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AIBU?

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Original poster

To have be so upset about my bitchy SIL saying I should get married

52 replies

Rockerchic · 27/06/2011 22:49

I don't see eye to eye with DP family, our DD is 6 and we are happy as we are neither of us want to get married, now SIL whos planning her wedding is saying we should have got married before DD was born and that everyone wants to get married. Well we don't. If it ever happened we would sod off to a registry office with just us.

OP posts:
ZacharyQuack · 28/06/2011 02:16

Tell her she's absolutely right, and so you've planned your wedding for the week before hers.

diddl · 28/06/2011 07:06

Why does it bother you so much if you don´t want to be married?

And what she said about your daughter is disgusting but legally correct.

fastweb · 28/06/2011 07:24

And what she said about your daughter is disgusting but legally correct.

UK law still refers to children of parents who are not married as bastards ?

Good God.

Even mightily Catholic Italy decided amend their laws to rename "illegitimate" children as "natural" children, in the name of sensitivity.

Cookster · 28/06/2011 07:29

I live on the other side of this. Got engaged, got married, had children. The SIL is very alternative - (she and bil) are artists and receive benefits, the children have no boundaries becaues she wants them to experience freedom. When DH and I got married she had the cheek to ask if I was sure because he was a bastard capitalist. For years I have had to listen to MIL say, SIL is so excpetionally clever, etc., etc. and in the other breath - you are so lucky compared ot SIL as you have everything.

Have no doubt she thinks I am a primped up prat who looks down my nose at her - there are two sides to every tale and I spend lots of time feeling very very irked - not least when she comes to the UK, expects free board and lodging for up to three weeks and lets her children trash my house because they have never been brought up to respect anything. Ooh vent over and that feels better.

I have never called her children bastards though although I must admit to thinking that if she and her DP had been a bit more conventional and got jobs like everyone else they wouldn't be so bloody poor and we wouldn't have to hear about it.

Catz · 28/06/2011 07:59

No English Law does not refer to children born outside of marriage as bastards. At common law the question of whether your parents were married was very important. Now it is essentially irrelevant (unless, of course, your unmarried parent happens to be the King/Queen and you're wondering whether you'll succeed them - I guess this won't be relevant to you!)

Illegitimacy was finally abolished by the Family Law Reform Act 1987 (read the first section) but the law had been changing gradually before that.

WhoAteMySnickers · 28/06/2011 08:05

I think you and your SIL sound as bitchy as each other.

TrilllianAstra · 28/06/2011 08:30

"Everyone wants to get married". That's a very narrow view, isn't it? Does she generally think that everyone wants to do things she likes, and everyone doesn't want to do things she dislikes? Most children grow out of that before they reach the end of primary school.

It doesn't really sound as if she is the sort of person whose opinions should matter to you.

If you have a child and you are not getting married what you should do is sort out your wills.

diddl · 28/06/2011 08:43

Didn´t mean to put legally but technically.

If things have changed, is it no longer the case that the father has to give his permission to be on the birth certificate or is he automatically recognised as the father, as with a married couple?

mummytime · 28/06/2011 08:54

Do make sure you have the financials sorted. Several friends have ended up getting married, when their DPs wanted to go on a mid-life crisis trip or a tragedy happened to friends. (One friend said it was when they realised that if something happened to her DP when he was sailing across the Atlantic, that her MIL would get the house, that made them go to the registry office quickly.)

fastweb · 28/06/2011 09:13

Didn´t mean to put legally but technically.

How so ?

If we no longer use the yardstick of days gone by, legally or socially (by and large), then how are these children "technically" bastards ?

diddl · 28/06/2011 09:14

Well it is technically a correct term.

SloganLogan · 28/06/2011 09:21

YANBU. Just say you're not going to discuss it.

iwasyoungonce · 28/06/2011 09:33

I'm struggling to see your point diddl. What the hell does it matter if she is "technically" correct? Does the SIL get a pat on the back for that?

diddl · 28/06/2011 09:39

No, of course she doesn´t.

It is a horrible term & I have no doubt that SIL used it to cause offence.

fastweb · 28/06/2011 09:40

The dictionary definition does not make children "technically" bastards.

Its inclusion in dictionaries informs us of social mores through history as a word falls in or out of favour, or finds it's primary use shifting to another focus (ie "The bastard nicked my car" being primary use now rather than "Thee to whom a bastard child is born, bathed in sin, shall repent or BURN !!").

Language is a tool of communication, slave rather than master, it does not dictate attributes regardless of social change impacting how and when specific lexis is used. Technically speaking, a person who uses bastard to refer to children born to unmarried parents is actively flouting social convention by ignoring common usage and insisting on using an archaic pejorative for the sake of effect.

Which given modern usage, technically speaking and otherwise, makes them the bastard in the equation.

TrilllianAstra · 28/06/2011 09:45

bas·tard (bstrd)
n.

  1. A child born out of wedlock.
  2. Something that is of irregular, inferior, or dubious origin.
  3. Slang A person, especially one who is held to be mean or disagreeable.

Just because a word is being used correctly does not mean it is acceptable. And just because a word is unkind or nastily meant does not mean it is incorrect.

diddl · 28/06/2011 09:46

If the father is named on the birt certificate & has PR, then ian´t that the same as if a couple were married-in regards to the children?

MorelliOrRanger · 28/06/2011 09:53

Rockerchic, she sounds charming (NOT).

Ignore ignore and more ignore with a bugger off thrown in for good measure.

MorelliOrRanger · 28/06/2011 09:58

Diddl

When DD was born DP had to be present for the birth certificate as we weren't married. This was 2007.

diddl · 28/06/2011 10:10

Thanks for that, Morelli.

fastweb · 28/06/2011 10:38

just because a word is unkind or nastily meant does not mean it is incorrect.

Context matters.

Referring to bastard as having been once in common use to refer to a child born to unmarried parents is one thing, but that is not what was being stated here. There was a suggestion that there was a validity in using the term for specific children on the basis that it was an accurate, if unpleasant, description.

OP "she went so far as to call my kids bastards"

Person B ""what she said about your daughter is disgusting but legally technically correct\it is technically a correct term."

Dictionaries contain an offensive term for a black person as well as an archaic, derogatory term for a child of unmarried parents. So perhaps contrasting the partial defense of the usage on this thread with another offensive term might illustrate my distaste for any kind of rationalization of the way it was used as a verbal weapon against the OP.

Person A - "She just called me the N word !!!"

Person B - "What she said about you is disgusting, but technically correct\it is technically a correct term."

fastweb · 28/06/2011 11:06

and Oxford Dic. would appear to agree with me.....

oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bastard

Pronunciation:/ˈbɑːstəd, ˈbast-/

noun

1 archaic or derogatory a person born of parents not married to each other.

adjective
[attributive]

1 archaic or derogatory born of parents not married to each other; illegitimate.

Usage

In the past the word bastard was the standard term in both legal and non-legal use for ?an illegitimate child?. Today, however , it has little importance as a legal term and is retained in this older sense only as a term of abuse

Original poster
Rockerchic · 28/06/2011 11:06

No snickers I'm not bitchy at all, I'm more sarcastic than anything and I bite my Tongue with her always. If I was a bitch I'd tell her what I think but I don't as I don't want unrest in the family so by keeping stum I'm keeping the peace and being the bigger one here.
It's a lot easier to walk away and smile than shout a load of abuse at someone snickers! So call someone else a bitch snickers as I'm not one :)

OP posts:
Original poster
Rockerchic · 28/06/2011 11:11

Trilianastra we both have wills sorted out. We jointly own this property, we had to do that to safe guard the others future and DD.

OP posts:
diddl · 28/06/2011 12:50

OP, I´d like to apologise for my offensive posts.

YABU to let her upset you-not everyone wants the same as her.

I hope that you have as little to do with her as possible.

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