One of my kids is a senior in high school. He’s not interested in what you might call a traditional job. I suppose he could go to college and study what he wants to learn, but he’ll do better working in the field and gaining his experience that way. Frankly, after 4 years of college, he’d be scrambling for the same kind of low=paying, entry-level gigs that he can probably get straight out of high school.

Higher education in the US can be such a trap.
Suffering every day for all those unnecessary classes.

Shirley Cress Dudley, MA LPC NCC
Director of The Blended and Step Family Resource Center
http://www.BlendedFamilyAdvice.com

I think it’s more than “in theory.” I’m not aware that child-related rights and obligations are any different for the formerly married and the never married, outside of paternity disputes.

Even a husband btw under the classic presumption of paternity doctrine could deny paternity if he could prove that the child is not his.

This case from Florida contradicts that statement. Perhaps Florida law has since been changed, but the Florida Supreme Court decided unanimously that missing the one year post-divorce deadline mattered more than the DNA evidence.

An unmarried woman has the obligation to prove this man is the father of her child.

This article demonstrates that, in practice, it’s not as simple as that.

For most cohabiting couples, this isn’t very relevant however, as young adults who have lived together for a few years (say five or less) typically do not have enough assets to bother a lawyer about.

Also cohabiting couples do not tend to create wealth the way married couples do.

In theory child-related right and obligations are now severed from marriage. Even a husband btw under the classic presumption of paternity doctrine could deny paternity if he could prove that the child is not his.

The difference is only in the legal presumption. An unmarried woman has the obligation to prove this man is the father of her child. A married man would have the obligation to prove he is not.

This mattered a great deal more in the days before DNA testing. maggie

Getting your dog at the humane society? That was a bit of a novelty. Cousins of mine got their dog this way in the 70s, but I can’t remember if they used the language of adoption.

At some point, we started hearing about the evils of puppy mills, and pet stores stopped carrying puppies and kittens. Not sure if there was causation or not. And the local morning shows on TV started bringing out the “pet of the week” who needed a loving home.

In the past 10 years, I think everyone I know who got a dog or a cat got their pet through a rescue organization. I know several places where I could “adopt” a dog or cat. I wouldn’t know where to go to buy one.

I thought I remembered that Pet Rocks came with adoption papers, but I probably mistaken. The wikipedia article makes no mention of adoption papers. (For those of you who are oh so young, pet rocks were a short-lived fad back in 1975. Yes, the 1970s were a strange time.)

Perhaps I am mixing it up with Cabbage Patch Kids (1978 onward). I’m pretty sure that they came with adoption papers.

The only difference of which I am aware regards paternity. In the case of a marriage, any child born within that marriage is considered the child of the husband, and he would be liable for child support, even if he were to discover that he was not the biological father of that child. However, a man who was not married to the mother would no longer have to pay child support if he were able to prove that he was not the father of the child he had previously believed was his.