Topic : 12/25 Parent Trap

Absolutely no way this guy should be made to pay child support the fact is the child is not HIS.........she belongs to someone else. I think if out of the kindness of his heart he sees it fit to support this child, then kudos to him. If on the other hand he chooses not to then he should not be judged as he did not choose the situation. The person who should be judged and put through the wringer is Maria who is both a liar and a cheater. She created this mess and rather than trying to bring shame on this poor guy she ought to look and see what kind of an example as a mother that she is setting. If Enrique was her son, brother, nephew etc would she want another woman to do the same thing to him. Then I again she doesnt seem to care and she needs to understand that sleeping around and lying does not fool anyone anywhere into believing she is anything more than what she is...............believe me Maria, mother or wife material you are not! Plus you did it one guy you will do it again given the same circumstances!

It appears that Enrique may have acted out of hurt and anger against his wife when he spoke to Selena.  This is extremely unfortunately.  It also appears that his ex-wife is more interested in the child support "Income" then the well being of her daughter.

Law aside, I strongly feel the right thing to do is to allow and assist a repairing of the relationship with the Father (Enrique) and daughter (Selena).  Hopefully, Enrique will see through it to then financially support the child.  What is unfortunate is that the law does not allow this to be done with the money going through the ex spouse.  I know of instances (through friends) where much of the child support money goes to the ex=spouse's bad spending habits while the children see little of the benefit.

The attorney was only there to promote herself.  Clearly, her agenda did not align with the specific discussions at hand.  This is ashame as she seems to have much to offer.

As for the man who paid child support for being nothing more than a sperm donor, only to find out he was not even the donor at all.  How can anyone even begin to try to defend this?  This is a travesty in many ways.

Selena's life has been altered forever in a very negative way.  Hopefully she will get the help that she needs to surface from the evils of ALL of the four adults that have only their interests in mind.  I am not sure why either of the 2 new spouses/partners have any say in this situation.  Clearly they are running a personal agenda.

I hope all the best for Selena.

I understand of the hurt Enrique have gone through but, it is the way he told her is the hurting part, which none of that hurt and anger should have been directed to Salina  But all in all, it is not too late to have that reoncilation between him and Salina.  Salina has been traumatized over this entire situation and I too would like to say to her that "it is not your fault, don't ever feel that you are the cause of the problem.  Keep your head up and move forward because good things will come out of this if you focus on a positive outlook."  I'm a firm believer that what the enemy made to look bad, God can change it around for the good. 

I just want to say that whatever the situation is, that the so called hurting parent continue to love the child no matter what because the child will end up suffering for our stupid decisions (like Enrique), who now has to start from square one for his actions of winning Salina back.  Enrique threw away all those precious years he INVESTED in Salina from an infant that no money or price can be put on it.

Women shouldn't use the platform of their pregnancy or their children as "pawns" for finances to con their men.  And when the truth is revealed that they would always take a moment and say to themselves, "how can we tell the children" and what is the best way to tell them... don't throw their frustrations, anger, hurt and all the rest on the child.... things like this can lead children to depression and suicide. 

I am a mother of 4 adult children and a grandma to 19 grandchildren, I speak with a lot of experience and from my upbringing, raised by my sterned parents and grandparents, who always had put us kids first before themselves no matter what the situation was, and this legacy has been passed down to our children and now grandchildren.........always being careful not to hurt the children in any way when it is the adult's fault.  The biggest key is "love".  If Enrique really loved Salina he would have never hurted her the way he did... and if his ex-wife really loved him, she would have never hurted him like she did.  The child suffers from #1  - her mother's wrongful choice and #2 - she suffers from her so called father's outward anger and hurt.  A double whammer.  As for Chris, he has good intentions but, he needs to just be a friend to Salina to look up to and not play daddy in her life... she's been hurt too much and Salina is too fragile to have another man take the place of a "dad" figure in her life or even to just adopt her to carry his lalst name.....maybe perhaps later in the future.  She needs to have space in learning to trust men in her life again..... because the one that she called daddy all her life disappointed her due to her mother's selfish reasons, which became a domino effect on everyone which could have been avoided if it was handled better.

Children look up to us for trust, safety, love, and all the rest we can give to them.  And when we fail we need to let them know that we are sorry and we make mistakes too, but nothing can take the love away that we have for them.... love is the best medicine.  I remember a friend said once, "if you love me, then bake me a cake"....

So if you love your child... then no matter how difficult it is to tell them what is happening that they become the cake on the top of your list ... and if you love them very much... you will handle that cake with a lot of love making sure you do not drop it, because it can break into many pieces which would be hard to make it look like it supposed to be. if handled wrong. 

what good came of this DNA test?  I know that the mother should be the soul owner of this one but really what good did this DNA test really do?  It ruined 2 lifes and on top of that he still has to pay her!

This show was an eye opener for me.  My son had been in a troubled marriage for almost 5 years and has 2 children and another one on the way.  He married after the first child was born  The second child was conceived very shortly after a brief separation and this pregnancy happened after she left him again but was "coming home" on weekends.  During this last separation she filed for child support  only after about 2 weeks and was angry that the court did not deem more of a payment.  (He only makes 8 to 12 dollars and hour.)  She was seeing other men when they were separated but swears they were not intimate.  My son cannot afford paternity testing and hates to make waves with his wife while they are together because he loves his family.  My fear is that the marriage will not last and my son will be responsible for 3 children which may or may not be his.  And as it seems he would be anyway. 

The laws need to be changed. Yes the children are the real victims but why do the innocent men have to pay for the sins of these children's  mothers. Even go to jail for non payment when the true DNA donor and the liar and adulterer gets rewarded by not having to be responsible themselves in a financial way.

Men do become the victims in many situations such as this.  DNA testing is available but not affordable for everyone, so sometimes that is not even an option.  If it can be proved that a man is not the father of the child, I wouldn't say he is owed anything in the form of pay back because now that could ruin the life of an unexpecting man, but should be allowed to forfeight future child support payments.  Gloria mentioned all the dead beat dads that are out there, but that has nothing to do with this situation.  This is for the men that have stood up and taken the responsibilty on and in the end become the victim of lies or deciept.  When will the court system realize that there are loving men out there that can nuture and raise a child to be wonderful people also?  Paternaty laws are just plain unfair to men. 

 A beautiful story, but I believe she should be told when she is 21 or 25.  She deserves to know the truth.  It will hurt greatly, but should increase her self esteem as she realizes the unconditional love her dad, mom and you (her true family) have and had for her even though you knew since she was 5 that she was not a birth child/grandchild.  It's like adoption--she doesn't know her birth parents, but has much love anyway.  Unfortunately, there's a down side to telling her--she may feel totally insignificant by being abandomed by her birth mother and has no knowledge of her birth father, no "roots".

Best Wishes, and God bless!!!

It is hard to believe that ANYBODY would blame someone for not knowing something when that same man was expected to beleive and trust a wife that turned out to be a dirtly liar! Were it possible, I bet she would scream fraud if someone had stolen from her. MARIA hurt her daughter by her lying and cheating actions and she continues to want to BLAME others!  How dare she blame Enrique for the emotional backlash and blame shift to the new wife that she caused. Maria's big issue was that she got caught and doesn't want to give up the money!  Husband #2 ... this is who you married so you could be next! Congratulations to Carnell Smith for shining the light on the answer...take the money out of the equation and let the relationship mend.  Meanwhile, go after the bio-dad who DOES deserve to pay.  Maria is the very reason for groups like paternity fraud, glenn sacks, r u daddy and others that have begun to pop-up to give dad's a voice and hope.  I hope they change laws and lives. By the way, I wonder what Gloria Allred would say about the children hurt by the money being sent to another man's child while they go without?  It is nothing she'd want done to her but o.k. if it's a man I guess.

There are ABSOLUTELY two issues here:

1. Should the present parent  (i.e. potenitially non-biological parent) emotionally withdraw from a child when the unspeakable is learned, that there is no biological link?  HECK NO.  No no no.  The child deserves stability because the child had no decision in the matter from the get-go.  Like Dr. Phil said:  that child thinks the sun doesn't rise until dad tells it to.  So should the putative parent stay involved emotionally??  Oh my GOD yes.

2.  Should the present parent, but not the biological parent, pay financially?  HECK NO.  No no no.  The child deserves to benefit financially from the one who begat the issue, not the man who has been there when the sperm donor has not.  Has anyone thought that maybe the non-bio dad would be WAY MORE MOTIVATED to be in the child's life if he weren't held at knife point at the ATM to pay for a child that some other man, who is off doing his thing, is not paying for? 

I would have appreciated a deliniation of issues on the show.  There are TWO seperate issues.  Love.  Money.  They are SEPERATE.