Never the Simple Life

Almost no matter which way you turn, today's pop-path is fraught with legal complications.

Good men may be snared by the legal bramble of modern life. Or, as Richard Collier, law prof and author of Fragmenting Fatherhood: A Socio-Legal Study explained (?) in a recent interview:

Now what we see, with the disintegration of the ideal father as the marital father – as a result of such social realities as non-marital births, genetic families spread across households, same-sex couples, assisted reproduction – is a vertical relationship direct to the child, with an increasing tendency to split a bundle of rights and responsibilities between different men.

Others will find such explanations just so much blah, blah, blah as they forge a different trail through life. Among those seemingly ready, able and more than willing to stroll the crooked and wide are Illinois' hairbrain Governor Blagojevich who will, someday, have to explain to his daughters what he was really up to and single dad Camille Bouchard, who a Canadian court has ruled is eligible for child tax credits for taking care of his daughter while he was hanging with his homies in Her Majesty's gaol.

Again, no matter the choices, a father's life is never simple.

Beware Katie and Friends

Generally, monogamous societies are more at ease than those encouraging polygamy or polyandry. And commitment to one woman (even "serial monogamy") is usually easier if not perhaps as much immediate fun as trying to commit to many women/families.

But a bill is working its way through the Arizona legislative system that would imply and perhaps compel that a father loses out on being a father to his children if he has married more than one woman at a time. Oddly, a man can still father away with multiple women while single or married only to one and the law generally says he must take responsibility, but if he marries more than one woman then, apparently, it is "Judge Katie bar the door. "

** Does a father not bring enough hardship on himself with multiple marriages? Why punish (and possibly his children) more? **

Crime and Punishment

It's a rule. Dads support their kids.

They support them whether he is a convicted terrorist, she is a one drug addict married to another and even if he has to pull out of a marriage to a billionaire's daughter.

What is the penalty for breaking the rule? Say for taking care of others' children but neglecting your own? Undefined. Hopefully, it's at least bad nights' sleep.

** There should be a law .... **

Go Get 'Em!

Popular mythology is that fathers run from their kids. The reality is dads chase them. And, sometimes thanks to the courts, they catch them as did the umarried Irish dad of twins.

Fathers4Justice creates publicity stunts to call attention to the rights battles of fathers. Legal sources are also available for the father caught in a bad place. But just as we tell our kids when discussions of allowance or bedtime comes up, having rights doesn't come without taking responsibility.

** Welcome to the steelcage match of dad mythology vs. father reality. **

DNA (do not accept?) Fatherhood

It is written — in the manner of unsubstantiated netlore on the importance of DNA testing — that studies show, "10 percent of children are actually the offspring of biological fathers other than the men they believe to be their fathers."

What does it mean to being a father if that is true? Actually, what does the DNA link mean to determining who is a father?

In Ireland, the biological father was granted the right by a court to keep the two lesbian parents of the child product of his sperm from vacationing in one of the couple's Australian homeland. On the other hand, an Los Angeles court commissioner took a (non) dad off the hook for $168,000 he owed in child support but wouldn't give him back the money he actually paid when a DNA test proved he wasn't the father he thought he was.

So there is unsettled legal ground for the fatherer. But what about the fatheree? What can of worms gets opened when a child selects who's his or her daddy?

** Evidence is in and fathering is not just a "show me the money" kind of gig. **