Fathers rights still laughable in the 24th century?

in the episode where Damon Bok tries to convince Picard he has a son it’s stated the mother just decided not to tell him and that was the end of it. So in the 24th century it’s still not considered the fathers right to know he was fathered a child? Doesn’t seem very Roddenberrian.

 

Hello proxy post for topic that really should be in TNZ.

It's a less straightforward issue than you suggest. I would like to say, yeah, if I had a child out there I'd want to know and be part of the child's life. On the other hand, what if the mother was raped, or less extremely what if the guy is a deadbeat, and knowing about the child would give the father a legal in to take away her privacy and exert legal control over her?

So what do you do, implementation-wise? Require genetic screening for all children, then to not disclose it to the father force the mother to prove a rape? There are rapists who've sued their victims for custody of their children. What if you can prove paternity but can't prove the rape? Or what if the guy only has interest in his child as some kind of financial leverage? What if the woman is married?

Doesn't seem very Roddenberrian to me either, to introduce laws that expose women's privacy and but them in any form of legal bondage because they birthed a child.

 

How would that be enforced? What if a mother gives birth and does not disclose the father's name on the birth certificate, or claims she doesn't know who the father is?

Edit: Ninja'd by a more eloquent post.

Kor

 

The name should be discoverable via genetics if she doesn’t want to give the name, to protect the fathers rights. If there’s as little crime as were lead to believe in the 24th century if he’s abusive he will be in jail.

It’s about an episode of TNG, it doesn’t belong in TNZ. If a mod disagrees they can move it.

 

They are so evolved the situation never arises where fathers/mothers need to have any rights

 

I'm not comfortable with the idea of everybody's genetics being tracked.

Kor

 

I’m extremely surprised if that’s not the future, they’ll probably think nothing of as it’s been the case all their lives, like us having to provide ID when purchasing anything (in the states anyway), they’d probably be horrified at the though if that in 1819.

 

I fact they must do, in that same episode they verify his mothers DNA, suggesting it is on file.

 

In the situation in Bloodlines, Picard had sex with a woman and then never saw her again. She may have left Earth while pregnant or she may have given birth and just decided not to have Picard in the child's life. It is probably a lot easier to disappear somewhere in the galaxy in the future than it is to disappear now. Why do you think she would necessarily have to tell anyone who the father is or tell Picard? I just don't see how you can enforce a law like that over the entire galaxy. A woman gets pregnant, doesn't want the father in the child's life, moves somewhere far away and just claims she doesn't know who the father is. There isn't going to be some huge search to find out who the father is.
I am sure people can disappear fairly easily in the future. Parts of the galaxy are probably pretty rough and do not resemble the Earth civilization and might not have the resources to have everyone's DNA in the entire galaxy on file. The woman from Bloodlines moved to some planet that seemed quite lawless. I am sure finding out the father's identity is way down the list of things the local government/police care about.
And in the future, family units may be considered antiquated. No one on the Enterprise, other than O'Brien, is married. Other than Crusher, none of the main characters have kids, none of them are involved in long term relationships, Riker may very well have children scattered all over the galaxy. Kirk probably left his seed all over the galaxy too.

 

Galaxy is a big place.

 

Even antiquated, marriage is available.
If Picard was that concerned about having children around, possibly he should have married the woman instead of just doing a one night stand.

 

Genetic relationship doesn't seem too important in TNG, those Human grandparents wanted their grandson back from the Talarians, they said no, he was raised by them.

Alternatively, though, Klingon DNA is very important to the point that Worf convinces a bunch of people living in peace and harmony is wrong and they should hate each other because of racial biases.

And when I saw the thread title, I was sure it was going to be about Lal and they wanted to take her back and keep her from Data until she conveniently died at the end of the episode.

 

Naah, marriage is just one of many modern and equally viable options in TNGville. TNG, clunkily or otherwise, showed single and two-parent families, albeit often nothing more than as plot devices but that's a different story (or numerous ranging from mostly seasons 1 and 5)... and/or cheap lame soap opera given how Bev and Wes acted to each other. Just nothing more extensive than those, like a family of 5 similarly-aged adults working together and raising children for whatever reasons... if this is the sort of plot fodder people want, writers can have a field day with it and go the extra 5.88 trillion miles.

Especially when TOS talked about crewmembers marrying a few times, wouldn't it be interesting if sci-fi penciled in and postulated how within 78 years such a "modern" paradigm could be told effectively, whatever "modern" is as TNG had far less of a clue than any of us had in terms of what's optimal or ideal or even acceptable or what not?

I didn't touch on DS9 and the Ben/Jake situation. By then they had some inkling of a single parent household that would function and did it and often without the often laughably bad melodrama that Wes/Bev got into. Or VOY but if it's a small ship and they start breeding like Tribbles... would a Tribble merrily coo when placed next to a Borg or would it squeal like it does when transported onto the lap of a Klingon? Like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, we may never know...

If that episode is to be believed, but there's a more fun tale to be told:

Picard often said children made him uncomfortable and awkward. He would not want kids. Given then umber of times he hyper-strategized in advance, especially in season 3 on so many other issues affecting far more people like when dealing with the Sheliak or Romulans, it is highly unlikely he's going to go Kirking around the galaxy so haphazardly the way Riker was - and yet TNG didn't explore all of Riker's kids knocking on his door, but I digress. Picard would more likely go to Doctor Crusher and ask for a duffel bag full of contraceptives and prophylactics. And to make balloon animals with since he not only had a triple fisherman's knot vasectomy while in Starfleet Academy, he was also rather annoyed whenever women approached him because of his big Horga'hn sitting there while he was reading his dirty book on Risa. "The Naked Now" may have hinted at some restrained emotions and wanting to do the jiggy deep down (pun not intended), but "Captain's Holiday" explaining a lot more and a lot more quickly and with a lot more panache. Then came "Q'Pid", which wrecks everything by having Q goad Picard over his now having big feelings for her, apparently. And as "Q-Less" proved, she had cooties Q de-cured her of and it's for the best Picard kept his swimtrunks zipped at the time...

In other words, that season 7 escapade redoing to good old Ferengi revenge trick to reveal an alleged kid... I found it hard to believe at the time.

 

Why does one parent get to make that level of decision?

 

Exactly, surely in such a Utopian future the importance of the fathers role is recognised? Hell if we're all equal surely we're acknowledging that the Father could be parent of the century and the mother a complete waste of space?? It happens now but societies biases automatically assume the mother is the better parent.

 

It is pretty hard to have both parents having rights, control over the child without also, in effect, letting them have that over the other parent as well-which I feel is the worse outcome than just letting the parent who already went through the pregnancy able to decide for herself what she wants to do in how to raise the child.

If the other parent wanted to be involved in a resulting child he could have easily been a lot more involved with the woman for a longer time, known she was pregnant/had recently given birth and try to persuade her he being involved would be beneficial.

 

What if they went separate and had absolutely no idea as was the case here?

 

This is a topic worth exploring, but in this particular instance, the child wasn't even Picard's, so why would he need to be informed about a child that's not his? It's not an applicable situation.

 

And not that many decades ago, it was the reverse. For example, in divorce cases, the father typically got custody of the children by default.

To add another angle to this discussion, I wonder if "the economics of the future" would be a consideration when it comes to a child's needs. A single parent could spend a lot more time with her/his kid instead of having to be at work all the time just to make ends meet. After all, it has been definitively established that there is no money in the Federation.

Kor

 

Not wanting to be involved with a bar pick-up doesn't equal not knowing of your own flesh and blood.

It isn't a package deal.

Having one parent exercise complete control over whether the other parent gets to have knowledge of the child existence, why?

Because he didn't call her the next day? Send flowers? Too bad, did she make any effort to stay close to him?