Subject:
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Re: Megan's Law, and its implications
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 18 Mar 2003 23:13:15 GMT
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Viewed:
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430 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> Christopher Weeks wrote:
> Hmm, does that never mean that the parent has an obligation to support
> the child if the child loses his/her job in a layoff after attaining
> self sufficiency?
It's hard for me to think of it as an obligation. I've never met anyone
able-bodied who was in a position that precluded them from supporting
themselves. Also, wouldn't the parent _want_ to help out? Just like the adult
kid would _want_ to be productive around the house.
But that's kind of dodging your question. I guess I think that self-sufficient
adults are no longer the recipient of the parental obligation. And to cover my
bases, I think that people who declare themselves as self-sufficient adults
incorrectly should have a way to back out of it. But it seems kind of like
planning obscure minutae.
> How is this modified when rape is involved? How do we hold the rapist
> responsible for his part of the obligation?
I think that both parents are obliged. If I give up a child for adoption, I
ahve exercised a socially acceptable (by and large) way of temporarily
dispensing with that obligation. However, if the adoptive parents then refuse
to do their job, I am once again (or still) (along with the adoptive parents)
obligated to the kid. I don't see rape as a clouding issue.
> Are you obligated to become destitute when you have a child that will
> need care forever? If not, who can the child demand support from? If
I think that if the child has needs that require destitution, then the answer
is yes. OTOH, I think this is a pretty rare case.
> not, what actions can a parent take to end or reduce the obligation?
Smother the child.
> Does this obligation rise to the level of demanding the mother risk
> death (serious injury or other lesser things) in order to bring a baby
> to term?
Well, if we like binary states so much, we should draw a line somewhere before
which the child doesn't count and after which it does. But if I had the magic
wand, the social/legal ramifications for putting a baby down would be trivial
at conception and increase as time passed up to the point where we decide that
psychological humanity begins -- roughly 2-4 months after birth, at which time
it would just be murder.
So I think a measured analysis of the risk to mother and child (including the
age of the child) should dictate our response. If my wife had a 5% chance of
dying _or_ my unborn baby had a 100% chance of dying, I'm not sure if and when
I'd want to risk it. Certainly when the baby is a little blob of snot, I
wouldn't want to risk it. A few days before birth would be a different matter.
> Who becomes obligated to the child when the parents die?
Grandparents if they're around. Otherwise, no one or The People depending on
your philosophy. The grandparents owe contractually (the way we're thinking
about it) and no one else does. I prefer the aesthetic of a world in which The
People find an ethical way to care for the needy. (Not the lazy.)
> > I think that competence should be determined every step of the way. It's just
> > not reasonable to hold someone (even an adult) to a contract they enter when
> > the verbiage is so convoluted as to be indecipherable to them. The burden for
> > making sure that your contractual partners understand their role in the
> > contract should rest on everyone.
>
> The question is how do we reasonably determine competance. What can we
> enforce for those who are not competant (i.e. are minimum driving age
> and drinking age laws supportable)?
I agree that that's the question. But at the same time, it's just an
implementation issue. Theoretically we think that a combination of testing,
age, and economic incentive does a reasonable job of determining who's fit to
drive. Why not just test more thoroughly and do away with the others? (Not
that I like that -- I think that driving is something that everyone should have
access to unless and until they prove to be incapable.)
> Hmm, is the contract really one-sided. Couldn't the child have
> obligations under the contract in relation to his/her ability to be self
> sufficient (which includes the competence issue above).
I think that's like having a contract with the Solar system requiring that the
sun continue to rise each morning. People will seek independence to the best
of their ability. The mere fact that someone is not independent of their
parents shows a disability (natural age related, parentally imposed through
improper psychological conditioning, or physical). I think it's one sided.
> For example, if
> a parent does owe his 30 year old son support after the son is laid off,
> can that support be provided under a contract that makes demands of the
> son? I think one could demand the father provide room and board for the
> son rather than let the son live on the public dole, but I think also
> the father could as part of that, demand the son participate in
> maintaining the house, and have legal recourse if the son refuses (or
Under normal circumstances, I don't think the father should legally owe the son
in that case, but any contractual living arangement with or without work
obligation would be fine.
> I'm not sure it should be too easy for children to terminate their
> relationship with their parents. If it's too easy, then it's easy for a
> malicious outsider to get the relationship terminated. Clearly the
> system needs to have good ways to determine when real problems are
> occuring (without a real problem, a child should never want to terminate
> the relationship with their parents).
I don't think such termination should be a one-way street. I also don't see
how the ease with which a child can emancipate is implicitly linked to the
hacking of malign forces.
> But you have to draw lines somehow.
Some situations are binary by nature. Many others are not even though we're
very used to thinking of them that way.
> There is clearly a line between
> conflicts that are resolved by the court system and those that are not.
In each case of conflict, after the fact, it is either court-settled or not.
But there are instances of classes of conflict that are sometimes court-settled
and not others. My son's mother and I are not married or otherwise romantic.
We're both married to someone else. We have never used a court to help figure
out what happens with him. We just worked it out. But lots of parents seem to
need the courts to help (hurt?) them. I think the line is not as clear as you
suggest.
> There is clearly a line between conflicts that result in someone being
> involuntarily confined (in prison or treatment centers and hospitals)
> and those that don't.
But my answer above applies here too. Sometime murderers are jailed and other
times they are not.
> We have to have standards that let us decide which
> side of the line people lie on.
Or an agenda of things that a jury should consider when deciding each case
individually.
> On the other hand, I tend to agree that
> the line should be drawn in terms of measurable standards of competancy
> (and responsibility), and then people placed on one side or the other
> based on how they compare to that standard.
In general, I think that if we just let people choose the side of the line they
wanted, we'd be better off.
> Unfortunately, age is one of
> the easier measures (and remember, no measurement is going to be
> perfectly accurate). Age is also one of the few measures that had any
> truth to it until fairly recently.
How do you mean? The most accurate measure is to let people figure out for
themselves what they're ready to do and then correct them when they turn out to
be wrong.
> Hmm, I'm trying to remember how old I was when we had a system where we
> posted the savings goals each kid had, and their progress towards those
> goals. With inflation, the goals were probably not too far off from $400
> (though the rate of inflation for the types of things we were buying is
> not that extreme). Since it happened before we moved from Concord to
> Lexington, I was less than 13 (and my younger sister who participated
> also was by extension less than 9). I know that was a valuable exercise
> for me (as evidenced by my remembering it - it was certainly one of the
> first times I learned money planning). I know I didn't have "perfect"
> parents, but I can certainly say I got a pretty good deal from them.
> There is no doubt in my mind that my most important life skills and
> values came from them.
That sounds good. Who decided what your goals were? We talk about our goals
and they are commonly known, but there's nothing as formal as you're describing.
Chris
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Megan's Law, and its implications
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| (...) I agree that in many cases the parent would want to help, and a properly raised kid should want to be productive around the house. (...) Ok, it did seem reasonable that the parental obligation mostly ends when the child attains (...) (22 years ago, 19-Mar-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Megan's Law, and its implications
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| (...) Hmm, does that never mean that the parent has an obligation to support the child if the child loses his/her job in a layoff after attaining self sufficiency? How is this modified when rape is involved? How do we hold the rapist responsible for (...) (22 years ago, 18-Mar-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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