Paternity Fraud

Paternity Fraud - what is it?

It is the act of naming a man as the biological father of a child or children for the purpose of claiming child support when she knows or suspects that he is not the biological father.

This is the ultimate parent trap.

When I wrote an article a few days ago about Judge Hanschen, I didn't expect the huge amount of traffic on this topic. I knew it was an issue but I never suspected it to have the interest level this article did (and still does as traffic is still pouring in on it).

Studies are being done in different states to try to determine just how rampant paternity fraud is. In New Hampshire, the numbers are as many as 30% of child support paying fathers are paying for children that are not their own.

The repercussions of such immoral an unethical fraud is wide. Financially, the repercussions for the man can be devastating up to and including loss of businesses, homes, and freedom if they are jailed for non-payment of support for children who aren't their own.

Emotionally, it is far reaching...

For the man, he may have an emotional attachment to this child or children thinking he is the father for whatever amount of time (in many cases it is years up to and including into adulthood). For the child, it is the loss of knowing who their true biological father is and the possible loss of the father named fraudulently who they have bonded to as a parent. Medically, it is depriving them of knowing their genetic medical history.

What about the true biological children of the man? They suffer when their financial security and support from their biological father is stretched so thin to support children that aren't even his, when their father loses their business, license, or goes to jail for non-payment of support for kids who aren't his own. It's a vicious cycle that ONE person could have prevented - the mother before she falsely named a man as the parent of her child when she knew he wasn't, or there was a chance he wasn't, the father. Once paternity is determined it is then also on the state's head when they continue to order support for children a man didn't father. Nobody thinks about the other children. The state doesn't care about the other children but if things are "really" done for the best interests of the children, then it should be ALL children and not just the children who get the state their federal funds. What do I mean by that?

One reason why states may be so willing to overlook paternity fraud has less to do with the children and more to do with the fact that the state receives federal kickbacks from the federal government for every dollar they collect in child support no matter what they have to do and whose rights they trample to get it. It is in the state's best interests to order child support paid through the state because they get federal funds based on every dollar they collect.

With infidelity on the rise for both men and women, assuming that a child born during a marriage is the product of a union between those two married people doesn't appear to be true anymore. We aren't living in Leave It To Beaver times anymore.

So, who pays if the man who was falsely claimed as the father sues for back child support he has paid for a child that wasn't his? Does he go after the true biological father or does he go after the mother who falsely claimed him as the father? Personally, I think the mother is at fault. The bio-father may not have even known he'd fathered a child. The mother knows exactly who she slept with and what resulted. She is also the only one making the false claim as to her child's parentage. She had the option to name the true father, or the possibility if she didn't know which man fathered her child, so the true biological father would be known and child support ordered from the appropriate man. I think if more women were sued for paternity fraud, we would see the percentage of men falsely named as dad decreasing.

I also believe that if the state knows a man is not the father through DNA testing and still seek and order child support, I think the state should be sued as well. Let's have some accountability for this and make it stop!

Women have had the upper hand in court, including paternity issues. This is changing and I hope it continues to change until we see more fairness towards men in family court for the children's sake as well as people behaving more responsibly and ethically for their children. I hope it is done during my generation and doesn't follow my children into adulthood and haunt them as well.

There are landmark cases across the United States concerning paternity fraud. When we make consequences for it, hopefully we will see the percentages of paternity fraud decrease for the child's sake.