AIBU to think the term illegitimate children is outdated and offensive?

She can have absolutely no idea whether the parents of an entire nursery of children are married or not. She’s presumably basing this on the children using both parents’ surnames, which she thinks implies unmarriedness rather than feminism. It’s a pretty outdated view. DS uses both our surnames and we’re married. So do several of his friends. In his primary, where I knew most of the parents of his class quite well, about one third of the children used both parents’ surnames, and of those most were married parents..

For being judgemental? She's probably 60 odd, so born in the 60s, not the 1840s. Clearly comes across as a snooty comment, I'm sure her darling children didn't sink so low as to procreate outside of wedlock 🙄

What term would you prefer the grandmother used? Does she need to use an entire sentence to describe that the children have unmarried parents? Should she clarify if those parents are together or separate?

Is it really the word or do you just not like being reminded that statistically children within marriage have higher measures of success. While it likely isn’t the marriage itself that magics those outcomes, the pattern still exists.

Wow. Amazing that 30% want to keep it. I am married and my dc are so called legitimate, but why would I prefer that other (unmarried) people’s children were not??!

Sometimes we cause offense without meaning to...
For lack of the least-offensive term to use in an ongoing conversation, perhaps...or for a myriad of reasons.

It's education over time, some of it self-education. If someone is made aware and insists on using a term....that's offensive.

No, the legal meaning, when it was a legal category, was a child born to parents who were not married. (Though the presumption was legally that the man to whom the mother was married, if she was, was the father.)

Outdated because of statutes. Years ago. There’s no distinction between children whose parents were married to each other at the time of birth and those whose parents were not.

But even for legal purposes surely your parents don't have to be married to convey legitimacy? If your father's (or other mother's) name is on your birth certificate you are perfectly "legitimate".

@GaaNeenthanks! That makes sense, I was worried i might’ve been inadvertently offending people in work!

Yes it's horrible. I can't say I've heard it used in any official communications or by anyone publicly. I guess individuals online might use it to be condescending. Or maybe Reform or Remove or whatever it's called, they probably love language like that.

I'm an American adoptee, my fathers parents both came over from Scotland. Both died before I came along.

My mother once said it was good they were gone before they adopted me, that they'd never have accepted me and would've called me a foundling. I didn't wash up on shore in a basket lol, that word choice was so odd.

So I can live with illegitimate vs foundling 😂

There is no need to use any derogatory term at all thank you. They are just children. Ordinary children. You dont go round calling children with married parents legitimate do you.

My 4 kids are illegitimate.

My eldest, who did some genealogy as part of his home ed, found out thst they were all technically bastards. He found that HILARIOUS.

My 65 year old parents and my 89 year old grandma both had no issues or even batted an eyelid at me being an unwed mother.

Outdated due to stigmatisation-
like some diagnoses - e.g. manic depressive
now called Bipolar affective disorder
Manic was deemed stigmatising

Your information is very out of date.

Not any more

It’s a legal descriptor

I always thought of legit as in law, meaning they would inherit, and if they're not recognised as being, then they wouldn't automatically?
Haven't there been cases where a child didn't inherit what their siblings did, because their parents were not married/not named on birth certificate, whereas married people can automatically put their name on?
Maybe now that's not what it means, and people have said the laws are changing so unmarried people will have the same rights as married.

The term I never heard used is bastard-I was quite old before I realised what it actually meant-as a teenager I was shocked when an adult was talking about a bastard royal!

defintley outdated but offensive is probably more debateble. I would say it doesn't have the stigma or strength that it used to. My sister is technically illegitamite.
She laughs about it, my mum can't even stand a small joke about it and the one time we tried she left the room crying and we got a rollicking from our dad.
My sister had two illegitamite children so clearly it didn't have a long term effect.

My husband on the other hand insisted on being married before we had kids, and loves game of thrones but winches at bastard because he is senstitve to being born out of wedlock. Society has thankfully moved on so for alot of people I don't think parents martial status even registers and if you called them illegitamte the would just think you were strange rather than be offended

Thing is though the flip side to removing the stigma and having so many more unmarried parents is how badly things can go pear shaped for (usually) the woman when couples split or fathers die. I’ve read so many threads on here where the mother and children would be in a much better position had the couple married.

It was abolished in Ireland in 1987 as a legal term so all children have equal rights whether parents are married or not.
Thankfully there is no stigma around parents being married or not anymore (as far as I know)

No, in Ireland none of the names with ‘Fritz’ have the implication of illegitimacy in some forebear. They’re either just Anglo-Norman origin names, from the French ‘fils’, or anglicisations of ‘Mac’ (son of) in Irish. Henry VIII required it as part of his surrender and regrant policy. Fitzpatrick is an anglicisation of ‘Mac Giolla Phádraig’.

The concept of illigitimacy was removed in England and Wales in 2005. I know because my duagter was born in 2005 just before my husband and I married and we had to get a new birth certificate after the wedding so she would be "legitimate". It mattered because, if illegitimate, at the time a future legitimate sibling could argue she should be excluded from any future inheritance. We were told at the time that - had she been born a few months later - it wouldn't matter because the whole legitimate/illigitiimte for inheritance was being abolished. No idea if this is correct but is what we were told by the registry office at the time and you think they would know.

I don’t really know about Ireland.

in England in medieval times illegitimacy fell into several categories:

children born to an unmarried woman and the father acknowledged it - surname usually Fitz and then the title or name of the father eg FitzRoy for the king, but this wasn’t a hard and fast rule and sometimes the surname was a junior title the man held. Katherine Swunford’s children were surnamed Beaufort

children born to a married woman by adultery outside the marriage - surname of the marriage but first names often acknowledge paternity eg Mary Boleyn’s children Catherine and Henry whose father was likely Henry the eighth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Boleyn

Would the king bit apply only to Fitzroy (son of the king)?
It's fairly common enough in Irish surnames (Fitzpatrick, Fitzgerald etc) with not a hint of its 'illegitimate' meaning.