable for any misspent funds and should have to account for all expenses spent on the child, just like they would if this were a trust fund.

The current system doesn't make sense, and it's because family courts are too lazy and incompetent to do it right.

Family law is run in the best interests of the lawyers. Plunder the marital estate and turn it into outlandish legal fees, make sure the divorce goes on forever to keep up the fee generator, get the parties to hate each other forever, and use the kids and the ex as a permanent boot lock on somebodies income.

i can see that it's fair to support your own biological progeny if it was your choice/irresponsibility to create them and they are provably yours.

the part of our law that really horrifies me is that men can be forced to pay child support for children their wives conceive while cheating on them.

corntrollio says

Child support should be treated as if it were a trust account for a child. If the money were in an actual trust, the trustee would be liable if the money was not used according to the terms of the trust, i.e. for the best interest of the child and for the basic needs of the child. The trustee, the custodial parent in this case, should be liable for any misspent funds and should have to account for all expenses spent on the child, just like they would if this were a trust fund.

Especially when they use specific expenses to justify additional dollars. In our case, she argued that she wanted to make sure that she had enough money so she could save for college. You would think that this would go nowhere, because it's a backdoor way of collecting post-majority support in a case where post-majority support was never court ordered. She got up on the stand and cried that she wasn't able to save for college. Of the three times she tried to get increases that was the only time her argument worked. You can imagine our genuine surprise when she tells her son, ten years later, that she doesn't have any money to give him for college. Oh the temptation to order a court transcript and give it to the son....

the part of our law that really horrifies me is that men can be forced to pay child support for children their wives conceive while cheating on them.

The presumption of paternity is horrifying. In my days of working on child support reform, I heard many horror stories, including guys who had paid for years, learned that they weren't the father and were still required to pay child support even though the child wasn't theirs. If the court decides it's in the child's best interest then you will continue to pay. Here I'm thinking you should be entitled to damages from the lying, cheating ex. Shows what I know.

corntrollio says

The reality is that the type of women who do this are probably low income/low educated types who are also dating similar men.

And the smart ones will target guys like you. You are educated, you have good jobs, most of you are reasonably decent people... I can see how a young woman with a tough situation could see you as her meal ticket. She buys a positive test, tells you she's pregnant, gets you to marry her quickly, suffers a "miscarriage," and then gets pregnant for real. She treats you well enough so you don't suspect that you were the victim of anything.

Of course, crazy is hard to hide for very long. Eventually you divorce, and she is set for a long time. Certainly she's in a much better situation than she was before she met you. And don't worry, she'll be lining up her next meal ticket as soon as possible. Because she now has some money to throw around, she should be able to marry-up the second time around.

turtledove says

I can see how a young woman with a tough situation could see you as her meal
ticket

You gotta wonder about the lack of thinking on the part of the dudes who are established that will get with chicks who are in a "tough situatiion." Social darwinism at work....

turtledove says

I can see how a young woman with a tough situation could see you as her meal ticket. She buys a positive test, tells you she's pregnant, gets you to marry her quickly, suffers a "miscarriage," and then gets pregnant for real. She treats you well enough so you don't suspect that you were the victim of anything.

Yes, this is why you have to verify things (again, see my anecdote of the resourceful nurse who managed to get a fake ultrasound), and why you should have more anal sex and less banal sex with women you don't trust.

Just as a practical matter, there's no reason to get married today just to have a kid with someone you don't know, and there's very little reason you can't wait a few months anyway. My old apartment building was right near a spot that was commonly used for wedding pictures, and you would see brides in all stages of pregnancy, including some that looked like their water might break during the photos. To be honest, some of them may have also gotten pregnant in that location in the first place.

If you are a lawmaker and you look at this problem, you realize a large part of young women are too silly to take their pills consistently, and as a result, children will be born in bad conditions.

So next you look at who is going to get stuck paying for this, and young (or not so young) men, innocent or not, are the perfect targets.

Crazy bitches are just unintended consequences.

thunderlips11 says

My guess is that middle class white guys don't see themselves as victims

And a sense of "duty" gets pounded into every boy's skull at an early age. Time to pay the piper, boy!

Speaking of Male Privilege...

thunderlips11 says

Speaking of Male Privilege...

Add to that rape victims: more men than women.
Yes, thanks to prisons, more men are raped in the US than women.

Obio says

Lesson for men: Buy a pregnancy test on the way home. Mark the stick in some
recognizable way. Get her to pee on it.

Also pick up a few Frappuccinos while you're in there. Pregnancy tests can be the strongest anti-diuretic in the world. Even after chugging 24oz of iced tea and driving nearly an hour to some obscure distant clinic of her choosing, she might not be able to produce a drop.

Before all this, pay attention to her cycle and use the moon as an ovulation guide. The most strident "Right now is safe- I know my body!!!" women tend to be full of shit.

This is based on experiences from my 20s. Come to think of it, now that I'm in my upper 40s, there are STILL female cohorts with very selective understanding of how reproduction works.

Automan Empire says

there are STILL female cohorts with very selective understanding of how reproduction works.

Can't be worse than what Republican males know about the female reproduction system.

Wow, a woman sparked one of the most misogynistic threads that I have ever read on Patnet. And I have read a few. Just sayin'.

The other problem with child support is that judges have been known to 'impute' income. For instance, if a judge figures that you should be making $100k, and you're unemployed, or you're working for a start-up only taking $25k/year cash salary -- they have no trouble calculating the support obligation as though the payor makes $100k/year.

In this economy, where a lot of people are involuntarily underemployed, especially in the tech sector, this is scary. Some judge might read one of the various nonsensical "shortage of tech workers" articles, and accept an argument by the baby momma's attorney that their inability to find a job is voluntary.

I personally know a few farmers/ranchers who have been caught up in this. Their child support or alimony obligations are calculated based on cashflow, which does not include long-term depreciation expenses. It effectively robs them of the ability to re-invest in, and make their business more efficient. Thus damaging their long-term ability to pay support. Of course this doesn't matter to some greedy ex-spouse who is just looking to extract the maximum amount of short-term cash possible.

lahossain says

Wow, a woman sparked one of the most misogynistic threads that I have ever read on Patnet. And I have read a few. Just sayin'.

Oh, please. Telling it like it is is not misoginy. It is just the truth.

However, supporting the current state of family law and the current practises of family courts is definitely misandric.

There's no proof of anyone's gender around these parts....

lahossain says

Wow, a woman sparked one of the most misogynistic threads that I have ever read on Patnet. And I have read a few. Just sayin'.

Most likely worse than what Democratic males know about the male excrement system.

Dan8267 says

Automan Empire says

there are STILL female cohorts with very selective understanding of how reproduction works.

Can't be worse than what Republican males know about the female reproduction system.

lahossain says

Wow, a woman sparked one of the most misogynistic threads that I have ever read on Patnet. And I have read a few. Just sayin'.

How is it misogynistic to note unfairness in our system? Is it simply misogynistic because men are saying it's unfair? I don't think that anyone is saying that men don't have a responsibility to their own, but there are, in fact, women who try to profit from their reproductive prowess. We do, in fact, have a legal system that promotes such behavior.

If a women were to go to a doctor and have a tubal ligation.... and that tubal ligation failed.... and she got pregnant.... she could sue that doctor for wrongful pregnancy. Our system has no tolerance for even the mere appearance of forcing a woman to have a child, yet men are NOT given any such protection against wrongful pregnancies perpetrated against them.

This isn't about hatred of women. To me, it's about fairness and responsibility.

lahossain says

Wow, a woman sparked one of the most misogynistic threads that I have ever read on Patnet. And I have read a few. Just sayin'.

How is acknowledging the truth misogynistic?

justme says

Wow, a woman sparked one of the most misogynistic threads that I have ever
read on Patnet. And I have read a few. Just sayin'.

Oh, please. Telling it like it is is not misoginy.

As a child of the Womens' Lib era, I came of age trying to treat women as equals, which put me at a strong love life disadvantage until experiences demonstrated the folly of this belief.
It seems that MOST women cherry pick all the advantages of the old patriarchal ways, yet shoulder none of the burdens of the new equality. Men are expected to hold doors, pay for everything from dates to children that aren't even theirs, endure physical attacks without lifting a finger, to name a few. For their part, name ONE positive action that women are expected to perform under the new notion of equality.
Don't attack the messenger; the idealistic part of me badly wishes it wasn't so.

turtledove says

This isn't about hatred of women. To me, it's about fairness and
responsibility.

Exactly!

Who's not going to agree that a woman/person who tricks someone with a pregnancy test is not absolutely deceitful? It is, I agree. But I am sure the cases of this are so rare and wonder if it's a fair launch off point to discuss child support laws, which no doubt needs some revamping.

This thread maintained a very male perspective, not surprising with the general readership of patnet, with general mood of paranoia against woman predators seizing on incomes of men through marriage and family formation. For every one of those cases of real unwanted pregnancy an subsequent child support there are plenty, maybe more, of women having an abortion and never even telling the man (husband or not).

The thread seemed unbalanced towards defending male interests in marriage and household No harm, lots of patnet threads turn into generally innocent snarky fun. I strongly suspect that the membership gender ratio might explain why things are so skewed. So hey, I just know that I am outnumbered and that threads turn into a talk therapy for dudes. So no big deal, just sayin'. I meant the comment "lightly."

Automan Empire says

turtledove says

This isn't about hatred of women. To me, it's about fairness and

responsibility.

Exactly!

I always find it amazing that a person would be surprised that a woman might fight for a man's right to equal treatment under the law. Like women have to side with a theory that's profoundly unfair simply because we are women and it benefits women. Well, some of us have sons. It's not difficult to see how he could be a victim of something like this if people don't speak up. Our only option shouldn't be to advise our sons to freeze their sperm for future use, followed immediately by a vasectomy.... Just to keep them safe from predatory women who then will be richly rewarded by our legal system.

Automan Empire says

For their part, name ONE positive action that women are expected to perform under the new notion of equality.

I think that a lot of women work very hard. There are plenty of women who work and take care of their families. In the past, men shouldered the entire burden of funding the family. Now women are expected to do the same. And many do. Of course, instead of having more as a result of the dual incomes, we simply inflated the cost of everything. The additional workers didn't do much for wages. So, in many ways, it didn't improve lives to have women enter the workforce in droves. And now we're trapped because most families need both incomes just to live. But many of us women are still expected to take primary responsibility of the children, cooking, and cleaning. When I was working, I would come home to my husband saying things like, "I'm so glad you're home! I'm starving!" Or, "I'm almost out of shirts." So, we went to work, just like the men, but we don't have wives who take care of the domestic chores. We are the wives.

How about looking into the reasons WHY some women feel they need to entrap a man or lie about a pregnancy?

The world is NOT FAIR. Women don't make as much as men in the same job, even if you are the fricken Editor of The New York Times! Not only that, if you don't accept lower pay you are called a rude bitch and fired, while a man is called ambitious, tough, and is promoted.

This world is NOT FAIR. Not only do women make less in the exact same jobs, the types of jobs most women are naturally inclined towards do not pay as much as jobs men are naturally inclined towards, in general. I know there are exceptions to this, but this is a generality. Think: hair stylist vs. finance

The world is NOT FAIR. Women by far do most of the child rearing all over the world, both within a married or committed relationship or as single mothers. And all that child rearing is unpaid.

The net result: WOMEN make far LESS than a man! And they are doing at least as much work or more if you include a family.

I am not saying it okay to ever lie to anyone, but how about INSTEAD of vilifying these women, why don't we focus instead on trying to change the huge underlying inequality that leads women to feel they have to lie in order to get what they need and want from life?

If a person feels a sense of their own power and that their needs will be met through their own productive work, their need to scheme, manipulate and lie falls away.

Cherry picking the patriarchal system. I can see that for some things.

On the other hand the US does a pretty good job at giving women no special treatment for bearing children. It is 6 weeks off with partial pay and then get your ass back to work or else forfeit your pay. I disagree with your notion that young men pay for dates and open doors. These rules of engagement have changed-- check out online dating as it happens these days. It very much reduces the male courtship aspect.

But allow me to refer to another thread where someone wanted a Raquel Welch robot to be their domestic assistant. What shall we say was going on there on terms of gender expectations?

No doubt, gender relationships have a lot to be desired. But let's concede, it's complicated and not just a matter of expecting women to make as much as men and doing the same things. Especially in light of reduced pay and glass ceilings.

I generally am amused by the threads of patnet, but on occasion one can make me wince.

I did not mean to hijack the thread. Carry on the jousting.

I hear the ATM machine the guy screwed last week purchased a false pregnancy test, and is suing him for child support.

Indiana Jones says

I am not saying it okay to ever lie to anyone, but how about INSTEAD of vilifying these women, why don't we focus instead on trying to change the huge underlying inequality that leads women to feel they have to lie in order to get what they need and want from life?

Of course women doing something evil should be vilified. It's not acceptable that a person would screw an other to "get what they need and want from life".

Women earn less because once they have 2 kids, they spend less hours working a job. This is not a bad thing. They should work less. The other side of that is fathers have to support their kids, and so the extra money they earn goes to that. No one is arguing against child support by fathers in general, just specific cases and what choices are given to men.

Arguing for strict pay equality is ideological stupidity. Men and women are different. Different things make them happy. Equal access makes sense. Equal pay doesn't.