Does a father have any rights?

Incognito · (#1 (**permalink**))

Mother who gave birth after one-night stand wins right to keep baby secret from the father| News | This is London

Black_Power · (#2 (**permalink**))

you should know that in this day and age a father has no right unless he put a ring on the floosy and gives her half his money.....

Its quite shocking as I only last week my other half was telling he a story about a girl from her work place. anyway this chick married a man who basically works his ass off and has a criss job and because he was away for week ata a time making his money she get bored and decide to have an affair with some ofther dude.

anyway now they split up and gotta sell the hoise and spilt the money...money she didnt even put it..and to think of it he did nothing wrong but WORK!

these days my friend society is geared to producing and protecting poor quality women. glad I have no daughters.

Footprints · (#3 (**permalink**))

Women have been pulling this off for centuries, especially in the case of abortion , some women make a decision to abort without informing the father of that baby. With regard to the article ,I think the father should have at least been given an opportunity to have a say, the judge was out of order, in writing the father off as irresponsible and disregarding his human rights.

Bredder Tukoma · (#4 (**permalink**))

Just shows how the government is anti family in design. Because to have a policy which excludes grand parents/ father/ and even extended family to put a child in care in saying one thing in my mind.

But BP your wrong in your statement..

you should know that in this day and age a father has no right unless he put a ring on the floosy and gives her half his money.....

Not true. get parental rights and then you can do even the basic things like get your child a passoprt. Assume custody and not have your child in care if the worst(god forbid) happens and a 1000 other different scenarios.

I keep telling my bredrens but its like certain man take this thing for joke. If your not married but still with or on good terms then sort it out. Every baby father in the city supposed to have them forms in his safe. Better than 50K in the bank.

Gmahogany. · (#5 (**permalink**))

THat's absurd. The child has a father and a whole other branch of extended family that could/would potentially take it, and the Court would rather put it into foster care???? I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. I work in this field, and in most U.S cities, the Social Service system is so strained from having kids they can't place, there is no way they would do that, unless each and every paternal relative was found to be unfit.

I work more on the Child Protective Services Investigations/Court side of things, but the LAST thing we want to do is transfer a case to Foster Care. It's more work for us, the foster care worker is usually pissed, cause it's more work for them, plus, they usually have a hard time finding placement for the child. If the child is older than an infant, forget about it, and please Don't let the child have any emotional problems/deficits, puhleeze.........

Having said that, though, Judges have a lot of discretion and get away with doing what they damn well please, quite often. They don't care that they are giving Social Services a child that they won't be able to place. THat's why as BT said, it pays to know what rights you do have, and exercise them. THe reason Judges pull a lot of the shit they pull, is because the population of people that they deal with is either too uneducated, or can't/won't spend the money to get an attorney.

Gmahogany. · (#6 (**permalink**))

and it's not just men that get jobbed by the Court system. If you don't know your rights(can't/won't articulate or speak up for yourself), or can't afford an attorney be you male or female, you are really putting yourself in a vulnerable position and your best bet is to stay out of the Court system if at all possible.

I'll give you an example of the flip side of men not having rights, and not seeming to be recognized as being "full" parents, like women are. The flip side of that thinking, which is rooted in men's historical relationships/roles with children,btw(though it's slowly but surely changing), isn't all peaches and cream for women.

For instance, in the U.S., and probably the UK, there are truancy laws, that state that if children don't go to school everyday, the parent can be put in jail. Well, guess which parent the Court ALWAYS comes after, even if the father is active in the child's life and living in the home? THat's right, the momma. I recently had a case where a judge put a woman in JAIL, cause her almost 17 year old son had missed too many days from school. SHe gets him and his younger brother up in the morning, and sends them to school. They both walk to school,btw. ONe brother goes to school, the other one doesn't. I asked my supervisor how could the judge do that, when by law, a child doesn't have to attend school, after the age of 16. He said, "you'll find that judges often do shit, they have no legal basis to do, especially with the people we tend to serve, because they dont' know their rights, and they don't usually have money for a lawyer".

Conversely, I sat in on a case where another kid wasn't going to school, also 16. The mother was out of town taking care of her mother,though she had been given notice in advance of when the hearing was. The father lives in the home with the 16 yr old boy, just like the mother does, didn't go with his wife, stayed home with the kids, but sent his 19 yr old daughter to Court with the boy, rather than come himself. Guess who the judge issued the arrest warrant for? Not the father, who should be just as responsible for making sure his son goes to school as the mother is, he issued it for the mother, who was out of town taking care of her sick mother, eventhough the father was in town and could have come to court. He told the 19 yr old "tell your mother there is a warrant out for her arrest, she can either turn herself in, or wait to get picked up".

So, on the one hand, the system doesn't extend the fullest rights to fathers, but on the other hand, it doesn't impose the fullest responsibilities on them, EITHER. As was mentioned in another thread, those 2 things typically go together.

Gmahogany. · (#7 (**permalink**))

BTW, the people in my first example were Black. The people in the second example were white.

Kunjufu · (#8 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Describing the case as "on any view extraordinary", Lord Justice Thorpe ruled there was no justification for "breaking open the mother's secret".

And Lady Justice Arden said this was not a violation of the father's rights to family life under the Human Rights Act because he had no rights to be violated.

I'm astounded at this perverse decision, however it does not surprise me that it was made by a EUROPEAN WOMAN, imo this is the type perverse feminist application of the law that bring it into disripute, this is clearly a bias reading of the law...

Since when did the mothers rights superceed that of the child's right to know? Further since when did fatherhood become measurable by the lenght of time one spent with the partner prior to having sex? If we are now making this a point of law..does this mean that the CSA or any other body no longer have the right to demand payment for future children, if it can be proven they were a result of a one night stand?

I would not be surprised if this judgement is overturned, because it is simply untenable, all this idiot judge has done is delay, not prevent this so called 'secret' from coming out... Because can you imagine any Judge later refusing this child's right to know who her father is for fear of 'breaking open the mother's secret' of course not.. The same Article 8 that this judge used to make this joke decision will be the same article that will be later used by the child's litigation friend to identify who his/her parents were in later life....

This decision is also a disgrace, because imo the state should not be colluding with a clearly selfish decision by the mother that clearly discriminates the child and his/her opportunity to have access or knowledge of a family and/or extended family....This judge ought to be struck off for such a disgusting decision...

fredblack 2 · (#9 (**permalink**))

BT said 'you should know that in this day and age a father has no right unless he put a ring on the floosy and gives her half his money.....

Technical correction put a ring on her finger and put his possessions etc in trust...which is a legal instrument for protecting your shit...

But you are right though and Kunjufu's case highlighted above just reinforces that. Brother to cite Marx The laws of the bourgeois state serves no other function than those of the bourgeoisie...

And Marx is right. That being the case the law of this country will never ever be to my interest as a black man and as radicals we know that. So why would I give a fxxk about the law and what is says..Wise men make their own laws and the instruments to enforce them. As Weber said all power institutional and other wise lays in the legitimate monopoly of organised force. If you don't comply men in police or other uniforms will come and force you to.

So it may simply show how much the system and the white man has us that we would even be debating his laws when even white men knows it is not for us , never meant to be and will invariably be used against us, especially black men.

The job is to make our own laws and to enforce them like other communities. Aint difficult just requires the courage to be mentally free.

Bredder Tukoma · (#10 (**permalink**))

Agree with your sentiments Fred but I was quoting BP.

fredblack 2 · (#11 (**permalink**))

BT sorry bredrin misread..

Tahliba · (#12 (**permalink**))

FATHERS’ IMPACT ON THEIR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION AND ACHIEVEMENT
Messages from Research

Involved fathers and child development

Before we specifically look at fathers’ influence on children’s education and learning, it’s important to understand fathers’ influence on the ‘whole child’, particularly since personality characteristics such as self-esteem, self-efficacy and locus of control are emerging as key predictors children’s ultimate achievement.

Since 1975, an increasingly sophisticated body of research has been charting the pathways through which fathers influence their children’s development. A recent systematic review of studies (taking account of mothers’ involvement and gathered data from different independent sources ), found ‘positive’ father involvement associated with a range of desirable outcomes for children and young people.

The positive outcomes include: better peer relationships; fewer behaviour problems; lower criminality and substance abuse; higher educational / occupational mobility relative to parents’; capacity for empathy; non-traditional attitudes to earning and childcare; more satisfying adult sexual partnerships; and higher self-esteem, life-satisfaction and ‘locus of control’ – that is, the belief that they can control much of what happens to them in life (Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2004). All this is relevant to children’s educational outcomes, since ‘better functioning’ in life in general tends to enable better functioning in an educational/achievement sense.

Of course, fathers, like mothers, can also influence their children’s development in negative ways – and this is now recognised to be a very important reason for engaging with them. Low levels of father involvement are associated with a range of negative outcomes in children (for review, see Flouri, 2005). Poor outcomes for children are also found where fathers (and father-figures) parent in negative ways or are seriously troubled themselves (for review, see Lloyd et al, 2003). Poor outcomes in children are also associated with their fathers’ substance misuse (Velleman, 2004, p.188) and with fathers’ abuse of their children’s mothers (Jaffee et al, 1990) .

It has often been argued that no father is better than a bad father. That can of course be true – just as no mother can be better than a bad mother. However, seeking to improve fathers’ behaviour should be the first port of call - since ‘ending’ the father-child relationship generally brings its own problems, and many fathers, once they are engaged with, can change their behaviour in a positive direction.
Although in some cases removing the father improves the situation for children, research shows that their situation more often becomes worse (Guterman & Lee, 2005). And when children do not see their fathers, or do not see them very much, they often demonise or idealise them (Kraemer, 2005; Gorrell Barnes et al, 1998) or blame themselves for their father’s absence (Pryor & Rodgers, 2001).

Being ‘without my dad’ causes most children and young people a lot of distress, anger and self-doubt (Fortin et al, 2006; Laumann-Billings & Emery, 1998); and can contribute to difficulties with peer relationships, including bullying (Parke et al, 2004; Berdondini & Smith, 1996). And when fathers’ absence leaves mothers more stressed because they are struggling to parent alone or because they have less money, then children suffer again (McLanahan, 1997; McLanahan & Teitler, 1999).

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Fathers Direct summary of research on fathers' influence over children's education