What safeguards are there against poverty for teenage dads?

[Galloism]

I do agree the taxpayer support is necessary in cases like these (we kind of do that now, except then we go after the obligor parent for years to repay the state. I forget the exact number, but IIRC something like half of all back child support is owed to the state, and the child will never ever see it even if it were paid in full).


I'm not aware of one, but genetics would seem to play a legal factor here. Since the non-pregnant parent would have had to have gotten a genetic donor for the child to exist, the non-pregnant parent has no genetic connection to the child and may not be held legally liable due to that reason.

That's definitely one way it could play out, although recent advancements in such treatments like mitochondrial replacement therapy would further muddy the waters if it were decided to act based on genetic links.

Science often does outpace law.

[Page]

I think child support should be reformed such that each parent pays into a common fund which is then distributed based on need. In other words, if Jeff Bezos knocks someone up, it's bullshit that his baby mama can get tens or hundreds of millions in child support. Bozos should still pay tens or hundreds of millions, but his baby mama's income should be capped at 6 figures and the rest of it should go to the parents of kids whose partner makes minimum wage. Doing this would allow working class people to pay out a smaller percent of their income.

[Galloism]

I think child support should be reformed such that each parent pays into a common fund which is then distributed based on need. In other words, if Jeff Bezos knocks someone up, it's bullshit that his baby mama can get tens or hundreds of millions in child support. Bozos should still pay tens or hundreds of millions, but his baby mama's income should be capped at 6 figures and the rest of it should go to the parents of kids whose partner makes minimum wage. Doing this would allow working class people to pay out a smaller percent of their income.

This actually isn’t a terrible idea. We could even extend it to those who give children up for adoption - the adopting parent could draw from the fund while the relinquishing parents pay into it.

It would also change the mindset regarding punishing obligor parents for seeking a higher education instead of going straight to the workforce as we do currently. We could see that as a long term investment into the fund instead of a hungry mouth today.

Granted, I think general taxation and social support is a better method (everyone should be interested in the next generation), but as an alternative your idea is better than the status quo.

[Kerwa]

I think child support should be reformed such that each parent pays into a common fund which is then distributed based on need. In other words, if Jeff Bezos knocks someone up, it's bullshit that his baby mama can get tens or hundreds of millions in child support. Bozos should still pay tens or hundreds of millions, but his baby mama's income should be capped at 6 figures and the rest of it should go to the parents of kids whose partner makes minimum wage. Doing this would allow working class people to pay out a smaller percent of their income.

Lots of places - like NY - have a statutory maximum for child support payments which is way below what Bezos would even notice. Bezos would never be forced to pay millions or even 100,000s a year.

[Grinning Dragon]

IMO, if a female makes the claim, if x is the baby daddy a mandatory paternity/DNA test is conducted and the claimant is on the hook for the costs, since the burden of proof is on her.
I can count on one hand so far, guys I've known over the years get hooked into paying child support for a kid that wasn't his and wonder how many thousands of guys face the same thing here in the US.

Years ago, my brother's co-worker almost got roped into paying for a kid that wasn't his and the thing is, the guy is sterile due to a groin injury when he was a teen.
Come to find out the guy that did knock her up was a druggie and a looser and my brother's co-worker made bank, so she did everything she could to persuade the court the kid was his, it was whole legal mess that shouldn't have happened to begin with, apparently medical proof he was sterile wasn't enough for the courts.

[Terruana]

IMO, if a female makes the claim, if x is the baby daddy a mandatory paternity/DNA test is conducted and the claimant is on the hook for the costs, since the burden of proof is on her.
I can count on one hand so far, guys I've known over the years get hooked into paying child support for a kid that wasn't his and wonder how many thousands of guys face the same thing here in the US.

Years ago, my brother's co-worker almost got roped into paying for a kid that wasn't his and the thing is, the guy is sterile due to a groin injury when he was a teen.
Come to find out the guy that did knock her up was a druggie and a looser and my brother's co-worker made bank, so she did everything she could to persuade the court the kid was his, it was whole legal mess that shouldn't have happened to begin with, apparently medical proof he was sterile wasn't enough for the courts.

I always find these claims pretty interesting, especially considering how frequently they're made compared to the likelihood of acute, permanent infertility as a result of any kind of testicular trauma.
In fact, the vast majority of evidence seems to indicate that although it can result in reduced fertility, and I've not found a single case study of confirmed, permanent infertility as a direct consequence of testicular trauma.

While obviously not an exhaustive list, some examples of the evidence I've looked at can be seen here, here, and here.

My guess is that there's a lot of folks out there who are pushing an agenda and think they've come up with the perfect example to illustrate their point, and actually have no idea what they're talking about...

[Galloism]

IMO, if a female makes the claim, if x is the baby daddy a mandatory paternity/DNA test is conducted and the claimant is on the hook for the costs, since the burden of proof is on her.
I can count on one hand so far, guys I've known over the years get hooked into paying child support for a kid that wasn't his and wonder how many thousands of guys face the same thing here in the US.

Years ago, my brother's co-worker almost got roped into paying for a kid that wasn't his and the thing is, the guy is sterile due to a groin injury when he was a teen.
Come to find out the guy that did knock her up was a druggie and a looser and my brother's co-worker made bank, so she did everything she could to persuade the court the kid was his, it was whole legal mess that shouldn't have happened to begin with, apparently medical proof he was sterile wasn't enough for the courts.

I always find these claims pretty interesting, especially considering how frequently they're made compared to the likelihood of acute, permanent infertility as a result of any kind of testicular trauma.
In fact, the vast majority of evidence seems to indicate that although it can result in reduced fertility, and I've not found a single case study of confirmed, permanent infertility as a direct consequence of testicular trauma.

While obviously not an exhaustive list, some examples of the evidence I've looked at can be seen here, here, and here.

My guess is that there's a lot of folks out there who are pushing an agenda and think they've come up with the perfect example to illustrate their point, and actually have no idea what they're talking about...

I don't know much about the testicular trauma part, but stories of infertile men being gaslit for years are not really hard to find at all.

[Terruana]

I always find these claims pretty interesting, especially considering how frequently they're made compared to the likelihood of acute, permanent infertility as a result of any kind of testicular trauma.
In fact, the vast majority of evidence seems to indicate that although it can result in reduced fertility, and I've not found a single case study of confirmed, permanent infertility as a direct consequence of testicular trauma.

While obviously not an exhaustive list, some examples of the evidence I've looked at can be seen here, here, and here.

My guess is that there's a lot of folks out there who are pushing an agenda and think they've come up with the perfect example to illustrate their point, and actually have no idea what they're talking about...

I don't know much about the testicular trauma part, but stories of infertile men being gaslit for years are not really hard to find at all.

Im sure there are lots of other causes of infertility that certainly can lead to situations like that, but testicular trauma is incredibly unlikely to be one of them. It is pretty easy to filter out the guys claiming to be infertile after they were kicked in the testicles as a teenager though.

[Grinning Dragon]

IMO, if a female makes the claim, if x is the baby daddy a mandatory paternity/DNA test is conducted and the claimant is on the hook for the costs, since the burden of proof is on her.
I can count on one hand so far, guys I've known over the years get hooked into paying child support for a kid that wasn't his and wonder how many thousands of guys face the same thing here in the US.

Years ago, my brother's co-worker almost got roped into paying for a kid that wasn't his and the thing is, the guy is sterile due to a groin injury when he was a teen.
Come to find out the guy that did knock her up was a druggie and a looser and my brother's co-worker made bank, so she did everything she could to persuade the court the kid was his, it was whole legal mess that shouldn't have happened to begin with, apparently medical proof he was sterile wasn't enough for the courts.

I always find these claims pretty interesting, especially considering how frequently they're made compared to the likelihood of acute, permanent infertility as a result of any kind of testicular trauma.
In fact, the vast majority of evidence seems to indicate that although it can result in reduced fertility, and I've not found a single case study of confirmed, permanent infertility as a direct consequence of testicular trauma.

While obviously not an exhaustive list, some examples of the evidence I've looked at can be seen here, here, and here.

My guess is that there's a lot of folks out there who are pushing an agenda and think they've come up with the perfect example to illustrate their point, and actually have no idea what they're talking about...

Well considering the man's testicles have been replaced with a prosthetics so it looks like he has a sack. Kinda hard to knock up someone.

[Terruana]

I always find these claims pretty interesting, especially considering how frequently they're made compared to the likelihood of acute, permanent infertility as a result of any kind of testicular trauma.
In fact, the vast majority of evidence seems to indicate that although it can result in reduced fertility, and I've not found a single case study of confirmed, permanent infertility as a direct consequence of testicular trauma.

While obviously not an exhaustive list, some examples of the evidence I've looked at can be seen here, here, and here.

My guess is that there's a lot of folks out there who are pushing an agenda and think they've come up with the perfect example to illustrate their point, and actually have no idea what they're talking about...

Well considering the man's testicles have been replaced with a prosthetics so it looks like he has a sack. Kinda hard to knock up someone.

Your friend had a testicular injury in his teens that somehow resulted in a bilateral orchiectomy, after which his testicles were then replaced with prosthetics?

According to this paper, as of 2018 there had been 4 cases of bilateral testicular torsion in teenagers reported worldwide. Its also worth mentioning that in the case I linked to, they were still able to salvage one of the testes.

So forgive me if I take your story with a grain of salt...

[Rumasaya]

A few years ago on this site, the average NSer's response to a hypothetical about a guy having sex with a girl he met at a party but having to drop out to get a job to pay child support was met with "he should've gotten a vasectomy instead."

Trying to create an "average NSer" would in a horrible chimera of all ideologies from ultra-Posadism to national-socialist hyperaccelerationism. I don't think you can in any way, shape or form say that there is an average NSer - let alone on the minefield that is discussions surrounding babies.

1: What safeguards; real safeguards (none of these "she wouldn't want to be a mother unless she had a promise from the father to stay" assumptions, I mean actual safeguards under law, not murky assumptions about human behaviour) are there against the sort of scenario described above happening and ruining the guy's life and career prospects and dragging him into poverty?

2: If these safeguards exist, why was the average NSer's first instinct to say "he should've gotten a vasectomy"? Doesn't that suggest, in their eyes, "he should've gotten a vasectomy" to be a stronger argument than any relating to whatever supposed safeguards exist?

3: As well, why wasn't the rest of side B distancing themselves from the "he should've gotten a vasectomy" talking point? Or for that matter, why weren't they actively calling BS on it? Why were the only people actively calling BS on it those of us from side A?

I think it's necessary to state these two facts around intercourse outside of rape or coercion cases:

1. Intercourse is an act between two (or more in some cases) persons
2. Intercourse is not a human right

By the end of the day a pregnancy would be to "blame" on both the mother and the father. Sex is not something that suddenly happens (outside of certain cases that should fall outside of this discussion, unless we want to steer the conversation towards rape specifically) and it's not a human necessity such as food and water. While I understand that it can be hard on teenage dads (or 'unwilling' dads in general) by the end of the day they partially caused it themselves. There definitely should be room to debate as to how much one should contribute in specific cases, but by the end of the day "I wanted to have sex with her but I didn't want to have a baby" doesn't really hold up when intercourse is biologically for reproduction.

[Ostroeuropa]

Well child support isn't a thing that normally happens, rather it's usually a result of some kind of legal proceeding like a divorce or annulment. Further, child support payments are calculated in some way based on the party's ability to pay. So a teenager in full time education who had a child would probably never be ordered to pay child support in the first place, because there aren't divorce proceedings when you fuck someone at a party, and even if a court did find such a party liable for child support payments it would probably also have to conclude that they are not in any position to pay anything.

A teenager in full time education might not be ordered to do so, but a teenager in a minimum wage job probably would. At that point, if they planned to enter education, it is extremely difficult to do so and they need a sympathetic judge to allow it as it constitutes voluntarily lowering their income.

[Galloism]

Well child support isn't a thing that normally happens, rather it's usually a result of some kind of legal proceeding like a divorce or annulment. Further, child support payments are calculated in some way based on the party's ability to pay. So a teenager in full time education who had a child would probably never be ordered to pay child support in the first place, because there aren't divorce proceedings when you fuck someone at a party, and even if a court did find such a party liable for child support payments it would probably also have to conclude that they are not in any position to pay anything.

A teenager in full time education might not be ordered to do so, but a teenager in a minimum wage job probably would. At that point, if they planned to enter education, it is extremely difficult to do so and they need a sympathetic judge to allow it as it constitutes voluntarily lowering their income.

Actually no, typically if you are in higher education the court will look at your skills and abilities and determine what you COULD make working a full time job.

Then it will impute income for that.

And then it will add income for the amount of grants and scholarships received, and any tax credits received. On top of it.

[Ostroeuropa]

A teenager in full time education might not be ordered to do so, but a teenager in a minimum wage job probably would. At that point, if they planned to enter education, it is extremely difficult to do so and they need a sympathetic judge to allow it as it constitutes voluntarily lowering their income.

Actually no, typically if you are in higher education the court will look at your skills and abilities and determine what you COULD make working a full time job.

Then it will impute income for that.

And then it will add income for the amount of grants and scholarships received, and any tax credits received. On top of it.

Ah, I see, thankyou.

I'll also point out that the people shilling for this have done zero consideration of the power dynamics this implies for men.

If you get fired from your job the courts will view that as deliberately choosing to lower your income and refuse to lower the amount you owe. Failure to pay then means jail.

Gynocentrists and those with a pathological aversion to actually considering the lives of men and their experiences will endlessly waffle to justify this. It is after all a necessary component of child support.

But they never actually consider the mans life in this situation. Imagine knowing your boss can send you to prison if they like, and imagine them knowing it too. Consider also that the vast majority of those in prison for failing to pay child support are working class ethnic minorities.

Nobody who calls themselves left wing has any business supporting this policy. Feminism is incompatible with workers rights.


Consider also that while everyone else in the country including parents can willingly lower their income if they like. If you earn 50k in an office and decide "I'm going to follow my dreams and become a baker instead, i'll earn 25k, but that's enough.", they don't have the government busting down their door, pointing to their child, and screeching before throwing the person in prison.

But I thought the interests of the child justified that behavior? I thought the child was entitled to it?

Then why aren't there mass arrests of parents who behave this way?

Oh.

It's *Only* parents forced into child support. Sounds like it's not a right of the child then.

But here's the thing. They have to make child support work this way, because when they don't, many men would rather quit their job rather than being forced into parenthood against their will. Rather than take that as a clue "Well we're clearly doing something extremely fucked up if these people are willing to impoverish themselves over it" we've decided to threaten them with violence to get them to work, restricted their liberty enormously, and then said "It's about the interest of the child. We have to do this.".

Do you? Then why don't you arrest parents who willingly lower their incomes? Why don't you throw people in prison if their boss fires them and they have a kid? Surely it's either something the child is entitled to, or it isn't.

The reason is because the people who say that are lying. They do not actually think through their positions, do not actually mean them, and are merely spouting the thought terminating garbage they have been fed to allow them to ignore the way we treat men in society.

[Grinning Dragon]

Well considering the man's testicles have been replaced with a prosthetics so it looks like he has a sack. Kinda hard to knock up someone.

Your friend had a testicular injury in his teens that somehow resulted in a bilateral orchiectomy, after which his testicles were then replaced with prosthetics?

According to this paper, as of 2018 there had been 4 cases of bilateral testicular torsion in teenagers reported worldwide. Its also worth mentioning that in the case I linked to, they were still able to salvage one of the testes.

So forgive me if I take your story with a grain of salt...

Never met the guy and just relaying how it was told to me by my brother since it was his co-worker and I don't see any reason as to why my brother would lie about something like that.
Either way, it wasn't his kid and didn't get falsely hooked into paying child support.

It would also be nice if there was more of push or availability for men to have our version of a birth/sperm-control device, pill, etc.

[Saiwania]

A safeguard actually is celibacy for some people, even if you don't want to hear that solution, it's a valid option. Who cares what other people think when chances are they don't know anything about you? Other than the few people if any, who do break into your personal circle. People who gossip or indulge in rumor, they're not necessarily worth your time or energy. Exclude them if you happen to not like that nonsense.

Celibacy alone won't protect you from poverty either, it just makes it more likely that a major cost is eliminated from your life for you.

To be financially well off, you generally have to have in demand skills and having been competent enough to have successfully launched and maintained a good career. If that's not you, you won't make it anyways. There is no hope to be had. Who cares about work beyond what you have to do?

Become as rich as you can, and once you have enough resources, do whatever you want.

[Hemakral]

Game thread?

This is a description of the Norwegian system, which is pretty similar to every Nordic system.

My bad, thought you were roleplaying.
ignore me, am dumb

[GuessTheAltAccount]

If I hadn't seen the OP before, I'd wonder why he's so hung up on poverty among teenage fathers when teenage mothers are much more affected and impoverished by teenage pregnancy

I'll look into your link when I get a chance, but one point I can already address even just from your description of the link is that at no point did I claim teenage mothers weren't in poverty. But they did choose poverty over delaying motherhood, even if it shouldn't have to be a choice, whereas a teenage boy could for all we know could have been told by her she wouldn't keep the baby and then gone after for child support when she changed her mind and/or didn't mean it in the first place.

So who benefits from that arrangement? Mothers just wanting to climb out of poverty would at the very least benefit just as much from a system where the taxpayers pay, and everyone who took the same risk has to chip in. The only mothers who really benefit from the current arrangement are the ones who would want to drag him into poverty. Which leaves the question of why so many other voters, male and female, have a sense of solidarity with them.

A safeguard actually is celibacy for some people, even if you don't want to hear that solution, it's a valid option. Who cares what other people think when chances are they don't know anything about you? Other than the few people if any, who do break into your personal circle. People who gossip or indulge in rumor, they're not necessarily worth your time or energy. Exclude them if you happen to not like that nonsense.

Celibacy alone won't protect you from poverty either, it just makes it more likely that a major cost is eliminated from your life for you.

To be financially well off, you generally have to have in demand skills and having been competent enough to have successfully launched and maintained a good career. If that's not you, you won't make it anyways. There is no hope to be had. Who cares about work beyond what you have to do?

Become as rich as you can, and once you have enough resources, do whatever you want.

Oh, I'd rather accept being mistaken for less-than-desirable than accept actual poverty. At least the former makes stupid people easier to identify, and tells me who not to believe on anything else.

Still, I'd rather a world in which how risk-averse one was hadn't been a confounding factor in who was years behind everyone else in accumulated reputation for sexual performance.

[Terruana]

Your friend had a testicular injury in his teens that somehow resulted in a bilateral orchiectomy, after which his testicles were then replaced with prosthetics?

According to this paper, as of 2018 there had been 4 cases of bilateral testicular torsion in teenagers reported worldwide. Its also worth mentioning that in the case I linked to, they were still able to salvage one of the testes.

So forgive me if I take your story with a grain of salt...

Never met the guy and just relaying how it was told to me by my brother since it was his co-worker and I don't see any reason as to why my brother would lie about something like that.
Either way, it wasn't his kid and didn't get falsely hooked into paying child support.

It would also be nice if there was more of push or availability for men to have our version of a birth/sperm-control device, pill, etc.

I would guess a more accurate summary is that he was left with reduced fertility after an injury in his teens, most likely affecting just one testicle, which would make it less likely that he fathered her child, but would also explain why the court did not take his medical documents as absolute proof, since there would still be a reasonable chance. At least in his case it sounds like everything worked out in the end though.

Male contraception is an interesting topic though - from memory (which tbf gets worse every year), there have been a few attempts to create hormonal birth control for men based around reducing sperm count or inducing production of non-functional sperm. So far, every attempt that has reached human trials has ended up being scrapped due to the side effects. Interestingly, I've seen a lot of folks complain about this fact, citing the many and varied side effects of female contraceptives, which can admittedly be quite nasty. The biggest difference that I recall standing out to me was that the male hormonal contraceptives had a very high chance (around 5% of study participants) of never recovering their fertility after stopping the injections, which would obviously have a huge impact on a person's future.

[Galloism]

Never met the guy and just relaying how it was told to me by my brother since it was his co-worker and I don't see any reason as to why my brother would lie about something like that.
Either way, it wasn't his kid and didn't get falsely hooked into paying child support.

It would also be nice if there was more of push or availability for men to have our version of a birth/sperm-control device, pill, etc.

I would guess a more accurate summary is that he was left with reduced fertility after an injury in his teens, most likely affecting just one testicle, which would make it less likely that he fathered her child, but would also explain why the court did not take his medical documents as absolute proof, since there would still be a reasonable chance. At least in his case it sounds like everything worked out in the end though.

Male contraception is an interesting topic though - from memory (which tbf gets worse every year), there have been a few attempts to create hormonal birth control for men based around reducing sperm count or inducing production of non-functional sperm. So far, every attempt that has reached human trials has ended up being scrapped due to the side effects. Interestingly, I've seen a lot of folks complain about this fact, citing the many and varied side effects of female contraceptives, which can admittedly be quite nasty. The biggest difference that I recall standing out to me was that the male hormonal contraceptives had a very high chance (around 5% of study participants) of never recovering their fertility after stopping the injections, which would obviously have a huge impact on a person's future.

That's about the size of it on contraception. We've tried various things, but they always have an unacceptably high side effect of permanent infertility, which makes it a nonstarter.

This has been classified as men being "whiny about side effects" because hating people on account of their gender is totally acceptable in our society if it's the RIGHT gender you're hating, but it's the permanent infertility that keeps getting it scrapped - men in the studies were largely willing to put up with the side effects and polling shows men in general are largely supportive of having a hormonal contraceptive option. It's just science is hard.

(There's also some social resistance to the subject, but I'm not entirely convinced, at this point, that such is the main problem. Money overcomes social resistance quite readily in most cases, and all data we have shows there's a huge market for this regardless of the social paradigm.)

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Never met the guy and just relaying how it was told to me by my brother since it was his co-worker and I don't see any reason as to why my brother would lie about something like that.
Either way, it wasn't his kid and didn't get falsely hooked into paying child support.

It would also be nice if there was more of push or availability for men to have our version of a birth/sperm-control device, pill, etc.

I would guess a more accurate summary is that he was left with reduced fertility after an injury in his teens, most likely affecting just one testicle, which would make it less likely that he fathered her child, but would also explain why the court did not take his medical documents as absolute proof, since there would still be a reasonable chance. At least in his case it sounds like everything worked out in the end though.

Male contraception is an interesting topic though - from memory (which tbf gets worse every year), there have been a few attempts to create hormonal birth control for men based around reducing sperm count or inducing production of non-functional sperm. So far, every attempt that has reached human trials has ended up being scrapped due to the side effects. Interestingly, I've seen a lot of folks complain about this fact, citing the many and varied side effects of female contraceptives, which can admittedly be quite nasty. The biggest difference that I recall standing out to me was that the male hormonal contraceptives had a very high chance (around 5% of study participants) of never recovering their fertility after stopping the injections, which would obviously have a huge impact on a person's future.

Vasectomies also carry a risk that reversal will fail, yet we didn't see that pointed out in the thread alluded to in the OP.

[Terruana]

I would guess a more accurate summary is that he was left with reduced fertility after an injury in his teens, most likely affecting just one testicle, which would make it less likely that he fathered her child, but would also explain why the court did not take his medical documents as absolute proof, since there would still be a reasonable chance. At least in his case it sounds like everything worked out in the end though.

Male contraception is an interesting topic though - from memory (which tbf gets worse every year), there have been a few attempts to create hormonal birth control for men based around reducing sperm count or inducing production of non-functional sperm. So far, every attempt that has reached human trials has ended up being scrapped due to the side effects. Interestingly, I've seen a lot of folks complain about this fact, citing the many and varied side effects of female contraceptives, which can admittedly be quite nasty. The biggest difference that I recall standing out to me was that the male hormonal contraceptives had a very high chance (around 5% of study participants) of never recovering their fertility after stopping the injections, which would obviously have a huge impact on a person's future.

Vasectomies also carry a risk that reversal will fail, yet we didn't see that pointed out in the thread alluded to in the OP.

I doubt any reasonable person would hold up vasectomies as "reversible contraception", and no self-respecting doctor would perfom the operation on somebody who believed it to be a reversible, temporary contraceptive option.

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Vasectomies also carry a risk that reversal will fail, yet we didn't see that pointed out in the thread alluded to in the OP.

I doubt any reasonable person would hold up vasectomies as "reversible contraception", and no self-respecting doctor would perfom the operation on somebody who believed it to be a reversible, temporary contraceptive option.

And yet, your side of this debate is the side that left the "he should've gotten a vasectomy" talking point unrefuted back then. How do you explain that?

[Terruana]

I doubt any reasonable person would hold up vasectomies as "reversible contraception", and no self-respecting doctor would perfom the operation on somebody who believed it to be a reversible, temporary contraceptive option.

And yet, your side of this debate is the side that left the "he should've gotten a vasectomy" talking point unrefuted back then. How do you explain that?

I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm assuming you're doing your usual thing of distorting reality to fit your red pill ideology.

If you want to gripe about peoples responses to a specific thread, I would need to see the actual thread and actual responses before I could comment, since I just don't trust you to accurately sum things up or provide necessary context.

[Mtwara]

I'm pretty sure there's an OG nationstates issue on this very subject. I think the best safeguard is a secure job in the army.

Only kidding.

I don't have a good answer to the original question, but...

I do wonder why dads leave. A few of my nieces and newphews never knew their dad and a lot of my mates grew up in single parent households. The stock answer is that their dads are scum, but I don't think that really reflects what was going on.

On what is hopefully a slightly related note, one thing that really shocked me after doing my own research was that men get post partum depression just as frequently as women do, although unless I've been living under a rock, then there isn't nearly as much awareness. In the UK at least, paternity leave is two weeks so these days I try to be extra nice to returning dads for a while after they come back.

I think the science these days is that we aren't fully mature until we're 25 or older, so I would question if teenagers are really mature enough to take 100% responsibility for accidentally or deliberately conceiving and delivering a baby anyway.