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June 2, 2006 | South Carolina Headlines

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Who's My Baby's Daddy?
Doug Kendall
January 13, 2005

Has the Maury show become the new Jerry Springer Show? Maury used to have heartwarming stories about people overcoming incredible odds, but now it has degenerated into another one of those run-of-the-mill shows based on sensationalism.

 

The women who regularly appear as guests typically claim one of three things: 1) They know exactly who the father of their baby is, and they want to prove it; 2) They aren’t sure which of their many partners is the father; or 3) They cheated, and their husband might not be the father. For every situation, they get the men in question to appear and have a DNA test done, in an effort to prove paternity.

 

Each woman comes out to give her sob story, complete with tears and sniffles. The baby is then shown, and the audience almost always releases a collective “awwwww.”

 

When the man comes out, he’s automatically booed, having been made to look like the bad guy (but I have to admit that some of these guys make it harder on themselves by saying stupid or nasty things).

 

The kicker: The women typically say something to the effect that the men in question should “take responsibility and be a man, and quit acting like a little boy.”

 

First of all, these females need to step up to the plate and be women, and stop acting like little girls. The men in question didn’t force these women to do anything they didn’t want to do. As a matter of fact, the reason why many of them are on the show, in the first place, is because they can’t figure out which one of their many partners is the father. Many of these women had unprotected sex with multiple partners, and they have the nerve to question the maturity of someone else?

 

And what happens when the tests show that the man in question is not the father of the child (about half the time)? The woman bursts into tears and runs into the backstage area, crying about how she can’t afford to take care of the baby, alone. I hate to sound nasty, but she should have thought about the future consequences of raising a child, before she dropped her pants.

 

Don’t think I’m letting the men off of the hook; they aren’t going to get off easy, either (excuse the pun).

 

Personally, I feel that any person—male or female—who feels that they are old enough to fool around should be willing and able to take on the responsibility that comes with raising a child. If you are unable or unwilling to do so, don’t risk it.

 

Allow me to explain it another way.

 

If you make $25,000 a year, you have no business test-driving a $150,000 Ferrari. If you wreck it, there’s no way you can pay for it. Common sense would tell you that you have no business test-driving that car and you shouldn’t take the risk, but, unfortunately, some people don’t seem to have a lot of common sense, these days.

 

It should be the same thing when it comes to sex.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, if you don’t have the money, or you aren’t mature enough to be a loving, responsible parent, then you have no business risking a pregnancy—and don’t get me started on the topic of unprotected sex.

 

On top of all the immaturity and stupidity, a bad situation was made much worse by putting government in the business of determining and collecting child support. By getting the government involved, personal responsibility has been removed from the equation.

 

I have actually heard some women say that they intentionally get pregnant, and have more babies, because they get more child support and government welfare for doing so. If these women had to pay to take care of their babies with their own money, we would see immediate lifestyle changes.

 

We should not be rewarding these people for having “paycheck babies.” Instead, we should remove the incentive for them to continue to engage in this type of behavior, if they expect everyone else to pay for it. What people do in their private lives is their own personal business, but they shouldn’t expect the taxpayers to fund it.

 

As long as the trend continues toward removing personal responsibility, while increasing unconstitutional and intrusive functions of government, we can expect more of this type of behavior, in all areas of life.

 

Copyright 2005 Doug Kendall. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.




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