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Original poster

Kids from Married Parents do significantly better than those from Cohabitating parents

216 replies

drosophila · 06/08/2006 20:39

According to Gloria Hunniford this morning on 'Heaven and Earth'. They were having a debate about marriage Vs commitment without marriage and Gloria announces that according to research (she didn't provide a source) kids do much better (not sure what she meant perhaps academically) if their parents are married than if they simply live together.

DP and I have been together for 18years and we have two kids. Are our kids worse off than say a couple who have been married for say 5 years. I'm not against marriage particularly just wonder where we would get the time to do it.

Anyone care to share their thoughts?

OP posts:
Alexandersmummy · 09/08/2006 11:21

I got married at 22 years old, had a cheap registry office wedding cost about £100.00, me and my dh are on low incomes, in rented flat cos houses are way too expensive, we have a 10 month old ds and are so glad we married first as none of the problems of whose name would he take, would he have to answer questions at school about having a different name to his mummy etc, we've ben married 4 yrs now and wouldn't change a think, the romance is as strong as ever. You have to do what is right for you though, loads of our friends have kids and aren't married and they are doing fine, follow your heart!

Kidstrack · 09/08/2006 12:00

Managed fine to raise our two wonderful, well balanced children without marriage until 4wks ago when we got married, dp and i got together at 14, we had 2 kids by the time we were 21 and got married at 24 that means we raised our oldest for 7yrs without being married, is ds any different to any other child? No! Some research is pants me thinks!

MaloryFascinatorTowers · 09/08/2006 12:05

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Blackduck · 09/08/2006 12:35

It isn't the cost
It isn't that one of us don't love the other enough (cr*p suggestion Cod)
There is a big difference between marriage and a civil partnership.
Relatives have, thankfully, given up expecting it...

Cam · 09/08/2006 20:55

Don't want to pour cold water but......if you're not married you and your partner are not each other's next of kin, your (gulp) parents are.....as a grown-up that doesn't quite work for me....

riab · 09/08/2006 21:07

Alot of people don't (didn't) want to get married because of th eovertones of religion and patriachal assumptions.
For example once you get married your legal name is actually your husbands surname, you can still use your maiden name but legally you are MRS X.
Your husband on the other hand would have to go through the rigmerole of deed poll if he wanted to change his name.

Its easy to dismiss this but for some women being forced into a position of giving up their name is like giving up part of their identity.

Also its only been about 20 years or so that civil ceremonies have become more common - prior to that civil ceremonies were often seen as a 'cop out' and a bit tacky. So if you weren't religous but wanted a 'nice do' there weren't alot of options.

Again this may seem like an excuse but its amazing what power public perception can have.

We decided to get married as it was a public ceremony were we stood up and stated our commitment ot each other, it also meant that legally we are automaticlaly each others next of kin etc.

However I would have gone for civil partnership if that had been an option at the time.

There hasn't been any research which has dealt with the correlation between income/beliefs within a partnership as opposed to lumping together all unmarried couples.

Remember that some people who are in a long term relationship may choose to fill in a survey saying they are married if the other option 'living together' or 'umarried' doens't reflect how they feel. That skews the stats!
Lies Dammed Lies and Statistics!!!

PetitFilou1 · 09/08/2006 22:13

Sounds like bobbins to me. But.... after we got married we felt like a team rather than two individuals, just felt more cemented somehow. Plus if something happens to either or both of you the legal situation with children is tricky if you aren't married and your estate would take much longer to sort out (or at least that is my understanding). Not sure I'd want to rock the boat after 18 years!

Paddles · 10/08/2006 00:22

Riab, are you sure about legally you're Mrs X? Sorry, but I think you'll find that's tosh. I've been married 13 years and have always kept my own name. Your children don't have to take your (or your DP's) surname either - if you want to choose another surname for your child that's fine, the Registrar just wants to know 'the name you intend to raise the child in'. When DS was born, the registrar had no probs with 2 parental surnames and also ticking the 'married' box.

It can be quite funny when companies phone me at home - "Is that Mrs. Smith?" "No, it's Ms. Jones". "Oh. Mr. Smith said to speak to his wife." "I am Mr. Smith's wife. And my name is Ms. Jones" ".............."

I don't see why civil partnerships shouldn't be available to het couples as well as same-sex ones, then the sanctity-of-marriage mob could be sure that only people who wanted to buy into their kind of ideology would do the married bit and the rest could be, well, 'partnered' or something.

In France you can't just get married in church, you have to have a mairie (i.e. registry office) wedding if you want to be married and if you choose to go for a religious ceremony afterwards, that has no legal significance at all. The partnership thingy doesn't confer quite the same rights as a marriage, but it has the most delicious title - 'certificat de concubinage'. Hands up who'd prefer to be a concubine over being a wife / partner?

CaligulaCorday · 10/08/2006 05:46

What is the difference between a civil ceremony and a registry office wedding?

It does seem a bit to be re-inventing the wheel.

ztt · 10/08/2006 06:05

please bear in mind you may not be able to post freely here in future

batters · 10/08/2006 09:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

riab · 10/08/2006 09:55

Ah I am sorry I misread the advice on the deed poll section. Yes if you want to keep your own surname you can, but doublebarrelling or changing your surname to a middle name is a deed poll business.

Still it is a hangover from patriachal practise that whereas a women can change her surname to her husbands WITHOUT a deed poll, her husband may still need a deed poll (government departments such as passport agency only started accepting marriage certificates for men changing to their partners names in 2005!!!)

Paddles, I like th esound of hte french system - that makes much more sense to me. That way you seperate out the Legal and non religous part of a marraige from the religous ceremony of a church wedding.

Lozza26 · 10/08/2006 12:52

My dp and I are getting married on 30th Dec this year. We have been togather 9 years and were going to get married Dec last year but Rebecca kind of suprised us in September (we had given up trying and going to get married before trying fertility). Now she is here it is even more important to me that I get married. Before she was born it was just knowing that in my dp's head/heart he was saying "I want you and no one else" now I really dont want to have a different name to her and feel that it will make our family until "complete". Having said all that planning this wedding is a complete nightmare and I wish we had done what we were gonig to do prior to Boo being born (just sod off and do it on our own)

Peddy · 10/08/2006 13:11

Riab and Paddles, I actually double-barrelled my name 2 years after getting married, without going through deed poll or anything else. I just changed it on my passport (using marriage certificate as evidence) and then subsequently changed bank details, etc etc. I've never had my name queried (I have been double-barrelled for 3 years now) so I don't think you need to go by the deed poll route at all.

theUrbanDryad · 10/08/2006 13:52

if getting married was as simple and cheap as people seem to think it is, i wouldn't be tearing my hair out and losing sleep! we are getting married end of september (hopefully) and i already want to kill my mother in law and my own mother. familial/parental pressure is the main reason we haven't got married before! oh, and ms hunniford is talking tosh, as per....

PetitFilou1 · 10/08/2006 14:05

Urbandryad my mil nearly didn't come but I didn't give a monkeys. She did come in the end but she wore black - that just made me laugh. It can be cheap and simple. Both my parents have remarried in a registry office with a meal afterwards in a nice restaurant with a couple of their close friends. If it is just to be married that you want, that is the way......!

Bibliophile · 10/08/2006 14:11

But it is really simple and it is really cheap to get married (which is different to what most people these days regard a wedding). And you don't have to change your name, do vows or anything. So why is civil marriage so intolerable while a civil ceremony (which most gay people refer to as marriage, btw) so desirable. It makes no sense! And I really don't get these people who say their ideal is to just go and sign a register (which is exactly what you can do when you have a civil wedding) but don't want to go through a civil marriage because they can't afford a big white wedding.
Oh, and when you have kids you usually feel a commitment to the kids, but it does not necessarily mean you feel a commitment to the person you are having the kids with! The two commitments can be very separate.

kerryanne · 10/08/2006 17:47

Well this is a hot topic now isnt it?! I am 23 and my partner is 26. We have been together for 5 years and have a beautiful baby girl. My partner is in a very good job and is a high earner, I, myself am a part time Property Manager and love my job. I do not agree that children who have 'young parents' who are not married will grow up to acheive less in life. How can anyone generalise to such an extreme? Of course there are young adults having children who a not emotionally ready for the challange of raising a child but there are some of us out there who will always strive to give only the very best for our children. I do believe in the sanctity of marriage and one day we do hope to get married but at the moment the most important thing to us is giving our baby girl the best start in life. :0)

Original poster
drosophila · 10/08/2006 19:37

OK, do you ever wonder why a couple who have been together for say 10years suddenly get married and there are NO kids nor are there likely to be.

Also do you feel differently after marriage and if so how?

Two of my friends have said this to me. Neither could put it into words but they felt differently. Funnily enough one of them found her way to sleeping with someone else a couple of years later (maybe the different feeling didn't last) whereas the other one had been unfaithful before she got married and as far as I know has remained faithful since marriage.

Also I know another woman who when she found out her Fiance (who she had been with for over 10years) had been unfaithful stayed with him cos they weren't married. Had they been married she would have left him. Never understood that one.

OP posts:
fridayschild · 10/08/2006 20:05

Hate to reduce this high minded philosophical thread to something as urbane as money, but drops, wasn't your original post part triggered by the consequences of unexpected death when you're not married?

if you don't want to get married just because of the inheritance tax you could consider joint life insurance for whatever you thought the tax bill would be if one of you died? and just so you don't think I am an insurance cold caller I will come out as a solicitor and say MAKE A WILL, ffs

we do know a couple who got married in secret (only so the foreign office wouldn't post her abroad without asking) and it was all fine for about 3 years. Then her mother found out....

MadamePlatypus · 10/08/2006 20:35

I don't feel any differently now that I am married. The only difference is that I don't wonder whether to correct people when they refer to him as my husband. I think that emotionally having children together is a far bigger tie than being married. DH will always be part of my life as the father of my children as will his relatives, whatever our relationship may be. However, you can eventually make a clean break if you divorce with no children.

MadamePlatypus · 10/08/2006 20:39

Drosophila, re: it being OK to cheat on somebody aslong as you aren't married, I have also come across that and found it very strange. I had a very 'moral' ex-flat mat who was seeing a man who already lived with his girl friend, but in her eyes it was OK because he wasn't a married man!

MadamePlatypus · 10/08/2006 20:39

ex flat mate, not flat mat.

southeastastra · 10/08/2006 21:17

at ex-flat mat

kerryanne · 10/08/2006 21:50

MadamePlatypus very well said, whether you are married or not the most important person is the child!