In my experience US family court judges do often give a great deal of leniency to self represented litigants, perhaps even too much at times, delaying cases and allowing self-represented folks to get away with all sorts of things that would get a represented party sanctioned, excusing violation of procedural rules or explaining law - like everything else it depends on the judge. Many jurisdictions also have self-help clinics and volunteer attorneys that act as settlement officers. Judges do tend to stop helping pro se litigants when they a) act like jerks b) helping them would commit appealable error.
To me this indicates that here in CO not-dad’s case we either have a real stickler of a judge or something more then the local FOX affiliate and the angry not-dad are telling us. Personally I bet there was an issue of what was before the court and what type of hearing was involved, but I don’t know. There’s also the 8 years of existing paternity orders with related statutory limitations (which can be pretty impossible to get around - laches and all that) and the apparent goal of not-dad to increase custodial time or enforce existing orders rather then refuse all parental rights/duties based on paternity.
Point again is - this stuff is complex, individualized and is unlikely to fit into some kind of anti-court/state narrative or MRA screed when one looks into it with any attention to detail.
