AIBU to think the term illegitimate children is outdated and offensive?

Some illegitimate children are born to married parents (just they are not married to each other…..)

and again historically because most people were married this was very common.

most geneaologsts teckin between 1 abd 3% of children born to a marriage have at least one parent not as stated on the records

Yes it’s outdated and irrelevant in today’s world. It’s not widely used though, just because you over heard one ignorant person say it.

I'm in my 60s and am illegitimate, terminology bothers me not at all. Just thankful that it is no longer a big deal and young women who have done no wrong aren't pressured into giving up their babies (my mother didn't but I know some utter horror stories of what was the real 'forced adoption')

Completely agree, it is utterly irrelevant-
but
if someone HAD to identify the marital status of parents for whatever reason - this they should not be labelled as the horrid and inappropriate‘illegitimate’

Yes this is correct.

again this was quite common in medieval and early modern times and children born to parents who were subsequently married could be legitimised.

the classic example from medieval times is John of gaunt’s children with Katherine Swynford
(their descendants eventually took the throne)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Swynford

I think a lot of that’s because it’s a relatively recent change. I’ve found that people think it’s always been the same - so many folks think that being on the BC has always meant that the Dad has PR and equally others think if they’re not married the dad has no say/responsibility regardless of BC changes.

Maintenance is a whole other one. I briefly worked for CMS twice and a lot of men thought “I’m not on the birth certificate” was the end of it when the BC is actually irrelevant.

But it's irrelevant 99% of the time. Why does it matter that my niblings were born to married parents and my DC were not?

I think brain storming is not a good example really,
but it is considered to be insensitive to those who experience a brain storm type of thing physically with epilepsy I believe -

i was trying to think of phrases that were once considered OK and today has been acknowledged as discriminatory

That's so sad, Gettingbysomehow.

I'm old but I'm still taken by surprise at how very different things were in the 60s and even 70s.

Yes - I can imagine some teachers were aware and showed their disapproval in subtle ways.

Its interesting, because a lot of people also don't realise that the man being on the BC, regardless of marital status, has the same rights/responsibilities as the mum. I was told when I was expecting DC1 the I had to give him/ her the Dad's surname or he'd have to adopt the baby when we got married. And, since we separated, that I should have married him as then he'd be liable for maintenance.

He is liable for maintenance (or at least was before DC turned 18) and never paid it. Being married would have made no difference to that!

EtA: since the change in law I mean. Both my DC were born after 2003 and their dad has the exact same PR as me.

Agree with all of this. Genuinely confused about ‘brain storming’ though. This is used in a professional context in my workplace all the time and I wasn’t aware of any negative connotations?

‘Born to unmarried parents’
I think is a factual, unstigmatising descriptor

But when you think of the definition of legitimate/illegitimate it’s factually incorrect. There is nothing illegitimate about the child whatsoever

I do genealogy, as a hobby. I use the term illegitimate sometimes, describing children born in my family tree over 100 years ago, when it did matter to people. It helps explain what happened to them, when being an unmarried mother carried a stigma.

IMO, it’s better than the word “bastard”, which I see reading parish records of the 16th and 17th centuries.

It’s not a term I use myself regarding children in the present day.

It’s a loaded with judgement word
it should be in the same category as other words / phrases that have been flagged as discrimination such as
‘brain storming’
’spastic’
and
‘half caste’

these phrases are rightly NOT OK
and I believe labelling anyone as
‘illegitimate’ because their parents are not married is as inflammatory-

YANBU, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used to describe a child born now.

I think it’s fine to use it historically where it would be relevant.

Would you prefer they used the term bastard?

That is still technically the law and you can be fined £1 for not doing so. Nobody has ever been fined though.

The reason that was a thing was because being on the birth certificate didn’t automatically give men parental rights until December 2003. Until then being married to the mother or being granted PR by court were the only ways for a man to get it.

Many, many people didn’t realise this though and assumed by being on the BC the man had PR.

I hate it. My mum was an unmarried mother in the 1960's and people would call me a bastard to my face. Oh that's Sarah's bastard. Polite people would say oh thats Sarah's illegitimate daughter.
Teachers at school were quick to show their disaproval and quite often my friends were not allowed to invite me to thei homes.
Those were harsh times.

The main issue in that case though was that Steve Bing himself specifically excluded any offspring in his own will. Had he included them in his own estate they’d have had a far better chance of being included in the family trust when it went to appeal.

My parents would be well into their 80s were they still living and they would never use that term. It’s just unnecessary. I think if I were to explain the legitimacy of an heir in a historical context I’d probably say X was considered illegitimate because his mother wasn’t married. Or something like that.

It isn’t, though. An act in the late eighties removed all legal distinctions between children born inside and outside marriage. Sure, it is still relevant in historical documents. I think the only place it’s legally relevant these days is in immigration law for people born when there was still a legal distinction between legitimate and illegitimate.

I imagine the woman the OP overheard is the kind of bigot you encounter a lot on Mn, who thinks that a child who uses both their parents surnames makes it look as if their parents aren’t married, as obviously all right-thinking women use their husband’s surname and give it to their children. It’s highly unlikely this person has been able to investigate the marital status of the parents of every child in the nursery.

Weirdly, when we registered our children’s births we were told that, should we later marry each other, we were legally required to re-register their births (I assume because they would then be deemed legitimate).

😂

Yes. And in the past, bastard could be an enviable title. There's an actual surname based on the fact that someone way back was a royal bastard.

My daughter when to Loughborough University and always pointed out the ornate wrought iron and carved stone 'Bastard Gate', put up by that family and proudly bearing their name.

The first term I heard was for a relative who was born on (hushed voice) the wrong side of the blanket. Took me years to work out what that meant.