Whisky Tango Foxtrot?!

[Occhidiangela]

Probably not. I bet if you saw the median wage earned by dead beat dads it would be shockingly low.

But the real reason we have so many dead beat dad laws is in cases where someone "runs away" from the kids its ussually a dad.
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I disagree. As I see it, the motive (and socialist) force behind the deadbeat Dad laws was twofold: the bitter feminist agenda to marginalize the man in society, to replace him with the State; and a gender neutral reaction to increasing amounts of tax dollars being spent on child rearing for single mothers where fathers were findable, provable, and had abbrogated their responsibilities.

There used to be orphanages.

The lack of deadbeat mom law enforcement is linkable to my first point's agenda. I attribute that to a falacious presumption of innocence, or virtue, on the behalf of women. This is an embedded piece of the ubiquitous double standards, see also divorce court travesties, inherent in the Cult of the Victim.

Like the drunk driving laws, the deadbeat dad laws appealed to many since the statistics showed your last point to be the case: they were a decision to "do" something about it via statute that moral behavior and norms could not achieve unaided. The trouble is, they do NOTHING to address the double standards, and unfair treatment of men, in child custody cases in our courts.

I can conceive. You cannot. That is unfair. Neither of us can change that.  We are not equal in this matter.

Fair has nothing to do with it. You may as well say it is unfair that a bird can fly and you can't. It is simply how things are. The fact that far too many women and men overlook the conception fact while undertaking recreational sex isn't a matter of fair either, it is an epidemic of bad judgment. (What was it Heinlein said? The only universal constants are hydrogen and stupidity. :D )

Fair implies a rule or condition that can be modified or adjusted to achieve "fairness." Unless you decree mandatory sterilization, you can't put men and women on a "fair" reproductive playing field. Of course in doing so one eliminates the "game" altogehter! :whistling:

I don't know what sense of "equal" you are using. Equality under the law is a difficult to achieve when the foundation upon which law is built is two unequal, or fundamentally dissimilar, conditions. Sucks to be the law, but it can't be fair, it can only try to be balanced.

Equality under the law, or equity, would dictate that men and women be treated fairly and equally by the courts, which they are not, in child custody cases.

But we are dealing with symptoms here, aren't we? The root cause is the easy dissolution of a marriage, the incentives not to form a pair bond, and the rampant out of wedlock conception. The barriers to conflict resolution amplify this because there is more profit in an ever growing divorce court case load. :angry:

Griselda: There are all kinds of situations where deception and other unfortunate things can result in a pregnancy. However, once a child is born, you need to look at what's best for the child, regardless of the circumstances that led to pregnancy

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Bingo. Once born, it's about someone else, the child. Gris wins the thread. :D

FWIW, I think improving our formal adoption processes, so more options are open to those in dire financial straits, would lessen the down stream problem of deadbeat dads.

Occhi

EDIT due to the first try being rather badly put