What safeguards are there against poverty for teenage dads?

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Side B: Thinks it is reasonable to expect every teenage boy to choose between abstinence that gets them mistaken for having been too undesirable to get laid, a vasectomy that shuts them out from future biological fatherhood, or a risk of live-ruining poverty every time he has sex.

Less than 40% of high school seniors have had sex. Clearly "not having sex" is a reasonable expectation of teenaged boys because the majority of them don't.

I’d need a citation for that one. I often take the social sciences with a grain of salt, as damn near any methodology they tout has its limitations.

That said, as Gallo pointed out, this sort of thing can happen to college students as well.

[Genivaria]

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.

This is 100% false, at least within the United States. It is absolutely without any doubt or any ambiguity certain in every single case in which child support is pursued against a putative father that the putative father will be found liable for child support, regardless of age, personal circumstances, whether or not they were literally raped by the mother, whether they are completely and totally disabled, or any other factor of any sort always forever.

And if you are in school in full time education, the court will determine what you COULD make if you WERE working, and calculate your child support based on your theoretical earnings, plus, in addition to levying child support against your theroetical earnings, levy child support against any scholarships, grants, or tax credits due to education in addition to that (this means, in practice, an obligor parent who goes to school will pay MORE in child support than an obligor parent working full time).

If the father in question is not literally forced out of higher education, they no doubt will not be able to keep up with this burden, and will therefore be placed in debt for decades for failure to pay, along with high interest rates and fees for failure to pay while they were getting educated.

Most of the proceeds of that go to the state, not the child.

Which is why any claims that the court has the 'welfare of the child' in mind is a flat lie.
If the state truly wanted to care for children than they would treat being a full-time parent as an actual job and should be paid accordingly.
Currently full-time single parents must work at least two full-time jobs with the stress of both and the pay of one.

[Chessmistress]

Almost this.
But before giving men the right to surrend their legal duties, we should focus on granting all the necessary to the rejected babies.
I think that Feminism should focus on this, then MRA will do their thing.

There are people who think both sides, Feminism and MRA, are fools, and they're mocking us, both of us.
This have to stop: I'm not so stupid to think that a bunch of deadbeat dads who will hide behind such reform are a major problem compared to a guy who during a poverty-spreading pandemic and just after a very expensive divorce had enough money to launch his own starship.

Wow, this is so not the take that I expected from a radical feminist, but it's welcome. And yes, eat the damn rich!

Radical feminist doesn't mean "idiot".
We had, and still are, living in a poverty-spreading pandemic but the ultra-riches have become even richer: at such point they should be the main focus, it doesn't make any sense to keep focusing on deadbeat dads who on average are now poorer than before.

[Terruana]

Less than 40% of high school seniors have had sex. Clearly "not having sex" is a reasonable expectation of teenaged boys because the majority of them don't.

I’d need a citation for that one. I often take the social sciences with a grain of salt, as damn near any methodology they tout has its limitations.

That said, as Gallo pointed out, this sort of thing can happen to college students as well.

Why are you bothering to ask for a citation when you dismiss any evidence provided to you as false because you don't believe in science?

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Wow, this is so not the take that I expected from a radical feminist, but it's welcome. And yes, eat the damn rich!

Radical feminist doesn't mean "idiot".
We had, and still are, living in a poverty-spreading pandemic but the ultra-riches have become even richer: at such point they should be the main focus, it doesn't make any sense to keep focusing on deadbeat dads who on average are now poorer than before.

I don't think the other user was calling you an idiot, I think it's just that other feminists often in practice have a blind spot on this subject, holding up society's failure to make having kids affordable as if it were proof that millions of voters were faking their belief that life begins at conception, yet giving guys no option to escape poverty even if their partners lied to them about what they would do if pregnant.

[Terruana]

Condoms can break. And vasectomies can fail in their reversal.

Also, how many doctors even would perform vasectomies on teenagers in the first place, especially without the parents' permission?

Well, there is this:

https://time.com/4661209/male-birth-control-gel/

Two small injections to block the vas deferens

Interesting share, thanks. As far as I can see, the latest updates were in 2017 when there was a study on monkeys in the US (they confirmed it works as a contraceptive, but no data on whether it is reversible or not), and an update from a research team in India working on an almost identical product with the same issue - uncertain reversibility.

Unfortunately, permanent infertility is a pretty dire side effect so unless they can come up with a way around it, this is likely to be just as much a dead end as the other male contraceptives that have been tested to date.

(If anyone has any more recent updates, I would be interested to know how the studies are going. Kinda looks like the researchers have given up on it in the past few years, as their own website hasn't been updated since 2019)

[GuessTheAltAccount]

I’d need a citation for that one. I often take the social sciences with a grain of salt, as damn near any methodology they tout has its limitations.

That said, as Gallo pointed out, this sort of thing can happen to college students as well.

Why are you bothering to ask for a citation when you dismiss any evidence provided to you as false because you don't believe in science?

Ah yes, because either you don't respect the scientific method as a concept, or you 100% trust every discipline to be 100% rational about this and to expect the people funding them to also be 100% rational about this to a point where telling the truth couldn't possibly be a detriment to their careers.

And apparently, only science worshippers give a shit about knowing what the methodology is before they critique it, too?

But hey, if so many high schoolers are virgins themselves, wouldn't that make them hypocrites for then later using the virginity of someone who was themselves a virgin at the same age as an insult?

[Diopolis]

Less than 40% of high school seniors have had sex. Clearly "not having sex" is a reasonable expectation of teenaged boys because the majority of them don't.

It's not by choice. Given the chance to get laid, almost any teenage lad would go for it. Almost, because there are Mormons, asexuals, etc. And of course, gay sex won't produce offspring, so that's always an option that past societies have encouraged (Sparta, Athens, etc.). But since the majority of lads aren't gay, quite a few aren't even bi, that might be a non-starter for many of them.

The average teenaged boy isn't having sex though. It's clearly not an unreasonable expectation of teenaged boys to just not have sex for that reason. Reducing the percentage that is having sex is clearly a doable thing because the percentage is steadily dropping, albeit not particularly quickly. It would appear that a smaller percentage of teenagers are creating opportunities to have sex every year and continuing to shrink that percentage is a worthy and obviously doable goal- and that makes it obvious that "don't have sex" is a reasonable expectation of minor teens- because they could just... not create the opportunity to have sex.

[Diopolis]

Less than 40% of high school seniors have had sex. Clearly "not having sex" is a reasonable expectation of teenaged boys because the majority of them don't.

I’d need a citation for that one. I often take the social sciences with a grain of salt, as damn near any methodology they tout has its limitations.

That said, as Gallo pointed out, this sort of thing can happen to college students as well.

https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/ ... ty-decline
38% of teenaged boys have had sex.
I will concede that as this data appears to be based on a survey of high schoolers in general rather than specifically seniors it is entirely possible the numbers for seniors are higher, but not enough to make an overwhelming majority of adolescent males sexually active before leaving high school. In any case, the point that there are enough sexually inactive teen boys to make "just don't have sex" a reasonable expectation is certainly well supported by the available evidence.

[GuessTheAltAccount]

I’d need a citation for that one. I often take the social sciences with a grain of salt, as damn near any methodology they tout has its limitations.

That said, as Gallo pointed out, this sort of thing can happen to college students as well.

https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/ ... ty-decline
38% of teenaged boys have had sex.
I will concede that as this data appears to be based on a survey of high schoolers in general rather than specifically seniors it is entirely possible the numbers for seniors are higher, but not enough to make an overwhelming majority of adolescent males sexually active before leaving high school. In any case, the point that there are enough sexually inactive teen boys to make "just don't have sex" a reasonable expectation is certainly well supported by the available evidence.

A reasonable expectation only if enforceable. (Ie. Never mixing boys and girls outside of the reach of those who would and could stop them from having sex with each other... good luck with that.) Don't just let a few people for whom the risk ended badly slip into poverty while the many other people who took the exact same risk doesn't have to contribute a dime. Of all the supposed means to deter teen sex, one that unevenly applied and disproportionately harmful to ony a small fraction of them by a complete and utter matter of random chance hardly seems like the best possible way

Really, that they have sex with each other in their teen years could have been a good thing, if it weren't for that particular risk, if only for them giving each other more pleasure, let alone more practice with it to get better at it before their sex drive drops off as they age. (Although the fact that this risk hasn't deterred them is pretty alarming about how powerful those instincts are, and certainly doesn't reflect well on the already-hollow "tEaCh BoYs NoT tO bE dIsTrAcTeD" talking point in the context of dress codes. Unless you attribute them taking that risk to "trust.")

Self-reporting doesn't prevent respondents from lying, and people could lie about this either way for any number of reasons. I'm not going to state my first guess at one of many possible reasons for them to lie until you can name a reason why so many people who were virgins at that age used someone eles's virginity at the same age as an insult.

[Terruana]

Why are you bothering to ask for a citation when you dismiss any evidence provided to you as false because you don't believe in science?

Ah yes, because either you don't respect the scientific method as a concept, or you 100% trust every discipline to be 100% rational about this and to expect the people funding them to also be 100% rational about this to a point where telling the truth couldn't possibly be a detriment to their careers.

And apparently, only science worshippers give a shit about knowing what the methodology is before they critique it, too?

But hey, if so many high schoolers are virgins themselves, wouldn't that make them hypocrites for then later using the virginity of someone who was themselves a virgin at the same age as an insult?

Right, but you don't critically analyse a source's methodology and come to a fair and balanced conclusion, you just dismiss anything that doesn't align with your world view as lies...

[Saiwania]

It is believable that most people these days are having sex much less than previous generations did. Because of technology and social media, social skills are on the decline if not it simply becoming more common for people to be in their own solitary bubbles. Only the traditional extroverts have a better chance now. Fewer people are talking face to face anymore more than necessary or are relying on texting/online centric activities.

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Ah yes, because either you don't respect the scientific method as a concept, or you 100% trust every discipline to be 100% rational about this and to expect the people funding them to also be 100% rational about this to a point where telling the truth couldn't possibly be a detriment to their careers.

And apparently, only science worshippers give a shit about knowing what the methodology is before they critique it, too?

But hey, if so many high schoolers are virgins themselves, wouldn't that make them hypocrites for then later using the virginity of someone who was themselves a virgin at the same age as an insult?

Right, but you don't critically analyse a source's methodology and come to a fair and balanced conclusion, you just dismiss anything that doesn't align with your world view as lies...

If that were the case, my opinions wouldn't have drifted over the years on everything from making excuses for China or Israel to how much blame the left themselves deserve for people turning to scum like Trump as an alternative to it.

And it is a fair and balanced conclusion to take with a grain of salt something that, as the other user noted, is about self-reporting, when self-reporting offers no plausible deterrent against lying.

It is believable that most people these days are having sex much less than previous generations did. Because of technology and social media, social skills are on the decline if not it simply becoming more common for people to be in their own solitary bubbles. Only the traditional extroverts have a better chance now. Fewer people are talking face to face anymore more than necessary or are relying on texting/online centric activities.

It's also possible that more attention has been drawn to the "you still owe child support even if she told you she wouldn't keep the baby" aspect of child support law in the online era. I certainly hadn't heard of it until I got on this site.

Usually, the people attributing virginity to lack of desirability are the same people who were wrong about everything else, from the personal lives of everyone straying from woke dogma on gender issues, to what it even is they're saying. What else could they be wrong about? The idea of attributing virginity to lack of desirability?

[Daniel-Franklin]

https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/ ... ty-decline
38% of teenaged boys have had sex.
I will concede that as this data appears to be based on a survey of high schoolers in general rather than specifically seniors it is entirely possible the numbers for seniors are higher, but not enough to make an overwhelming majority of adolescent males sexually active before leaving high school. In any case, the point that there are enough sexually inactive teen boys to make "just don't have sex" a reasonable expectation is certainly well supported by the available evidence.

A reasonable expectation only if enforceable. (Ie. Never mixing boys and girls outside of the reach of those who would and could stop them from having sex with each other... good luck with that.) Don't just let a few people for whom the risk ended badly slip into poverty while the many other people who took the exact same risk doesn't have to contribute a dime. Of all the supposed means to deter teen sex, one that unevenly applied and disproportionately harmful to ony a small fraction of them by a complete and utter matter of random chance hardly seems like the best possible way

Really, that they have sex with each other in their teen years could have been a good thing, if it weren't for that particular risk, if only for them giving each other more pleasure, let alone more practice with it to get better at it before their sex drive drops off as they age. (Although the fact that this risk hasn't deterred them is pretty alarming about how powerful those instincts are, and certainly doesn't reflect well on the already-hollow "tEaCh BoYs NoT tO bE dIsTrAcTeD" talking point in the context of dress codes. Unless you attribute them taking that risk to "trust.")

Self-reporting doesn't prevent respondents from lying, and people could lie about this either way for any number of reasons. I'm not going to state my first guess at one of many possible reasons for them to lie until you can name a reason why so many people who were virgins at that age used someone eles's virginity at the same age as an insult.

Honestly, the only real problem with teenage sex in effect is teenage pregnancy. If they're having non-procreative forms of sexual congress, I don't have an issue with that and would prefer that over procreative forms of sexuality. But maybe that's just me. And in a society with a better safety net, I wouldn't have a problem with procreative forms, either.

[The Hazar Amisnery]

I guess we need better education for other teenagers so they don't go and end up being fathers/mothers early

[Terruana]

Right, but you don't critically analyse a source's methodology and come to a fair and balanced conclusion, you just dismiss anything that doesn't align with your world view as lies...

If that were the case, my opinions wouldn't have drifted over the years on everything from making excuses for China or Israel to how much blame the left themselves deserve for people turning to scum like Trump as an alternative to it.

And it is a fair and balanced conclusion to take with a grain of salt something that, as the other user noted, is about self-reporting, when self-reporting offers no plausible deterrent against lying

Your political opinions drifting over the years isn't proof that you are able to critically analyse the quality of a scientific paper, as evidenced by the fact that you still continue to completely dismiss any study that includes self-reporting as completely unreliable because "people could lie tho".

[Esternial]

Well, there is this:

https://time.com/4661209/male-birth-control-gel/

Two small injections to block the vas deferens

Interesting share, thanks. As far as I can see, the latest updates were in 2017 when there was a study on monkeys in the US (they confirmed it works as a contraceptive, but no data on whether it is reversible or not), and an update from a research team in India working on an almost identical product with the same issue - uncertain reversibility.

Unfortunately, permanent infertility is a pretty dire side effect so unless they can come up with a way around it, this is likely to be just as much a dead end as the other male contraceptives that have been tested to date.

(If anyone has any more recent updates, I would be interested to know how the studies are going. Kinda looks like the researchers have given up on it in the past few years, as their own website hasn't been updated since 2019)

You can still perform IVF by extracting sperm from the vas deferens/testicle. In fact it would make conceiving a child a much more conscious decision. I think the whole "but my fertility" argument is a pretty weak one against vasectomies. If you want to conceive, there is still a way.

[Terruana]

Interesting share, thanks. As far as I can see, the latest updates were in 2017 when there was a study on monkeys in the US (they confirmed it works as a contraceptive, but no data on whether it is reversible or not), and an update from a research team in India working on an almost identical product with the same issue - uncertain reversibility.

Unfortunately, permanent infertility is a pretty dire side effect so unless they can come up with a way around it, this is likely to be just as much a dead end as the other male contraceptives that have been tested to date.

(If anyone has any more recent updates, I would be interested to know how the studies are going. Kinda looks like the researchers have given up on it in the past few years, as their own website hasn't been updated since 2019)

You can still perform IVF by extracting sperm from the vas deferens/testicle. In fact it would make conceiving a child a much more conscious decision. I think the whole "but my fertility" argument is a pretty weak one against vasectomies. If you want to conceive, there is still a way.

Theres no guarantee of being able to extract viable sperm from the testicles or vas deferens after the procedure, and as far as I can see, there's no data on it either. Without studying it, nobody can predict the long term effects that this could have on someone's reproductive tract.

Its also worth mentioning that IVF in the UK costs at least £2000 per cycle, and the criteria to be eligible on the NHS are very strict. For example, you can't get IVF if you have any kids already, or if your current partner has any kids from previous relationships.

I would also point out that although it might not be an issue for you personally, infertility is a pretty extreme side effect for a medical procedure, especially if it became as widely used as female birth control methods. The majority of people do seem to want to preserve their ability to have kids.
There's a reason they don't perform hysterectomies as a form of birth control, even though those women could freeze eggs and use a surrogate.

[Dumb Ideologies]

I imagine they'd have to fall back on generic provisions, rather than there being specific ones for this group. It is politically unpopular due to the prevailing ideology to increase funding to such a level that everybody can be protected from the risk of poverty. This means that selective policies are often applied whereby people make assumptions about who is most in need, and who is most "deserving". The regulatory framework is then designed to ensure that those who are typically most vulnerable and those who attract most sympathy get covered first.

Any regime that rests on group-based assumptions and stereotypes will create some injustice as it can't map perfectly onto individual circumstances. I'm not convinced that a hugely better job can be done with the current resources as in many respects there are zero-sum elements and you end up being more unfair to another group. Some degree of political transformation is necessary to ensure that there is more money available for social protections, and in the event that there is you then need good people making your case well to ensure that you are not passed over.

[GuessTheAltAccount]

If that were the case, my opinions wouldn't have drifted over the years on everything from making excuses for China or Israel to how much blame the left themselves deserve for people turning to scum like Trump as an alternative to it.

And it is a fair and balanced conclusion to take with a grain of salt something that, as the other user noted, is about self-reporting, when self-reporting offers no plausible deterrent against lying

Your political opinions drifting over the years isn't proof that you are able to critically analyse the quality of a scientific paper, as evidenced by the fact that you still continue to completely dismiss any study that includes self-reporting as completely unreliable because "people could lie tho".

But they DO lie, and the social sciences have either failed to predict that lying, or refused to say out loud when respondents were lying even when they knew it.

That you treat pointing out this obvious reality as reflecting my supposed inability to think critically says more about you than me.

[Terruana]

Your political opinions drifting over the years isn't proof that you are able to critically analyse the quality of a scientific paper, as evidenced by the fact that you still continue to completely dismiss any study that includes self-reporting as completely unreliable because "people could lie tho".

But they DO lie, and the social sciences have either failed to predict that lying, or refused to say out loud when respondents were lying even when they knew it.

That you treat pointing out this obvious reality as reflecting my supposed inability to think critically says more about you than me.

The fact that your position every time is that every study conducted in the social sciences must be wrong and completely useless because all the participants must have lied proves that you cannot analyse a source critically.

And of course, its purely a coincidence that the studies you're so eager to dismiss also happen to disprove your insane world views...

Nevermind that there are always reasons for participants/researchers/publishers to lie, even in medical studies to test out new drugs, or to identify diagnostic criteria. Should we throw out modern medicine too?

[GuessTheAltAccount]

But they DO lie, and the social sciences have either failed to predict that lying, or refused to say out loud when respondents were lying even when they knew it.

That you treat pointing out this obvious reality as reflecting my supposed inability to think critically says more about you than me.

The fact that your position every time is that every study conducted in the social sciences must be wrong and completely useless because all the participants must have lied proves that you cannot analyse a source critically.

And of course, its purely a coincidence that the studies you're so eager to dismiss also happen to disprove your insane world views...

Nevermind that there are always reasons for participants/researchers/publishers to lie, even in medical studies to test out new drugs, or to identify diagnostic criteria. Should we throw out modern medicine too?

Medical researchers actually face potential risks of consequences if their tests and diagnostic criteria fly in the face of the real world severely enough. What comparable risk of consequences is there for survey respondents who lie?

And no, I don't magically treat surveys as valid the instant they confirm my preconceptions. On the contrary, I actively elaborate on more VALID arguments for the same things such surveys say. (See: "evolutionarily plausible" point.) If you're wrong about that aspect of me, what else could you be wrong about?

[Dystopian Florida]

It's easy to forget that social sciences are soft rather than hard or exact sciences. Their scientific methodology is inherently more suspect than those of the hard sciences. Less precision is required, results are sometimes skewed by factors such as human duplicity, and the outcomes often contradict people's lived, empirical experiences. It should be especially noted in the case of marriage, where the sheer numbers of men boycotting marriage should tell anyone that the institution fails men and is antithetical to their self-interest. Not to mention that any institution whose termination requires the loss of more than half of your income and which has a high failure rate is obviously a raw deal for men. That the remaining men are more chill or receptive to marriage is at least partly due to the fact that the malcontents are already outside of the experiment.

[Terruana]

The fact that your position every time is that every study conducted in the social sciences must be wrong and completely useless because all the participants must have lied proves that you cannot analyse a source critically.

And of course, its purely a coincidence that the studies you're so eager to dismiss also happen to disprove your insane world views...

Nevermind that there are always reasons for participants/researchers/publishers to lie, even in medical studies to test out new drugs, or to identify diagnostic criteria. Should we throw out modern medicine too?

Medical researchers actually face potential risks of consequences if their tests and diagnostic criteria fly in the face of the real world severely enough. What comparable risk of consequences is there for survey respondents who lie?

And no, I don't magically treat surveys as valid the instant they confirm my preconceptions. On the contrary, I actively elaborate on more VALID arguments for the same things such surveys say. (See: "evolutionarily plausible" point.) If you're wrong about that aspect of me, what else could you be wrong about?

Any "consequences" that you could apply to a medical researcher whose trial participants lied about symptoms/side effects could also apply to a psychology researcher whose participants lied, and are pretty much limited to "wow, that's kinda embarrassing that you got that wrong". Also, how do you think they get data on things like symptoms and side effects? (HINT: its self-reported by the trial participants).

Even if there were more consequences for medical researchers, which there aren't, it would also have no impact on the raw data that was gathered, which undermines your point further.

I'm not sure why you're bothering to link to that post - we've already established that you shouting about how study participants might have had reasons to lie in their responses doesn't invalidate the findings of the study, and as I've said, the same logic could be applied to many other fields of study, including modern medicine.

I guess you're trying to make the point that you don't trust science or research whether it agrees with you or not, but either way, you're still coming across as the proud owner of a tin foil hat.

[Amerysia]

1. Paternity tests should be mandatory in all cases. Especially marriage and teenage pregnancies.
2. Adoption services should be greatly augmented.
3. Lavish federal funding should be provided for family planning services.
4. Vasectomies and tubal ligations should be lavishly funded as well.