Thread: This is serious
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Old 12-10-2007, 02:10 PM   #35 (permalink)
Frosstbyte
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I'm a bit torn on this issue, partially as it relates to the bigger question of paternal rights and partially as it relates to the issue at hand.

In general, I think every father has a right to a test when the baby is born in order to confirm paternity. With all the stories you hear about mishandled babies in general, I think parents ought to have one as they leave in order to confirm it and make sure the hospital didn't screw something up. i mean, forget right, it should just be done when the baby is having its just born tests done. MOST of the time it'd be a total non-issue. When it was an issue, the poor bastard could deal with it then and leave the cheating bitch to deal with her kid on her own. That would nip the problem in the bud instead of creating this whole nonsense of "Well you treated the child as your own, so that makes him your own even if he really wasn't." Paternal rights are really shit on in this country. Unless I decide to do so, I (and I don't think any other guy) wants to care for anyone else's progeny as their own. It's an abhorrent abuse of the trust implicit in the relationship and there is no reason to "protect" people from the truth of it when it comes to the surface.

Specifically in this case, you're just stuck with the reality that the system does not seek to protect your rights and that it is honestly past the point when any of this could have been rectified or changed. You're divorced, you have a good relationship with your children (genetic or otherwise) and you don't really stand to gain anything by pushing the issue. HOWEVER, your youngest son has very good reasons for wanting to know whose genes he has because of the possibility of genetic defects or propensities for disease. If you are very convinced that this is a possibility, I think you should first talk to the mother to see if you can confirm it further and then you should talk in a very straightforwards and adult way with your son if your conversation with her confirms or adds to your suspicions. I don't think it should be a "I hate you and everything you stand for and don't want to be your father" discussion but rather a "I've discovered something that's upsetting and disturbing and that might have an effect on your current and future health and wellbeing." The point shouldn't be to try to ruin or change that relationship, but rather to let him decide for himself if he wants to open that door in order to know where he stands.

It's a difficult choice and a difficult position. The relationship you've built over twenty years should be more important than whose genetics he carries going forward in your relationship, but he may nevertheless want to know.
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