Parents' names on UK child passport? Documents for a parent with different surname?

[ParentOfOne]

Our children have my surname; my wife has a different surname. Every single time my wife travels with our children without me, UK border guards give her grief about the different surname. Every. Single. Time.

So two questions:

1. Has anyone ever managed to add the parents' names in the 'notes' section of a British child passport, when applying for a new one? This is what some European countries do; it is so straightforward, inexpensive, and just makes everyone's life so much easier. We asked once, and they told us no.

2. How does a parent with a different surname travel with their children but without the other parent? We always bring the kids' UK birth certificates, which show both parents' names, but, even so, border guards give my wife grief, with silly comments on how easy it is to fake birth certificates. Then why do you not add the parents' names to the passports? It's not our fault if the only document the UK provides (birth certificate) is easy to fake!!

To be clear, I get it that it's important to ensure children are not abducted etc, I totally get it. What I don't get is giving grief because the only document that shows both parents' names is easy to fake.

Oh, and the fact that too many people in the UK still give weird looks to a married woman who has dared keep her surname (this has happened a lot in other circumstances, too). I should add we are all the same race and all UK citizens, so ours isn't one of those cases where the children look nothing like the mother (which I get would warrant higher scrutiny at the border).

“gaslighting”

what a drama llama. I think your wife is exaggerating 🤷‍♀️

@plumberdrain I am not questioning the need of verifying parenthood if the surname is different. I am questioning the presumption that a man with the same surname must be the father, so no questions asked, while a woman who shows the birth certificates together with the passports, and therefore provides more proof of parenthood than the man, gets grilled. To me that's a form of sexism, and it's odd that a man says this while most women on this thread haven't

@AnneElliott by "in immigration" do you mean for the home office or for Border Force? Can you shed any light on why the UK refuses to add parents' names to kids' passports? I cannot think of any logical reason, other than the arrogance of thinking the Brits know best and would never think of copying what another country is doing. And yes, like I said, we always carry the birth certificates; it is not our fault that the UK refuses to provide a harder-to-fake document proving parenthood, or, actually, parental responsibility.

@ClydeBank "it becomes far less of an issue the older the kids get". Absolutely. Post Brexit, the UK lowered the age to use automatic gates from 12 to 10. In many (no idea if in all) EU countries it''s 14. Another Brexit dividend. How old were the kids when border control separated you from them? Was this in the UK? Was this despite carrying their birth certificates, or because you didn't have them?
This didn't happen to anyone else on the thread, so the reaction of most other people shall now range from "it didn't happen to me so you're lying" to "it didn't happen to me so this was your fault in some other way"...

So I am lying. Your logic is flawless. Congratulations, my dear Sherlock.

I would appreciate comments from someone whose experience is representative, like someone working for the border force.

But, again, refusing a priori to believe something which doesn't match your own narrow experience, without stopping to think how representative or not your experience may be (even if you flew every month without the other parent, your journeys are still what percentage of the millions of journeys through UK airports?) is silly and dangerous.

exaggerating

So yeah, i suppose in a way lying

am questioning the presumption that a man with the same surname must be the father, so no questions asked, while a woman who shows the birth certificates together with the passports, and therefore provides more proof of parenthood than the man, gets grilled. To me that's a form of sexism,

head. wall. bang.

how do you know that men with a different surname to their children who are flying alone with them aren’t also questioned?

You have never flown alone with your children without the same surname

It’s so tiresome when threads degenerate like this. Perhaps the OP has exaggerated or perhaps they haven’t. Just respond at face value or move on to another thread.

It wd b different if they were trying to pretend they have 12 baboons living in their pantry or that they periodically like to insert a ferret up their backside. But this thread is far more pedestrian than that.

In answer to your question,OP: France and I don’t carry extra paperwork.

I've done both op- all of the big airports as border force plus the policy side in the Home Office. I don't know why we don't have parents names in passports - that might be something to raise with your MP.

It's odd @plumberdrain. I'm not saying it has never happened but it seems odd to me that several different border force staff have asked the same irrelevant question about the wife not changing her name.

TBH one possibility we thought of is that maybe there exist children with the same or similar names to ours, whose mother, but not father, has lost custody.

This might explain why she gets questioned more.

It would also explain why, when she travels alone (without kids nor me) she never gets stopped, as would instead be the case if there existed some wanted criminal with her same name. I remember hearing some horror stories about this in a taxi, on one of the radio channels many cabbies listen to.

Anyway, I'll log off now and will try to ignore the thread as I don't think I have anything else to add.
Thank you to all those who contributed.
Certain people will not change their minds, and I honestly couldn't care less.

A British MP tried to introduce this, but failed.

There was sensible cause to ask her questions because her child doesn't look like her (brown mum, white dad, child more white than brown) and she didn't have the birth certificate.

Whether her actual treatment was reasonable, or whether there was any element of racism / sexism involved (i.e. does a brown woman with white children get treated more harshly than white men with kids who don't look like him?) I genuinely do not know.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/06/mp-stopped-at-border-over-daughters-name-urges-passports-reform

In 2015 there was a petition to add parents' names to children's passports, but it didn't reach the required number to merit discussion https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/55636

Putting parents' names in children's passports seems such an eminently sensible idea to me and I am a bit surprised and frustrated that the UK has never implemented this. Surely it's a no-brainer from a security point of view?

I am old enough to remember when it used to be done the other way round though. When I was growing up children did not necessarily need their own passports to travel. Their names could be written (by the Passport Office) into their parents' passports and that was how it was done up until the age of 16 (I think).. My sister and I were named in both parents' passports. Children could also be issued with their own 5 year passports if needed. We got ours (and were removed from parents' ones) as teenagers when school trips we were going on meant it was easier that way.

So I agree with OP. The system as it currently stands is not the most logical. Checks should be done when leaving the country, not just as an obstruction on return.

Border officials also have no business questioning why a woman has not changed her name on marriage. None of their business, frankly and there is no law requiring her to do so (though a worrying number of people do seem to think that there is).

You're not wrong OP, but in this country we rarely do things in the most sensible way. That would be too easy.

You are right ! It's bonkers and when I was married I had the ability to add my birth surname on my Irish passport.
There is absolutely the ability to do this and I don't understand why it's notnpossible !

And I agree the checks are mad too

How would I provide or get prove of parental rights for my son when travelling to Alicante in may? I have my birth certificate which has both father and my name, son has his father's name which is different to me!

Never once been asked, and have been travelling alone with DD since she was 4 months old.

She does have my surname as a middle name though so it’s on her passport. Could you add your wife’s name to your children’s names? She should be recognised in there given she did all the work!

@OneFairMember this is a thread from January. You would probably be better off starting your own thread, as the answers you get are likely to be to the original post.

You can start a new thread by clicking here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/create-thread

I think this thread will have already mentioned the UK government advice but here's a link to it: https://www.gov.uk/permission-take-child-abroad