Dad left for Canada leaving mom broke and pregnant

DEAR MRS MACAULAY,

I am currently three months pregnant for a man who is now working in Canada. We both agreed to the pregnancy while he was here. I informed him about it and everything was OK at first, then shortly after, he started to abuse me emotionally. I tried to explain to him that stress can be harmful to the baby, but he just kept going. He says I forced him to get me pregnant and I should do whatever I want with the baby because he doesn’t care. I’m unemployed, and I already have a three year old son who I barely get assistance with. I’m so depressed and don’t know what to do. I can’t afford proper health care with the pregnancy because I don’t have any help financially. I need some advice, please.

The women’s movement, comprising many organisations, has been trying for many years to help Jamaican women become self-sufficient — to stand on their own two feet and be able to provide for themselves and their children. They are helped to understand why it is best that they only have children when they know that they can provide for them, and not seek or hope that the father(s) of their children shall provide for them and their children. There are many organisations which can assist you to obtain skills which would enable you to obtain employment so that you can provide for yourself and also contribute to the cost of maintaining your children.

You are clearly not in a position to maintain yourself because you say that you are unemployed, that you have a son from whose father you barely obtain assistance, and that you cannot afford proper health care with your current pregnancy.

I sympathise with your situation, but I had to tell you what I said above so that you will take steps to overcome your depression and do something constructive so that you will not find yourself in this kind of situation again. I shall soon tell you what you may be able to do about the father of your three year old son, and this man in Canada. However, first things first.

The first thing you ought to do is get yourself up and go and speak with someone at the Bureau of Gender Affairs (Tel: 876-754-8577-8) to advise you where you can go to obtain training so that you can have more opportunities in the job market, and where you can obtain aid during the period of your training and until you obtain employment. You can also contact the Women’s Resource and Outreach Centre (876-929-8873) and seek their assistance for the same things as you would seek from the Bureau of Gender Affairs. The same can be sought from Missionaries of the Poor (876-922-2676), or Eve for Life (876-620-0515).

Then, you should also go and check with the Ministry of Labour for assistance regarding work or work advice, and also go to the social services department for subsistence assistance and advice. Remember that though you are pregnant, you are not ill and/or disabled and I assure you that you would free yourself from depression when you try these Government departments/agencies and civil society organisations with mandates to assist citizens in troubled circumstances.

Then, my dear, when you have obtained some work skill and obtained employment, you will feel such pride in yourself that depression would become a thing only in your past. These are for your own self-advancement and once these are obtained by you, they will also be of benefit to your children regardless of whether their fathers are worthwhile fathers or not.

You also said that since you do not have any financial help you are not having proper health care during your pregnancy. This is not good for you and certainly not for your expected baby. It is also necessary that you have proper nourishment. So, please make contact through the numbers I have provided above and take the responsibility of getting yourself out of the depth of depression that you are in. If you do not, you will just slide deeper and deeper into gloom and misery and really destroy yours and your children’s lives.

About your health, surely you must know that you can go to the Government health clinic serving your community and register you and your three year old son for health services there. You will of course receive the necessary care during your pregnancy and after, and thereby ensure that your family’s health care is assured, without cost to you. You should also tell them about your depression, so that you will obtain the appropriate treatment. In fact, I would advise you to take care of you health, your pregnancy and that of your three year old son before you start with the Government ministries/agencies and the civil society organisations to remedy subsistence aid, training and employment. However, as soon as you have dealt with all the health situations, you must push on with the others. Please take the steps and the assistance which exists to make yourself a self-sufficient woman for you yourself and for your children. Relying on a man to provide for you will more often than not lead to disappointment and misery.

Ok, now let me deal with your first babyfather, who you say barely provides assistance. You must go to the court’s office in the Family Court for your parish and make an application for the custody, care and control of your son AND also apply for his father to pay maintenance for his support. When you are asked about serving the application on him, tell the official that you want the court bailiff to do so. When the matter comes up for hearing, if he admits to his paternity, then no DNA test would be necessary. If he does not, then it would be necessary. Please tell the judge when the maintenance contribution has been decided that you want him to pay it to the court. This makes the record of his payments or non-payments easier to access and therefore for him to be made to pay his arrears or be jailed.

This money will be for your son, not for you, not even one cent of it should you spend on yourself! This is why you must make yourself self-sufficient by getting yourself trained and getting a job.

Next, about the child you are carrying. Since the father has reneged from his earlier position of agreeing to you becoming pregnant and carrying and having his baby, and he is in another country and you are still carrying the child, you cannot even prove by a DNA test that he is the father of your child. That must wait until after the baby is born. Another difficulty, is that you will have to take him to court on an application for a declaration of paternity and an order for maintenance. I hope that you have his address in Canada, where he can be served with your application.

If he decides to contest your application and disputes your claim of his paternity, he can ask for a DNA test to be done. The fact that he is in another country would make it difficult for the test to be done if he decides to mess about and delay the whole thing. He cannot be forced to do it, unless certain legal proceedings, which would be expensive, are done, to enable the order to be effective there and legally force him to obey it.

In your circumstances, it seems to me that you would have to wait until he returns and then make your applications to the Family Court of your parish for the declaration of paternity and for the legal custody, care and control and maintenance of the child. He would then be here to attend court on the date of the hearing of your application and he can answer the questions of the judge directly, and if he says that he wants a DNA test, the order would be made that day for it to be done. On proof of his paternity, the matter of maintenance would be investigated to find out your respective financial positions and the one who is better off will have to pay a higher amount of what the court finds to be the sum required for the maintenance of the child.

In this regard, the clerk at the Family Court will assist you with preparing your application and your affidavit in support for the baby’s maintenance (and remember this is for the baby, not for you) and please remember to add the application for custody and care and control of the baby (as you must also do for your son), so that they will remain safely in your care and you will have the right to make all important decisions about their upbringing and life until they are 18 years old.

I hope you now have clarity about the position you placed yourself in, and that you will go and seek help and advice from the places I have mentioned above, and that you will complete some skills training and get yourself a job and maybe later you can do more training or studying and advance yourself in life successfully, so that you do not have to rely on a man who will let you down by changing his mind and then being abusive to you about it all, especially with a child or children in the mix.

I wish you and your children all the very best.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.

DISCLAIMER:

The contents of this article are for informational purposes only, and must not be relied upon as an alternative to legal advice from your own attorney.