Children having children

I had an interesting question the other day.

A 15 year old girl was pregnant.  The girl's father wanted to know who was going to have to pay for her maternity clothes and her hospital bills.

The obvious answer was -- her parents! 

The Texas legislature never anticipated minor children having children.  Our state laws just are not written for minors having babies.

Parents are responsible for the acts of their children.  

The odds are the father is also a minor and does not have the money to pay for her pregnancy expenses. 

In most cases, most people are not wealthy.  If the families have a lot of money, then 2 attorneys are going to get wealthy and having a lot of fun fighting in court by fighting in court by trying to prove to a judge in court which parent was more negligent by not watching their children and "allowing" these kids to get "too close" to reproduce! 

Of course, it won't be until AFTER the baby is born and DNA testing can be done to determine who the bio. daddy is and litigation can begin!  So the parents are going to have to save all the receipts and hope that the Judge will reimburse their expenses.  I've seen judges reimburse for prenatal vitamins.  I don't know if a judge will reimburse for the costs of "reasonable" maternity clothes.  And what would "reasonable" maternity clothes be? 

Of course, the costs to hire attorneys to fight all of this might exeed the out-of-pocket costs.

But, if the man is much older than the 15 year old girl, he might be charged with statutory rape and be looking at criminal charges...if so...he'll be in prison and a registered sex offender...so child support and reimbursement of pregnancy expenses will be the least of his problems.

After practicing law for almost 20 years, it never gets boring!