When did it become socially acceptable to have a baby without being married?

[Lambsandchicks]

1990s? Or before that? Any history/sociology experts around?

I was born in 1972 and my parents had a shotgun wedding. Mum wasn't allowed to wear white, it was a quickie registry office do with no official photos. They got divorced shortly after and I remember that being a bit of a 'thing' while I was at Primary school. Teachers used to seek me out to check on me in a kindly way rather than stigma but it was unusual. I was the only kid in school with a single Mum.

I remember in the mid 90s saying to a boyfriend that I wasn't bothered about marriage in general and he said something like 'so you want your kids to be bastards?' and I was really shocked as it was such a bizarrely old fashioned thing to be saying at that time.

I was born in 1974 my parents weren't married my mum married my step day when I was 6 and I was the only child I knew with a step dad, mum said there was still a lot of stigma about being an unmarried mum.

My mum had my oldest sister in ’85 and the midwife was shitty to her about not being married.
But really it has been a slow shift, I think. I still get people asking about my “husband”, and referring to my ex as my ex husband- we were never married.

I had Dd in 2001.

When I went to see my GP about hyperemesis she gave me a ten minute lecture on how I should get married as it’s statistically proven that married relationships last longer and “if you get married people will buy you stuff like plates and maybe a washing machine “. (I had my own house, job, plenty of plates and a washing machine).

My mum didn’t talk to me for the majority of my pregnancy and wrote me a 5 page letter saying how I should have a termination, that the baby would probably be disabled as God would see it as a sin and that dp would probably leave me!

My aunt had my cousin in 1970 and she was (visibly) pregnant when she married my uncle - that was quite scandalous I believe!

@QuebecBagnet

I had Dd in 2001.

When I went to see my GP about hyperemesis she gave me a ten minute lecture on how I should get married as it’s statistically proven that married relationships last longer and “if you get married people will buy you stuff like plates and maybe a washing machine “. (I had my own house, job, plenty of plates and a washing machine).

My mum didn’t talk to me for the majority of my pregnancy and wrote me a 5 page letter saying how I should have a termination, that the baby would probably be disabled as God would see it as a sin and that dp would probably leave me!

My mum threatened to commit suicide if I didn't have an abortion.

I was the very late 80's to unmarried parents, they did marry about 5 years later but I don't think it was a huge deal. Maybe late 70's early 80's

Even the mw at the hospital refused to call me anything but Mrs.X with a disdainful frown upon her face

That wasn’t me experience in 93 at all. Ex Dh was always referred to as partner. I didn’t know anyone who was married with children. I was 30. Loads of friends had kids, none of them were married.

Bastard was revoked during the 1980s and after that slowly attitudes changed. I’d say some still disapproved but by the 1990s those attitudes had died of in the main

My cousin was born late 80s and her parents marriage was rushed up so that it would happen before she was born.

My parents got divorced in the 90s. It took probably until the mid 00s for people to stop automatically saying "oh I'm sorry" when I mentioned they were divorced and instead just nod because it was a normal thing.

@QuebecBagnet

I had Dd in 2001.

When I went to see my GP about hyperemesis she gave me a ten minute lecture on how I should get married as it’s statistically proven that married relationships last longer and “if you get married people will buy you stuff like plates and maybe a washing machine “. (I had my own house, job, plenty of plates and a washing machine).

My mum didn’t talk to me for the majority of my pregnancy and wrote me a 5 page letter saying how I should have a termination, that the baby would probably be disabled as God would see it as a sin and that dp would probably leave me!

I had my dd in 2004 before dh and I got married. Didn't get a single negative reaction though when we got married the registrar asked whether we wanted her birth cert to be re-issued so that people wouldn't be able to tell that we'd been unmarried when she was born.

I can do this the other way. BY 1972 I was the only child at school with divorced parents . My parents had a high profile divorce involving three County towns and we were local landowners and well known. My headteacher called me to her office, looked me up and down and said "time will tell us whether you have more substance than your mother". She had taught mother.

The day before my wedding in 1991 I had to go to the local GP because I had forgotten to pack my contraceptives "well it seems you are more responsible than your mother".

Then we started a family, I having done everything by the book and midwives in 1993 were more than pissed off that we were financially stable, having planned babies in a very stable and married relationship and told me they didn't call people Mrs because it offended unmarried mothers. As if I hadn't been the butt of enough fucking offence.

@CaptainMyCaptain

I was an unmarried mother in 1980 and was asked in the delivery ward if I was keeping the baby. It was slightly looked down on but becoming less unusual. That was in London, it might have been worse in smaller towns.

Thank you for posting this.

I was in infant school on the early 80s with separated parents. My parents had been married. Myself and a handful of my year were picked upon by the head and a couple of other teachers because our parents weren't together.

One of the teachers who had one child going through the school at the time left the school and removed her child as she was separating from her children's father. Oddly the child turned up in jurnior school because the head was different.

In my case and all but one of the other cases our fathers randomly turned up at school to help deal with the shit that was being dished out by that head and her accomplices. (in 3 of our cases, including that teacher's, racism was thrown in. I know because I spoke to the other children involved when I was between 15-19. )

Point I'm making it wasn't ok to be separated and divorced in London. So I hate to think how shit it would be if you weren't married to the father in the first place.

My mother was a single parent in the 60's because my father was married to someone else.

when we got married the registrar asked whether we wanted her birth cert to be re-issued so that people wouldn't be able to tell that we'd been unmarried when she was born.

This shows there is still organisational stigma about it. One of my friends was told when registering the birth “not to worry” about not being married

I would say from the mid 70s onwards. We married in the 80s and my DM almost had a fit when we talked about even moving in together

I read a book about the social history of this.

I think in the late 80s / early 90s attitudes started to change.

I was born in 84 and in primary school there was 1 girl who's parents weren't married. It was a bit of a 'thing' in our village. My mum only knew 1 unmarried mother in the baby groups and her child was the result of a sexual assault (very sad story that the woman told my mum)

I need to find that book as it was really interesting.

I was born in 1975, my parents weren't married. I know loads of people roughly the same age as me and slightly older born to women who weren't married. No one really made a fuss about it back then my mum said. I think she had a couple of raised eyebrows from neighbours but that was it.

I think it depends on what’s usual in your family and social circle. I remember a colleague in the early 90s having a baby and it was considered shocking. Still today none of my friends or family have children without being married. Not a moral issue so much as people wanting to create a family unit before having a child. It doesn’t mean they won’t get divorced in a few years time.

around 1968 two sixth formers at my school in London (HIgh C of E) became pregnant. It wass announced in assembly that while the school didn't condone sex outside of marriage or pregnancy so young (age 17 when the age of majority was still 21) the girls would be continuing with their studies and it was expected that the rest of the school would treat them with respect and courtesy.

A single friend of mine considered donor sperm to have a baby but didn't, in the end, as even now, it would be frowned upon as a teacher in a catholic school in Ireland. She could actually lose her job for doing something so contrary to the ethos of the school, apparently.

I wonder if it was to do with where you lived.

I lived in Manchester rather than a little town. Honestly no one cared. No one.

@lurkingfromhome has a good point - I'm sure it was more accepted in big metropolitan areas than in small, close villages. But it does seem very much late 80s/early 90s when things changed.

I suppose that was when people first started talking about attitudes towards 'single mothers' and actually facing up to how unfairly they were treated.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I wonder if it was to do with where you lived.

I lived in Manchester rather than a little town. Honestly no one cared. No one.

Could be. We're in Yorkshire in a large city and my mum said no one really gave a fig if she was married when she had me. My parents did get married but not until I was a few years old.

It was certainly frowned upon to be an unmarried mother in the late 1960s, young women were still being pressured to give up their babies for adoption at that time.

There were "homes" for unmarried pregnant women where the focus was on removing the baby for adoption soon after birth, which very sadly happened to a teenage cousin of mine in about 1968.

By the early 1980s things had begun to change, there were suddenly a lot more unmarried couples living together, with the inevitable result of more babies being born to unmarried mothers.

Organised religions, which had spearheaded the push for the adoption of unmarried mothers' babies, had begun to loose their moral grip on general attitudes.
Added to this, divorce became easier, so there was an increase in single parent families, which took the spotlight off unmarried mothers as an identifiable group.

It was a huge sea change in attitudes.