Amending a Birth Certificate

[SamBl1987]

I'll preface this by saying, I'm a moron - we had a baby boy a few days ago and i went in to register the birth.

My wife is on Mat leave and i somehow convinced the registrar that she is unemployed by saying "she isn't working at the moment" - so her occupation is listed as "Full Time Mother" - she is proud of being a mother, but would liked to have had her occupation listed.

She hasn't made it into a big deal, but i feel terrible, she works hard and i want to correct this, but from what I've read, although you can amend a birth certificate, all that will happen is a note gets added to the bottom of the cert which the amendment, the original occupation will stay as it is.

Just wanted to see if anyone has any experience with this, and whether you've changed an occupation on a birth certificate and how it appears on the new certificate.

Completely my fault, i just stayed quiet and should have insisted on her actual job title being added.

They may be willing to add the extra wording, though you did sign a legal declaration that the contents were accurate when you signed the certificate so you might get a bit of a lecture. You will have to pay though.

yep, absolutely, i completely messed up, had plenty of chances to correct it before it was official but didn't.

I think i need to pay £90 to correct it, which I'll do, but more just trying to find out how the new occupation will appear on the birth certificate - whether it will replace the "full time mother" or if it will just be a note added to the bottom.

If I were her I would be absolutely furious. I hope you can make this right. As a PP has said, you've signed to say the information on the certificate is correct when it isn't. I would feel so disrespected if I were her.

Next time you have a child I imagine she'll come with you to register the birth to make sure you don't get anything else wrong. And this is how women end up lumbered with the "mental load"!

Come on everyone, bit harsh! We've all done silly things when sleep deprived and misunderstanding a question isn't unusual. Hope you get it sorted asap.

Is the mums profession on there? I’ve not really noticed.

What does she really think? If it was me I’d think that with a new baby I’d have other things to spend £90 on - the words don’t change her working status.

congratulations on the baby.

there are two (that I know of) registered births in my family where the registered name wasn’t the agreed name. One dad ‘forgot’ and the other got the name order ‘wrong’.

I think it's important to correct it if possible, not just out of respect for your DW but also for women's social history.

What did you choose to do? I’m in a similar situation and we just wondering what the note in the margin looks like? Did you go ahead with the amendment?

You would get a new birth certificate with the correct information on it. It is the original record that would have the annotation on it but the certificate you get re-issued would only have the new info on it. My husband spelled my middle name incorrectly and we had to go through this process. Child’s BC now has the correct spelling on it but the official BC record will have the old and new info recorded on it.

This is helpful, so just to check.. the original in the register has the old and new name with the annotation on it but the version you have has the correct name on it?