18 years, 18 years
She got one of your kids got you for 18 years
I know somebody paying child support for one of his kids
His baby mamma’s car and crib is bigger than his
You will see him on TV any given Sunday
Win the Superbowl and drive off in a Hyundai
She was suppose to buy you shorty TYCO with your money
She went to the doctor got lypo with your money
She walking around looking like Michael with your money–Kanye West, Gold Digger
Business Insider had an article last week titled Model Asks For The Biggest Divorce Child Support Sum Ever. Despite the title, from what I can find the model (Linda Evangelista) never married the purported father (French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault) of her four year old son. The two were together while he was briefly broken up with his future wife, feminist actress Selma Hayek (source). Despite keeping the paternity of her son a secret and specifically denying through her agency that Pinault was the father, she is now taking him to court complaining that he hasn’t provided for his son. According to Business Insider she is suing for $46,000 a month in child support (just over half a million per year):
Evangelista’s lawyers claim that Pinault has given zero support to the child. The $46,000 that Evangelista is demanding will go towards nannies, drivers, and security detail for Augustin James, the model’s son. The judge seems to be sympathetic to the demands because of the press this case will generate, apart from the $7,500 [per month] she wants for “vacation expenses.”
One of the comments on the Business Insider article caught my attention:
Tell me, if you father was a billionaire how would it make you feel once old enough to realize that your father paid $500 / month in support
That child should have the same lifestyle as if he were still living with dad. But that’s impossible seeing as dad was married and having an affair and oops! Should be 100K / month.
Keep you wiener in your pants.I wonder how much Arnold is paying?
I’ve found this concept of child support as punishment for men to be a very common sentiment from women. I seriously doubt that the woman making the comment would change her view if she knew that in this case the man wasn’t a cheater, and the woman was a divorcée who had previously tried to have a child out of wedlock with another man. However, what struck me more than her hurt the man sentiment is the very valid question of how all of this will shape the child’s perception of and relationship with his father. None of this money will be seen as showing the boy his father cared about him because it was forced from him by the court. Plus, while the claim is that this money is for the child, most of it looks to me to instead ensure that his independently wealthy mother doesn’t have to modify her existing lifestyle while raising her son. Per the New York Post:
“She testified that she wants to have a 24-hour nanny because she does not want to be alone with the child . . . Miss Evangelista, you should understand, has a worth of more than $8 million, and she earned, last year, $1.8 million.”
And a little later:
It’s understandable, too, for Evangelista to want another adult — a nanny — to be on hand given her security concerns and travel requirements of her job, the judge said.
“How many hours a week do you work?” the judge asked the model at one point.
“On days when I do not work, I am working on my image,” Evangelista answered, her voice soft, and tinged with defensiveness. “I have to hit the gym. I have beauty appointments. I have to work toward my next job and maintaining my image,” she said, “just like an athlete.”
“When I work, it can be a 16-hour day,” she added.
All of this would seem to poison the father-son relationship from the beginning. His mother kept the name of his father secret for four years until she sued his father on his behalf. From the father’s perspective, his first knowledge of his son appears to have been when this woman sued him essentially under his son’s name. The father and son may ultimately be able to overcome this, but I can’t imagine what Miss Evangelista could have done further to ensure that her son will never have a positive relationship with his father.
You go girl.
“if you father was a billionaire how would it make you feel once old enough to realize that your father paid $500 / month in support”
I suspect that M. Pinault would have gladly parted with far more than $500 per month had he KNOWN that he had another son. I suspect he pays far more than that for the children who live with him, by a multiplier of 10-20,000 or so. But by keeping this child a secret (until she wanted money), Miss Evangelista has helped this boy “feel” that his only value in this world is as a cash-extraction tool. She’s turned him into a biological ATM card.
Bravo, Miss Evangelista, you shallow asshole.
Rhymes with ditch.
He knew before the son was born; they kept the paternity a secret for other reasons. Paternity is not in dispute, support is.
[D: Where did you read this?]
*sigh*
I notice there’s nothing about any sort of agreement through which the boy might know his half sister by Salma Hayek or any other siblings. That is awful.
As for his mother, she’s nearly 50. She’s been a famous model for a very, very long time, but she is old. She will not be able to earn the same amound of money in a rather short period of time. She is clearly looking for a means to supplement her income and keep up the lifestyle to which she feels she is entitled due to her bone structure and once upon a time, with enough makeup, a vague resemblance to the Italian film actresses of the 50s.
As for being a shallow asshole, back in the age of the supermodels, she was the one who once said she wouldnt get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.
Hey, she gave him the best …. days? …um … hours? Minutes? of her life, so of course he owes the child of their dalliance a great deal.
And given the pick of the modern court system, she’s just the kind to dig it out of him.
(Exit, humming “Darling Clementine”…)
If I were the judge, I’d kill two birds with one stone by giving the father custody – even if he doesn’t petition it. That way it doesn’t interfere with the mother “working on her image” and the boy can also have the lifestyle he is apparently entitled to. I doubt this is what will happen though.
Kinda makes the death of the West seems not so bad.
Why are children “choices” for women and “obligations” for men? Darling Linda doesn’t even want to have to be alone with her own child. It’s ridiculous that such a claim does not bring ridicule and shame down upon her head.
I read about it a little while ago and reading between the lines my guess was that he was paying her money, hush money to keep it quiet from Salma Hayek as there was a cross over period. And the he stopped paying. And/or after he set up the trust fund for his baby with Salma Hayek, Linda E got annoyed about it. Hell hath no fury etc.
Btw I don’t think Linda E is a feminist but the very opposite. And she has a history of digging. iirc she was married to much older man who was in charge of a modelling agency at the start of her career.
Btw I looked into this the other day and Linda E doesn’t have much money. Given what her career was and how famous she was. Apparently her net worth is 8 million dollars. Her entire net worth is less than the 12 million trust fund he set up for his baby with Salma Hayek. Though he’s a billionaire apparently.
Other models are worth more than her. Even Liz Hurley who is only a 2 bit English not exactly supermodel like Linda E is worth 13 million pounds. The other supermodels including Naomi Campbell are worth a lot more. Still nothing like the businesswomen like Tamara Mellon (approximately 180 million dollars) but still quite interesting about Linda E to compare to Naomi, Cindy etc who are her peer group. I suspect she’s been living way above her means.
Chalk one up for stealth (p)alimony.
Grrrr!
At this point millionaires are going to be doing “preventing vasectomy” to their heirs as soon as they reach teenage-hood “Here son before you even think about dating get a vasectomy and masturbate for a few days… No matter what they say, unless you declare bankruptcy, women always change their minds to your detriment…always”
@Lily
I didn’t call her one, although I certainly wouldn’t call her traditional. I called Selma Hayek one after reading that she is among other things on the board of directors of V-day, the charity founded by the Vagina Monologs author.
If this child is going to be raised by a nanny there is no reason that it cannot be at his fathers home instead of just his mothers. And if there is shared custody then there is no reason the boy needs child support ( I realize that the formula is not 50/50 and works agains the dad because his income is much higher than moms). But if Evangelista is so worried about her career just send off to dad’s part time. It would be good for the kid too.
There is a solution to this entire problem. It’s called the “Tom Leykis” approach. Most of his programs are now on YouTube.
According to Leykis 101; Don’t get married. Don’t have children.
Nice Article Dalrock. This story is pretty typical of women and children and child support that i have read about the last few years. This story is no different than some poor wellfare grade chick getting herself knocked up to qualify for state aid. Kids are a source of income,status,or leverage for a woman to women. Any child felt a burden by a woman is either killed (Abortion, a victim of SIDS, etc. or just plain murdered) or abandon at a fire station or what have you. In any case it is all about her and her wishes. (all in the name and interest of the child.) Kids make good leverage against society in general and give women the power that they love. A father can see his children and be in their lives if the mother allows it reguardless of what a court order says. A woman that allows visitation is dong it for herself. (You would be amazed at the number of stay at home mothers that drop the kids off at day care. here in Texas they call it mother’s day out)
Notice BTW how this lady needs 46k so she can live her modelling career without any burden what so ever from her son. She could get the same thing by having his father take custody and she having visitation between jobs. The only thing different here is the dollar amounts (The movie Precious shows this played out at the other end of the income level).
Whore o rama. Any man that thinks of getting married or having a child with a woman these days is nuts.
Baskerville was right. I am divorced, two kids (teens) and looking forward to freedom after about $250 K in legal expenses over the course of ten years of custody battles.
I feel no guilt in juggling three girlfriends. The world is full of whores and parasites, and they are fostered and encouraged by our legal system if they have the right equipment.
Get laid and get rich. Don’t get married.
If I were the judge, I’d kill two birds with one stone by giving the father custody – even if he doesn’t petition it. That way it doesn’t interfere with the mother “working on her image” and the boy can also have the lifestyle he is apparently entitled to. I doubt this is what will happen though.
Graius-Gradus This is dead on the money how it should be done. Especially given the reason she gave for the dollar amout demanded. Any judge acting on the interest of the child would do just that.
I enjoyed the first comment you quoted:
I wonder how many feminists would agree with that sentiment. Most, I’d guess. And probably the exact same ones would also say that the identity of the father is utterly irrelevant, so cuckolding is just fine.
P.S. Here’s a good one: A female linguistics PhD invented a fictional “women’s language” for a novel she wrote. Much like the eskimos supposedly have 50 words for snow, her language has 50 words for theatrical martyrdom about domestic annoyances, and none for being crushed to death in a f*****g coal mine:
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2011/08/05/the-right-words/
(P.P.S. But then again, maybe she’s not so feminist after all — the picture of women painted by that list of definitions there is shrewd, unromanticized, and cruel.)
Greyghost:
You’re exactly right. Most of these bitches see both divorce and child-support as a kind of pension-plan; something they’re entitled to for enduring the ‘imposition’ of monogamy.
I think it’s obvious from stories like these that few, if any, women today ever really feel committed love for any male. I don’t think they actually feel anything for children, either. They are the products of a culture that teaches them to serve their own egos before anything or anybody else; and that both men and children are only means to their own selfish ends.
I hope that enough men wise up to this and get out of the contemporary relationship scene while they still can.
Despite keeping the paternity of her son a secret and specifically denying through her agency that Pinault was the father….
From whom, Pinault or the press? Considering that Selma Hayek was also closed mouth to the press about her daughter’s paternity when her pregnancy was first apparent, I would assume that keeping paternity a secret is standard operating procedure for M. Pinault’s baby mamas, quite possibly at HIS request.
Comments on the Business Insider article: “Tell me, if you father was a billionaire how would it make you feel once old enough to realize that your father paid $500 / month in support. That child should have the same lifestyle as if he were still living with dad.”
D: “I’ve found this concept of child support as punishment for men to be a very common sentiment from women.”
I’m not sure that punishing Pinault is the issue as much as fairness to the child. Both Evangelista’s son and Hayek’s daughter were born and conceived under the same circumstances–out of wedlock. In the case of the daughter, Pinault decided to marry the babymama. That naturally means that the little girl will grow up in the same home as her father, enjoying the same lifestyle. OK, that’s understandable, but why shouldn’t the son, who will be growing up without a father, also have to suffer financially? Why does Hayek’s daughter deserve a trust fund and not Evangelista’s son? Is he less a child of his father than his half-sister is? Or are we worried about child support becoming stealth alimony in this case because Linda Evangelista will use a nanny to aid her in her career as an aging model and Selma Hayek, againg actress, purportedly won’t?
Keep in mind the money is tax free to her (the obligor/payor is taxed on the amount) and is her property, not the property of her child. Also, the obligor cannot dictate how the money is spent by her. Wow. Vagina monologue.
” Or are we worried about child support becoming stealth alimony in this case because Linda Evangelista will use a nanny to aid her in her career as an aging model and Selma Hayek, againg actress, purportedly won’t?”
That’s exactly it. The manosphere even has a word for it, it’s chilimony (child support+alimony). To raise the child, the mother only needs enough money to live in clean, warm house in a safe neighbourhood, proper nutrition, and a few clothes. This can be done on minimum wage by a single mother that’s willing to skimp on a few luxuries. This can certainly be done by a multi-millionaire model, even if she isn’t pulling in the kind of money she used to. It’s all about the mom, none of it is about the kid.
Women are poisonous, treacherous, and evil. They should be avoided at all costs.
@Stephanie
At this point millionaires are going to be doing “preventing vasectomy” to their heirs as soon as they reach teenage-hood
Are you assuming that Linda Evangelista somehow tricked Pinault into getting her pregnant? That’s no so easy at 41, which is how old both Linda and Selma were when they had their kids. It’s unusual that a woman that age can accidentally on purpose forget to take her pill and have an oops pregnancy. It generally takes a good deal of male cooperation (including sex on demand when the woman is ovulating, often for months on end) and often medical intervention to get pregnant in your 40s. That Pinault impregnated not one, but two 41 year olds suggests his cooperation to me.
“Are you assuming that Linda Evangelista somehow tricked Pinault into getting her pregnant?”
I was referring to the fact that they had had an arrangement for four years that worked and she decided to change her mind about it and sue. If this happens often enough less men are going to cooperate with this type of arrangement and men usually pass this kind of info to their sons.
Are you assuming that Linda Evangelista somehow tricked Pinault into getting her pregnant? That’s no so easy at 41, which is how old both Linda and Selma were when they had their kids. It’s unusual that a woman that age can accidentally on purpose forget to take her pill and have an oops pregnancy
That is very common for a woman with a billionare. 40 years old Cliimony for 18 to 20 years at 10 to now 46k a month. especially if she is with a guy like that a few years and he actually marries somebody else. You are damn right she will get pregnant. A 41 year old model “come on,man!” lets not play dumb here. That agreement was fine until billioare married that other chick and then it was time to get hers.
Let me give you a hint: million dollar models don’t get pregnant by accident. Million dollar models don’t get pregneant until their late 30’s and maybe into their early forties. And even then it is to wealthy semen. This story is normal, see Tom Brady,Marv Albert (she didn’t have time to get knocked up she just punished him with a rape charge for marrying that hot chick and not her after getting that multi million dollar contract.).
the male birth control pill ends this right now.
@J
There is no doubt she placed her son at a huge disadvantage by having him out of wedlock. This is the source of the old saw that you marry first, have children later. She had all of the time in the world to find a man who would marry her before having children if that in fact was what she wanted. I don’t know what secret agreements she and the father did or did not make, by the very nature of secrets. However, using the boy as a pawn in a legal suit to get money from the father poisons this relationship any way you slice it. She is a multi millionaire, so she could easily raise him on her own. What the boy desperately needs is a father, not money. But all you see when you look at Pinault is money, not a father; I think that is rather telling.
@Lily
I think we need evidence before we accuse her legal team of lying. Until then, I’m inclined to presume she is telling the truth through the people she is paying to represent her.
Or are you accusing her of extortion?
why shouldn’t the son, who will be growing up without a father, also have to suffer financially? Why does Hayek’s daughter deserve a trust fund and not Evangelista’s son?
Because he’s not living in the same household with the father and mother intact. But let’s be serious, here. Less than 46/month in c/s is not “suffering”. Child support should be child *support*, not an income tax. It should be based on need, not a tax concept of taking a certain percentage of income. That is not support/need-based, but a tax concept. It’s basically a kid tax.
As for Evangelista, I remember when she was big time in my youth and she once famously remarked that she didn’t wake up for less than 10,000 per day. Golddigger is a mild word for this person.
@greyghost
That is very common for a woman with a billionare.
Nonetheless, it really defies the odds of infertility that face women over 40 to believe that neither woman had a bit medical help in getting pregnant or at the very least didn’t have to put in many months, maybe even years, into trying to get pregnant. Those odds have been discussed rather thoroughly here. That it’s hard, often impossible for some women, to conceive after 40 should be no surprise. I would also submit that the reason that older motherhood seems “common” among stars and models is that they have the resources or are able to attract men who the resources to finance infertility treatment. This seems more credible to me than a grown man producing two “whoops” with older women. Neither the women’s biology or the man’s knowledge of where babies come from would make fooling a,man easy.
@Stepanie
I was referring to the fact that they had had an arrangement for four years that worked and she decided to change her mind about it and sue
Do we even know what the arrangement was and whether or not either party honored it? I sure can’t tell that from the information given in the article. We know that she was unhappy, but we don’t know why exactly. He could have stopped paying; he could have refused to set up a trust fund for the boy after setting one up for the half sister. Who knows?
If this happens often enough less men are going to cooperate with this type of arrangement and men usually pass this kind of info to their sons.
So the end result would be fewer rich guys knocking up women outside of wedlock? The time-honored tradition of rich men being able to ignore middle-class morality would be endangered? The horror…
“I’m not sure that punishing Pinault is the issue as much as fairness to the child. Both Evangelista’s son and Hayek’s daughter were born and conceived under the same circumstances–out of wedlock. In the case of the daughter, Pinault decided to marry the babymama. That naturally means that the little girl will grow up in the same home as her father, enjoying the same lifestyle. OK, that’s understandable, but why shouldn’t the son, who will be growing up without a father, also have to suffer financially? Why does Hayek’s daughter deserve a trust fund and not Evangelista’s son? Is he less a child of his father than his half-sister is?”
I’m not really all that worried about what’s “fair” (at least in terms of financial considerations) to a child whose custodial parent has eight million dollars in savings, and a still considerable income stream. Plus whatever Daddy, if he really is the Daddy, has been chipping in all along. Nobody is going to be “suffering” here (again, at least not when it comes to money).
As for which child “deserves” a trust fund, and which one doesn’t, “deserve” has nothing to do with it. If Daddy billionaire were a widower, or otherwise had sole custody of the kids, he could, in his wisdom, give one a trust fund and the other nothing. It’s his money. Assuming he is providing a minimally acceptable lifestyle (as judged, or would be judged, by the relevant Child Service agency) to all his minor children, he would be legally free to favor one child over the other to his heart’s content. The same would be true if Daddy were married and had two kids. He and his wife could favor one child over another, set up one child with a trust fund, the other with beans, send one kid to Harvard, tell the other he has to work his way through school and leave the home at age eighteen. Leave all their money to one in their will, nothing to the other, etc, etc..
Why should the fact that Daddy and Miss E were never married change that? This is a constant in family court. Once in their clutches, parents (read: fathers) can be, and are, forced to do things for their kids that married couples are not. Neither a married father, a married mother, or a married couple is required to pay for his/her/their children’s college education, and that holds true even if he/she/they has/have millions in the bank. But a struggling, middle class father can be forced to pay not only for college, but even for grad school for his kids if he is divorced, or subject to a suit like the one here.
While Daddy in this case so rich that it’s easy to say it doesn’t matter, the principle is the same. The kid would have more (way more, actually) than a minimally acceptable lifestyle (again, according to the CSA involved) even if Daddy did not contribute a nickel. That being the case, why should he have to? As has been said, if Miss E doesn’t want to pay for the kid, she should ask the court to grant Daddy custody. Especially considering that she wants to have a nanny raise the kid. Daddy can pay the nanny directly (and a lot less than forty six k a month) and save Miss E the trouble that the kid represents in her busy, “sixteen hour” day. At most, Daddy should be on the hook for what one half of a minimally acceptable lifestyle for the kid costs. Both Daddy and Miss E are rich, and both can easily afford to pay for their half of that, Beyond that, whatever either one feels, each in their own, individual judgement, the kid should have on top of that, should come out of that individual’s pocket. And the fact that Miss E has custody is just another reason why she should be the one, if either of them is, to kick in the extra, because the parent living with the kid inevitably benefits from money paid to her, even if it is ostensibly for the kid.
Once a couple is split up, and whatever “property settlement” or “equtible distribution” or whatever you want to call it is made, that should be the end of it, by and large. Kids do complicate things, but there should be a limit on that too. Basically, the non custodial parent should be on the hook for no more than half the cost of raising the kid according to the standard that would satisfy the CSA if there was no split up involved, assuming the custodial parent can pay for the other half. Beyond that, each parent should be free, but not compelled, to pay for anything extra from their own accounts, just as if they were married. And the settlement or distribution preempts the hypothetical question of what would have happened if they were married and had joint accounts and disagreed about how much to spend on Junior. Because they are no longer married (or together in any sense), and because the disposition of the joint property has already been made, there are no more joint accounts. There is no more “our” money. There is only his money and her money. If she wants Junior to go to Harvard, have a trust fund, an inheritance, etc, etc, she is free to fund it. So is he. But neither is obligated to. And what they spend, or don’t spend, on any other children that he, she or they may have has nothing to do with it.
No child has some sort of “right” to a lifestyle of the rich and famous. Plenty of rich parents, like Warren Buffett and his wife, don’t provide their kids with that kind of life, even though they could easily afford to. The Buffett kids grew up in a regular, middle class house in a regular, middle class neighborhood. They went to regular schools. They ate regular food cooked by their mom. There was no nanny. OK, eventually, they were give a fair amount of money by their parents. But nothing at all like what they could have been given, as the Buffetts have donated most of the fortune to the Bill Gates charity foundation. If the Buffetts had divorced, and Mrs. Buffet recieved her fair share, what justification would there have been be for making Warren do things any differently? Why should he have been forced to spend more on his kids, simply because he had been divorced? Again, the mom would have had more than enough to add any extras that she thought fit, with her share of the divorce settlement. That being the case, what reason would there be to force Warren to spend more than half of what it cost for the kids to live the reasonable, but not luxorious, lifestyle that they had been living? And what difference would it make if Buffett then went on to have other kids, by other moms, and gave them a more opulent lifestyle and more money? No jusification, no reasons, and no difference, as I see it.
@Brendan
Because he’s not living in the same household with the father and mother intact.
This is the kid’s fault? It may not even be his mother’s fault. For all we know Pinault is just another “alpha” followiung his biological imperative for variety. But even if it is 100% Linda Evangeista’s fault, why should the kid have the same rights as Pinault’s two kids from his first marriage and Hayek’s kid?
But let’s be serious, here. Less than 46/month in c/s is not “suffering”.
Of course it isn’t. But Pinault isn’t some lower-middle class guy living in a studio apartment while trying to pay c/s and make ends meet. It would be no hardship on him to provide equally for this child. IMO, using celeb cases to point out inequalities in c/s is silly. Who could be less sympathetic to the average person?
Child support should be child *support*, not an income tax. It should be based on need, not a tax concept of taking a certain percentage of income. That is not support/need-based, but a tax concept. It’s basically a kid tax.
Ok, but then you run into the problem of great inequities among the kids of men who have several babymamas. Who ever the man likes best at the time gets the most for her kids. If you’re a kid whose mom in dad’s bad graces, tough luck, kid.
As for Evangelista, I remember when she was big time in my youth and she once famously remarked that she didn’t wake up for less than 10,000 per day. Golddigger is a mild word for this person.
I believe that remark was made concerning the shift in power and profit from agency to individual model during the age of the super-model. Any actor or athelete could have made a similar statement when they began to bargain as free agents–and did as I recall. That doesn’t make her a golddigger in my book; it had nothing to do with her sex life.
You have got to be kidding me J . That was some damn good intellectually playing dumb. A few years ago I wouldn’t have noticed.
There is no doubt THEY placed THEIR son at a huge disadvantage by having him out of wedlock.
FTFY
However, using the boy as a pawn in a legal suit to get money from the father poisons this relationship any way you slice it.
That is a characterization not a fact. And I’m sure his lawyers can find a way to get money to the boy and not to Linda if that is what he wants.
She is a multi millionaire, so she could easily raise him on her own.
Yeah she could, but I’m sure watching three other kids get more than her kid rankles.
What the boy desperately needs is a father, not money.
I actually do agree, but for whatever reason, Pinault doesn’t appear to have decided to devote himself to this boy or to his other two kids from his marriage. He appears instead to have made another bastard. He has four kids with three different women. If he were a ghetto thug, you’d decry him. Does being French, rich and powerful make him exempt?
But all you see when you look at Pinault is money, not a father; I think that is rather telling.
No, what I see is a rich, over-privelegded bastard-maker, not a father. There are more worthy men for you to defend than this guy.
@greyghost
No, I am seriously not kidding you. I was roughly the same age as Linda and Salma when I had my kids. Believe me there were no lucky accidents. There were years of fertility charts, basal thermometers, specialists, miscarriages, surgeries, etc. My husband was deeply involved and cooperative. There is no way any of that could have been hidden from him, That Pinault ran into not one but two women who easily got pregnant behind his back is unbelieveable to me. For the life of me, I can not imagine those pregnancies happening without his cooperation. The odds are so against it.
“Assuming he is providing a minimally acceptable lifestyle (as judged, or would be judged, by the relevant Child Service agency) to all his minor children, he would be legally free to favor one child over the other to his heart’s content. The same would be true if Daddy were married and had two kids. He and his wife could favor one child over another, set up one child with a trust fund, the other with beans, send one kid to Harvard, tell the other he has to work his way through school and leave the home at age eighteen. Leave all their money to one in their will, nothing to the other, etc, etc..”
Great point. People think this sort of favoritism is shocking, but it was really quite normal, once upon a time. It happened several times in my own family, with some of my ancestors ending up on the favored side and some on the disfavored side. My mother was heavily favored over her brother, getting an expensive new car and college paid for and all kinds of money, while her brother was left to fend for himself from age 17. (The reason given was to help my mother find a husband) My father’s father was cut out of a will entirely, and started over with nothing, despite having multi-millionaire parents and siblings. (The reason given was that he wasn’t going to get married. Of course, after he moved away with nothing but his clothes and his dignity, he ended up marrying later in life.) His own mother was favored over her brother and sisters, again because she was expected to be the one to marry well.
This was the norm. Some kids get favored, usually as a way of preserving family wealth. But whatever the reason, the State’s courts have no legitimate reason to require, by threat of incarceration, that fathers pay money to their children’s mothers equally.
It really astounds me — the things that people think they are entitled to.
>>”Ok, but then you run into the problem of great inequities among the kids of men who have several babymamas. Who ever the man likes best at the time gets the most for her kids. If you’re a kid whose mom in dad’s bad graces, tough luck, kid.”
That’s called “life.” The man is obligated to ensure his son does not suffer, that he contribute to providing the necessities of life. There is no legitimate reason to say that the State exists to force people to pay for every child equally.
>>”I’m sure watching three other kids get more than her kid rankles.”
So? Where is there a rule of law that says, “Use whatever force is necessary to ensure that Linda Evangelista is not rankled”?
Ok, but then you run into the problem of great inequities among the kids of men who have several babymamas. Who ever the man likes best at the time gets the most for her kids. If you’re a kid whose mom in dad’s bad graces, tough luck, kid.
As has been pointed out, this could happen inside an intact family, too. No law says that married couples need to spend/give to their kids equitably. Why the windfall if you happen to be a bastard?
I’m not saying no c/s, but 46k is NOT “child support”. It’s a tax. And Linda is going to spend it as she damn well pleases (including 7k/mo on “vacation expenses” .. come on).
Having a child with a woman not your wife is 100% preventable, and prevention works every single time it’s tried. Who am I, an average income schmoe, to say what is “fair” and “unfair” to the super-rich? All I know is that you sin in a hurry, and you have plenty of time to repent in leisure.
@Cal
There is no legitimate reason to say that the State exists to force people to pay for every child equally.
Maybe not, but, if you were that child, you might think differently.
So? Where is there a rule of law that says, “Use whatever force is necessary to ensure that Linda Evangelista is not rankled”?
There is none obviously. OTOH, people can pretty much sue anyone for anything if they want to under the law, so Linda E. has the right to sue, just as Pinault has thew right to countersue, say for more time with the kid, though it doesn’t seem that he has done so.
I’m not saying no c/s, but 46k is NOT “child support”. It’s a tax. And Linda is going to spend it as she damn well pleases (including 7k/mo on “vacation expenses” .. come on).
I hear you, Brendan, but I’d be more impressed with the argument if he were less rich. A lot of what looks like foolish expenses to us, is no doubt chump change to these people. I’d like to know what is spent on vacation expenses for the other kids before judging what LE is asking for. It also seems to me that, if “stealth alimony” is the issue, the money can be put in trust or some other creative legal solution can be generated to make sure only the kid benefits. I’d be cool with that.
Linda E would look a lot better if she was asking for a trust fund for the child not support for her.
Very money grubbing.
Contrast with Liz Hurley/Steve Bing. Or even Heidi Klum/Flavio Briatore (iirc he even tried to make her have the baby in Europe not NY as apparently he was worried about a higher child support claim).
@J
First is Stephenie.
Second:
“Do we even know what the arrangement was and whether or not either party honored it? I sure can’t tell that from the information given in the article. We know that she was unhappy, but we don’t know why exactly. He could have stopped paying; he could have refused to set up a trust fund for the boy after setting one up for the half sister. Who knows?”
We know that for 4 years she didn’t minded raising a son she could support on her own and then changed her mind. Whatever happens is different than the prior arrangement that is all I’m pointing out.
“So the end result would be fewer rich guys knocking up women outside of wedlock? The time-honored tradition of rich men being able to ignore middle-class morality would be endangered? The horror…”
Heh so first you paint Linda Evangelist as some sort of desperate for a baby women that seek the cooperation of her partner at the to conceive and now he is an evil guy with no morality for pleasing her with getting her pregnant? Nice to see double standards abound. Whatever a guy does he is the bad guy whatever a woman does she is a poor victim, right? Same old Same old.
>> “if you were that child, you might think differently.”
I HAVE been that child. (not in the “son of a billionaire” sense, but in the “disparate treatment from my siblings” sense). But it really doesn’t matter what any one person subjectively thinks he’s entitled to. Like his mother, he could believe that he’s entitled to 80% of his father’s money right now. People “think” they’re entitled to all kinds of whacked-out, crazy stuff, backed up by absolutely no reasoning, justification or principle of ethics whatsoever.
You raised the objection that getting less money than his half-sibling is “inequitable.” But I don’t see where equity dictates that a son has a legitimate basis, as a minor speaking through his mother or on his own, to say that he is ENTITLED, under threat of police-backed force, to some amount of money from a parent simply because (a) the parent has it, and (b) some relative is getting a comparable amount.
>> “There is none obviously. OTOH, people can pretty much sue anyone for anything if they want to under the law, so Linda E. has the right to sue, just as Pinault has thew right to countersue, say for more time with the kid, though it doesn’t seem that he has done so.
I’m not interested in what people claim. I’m interested in which claims the State says it will enforce, and which it won’t.
@Dan in Philly
While I don’t disagree in principle, I think you risk being overly smug saying this given what Christians (and everyone else) have stood by and allowed marriage to become. Does your church care about divorce enough to keep track of it in the congregation?
More importantly, the question isn’t whether having children out of wedlock is moral, but whether we want to use the power of the state to make it an attractive alternative to marriage. Make no mistake, child support is all about creating an alternative to marriage. Read any of J’s arguments if you want proof. The foundation for her argument is “why should being married make a difference?”.
@Lily
I agree. However I would still have an issue if she coerced him with the courts to get this. Forcing him to give money to the son makes it impossible for him to show generosity. It poisons the already deeply damaged father son relationship. She would do better to privately work to have the son spend some time with his father. The boy needs a father far more than he needs another million. In time if the father/son relationship is in tact I would guess that the boy stands to gain far more financially as well.
BTW, I found this article on the Huffington Post with a picture of Linda E. and her son. I know long hair isn’t that uncommon for a boy at that age, but seeing that pic made me go double check that she had a son and not a daughter.
Well iirc he’s a billionaire so even if she went for a 12 mn trust fund to be the same as his other child’s, he’d still have plenty of opportunity to ‘show genorosity’.
But yes agreed the most important thing should be a relationship with his father. There’s a situation that I thought the same of recently, I’m trying to think who it was, off the top of my head Padma Lakshmi.
Dal:
All Christians today seem to fear being called smug, or sanctimonious, or holier than thou, or whatever you want to use when you state that there maybe should be moral standards in the world. To answer your question about my Church, they track such things for the leaders, which is what they are instructed to do, and leave individuals to God.
With regard to your point about child support, you are 100% correct, though I do not think the general purpose of child support was to foment divorce, it is an unintended consequence, in much the same way as welfare reduces incentive to work and therefore idleness, laziness and irresponsibility. In an effort to make divorce possible, the state has made it likely. In an effort to encourage women to leave abusive relationships, feminism has encouraged women to leave any relationship which might now or might ever make them unhappy.
Such is the irony of the human condition. You cannot hope to change it, for when you manage to throw off the chains of one person, that person rushes to enslave themselves in a new shinier set of chains. I worry that sometimes in an effort to throw off the very real chains of feminism, we rush headlong into hedonism, which will have very predictable and very sad consequenses…
@Dan in Philly
What I’m saying is if your church is normal (average), divorce rates are nearly identical there as they are in the larger society. Perhaps your church is really exceptional and only 38% of the marriages which occur there end in divorce. But either way, saying no big deal, just get married is incredibly smug. If you care about marriage, you have to care about divorce. I know you do really care, but as far as I can tell 99% of Christians don’t really care about divorce, not enough to cause any discomfort in the congregation at least. Show me a congregation that really does care, and I’ll gladly point my readers in their direction.
Dan, I see your point and you are not incorrect. Christians are a little too much of the world are are infected by the modern casual attitude about divorce.
Personally I don’t mind being called smug if that’s the price to pay for saying casual sex is bad and can lead to bad things. I generally try not to use a blanket argument “Don’t do this because the bible says not to” even though I take it seriously enough to be convincing to me. Looking at the question with morality taken out of it, then. Although there are risks associated with marriage, there is far more good in the institution than bad, while casual sex provides little that you cannot get from marriage, and quite a lot more downside. If you truly desire to maximize your own happiness, you would be wise to marry one woman and not carry on with any other, even if you are an absolute atheist.
I guess look at what happens when a 25 year old drug addict ODs and dies. You are saddened, but not suprised, as that outcome was quite likely given his behavior. Saying so might be called smug, but that does not change the fact that his behavior contributed heavily to his death. In a similar way you can say the outcome of casual sex is out of wedlock children, child suport, disease, endangering your own marriage, etc, and you might be called smug for saying so, but that does not make it less true. Though it’s possible that you can die at 25 even without doing drugs and it’s possible all these bad things can happen even if you live a good life, you are courting death by choosing poorly, either drugs or sex, and what happened to this billioniare was not suprising in the least, given his behavior.
Thanks Dan,
I know you and I are of similar minds on this. One point I didn’t make was that marriage and remaining faithful isn’t a remedy against child support. Child support is about giving women who want to have children an alternative to getting/staying married. Some women forgo the marriage altogether and have the kids directly out of wedlock, many prefer to have the formal wedding and wait a few years before pulling the chute. But either way the results are typically the same; kids growing up without their fathers. Marriage provides absolutely no defense against this.
Dal, your point is somewhat wrong when you say marriage provides no defense against this. Not entirely wrong, but just somewhat.
Consider life as if it were a game of poker. You have cards played to you over and over, and you must make good choices over and over. Only in movies does everything come down to one critical hand, in real life generally the better player will win no matter what cards are dealt due to his better decision making. In life you have cards you are dealt and you must make good choices over and over. Sometimes life gives you a bad beat and you lose a hand. But if you are wise you will maximize your own odds of winning the night, or at least ending up better than even.
One of the hands you will play in your life is who you marry. Another is what kind of husband you are. What kind of father is a third, and so on. If you are wise, you will see that every day, every month, every year is a new hand, and you can usually do nothing about what hand you wake up with, but you can influence how you play it. starting each day you make good decisions, and slowly you allow the good decisions to add up and eventually you have won the game (really extending the metaphor, I know). Marrying well is extremely important, as is not engaging in casual sex. Though you might still get a bad beat and get hurt by a wife gone bad, you minimize your odds of such happening if you play wisely and well, day after day after day.
For that reason, I cannot totally agree with your point that marriage offers no defense against your kids growing up without you as the father. The odds you will be in your childs life if you marry will be (to just take the average, assuming you do nothing to otherwise improve your odds) 62%. The odds if you have children and do not marry the mother, though I don’t know them, are I am quite sure much lower. Given the stakes, you should do everything in your power to incease them, even if they will never be 100%.
J: “No, I am seriously not kidding you. I was roughly the same age as Linda and Salma when I had my kids. Believe me there were no lucky accidents. There were years of fertility charts, basal thermometers, specialists, miscarriages, surgeries, etc. My husband was deeply involved and cooperative. There is no way any of that could have been hidden from him, That Pinault ran into not one but two women who easily got pregnant behind his back is unbelieveable to me. For the life of me, I can not imagine those pregnancies happening without his cooperation. The odds are so against it.”
You are looking at this from your personal prospective, which is not at all similar. These women were millionaires, out to get a billionaire. They had access to the best medical care on the planet, and very good financial reasons to use it. Your husband was involved to make it possible for you, they had the resources to not need that involvement.
Next, these women are genetic lottery winners. Their job is to keep themselves looking good, and they are very good at that job. They are in the very best of condition, their ‘body age’ is less than their chronological age.
Finally, just because the odds are against it doesn’t mean that it can’t happen. My youngest was born when my wife was 42 years old. It didn’t take much, either – just one time with damaged latex.
It should be entirely up to the father how much he does or doesn’t send for child support, at least beyond the most basic needs. I.e. not more than about $500 a month should be FORCED by the state. Of course I think a rich man should contribute more than that, but he should also get about as much visitation as he wants and so on.
doug, do you think that visitation etc should be linked to how much money someone has/gives?
@J
“No, I am seriously not kidding you. I was roughly the same age as Linda and Salma when I had my kids. Believe me there were no lucky accidents. There were years of fertility charts, basal thermometers, specialists, miscarriages, surgeries, etc”
Well odds are just that, a matter of chance. My aunt and uncle were, respectively, 51 and 54 when they conceived the last of eight children. This was back when pregnancies at that age carried considerable risk to both mother and child. While the child was not unwanted, it was certainly unplanned and a complete surprise.
While your experience was different, it does not mean that others necessarily require similar efforts to conceive.
Dalrock said:
Show me a congregation that really does care, and I’ll gladly point my readers in their direction.
My old congregation did care about divorce and the divorce rate among its members was indeed quite low. It was a rather tight-knit community with strict rules governing proper behavior, though as a (generally well-behaved) child, I didn’t usually take much notice of it. Until. At the time the parents of a friend of mine, also members of the congregation, decided to divorce they weren’t publicly ostracized per se; rather there was a covert sentiment of disapproval for them in the community, never voiced but clearly felt. But when one of their children got into a car accident and sustained serious, life-long injury, a respected figure in the congregation actually stated, quite openly: “That’s how God punishes those who divorce.” Soon everyone knew about his words, my friend’s family included. Not surprisingly, the family distanced itself from the congregation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the children-adults now-are pretty much sworn atheists and want nothing to do with religion. This incident was not by any means the only time I’ve witnessed baffling heartlessness and cold judgement in usually benevolent people who deem themselves good Christians, but it was the first and had quite an impact on me as a child. These days, I retain my childhood faith in God but not so much so in mankind, and haven’t been a part of a congregation for years.
[D: I think a degree of disapproval is very healthy, but what was said after one of their children was injured crossed way over the line.]
I’d like to note that child support as stealth alimony is actually the law in at least one state. A friend of mine in Colorado is getting divorced and I was looking over the laws in that state.
The court may order either or both parents to pay an amount reasonable or necessary for the child’s support, without regard to marital misconduct, after considering all relevant factors including:
(a) The financial resources of the child;
(b) The financial resources of the custodial parent;
(c) The standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved;
(d) The physical and emotional condition of the child and his educational needs; and
(e) The financial resources and needs of the noncustodial parent.
I’m bothered by the fact the whole child support discussion is laced with doubletalk. The “best interests of the child” is a trump card used to nakedly leverage power plays in Mommy’s favor (including cases of cuckoldry). Then there’s the classic juxtaposition of “HE should pay me alimony because I stayed home and raised HIS children,” and the very next sentence “I should have custody because they are closer to me.” (Whose kids are they? Pick one.) And J wants to stump for the “fairness” to the out of wedlock child, but doesn’t consider that the mother could easily ensure fairness by asking the father to assume custody. She wants his lifestyle for the kid without the kid actually having to live with his/her dad.
WHOO! Highlighted the wrong passage there. It’s not point (5), which actually looks out for the child suppprt payer. It’s point (3) – the payer (usually the father) is not ensuring the basic needs of the child, but instead is supporting a “standard of living,” which intrinsically supports mommy’s standard of living too.
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