Offensive article and a rebuttal that never saw light on ST Forum (sighs)

I guess many of us here were more than upset when we read the following article by a journalist who seemed to have some very prejudice views. Whilst I sympathised with the woman who had been betrayed by her husband (I cannot stand guys who sold their wild oats after marriage... shame on U!) but I felt her friend, the journalist was not too kind to the rest of us single mums who had nothing to do with that particular episode and who have our own personal battles to face everyday.

Read the PUBLISHED (it should have never even been printed for the kind of narrow thinking it showed) article followed by a rebuttal by a single mother whom I know wrote in but never saw her letter printed (pity coz it was a well balanced argument by her)... and decide for yourself. ^.^

Oct 9, 2005
Children born out of wedlock
The men pay, but where's their say?

By Leong Ching

SOMEONE I know just found out that her husband has been keeping a mistress and has a five-year-old son out of wedlock.

The woman, who is in her 50s, said she hired a private investigator after she noticed that there were toys in her husband's car that clearly belonged to a child much younger than their children.

She later saw a copy of a boy's birth certificate which named her husband as the father.

'The address on the birth certificate was our home address. I wonder what will happen when the boy turns six and needs to register for school? Will the MOE send the letter to us?' she wonders aloud.

Clearly, she has gone past the crying stage. Although the $3,000 a month in maintenance which her husband pays to the other family niggles at her, the family is wealthy enough to afford it. It was the 'administrative' aspect of the relationship that interested both of us.

Can the other woman just put down her husband's name as the father even though they are not married, she wonders.

Statistics show that the institution of family is under more strain today than ever before. Over the past decade, divorce rates have doubled from 3.8 divorces per 1,000 married women in 1980 to eight divorces per 1,000 married women in 2003.

As a result, there are now more single-parent households. In 2000, there were about 18,000 households headed by single parents with children aged below 16, up by 38 per cent from 1990.

Children born out of wedlock make up 3 per cent of single households. Last year, there were 541 births where the father's name was not stated in the birth certificate, up from 417 cases in 1994, making it the highest number in more than a decade.

These numbers do not capture families in which the mother is a mistress and the child is registered under the name of his biological father. According to lawyers I spoke to, a woman can name her lover as the child's father, even though they are not married. She doesn't even need his consent to do so.

In Singapore, land of the Women's Charter and pro-family policies, a man cannot be a bigamist but apparently, he is free to sow his wild oats and head as many households as his wallet can support.

For family lawyer Foo Siew Fern, there is nothing wrong with the way things stand. You cannot make adultery illegal. So if a man wants to sleep around, he has better take responsibility for his actions, says the straight-talking lawyer who has been handling matrimonial cases for 14 years.

There are two ways in which the man can take responsibility, she says. One is to settle the matter with a lump-sum payment. The other is to pay monthly maintenance. The reasoning is that a child has a right to claim his biological father's assets, whether his parents are married or not.

The chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, Mr Sin Boon Ann, puts it this way: 'As a choice of society's values, we have decided under the Women's Charter to make it a right of women to expect monogamous marriages as a measure of decent conduct.

'So when a man begins to have dalliances with other women and worse still, has issues from that relationship, should the mistress be penalised? More importantly, should the child be penalised?

'For the mistress, I think our position is clear. A person who knowingly enters into a relationship with a man cannot and should not be expected to benefit from that relationship legally.'

It is the child, he argues, who should be entitled to maintenance from his father.

He makes two important points: A man should pay for his mistake and the child should not be made to suffer because two adults have made a mistake.

This is something that few would argue with. But I would argue that while the man should pay for his mistake, he did not make the mistake alone. Unless the woman was raped, she was a consenting partner in the relationship.

If we speak then of a mistake committed by two people, surely both should have a say in how this mistake can be rectified?

Why should it be that the woman can compel the man to fork out maintenance money because she wants to keep the child? Think of the reverse situation: If she does not want to carry the child, but the man does, he cannot compel her to carry the baby to term.

Why is the relationship asymmetrical in this way? Both parties should have equal say in whether to have the baby or not, and in how to take care of the child.

If the woman wants to keep the baby, she should either persuade her partner to agree or make sure that she can afford to bring up the baby herself. If neither party wants the child, then she can either abort or carry the child to term and give it up for adoption.

If she does not want to do either, then she must be prepared to pay for the child's upbringing herself.

I do not argue for abortion, but I do argue for the right of the man, as well as the woman, to choose. Now, it seems that the man, and by extension his 'first' family, do not have a choice.

chingl@sph.com.sg


THE REBUTTAL by a single mum:

Re: Column in The Sunday Times (Oct 9), Children born out of wedlock
The men pay, but where's their say? By Leong Ching

In her column, the writer suggests that men who father children outside of marriage be given a choice not to maintain these children financially. Currently, in Singapore, men are required by law to maintain their biological children, whether or not they are married to the child’s mother.

The writer’s asks: “Why should it be that the woman can compel the man to fork out maintenance money because she wants to keep the child? Think of the reverse situation: If she does not want to carry the child, but the man does, he cannot compel her to carry the baby to term.”

It is with some concern that we read these words. That a journalist should bear such naïve and shortsighted views is firstly, appalling and, secondly, deeply troubling.

We urge Ms Leong to consider a world where men are free to “sow their wild oats” and bear no responsibility for their actions. The country would run amok with untended “wild oats”.

As Ms Leong noted in her column, it takes two hands to clap. She writes: “If we speak then of a mistake committed by two people, surely both should have a say in how this mistake can be rectified?”

She has, unfortunately, completely missed the point. In a situation where two persons not married to each other find themselves faced with an unplanned pregnancy, “say” is hardly the issue in question.

It is so easy for the man to demand an abortion – there is little “cost” of an abortion to him. It is the woman who bears the emotional scars and physical trauma of the surgery. Abortion, as common as it may be today, is not without its risks. It affects the woman’s future chances of pregnancy as well as the quality of her future births.

If the man wants to keep the child, he will not have to carry the child to term in his body, deliver it painfully, or deal with the stigma of becoming an unwed mother. If he chooses not to raise the child with the mother, he would not have to struggle as a single parent financially, emotionally or physically.

It is deeply offensive for Ms Leong to suggest that “if the woman wants to keep the baby, she should either persuade her partner to agree or make sure that she can afford to bring up the baby herself”.

Does this mean that children borne of lower-income mothers have less of a right to live? Does this mean that a rich man may get a poor woman pregnant and ditch her, leaving her with no choice but to kill or give her child up for adoption?

Consider the last option: adoption. It is almost a throwaway line in Ms Leong’s column. “Just give it up for adoption,” she writes.

There is no “just” when it comes to adoption, ask any mother who has had to consider giving away a child.

For the woman who has carries the child for nine months inside her own body, nourishing it and finally giving it life, adoption is, in our opinion, one of the most painful choices. It is necessarily a much easier decision for men to make.

We are not saying that men have no feelings. Surely, some men struggle with the guilt of having a child outside of marriage and try their best to make responsible decisions. However, as women who have encountered men in such situations first-hand, let’s just say a vast majority would make decisions that firstly take care of themselves.

What about the women who are then left bearing the child? All three choices available to her – abortion, adoption or becoming an unwed mum – are not easy.

They are difficult roads for a woman to walk down and whichever she finally decides to take, money only relieves a small part of the pain.

Maintenance is just money. It is a small price for a man to pay for the child he would never raise.

At this point, we would like to correct Ms Leong, who quoted a lawyer friends telling her that women may put their lover’s name in their child’s birth certificate without the man’s consent.

This is only partly true. According to the Immigrations and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) a man’s name may be put on the birth certificate without his consent only “if the Registry (of Births and Deaths) is satisfied from the available evidence and documents that a person is indeed the natural father of the child”.

As for the “first” family (of a married man who has a child out of wedlock), no, it does not have a choice. But if it did, the affair would not have taken place at all, would it?

In a perfect world, we would not even be discussing this issue because it would not exist. But the world is not perfect and neither are we. And in our imperfect world, we’re all just trying our best. It is best not to pass judgment on what one doesn’t understand – or worse, have it published