Topic : 12/25 Parent Trap

Please keep in mind Enrique did not know the truth from the very beginning.  Mrs. A is treating him as if he knew the child was not his all along and has suddenly changed his mind about how he feels.  He is dealing with the fact that he has been decieved by the woman he loved for all these years!  The rug has been swept from under his feet.  As far as the money issue-I haven't heard or read a convincing reason he is responsible.  As a matter of fact, mom has created a huge debt owed to Enrique!  Good-luck Enrique and I hope you win your battle financially but more importantly I hope you win your relationship back with both the girls!  You are a good person and it looks like they need someone with honesty in their lives!

I think that he was wrong on pushing her aside, just because she's not biolagically his. On the other hand i don't think that he should have to pay child support. Supporting her financially is great, but not when it's court ordered and DNA test have prooved that he's not the father. He needs to find the real father and sue him for child support, but he should also be there for selena. I think this just sends men the message that they can have relations with women, even if it is just once, get them pregnant, and not have to take any responsability for their actions. Gloria Allred was right to be worried about what this is doing to selena, but wrong to agree to have him still continue to pay for child support. I am a women, and i know that she is all for women's rights, but this is just wrong. Put that aside for now, and just think about what's right and what's wrong. This is fraud, and you're justifing it!!

The real villian, in my opinion is Enriques new wife.  Absolutely, she raised this whole issue so he would  pay less child support to improve her own financial situation.  How dare she come in and say that the one daughter doesn't look like him.  What if she had been wrong?  Did she ever think of that?  Sure the 1st wife was wrong not divulging this deception but we don't know their situation at that time.  Maybe she simply made a bad judgement 10 years prior.  Maybe she really wasn't sure, so why bring it up if he isn't suspicious?  The poor daughter must have felt terrible and alone.  I am from a divorced family and even when your real Dad leaves, you think it's your fault.  I know of a family situation close to me, in which a 2nd husband joined a Mother & son.  They then had 3 boys of their own but when this 2nd marriage didn't work out, he was forced to pay child support to the one boy who wasn't his, as well.  The judge felt that he had acted as a Father figure for a long-enough period and "how dare he" keep the 4th child from receiving any financial aid, simply because he's now out of the picture.  I would say the same thing applies here. 

I don't think that the non biological father should not be responsible for child support.  I think that women who do that to men are just wrong.  They should use their energy and time to go after the real father and get the money from them.  Thank the Lord I am lucky enough that my current husband takes care of my two girls from a previous marriage.  But if we divorced I would never ask him to support them.

Dear Dr. Phil,

  I saw your show today, and know what that father is going through. I met my husband 13 yrs ago. He told me that he had 3 children, and that the 4 child he was not sure if it was his.  We have tried for the past 10 years to get a paternity test to find out if this his daughter or not. All we keep getting in a run around, and have been told 4 times by an attorney for the welfare dept in California that we could not have one. They are now stating that my husband is 65 thousand dollars behind in child support. Now my Husband has

had very little contact with the child. When he got divorced in the state of Illinois, the judge had ordered no child support till paternity was established. Here we are 7 yrs later and we are still being persued to pay child support and we still have no idea if this his child. The mother of this child has told him that he was not, and that before they ever got married that she had slept with another man. Dr Phil we are sick about all this and just want a way to find out if infact this is my husbands daughter, since the mother will not

consent to a dna test. We had tried many times to contact the mother but that seems fruit less, as she has had her home phone changed.  Dr Phil please help as my husband has been so sick of this and it hurts

him not knowing if in fact this child is his.  He has had contact with her maybe 3 times in the last 13 yrs.

I feel for the children impacted by such dishonesty and selfishness. I'm sure that almost everyone does.

As I see it though, there are only two possible ways to deal with this painful situation.

1) Consider each case on an individual basis, and give our primary concern to the welfare of each individual child.

This solution feels like the right thing to do. It makes us all proud of our ability to "put the child first". The problem with this solution is that it reinforces -- and even encourages -- the type of dishonest behavior to be used by other woman. In the long run, this "solution" will just result in more children being hurt.

2) Give the "stand-in father" the option to have full parental rights in exchange for full parental responsibilities.

This solution does not reinforce or encourage a woman to lie about a child's paternity. It also give a decent father the right -- and the ability -- to "do the right thing" if he is so inclined. To be honest, if he is not inclined to do the right thing, he is probably not the type of fatherly influence that will be benefitial to the child anyway. I believe this solution will result in the best of both worlds: a) a reduction in the level of false paternity claims and b) the lowest possible level of children being needlessly hurt because of the immaturity of the adults in their lives.

I think that Carnell Smith had the perfect solution, and that was to allow men who are victims of paternity fraud to have voluntary visits with the child, and remove the money from the equation completely.  A man should never have to pay child support for a child that does not belong to him.  The real father should always be responsible.  A woman who has comitted paternity fraud should either be responsible for finding the real father, or supporting the child herself.  She should also be charged criminally.

I do not believe that a man should abandon a child that he has raised regardless of DNA.  If child support was a non-issue, that would probably not happen.  Making a man pay child support when a DNA test confirms that he is not the biological father is only contributing to abandonment issues.  Especially when there are already men abandoning their BIOLOGICAL children to get out of paying child support.

Should it be mandatory for every mother that gives birth to a child (unwed or not)  to have a paternity test performed when their child is born?  This would eliminate paternity fraud altogether.

It amounts to child abuse.  Mental and emotional.  How does a women justify being loose and sleeping with various men and then getting pregnant and then oops...I am pregnant. Let me pic a father.  These women are awful and their children grow up nothing mom was loose and and other words that are not nice and in their childs eyes and other people she will be known as the women how didn't know who her baby's father was. 

Maria is an awful person.  Enriquez needs to sue her for emtional and mental distress and fraud.  She KNEW she was having an affair.  He did not.  She knew that at the time she got pregnant she was not having sex with just ONE MAN.  He did not.  She is an immoral person, I can't even call her a woman.  A real woman who engages in sexually activity protects herself from pregnancies.  She was having an afair and knew she was sleeping with other people apparently unprotected and got pregnant.  The fact that she had the nerve to continue to lie and steal from Enrique shows her true character.  She is a horrible person.  If she was my mother I don't think I could ever forgive her lies.  Her daughter is techincally a bastard.  She has no father.  Her mother robbed her of her right to know her true father and robbed that man of knowing his biological daughter.  And what about the extended families.  Grandpaents, aunts uncles, cousins etc.  Enriques side of the family loved her like she was one of them, now to find out there is no DNA ties is awful.  What about her biological fathers family.  Her brother and sisters she has on that side she never met and other family members.  She stole affection, love and money from Enrique knowing he was not her father and allowed him to be a father to her daughter, and allowed them to live in a house of lies that she created.   

She can never say I am sorry enough to her daughter or Enrique.  She is a horrible, lying, cheating waste of space.  I hope that in the end karma comes back to bite her in her no good lying face.