AIBU to think the term illegitimate children is outdated and offensive?

[TheAverageJoanne]

I heard someone talking about illegitimate children this morning. I thought that disappeared in the 60s, except perhaps on the TV show where people are reunited with babies given up for adoption. It's offensive and unfair.

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.

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.

Would you prefer they used the term bastard?

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.

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-

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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’

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')

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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’.

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)

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.