Should a man be ashamed of raising someone else’s child? The Toronto Globe and Mail asked Noah Brand.
Stop by the Toronto Globe and Mail to check out a nice little article by Zosia Bielski about people’s reactions to Sarah Polley’s new documentary. It seems Ms. Polley has discovered that her father is not, in fact, her biological father, the actress and filmmaker being the product of an affair her mother had. Her father doesn’t see this as diminishing their bond in any way, but some folks are criticizing him for being a “pushover” for raising a child he knew wasn’t his. Good Men Project editor-in-chief Noah Brand was invited to contribute his own views.
From a cultural standpoint, Mr. Polley’s acquiescence to news of his wife’s affair was most startling of all, says Robin Milhausen, an associate professor in Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph who has researched cheating.
“We’re going against traditional scripts where it’s men who are more likely to be sexually unfaithful. Women’s sexual infidelity tends to bother men more than emotional infidelity and that’s why the public reacts with more judgment and surprise that the man is taking it in stride.”
A more callous view would call it resigned cuckoldry, especially as there were jokes in the family about Ms. Polley’s lineage. But Mr. Brand sees it as a more modern masculinity.
“It was the most manly-in-a-good-sense part of it. He was taking responsibility because it was his marriage. That is deeply admirable in my mind.”
Read the whole article here.
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I’ve never understood the whole cuckolding thing.
From my perspective, I have a relationship with the mother, and I have a relationship with the child. If it turns out another man sired that child, that changes my relationship with the mother, not with the child.
“If it turns out another man sired that child, that changes my relationship with the mother, not with the child.”
When it turns out that another man sired the child, it not only changes the relationship with mother, but the relationship with the child as well. It changes the man from husband to cuckold and reveals man’s fatherhood is just a deception.
The child is an innocent bystander. It is your choice to change the relationship with the child. That’s all on you. The child hasn’t changed; the child never deceived you, the child never betrayed your trust.
I’m reminded every day of unpleasant things from my past, things much worse than raising a child whose DNA is not my own. I move on; I don’t let those things continue to victimize me in the present.
Looking at my two children I wouldn’t be surprised if someone thought they had two different fathers. If it turns out once of my sons isn’t biologically related to me I don’t really care. It doesn’t change my love for them one whit. They don’t become any “less” my children just because it wasn’t one of my hundreds of millions of sperm that fertilized her ovum.
But really, as that all fatherhood is to you? Your sperm having mixed with her egg? Do you actually have children or is this all idle pontificating? Please don’t have children if your love for them is so tenuous that a DNA test would set it all aside. No child deserves that.
Sentimental mumbo-jumbo does not changes the ground reality. The child is certainly innocent but is the result of adultery. Is it the fault of snake if it is venomous. Somethings are what they are and cannot be reasoned or argued
If you do not really care whether your sons are biologically related to you, its good for you and certainly your sons and wife, but most of the men do not prefer that lifestyle. Man who sires the child is the father in the most basic term. Everything else is just hogwash.
To answer your query, I wish to inform you that I do not have children and am not even married so it might seem like idle pontification, but I am wise and old enough to know that emotions like love are not carved in stone and change with the situation. Best friends turn sworn enemies. So do not try to cover the sociobiological anomaly like cuckoldry with emotion like love
Sentimental mumbo jumbo, eh?
So you’re telling me, that for a decade you have loved and raised a child as your own, bonded with that child, and accepted that child’s love and adoration. Then you find out that nope, wasn’t your sperm and you kick that CHILD to the curb?
Friendships don’t turn sworn enemies because of something a third party did a decade ago, something the friend had no input in let alone control over. And let’s be clear – it is not sociobiology, it’s technology and socialization. This is not some immutable trait that has come along with us for millennia, it’s learned behavior made possible by first blood and now DNA testing.
The snake here is not the child, it’s the wife. I can understand if you feel nothing but enmity towards her. But towards the child? That’s not wisdom, that’s a complete lack of empathy and compassion, and frankly sounds downright psychopathic.
I hope that you know the Biblical story of the foolish man who built his house on sand which was destroyed in rain and flood. Likewise the relations built on the sand of deception are also prone to get destroyed.
If you use the bible as your source of morality and wisdom then it makes sense why you hold the opinion you do.
why the hell should I raise somebody’s elses child? Let her do it and the guy who did her.
You don’t have to be religious to be against the nonsense you spout Nick.
No, but you do have to be a heartless narcissist to abandon a child so readily, and that trait knows no religious fealty.
Should a man be ashamed of raising someone else’s child?
He shouldn’t be shamed into staying or leaving if such a revelation is made.
Although I do wonder (I seem to never get an answer to this), if the DNA doesn’t matter and “if he has built up such a relationship it should be the parenting not the genetics that matter” why hold it from him in the first place? It almost feels like people are thinking that if the deception is allowed to go on long enough he should have to stay just because.
I would like to say ideally it shouldn’t change his relationship with the child but I am still of the mind that if it does, it’s not right to try rag on him for it. In fact if does spoil the relationship it’s probably best that he be gone. It’s great he stayed but I do worry that there seems to be some sort of undercurrent saying that if the father/child relationship is altered (in the negative) then it somehow makes him a bad man. I don’t think I can agree with that.
A more callous view would call it resigned cuckoldry, especially as there were jokes in the family about Ms. Polley’s lineage. But Mr. Brand sees it as a more modern masculinity.
I don’t think such a view would be callous at all. Simply put his wife cheated on him sexually for some reason.
Look at the number of never married and divorced parents. It’s more a function of today’s society. Are people really going to stop dating until their children all turn 18? Will other people not date these individuals until their children become adults? Many people will stay away from these relationships. I’ve found most to be childless men. Childless women tend to be more receptive based on my observations, but that may have to do with women more often being the custodial parent and there being a lower expectation of having to parent another’s child from childless women dating single fathers.
The first question was whether he forgave his wife. Once he decided to then she is his wife’s child. It becomes little different from marrying a woman who already had a child except that it appears that he accepted financial responsibility for the child too. That was his choice and many people make that choice as a trade off to not having to deal with the biological parent. The story was sketchy as to what role the biological father played in her life or whether he was even informed that he fathered a child. The biological father might be the biggest victim in this entire story.
If he didn’t forgive his wife then it would probably depend on what bonds he formed with the child and whether he could live with this constant reminder of his wife’s infidelity. He’s a victim of his wife’s infidelity and shouldn’t be criticized if he didn’t want anything to do with the child. That brings us to the last point. His wife was completely responsible for her adultery. Even if they had problems in their marriage, she could have tried to work them out, seek marriage counseling, or been upfront with her husband and say she wanted out or wanted a marriage where they could see others.
There’s really two questions here – one about raising a child that is not yours in the biological sense, and one about forgiving infidelity.
On the first question – lots of people do that, and there’s certainly no shame in that. People divorce and re-marry, and so end up patenting children that is not their bio-children. Also, people adopt. One of my children is adopted, and I feel no less a father to him – I see no reason I would.
As for forgiving infidelity, I believe that’s a far too complex issue for outsiders to be able to make a reasonable judgement, not to mention making an across-the-board statement. For some, the right response is to get up an leave, for others forgiveness makes perfect sense.No-one but the people involved can really know. But – either way, you’re still going to be the father of the child. Years of fatherhood, of bonding, of sharing ups and downs – none of the goes away in a snap if you learn the biology is not what you thought.
Contrary to what pop evo-psych might tell us, fatherhood is way more (and more complicated) than promoting your own genes.
I think the article misses the point altogether, or at least fail to make clear what the point actually is.
As Lars Fischer said, it’s really (at least!) 2 questions.
First, there is no shame in caring for and raising a child! Regardless of the “heritage” of that child.
If someone lied or withheld information about that heritage, any possible shame for that is solely reflected upon the liar!
Second, A more callous view would call it resigned cuckoldry, especially as there were jokes in the family about Ms. Polley’s lineage. But Mr. Brand sees it as a more modern masculinity.
“It was the most manly-in-a-good-sense part of it. He was taking responsibility because it was his marriage. That is deeply admirable in my mind.”
Maybe I wouldn’t call it cuckoldry. But a marriage is still a contract of trust and responsibility between two people. And if one partner makes a (significant) breach of that trust, I don’t see it as inherently admirable of the other partner to adhere to the responsibilities of that marriage.
(Then again, they may have had an agreement about this, I don’t know.)
If DNA and lineage don’t matter, then why do couples get millions of dollars in compensation from hospitals when they screw up and give them the wrong kid, for that matter, why have all the security at the hospitals , when a woman gives birth, she is given a card, which entitles her to one child from the nursery when she is able to leave, silly isn’t but, you know what. It is only silly because DNA and lineage do matter.
I have to agree with the arguments put forth by Danny, FlyingKal, and John Schtoll. If I discovered my kids were not mine, that would be a serious issue. I don’t know if I would completely eject from the kids, but the wife. . .
These stories are perturbing in the way they’re often presented. Generally, it seems the lie is withheld till not-dad has a chance to bond with the child. That highlights the fact that truth and lineage do matter a great deal. If it were all about relationships, then there would be no reason to lie.
Some of this discourse makes me extremely uncomfortable.
We know that some men (exactly what proportion is difficult to say) care intently about whether or not their children are biologically theirs. We also know that this is hardly new – concerns about parentage can be found in most cultures throughout most of history.
As a result, it seems like this constant challenging of these feelings is tremendously unfair. There is a concerted effort to shame men out of emotions that are obviously very real.
Obviously this sort of problem is not the fault of the child, and being rejected by the man your thought was your father cannot possibly be beneficial to anyone. But does this mean that the feelings of men who want their children to be biologically theirs should just be swept aside? Are those feelings any less real just because we would prefer men not to have them?
Throughout most of recorded history, perhaps… Christopher Ryan makes a compelling case (to me, at least) that concerns about paternity go hand in hand with agriculture and the idea of private property. After all, if then entire village is raising and feeding all children – and not one parent “providing” for their particular child – then of what concern is paternity?
But I don’t think the idea is that men should are being shamed for feeling anything. The question is what do you do? As I said in my comment, your relationship with the mother is going to be affected. Perhaps you break up with her even. But why punish the child? If you’ve bonded with the child, why break that bond which we know will hurt that child? Just because you were deceived (perhaps intentionally, perhaps not) by the mother? Is it the child’s fault the mother is a CPOS? Should the child pay for sins of the mother?
I fall on the side of not cutting the child out of your life for the mother’s deception, particularly after you’ve bonded with them. Before a bond is formed I’m less dogmatic about it – I think it would be best if the child were raised with a loving father, but perhaps there is another father (the bio dad?) who is better suited, one that doesn’t harbor resentment for the child’s mother.
But I don’t think the idea is that men should are being shamed for feeling anything. The question is what do you do? As I said in my comment, your relationship with the mother is going to be affected. Perhaps you break up with her even. But why punish the child? If you’ve bonded with the child, why break that bond which we know will hurt that child? Just because you were deceived (perhaps intentionally, perhaps not) by the mother? Is it the child’s fault the mother is a CPOS? Should the child pay for sins of the mother?
Because depending on the deceived man in question that child is a reminder of why the his relationship with the mother changed in the first place (and no I don’t think he would be wrong to see the child that way). Yes I get that the child is an innocent life is this and all that. But at the same time I think that in all this innocent child talk there is an unfair presumption that the dad should just “get over it”. And I say it’s unfair because of the deception.
I’ll be a bit cold here and say that I don’t think the “but it’s an innocent child” bit should be expected to keep the “father”/child (those quote marks on for the sake of biology, take them or leave them as you wish) bond unscathed through this.
And to get a bit colder if people have such a problem with a dad that cuts the bond in a situation like this take it up with the person that did the mother that is responsible for it.
If he stays that’s cool and all. If he splits I don’t think it should be held against him.
I like you, Danny, but I’m going to suggest you not have children either.
It’s a shitty thing she (hypothetically) did, we can all agree on that. But why make it shittier? Yes, I do hold it against him for leaving – not leaving his wife, mind you, but his kids’ lives. Go ahead, dump her, get another girlfriend. Make more babies you know are from your sperm. But stay in your kids’ lives. They’ve done nothing wrong, and it will be hard enough to have mom and dad splitting. You’re telling me you’d really leave those kids wondering “Why doesn’t daddy love me anymore? What did I do wrong?” That’s all kinds of fucked up.
This whole attitude of “not my sperm, no longer my problem” turns my stomach. Can you tell?
I like you, Danny, but I’m going to suggest you not have children either.
Despite your feelings about my lineage I’ll still say that if you were in this situation Nick, I’d support your decision, no matter which way you went with it.
And if it makes you feel any better Nick I actually don’t want kids (and before you ask, no it’s not because of some fear of this happening). But that being said if I were in this position more than likely I would stay in the child’s life and just try my best not to let my contempt (well deserved contempt) for the mother to spill into my relationship with my child. Because seriously to the devil with that hypothetical cheater.
However I think there would be a problem. More than likely if I were in such a position the marriage would disintegrate almost instantly. If we divorce, what happens when it comes time to decide custody? I would fight with all I have to stay in my child’s life but don’t tell me with a straight face you don’t think said cheating wife would not simultaneously play the “he’s not the father so he shouldn’t have any custody/visitation….” and “…but he’s been been the father for so long he should have to pay support!” cards.
Now at this point you might be thinking that I should pay support and truthfully I would. But would you be as passionate about said cheating wife being fair about visitation/custody? (I think you would be unfortunately you don’t have any decision making power in family court, as far as I know.)
And I think this is what bothers me and a lot of people about this. The harsh reality of going down a long and dogged road and by the time the smoke clears still not being in the child’s life but held at wallet’s length by the mom. Sure that sounds like giving up but considering how things go now (to the point where some lawyers actually tell dads not to “fight too hard” for custody/visitation at the risk of not getting any) I don’t blame them for feeling this way.
Yes, I do hold it against him for leaving – not leaving his wife, mind you, but his kids’ lives. Go ahead, dump her, get another girlfriend. Make more babies you know are from your sperm. But stay in your kids’ lives.
As I said above how truly possible is it for a guy in this situation to kick the cheating mom to the curb AND stay in the child’s life? Oh it would be nice if it were easy.
You’re telling me you’d really leave those kids wondering “Why doesn’t daddy love me anymore? What did I do wrong?” That’s all kinds of fucked up.
Actually as I say I more than likely would not. What I am saying is that I don’t think it’s that easy (or fair) to paint a guy that would up to be some horrible monster.
This whole attitude of “not my sperm, no longer my problem” turns my stomach. Can you tell?
Yeah I can see it. Commendable even. But I think there would probably be a bit more than that running through the guy’s head. Probably something like. “What? I’m not the biological dad? She cheated on me? How long? How many? I can never trust her again. But we are linked by this child. Is it truly possible to just severe all ties with that cheating wife and still have an unchanged relationship with the child?” Yeah I’m sure there are some, “Not my DNA? Fuck you.” types out there but I don’t think it’s always that simple.
I think that in some of these cases there are guys that simply do not think that they can maintain that father/child bond after having such a bomb drop on it. And as I’ve said before I think if that is something they fear they might actually be better off leaving. Or would you rather see a “father” stay and grow resentful towards an innocent child because “it’s the parenting that counts”?
(And as for financial support I personally say that the non biological father should be let off the hook for it and the true biological father should be found and held accountable, and maybe even some way to compensate the cheated dad. If a dad that has skipped out on his responsibility can be retroactively held accountable financially then I think that a cheated dad should have some recourse as well. Another thing that I think is a problem is that people are too willing to let the cheating mom hide behind the child for protection from truly being held accountable for her actions.
Again if people want to get bent out of shape about how the child’s life was messed up, look at the cheater. If he had cheated and his adultery broke up the family I don’t see too many people trying to say it’s the choice/fault of the wife he cheated on for not being in the child’s life anymore.)
I’m with Danny on this one. A bond isn’t simply about blood, as someone with 2 animals that I love like my children and would die for, I get it. But that biological link is important to me. I want to pass my genes on at some point. A person can’t know how they would feel in that situation, nor could they control WHAT they feel. What if you have another kid in that same marriage? What if over time you felt more love for you biological child? Its fucked up all around, but it isn’t something you can just make yourself feel.
I can tell you this, the wife would have to be out of my life. It would likely keep me up nights drinking to begin with, but having to live with her would wear me down until I snapped and did something drastic.
But, like Danny says, you try to leave and you’re screwed. You think a woman that knowingly deceived you on that level won’t squeeze your nuts in court? There’s no clean way out. There’s only one solution I can think of, and I don’t think anyone here would like it.
On the topic of biology, I know for a fact that I love and care about my adopted sun exactly as much as I do my biological daughter. I’ve spent so much time with the kids, taking them to kindergarden and school, helping them face new challenges, picking them up when they fall, encouraging them to learn, having fun together, and just plain holding them close. In my experience, all of this grows to be far more important than biology.
I am quite certain that if I was to learn today that my daughter is, af all, not my biological child, that wouldn’t change my feelings for her or my desire to care for her one bit. My bond with her is immensely strong, far to strong to be disrupted by something like this. I would be quite upset with her mother, I might question my future relation with her, but not with my daughter. She’s my kid, no matter what.
At the end of the day, to me “being a father” is a process. It’s something you do, over and over and over, every day, for years and years. And once you do it, once you’ve really committed to it, it will not go away. Your role in the life of your children, and their role in your’s , will in my experience go far beyond biology.
I tend to think that relationships are voluntary. When you help bring a child into the world, you have certain responsibilities to care for and raise that child. He did not father that child so has no moral responsibility. Should a man stay in the child’s life? That depends on the man. It’s weird how some people don’t have a problem with a woman avoiding her responsibilities by having an abortion, but will criticize a man because he doesn’t want anything to do with a child that’s not “his”.
“They’ve done nothing wrong, and it will be hard enough to have mom and dad splitting. You’re telling me you’d really leave those kids wondering “Why doesn’t daddy love me anymore? What did I do wrong?” That’s all kinds of fucked up.”
That’s up to their mom to explain. Not his problem.
My husband and I underwent fertility treatments to get pregnant with our second child, which culminated in my being successfully inseminated with his sperm. The only problem was, I couldn’t remember *for sure* that when I took his sample in to the hospital that day, that I checked the labels they gave me at the reception desk to make sure they had my name on them. Because of this, I was vaguely worried throughout my pregnancy that maybe the hospital screwed up and this wasn’t his baby. Not seriously worried, but four-o’clock-in-the-morning-hormone-induced worry. He, of course, thought I was being silly, and told me so. I wondered, though, what we would do if our baby didn’t look like him. Would we get a DNA test? Sue the hospital? Share custody somehow with whoever the biological father was?
When our daughter was born, a little early and a little small, he took his shirt off and held her against his chest while I slept, so she could have skin-to-skin contact. He held her while we struggled to get her to nurse. In those first weeks, he changed every diaper, sang to her, talked to her, made sure visitors washed their hands before he would let them touch her.
When she was a few weeks old, I said, “She’s ours, isn’t she?” He smiled and said, “This is my daughter. It wouldn’t matter how she got here. She’s my daughter.”
So, no…I don’t think a father should be ashamed of his child, if he’s done a good job of parenting her, if he’s held her when she cried and sang to her and taught her to be strong and confident and kind. If he’s done those things and it turns out that someone else’s DNA was there in that one moment at the very beginning, why would he be ashamed? He is the one who was there for all the other moments, the ones that she’ll remember.
Interesting article and the responses. A few things come to mind.
“A 2003 study by the American Association of Blood Banks pegged it higher still, finding that in 30 per cent of 354,000 blood tests done to determine paternity, the man tested was not the biological father.”
Are women that deceitful and unfaithful?
Has anyone ever heard of a condom?
Why on earth would a divorcing man be held financially accountable for a child his wife conceived with another man under such conditions?
I think it is extremely commendable that Sarah’s mom’s husband was so generous with his love and support (while also admitting that perhaps he was not available to his wife in a way she needed) that he was there for the wife, Sarah and the other children. That is pretty big hearted. That is a man who loved being a daddy. That is a man who unconditionally loved a woman. That is a man who knew that in this crazy world in which we live there are worse things than this. Amazing but true.
I will be watching Sarah’s documentary.
There’s a sample bias error that leads to your question. People getting tested for paternity are more likely to be suspicious of paternity. Parents not going through a custody dispute, or where infidelity is not suspected, have no reason to submit for a paternity test. Therefore the 30% is not a representative sample of the population as a whole, but rather of the population where there is some question.
If you were going to make an argument from this data, you might say that 70% of the mothers who were suspected of lying about parentage were in fact being truthful, but I don’t think the data would support that statement either. Ultimately we don’t know why those paternity tests were requested, how many of them were initiated because of suspicion of infidelity, how many were court ordered, and how many were requested for other reasons.