Anonymous wrote:The title of your thread says it all. You have no concern for the woman who will be raising your child 24/7. No concern for the child who will grow up without a present father. Only concern for yourself.

You need to take a good hard look at yourself. Your actions go beyond stupid (i.e. not wearing a condom) to wantonly reckless and selfish.

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Anonymous wrote:This is also something you should not withhold from future partners (once things begin to get serious).

Yes, that makes sense on a few levels. I suppose the reactions from future partners will be as vary based upon personality but it has crossed my mind that certainly some % of future partners will exclude me from consideration based upon this alone. I stated it above but I'm keenly aware that it reflects a monumental lack of judgment.

I would probably reject you because you seem to have no interest in a child of yours. That is scarier than the fact the child exists by far.

The flip side is that it sounds like the mother did not tell OP when she was pregnant and then tracked OP down later after the child was already a toddler, purely for the money. So in essence the courts allow the mom to control not only her body, but his sperm. No wonder OP's reaction is somewhat emotion-less. The fact that he's reaching out on a forum where mostly judgmental women post suggests he has a heart, but doesn't want to be a dupe.

The bottom line is that he has a child who, without his financial and emotional involvement, is unlikely to enjoy the advantages he has experienced. Does that sit well with him or not? That ought to drive his behavior.

Cry me a river, poor man. We should feel sorry for the kid not this man baby.

Just a clarification, he had complete control of his sperm until he left it inside her vagina. "What would I do if this resulted in an unplanned pregnancy?" is a question that all sexually active adults should be prepared to answer. He is not a victim here.

He may not be a victim, but he also had no say whatsoever in whether the pregnancy should terminate or be carried to term. To expect him to warm up immediately now to being a dad when the mom has treated him like a bank account betrays a weak understanding of the male psyche. Men make better fathers when their children are planned or at least the product of a then-stable relationship.

Anonymous wrote:The title of your thread says it all. You have no concern for the woman who will be raising your child 24/7. No concern for the child who will grow up without a present father. Only concern for yourself.

You need to take a good hard look at yourself. Your actions go beyond stupid (i.e. not wearing a condom) to wantonly reckless and selfish.

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Anonymous wrote:Jesus, you PPs are harsh. Consider all of the posts on DCUM about fathers not being interested in their kids, or even mothers fretting over not bonding with their babies. Detachment can happen with parents who planned on having kids and here we have a guy who found out a few months ago that he fathered a child with a woman he barely knew. He's approaching this from a distance because he's been kept at a distance and has had no chance to develop an emotional attachment with this child. I don't think OP lack of emotion about this means he's a sociopath. I think it's quite understandable given the situation.

+1 the child is still an abstract to him. Do I think he could be more interested? Of course. But this is a huge, huge choice that was a) made for him and b) hidden from him intentionally so I don't blame him for being analytical and cautious.

And for all of the PPs who are being self-righteous about condoms, sex outside of a committed relationship, etc...I'm sure you've all been perfect. Most likely, you've just been lucky.

I feel the same way and I'm a woman. When I get into a crisis, I shut down emotions or I cannot effectively deal with things. If I let feelings creep in, it's very hard for me to see all the choices and make rational, well thought out decisions. He needs to make the best choice, hopefully for both him and the child. He needs to be level headed. The baby mama sounds pretty shady. He'll have a lifetime for emotions, whatever he chooses.

OP, I can't tell you what to do. I can tell you that I'm an abandoned child. My mom wasn't deceitful and didn't hide my existence. She married my biological father. They were young and dumb. When she realized she wasn't on the path to happiness with him, she left. He refused to pay child support, so she went after him hard. She backed him into a corner and gave him the choice of her being relentless about money and quality care for me, or her leaving him alone if he'd give up custody. He chose the latter. (At first I blamed him exclusively, but now I see her role in it.) It really messed me up for a while. I'm good now, but it was hard being a child, teenager, young adult, going through all sorts of milestones and every day life knowing my father chose not to be in my life. It took a lot of therapy and it still hurts. It's the worst kind of rejection, knowing a parent actively doesn't want you. I'm pretty sure he regretted his choice, because he tried to contact me later in life. There were some middle pages to the story that I won't go into, but I eventually chose not to have a relationship with him.

I don't know if you'll regret not being more than a checkbook to this kid. I like to think you will, but different people feel different things. Having children later might be fulfilling enough. Or having children later might wake you up to what you missed and make you wish you'd acted differently. No one can know that. And it would be silly to sugarcoat it and say it'll be easy. There's a lot of travel, legal fees, and stress in custody disagreements. You got a raw deal, the way the mother handled things, but you still could be a good parent. Her questionable behavior makes me think the child might need a positive role model even more than if the mom had behaved normally.

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Anonymous wrote:Well, you didn't know about the child before, but you do now. As a father, you do have a right to see your child, so I would recommend you get started on building the relationship now. It's really unfair of the mother to rob you of the chance to know the child from birth, so don't let any more time get away. One day you will regret it.

I think this is the part that I struggle with. On the one hand, getting more involved will add a significant amount of drama and turbulence to my life. On the other hand, will I regret it later on? I don't know and I don't really have a way to gauge that.

The only exposure I have to this in my life so far are a few of my friends that are married and have kids. That part of it does sound nice but then again they're raising kids with a life partner so it's kinda like, for lack of a better word, a loving bond between all of them rather than a potential relationship with the child and chaos with bio mom.

You're looking at parenthood the wrong way. Parenthood isn't something you decide to do because it will be fun and seems nice, it's something you do *for* your child out of love for them. Having an absentee father who never even bothered to meet him/her will damage your child. Being involved will mean taking on all of the unpleasant parts of parenting and doing the hard work, but you do it because you care about being a positive influence on your child and helping them become happy, healthy people. If you're only in it for what you'll get out of it and you're not willing to do the hard, unpleasant work, you're going to be a crappy father whether you're involved or not.

I'm having a hard time reconciling your statement with the one above about me regretting it one day. If I'm neutral about the situation now I don't understand why that would change with the passage of time. Maybe I'm too analytical to grasp this but I'm giving it a shot. Another hypothetical would be if I get older and presumably get married and decide to have kids if I wanted them at a later point wouldn't I get all of these same experiences (good and bad) that way?

I understand the points others have made about being there for the kid, etc. Those seems like fairly straightforward issues and I will consider them.

OP I've been withholding judgment until now but you seem like an absolute sociopath. It might be better for the kid if you stay away and just send checks.

I'm trying to understand all of the issues as best I can which is why I posted. It's a major decision and I'm certainly not going to make a decision one way or the other within a day but I'd like to gather as much information as possible before doing so. I'm not convinced on the "I'll regret it" point yet so I'm probing further. [/quot



I read all the posts until here. I am going to guess most replies are coming from on women with knowledge ds. I too have two kids I can't imagine abandoning. But if OP were my brother and if ONS is shady and a bad seed, I'd say just abandon the baby. Why try have a tumultuous relationship? For men there may get be instant bonding at the sight of a baby or toddler. One could invest time to form a bond, but for what? I would just think of this as having donated to a sperm bank and don't form a relationship with the kid. Too bad for the kid, but shit happens. There are tons of kids who are born to single moms.