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

[Lambsandchicks]

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

I think the improved attitude towards children out of wedlock is probably coinciding with the decline in the levels of religiousness in the UK?

Awesome

I was an unmarried Mum in 1980. It was perfectly acceptable by then and I never felt uncomfortable or frowned upon by others.

I was in a LTR, but didn't want to 'have to' get married because I was pregnant, but we did a year later.

I still wouldn’t have children without being married , irrespective.

Magdalene laundries/asylums for single mothers still operated until 1996 in Ireland. Women in the UK were still being detained for ‘mental health issues’ for having a affairs or having children outside marriage in the 1980s.

I don’t think the stigma has gone at all.

@TheHateIsNotGood

Er - it hasn't yet become totally acceptable; being a single parent might have the 'veneer' of being 'acceptable' - but there's still a massive of undertow of social misunderstanding/unacceptance going on.

For many, being a 'single parent' is a temporary position, until they find a new 'relationship' and an improved social accepatance.

Unfortunately, remaining as a single parent forever isn't considered something to aspire to, yet.

I think that may be a class issue.

People would judge a working class unemployed single mum very differently to a middle class single mum with a great career!

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I think there was a huge change between the 70’s and early 80’s.

I remember my Sil laughing at being an unmarried mother in 81.

If you can accept that there was a huge change during the 70s in Manchester, then why not accept that change would have happened in the 80s in more rural areas?

I grew up in a rural part of the UK. Two girls got pregnant at 15/16 in around 1979/80 and both gave their children up for adoption; one willingly I believe, one most definitely unwillingly.

@PandemicAtTheDisco

In some parts of society it still isn't completely acceptible. I'm unable to volunteer for certain roles with my church as an unmarried mother.

I am so angry for you ! how can you be part of a church with this attitude? I had my 1st 2 kids in 96 and 99 before marriage, i remember when leaving the registry office at my wedding having a form thrust at me to arrange an appointment to re register them , i never have done , they were planned , loved ,wanted ,a form doesn't change that. My heart breaks for all the horrific treatment unmarried mothers and their children have gone through over time , unforgivable .

Like children, young people are educated better now instead of sums and reading and writing. Get rid of all religion no place for it in 2022 like smoking pollutes lives

I wasn’t in Manchester in late 70’s early 80’s.

I didn’t go until 85.

@Patapouf

I think the improved attitude towards children out of wedlock is probably coinciding with the decline in the levels of religiousness in the UK?

Sort of but not entirely I think. Even atheists or very lapsed Christians might have disapproved in the 80s. They would have said it was about 'standards' or social rules or something, but yes obviously as society becomes more secular...

My Aunt had her first child unmarried in the 70’s.

I knew someone who had a baby in the early 80’s unmarried. Not very remarkable really. As someone said, it’s a class issue. If you are living on benefits on a council estate that’s very different from being middle class and in a stable relationship with a good job.

When we registered the birth of our baby in 2010 and mentioned we had booked our wedding and needed to sort that out, the registrar told us we MUST re-register the birth after marriage. He did say this would make it look like the baby was born within wedlock (!) bit also inferred that there were legal implications...I don't know what and I can't remember if we did it or not.

"it hasn't yet become totally acceptable"

To be a mother totally on her own maybe not, but to be an unmarried but partnered mother it definitely has to the extent that there was quite a fuss when hospitals started referring to all husbands and partners as partners and appearing to have a policy of never using husband or wife so as not to cause offence.

I was born in 83. My parents were not married and had my sister 3 years later still unmarried at the time. It still caused a bit of comment then. Someone asked my mum what it felt like to be having a bastard but I think he was in the minority.

I’m 84 born and my grandad had a huge problem with it (but probably because my dad is a bit of a dick and him and my mum had broken up at least once before I was conceived), my grandad would look in the pram but never picked me up until my parents got married.

My BIL was born in 1956, 4 months after a hastily arranged marriage. I asked MIL whether that had been hard, how she’d been treated. She said that really no-one cared, and there were lots of jokes from family and friends and neighbours about, “big for 4 monther, isn’t he?” Wink wink.
I found that interesting, that in her world (small northern mining village) that as long as you did get married, there was no stigma that you were pregnant first.

No the same as the thread, but it reminded me that I’d been surprised!

Janet Ellis was sacked from Blue Peter in the early eighties for being pregnant. I think as many people thought that ridiculous as thought it reasonable so after that.
I had dd in 98 and we did get married but we did'nt have to iyswim

I was born in 1981 and at the time my parents were unmarried so my mum was told she wasn't welcome at the village mother and baby group 😮

I had DD in1997. My staunchly respectable middle class parents might have coped with that, but when my fiancé said he was off, that was the final straw and I wasn't welcome in their house for the next six years. I was 28 so no teenage pregnancy.

I was illegitimate, very early 1960s. Mum was in a mother and baby home (until she was hospitalised with pre eclampsia and other things and we were apparently touch and go) The stories she told about young mothers having to give their babies up because they had no support have stayed with me all my life.

She however went home to her parents with me straight afterwards (long story) In answer to the OP, I think attitudes slowly changed through the 70s and 80s. Thankfully.

I grew up in a very rural part of northern Scotland. As a teenager in the late 80s my mother told me I was 'soiled goods' when she found out I had sex with my boyfriend when I was 18. There was much talk of men not marrying their live in girlfriend because 'why buy the cow when you get the milk for free'. That said a school friend had a child outside wedlock and kept it, her boyfriend stood by her though.

I wasn't married when I had my first baby in 87. A few people tried to make me feel as if it was shameful.

I am a child of a single mother and born in the early 70s. My dad wasn’t around, but we lived with my grandparents. My mum was treated horribly during labour - just left alone and then out under pressure to have me adopted. She had to leave her job and didn’t mention me at all when she got the new one. My family were great, but not everyone else and I felt different for a long time. Even now I’m annoyed by the typical bank security question of ‘What is your mother’s maiden name?” Erm the same as my surname actually. I had my kids before being married but did eventually get around to it and no-one batted an eyelid, not even my v catholic in-laws.