How will the abolition of mums and dads effect us and our babies?

[kfca]

Does anyone else mind not being recognised as the mother of their baby, if the law changes, maybe in the new year, with the marriage changes?
Will mumsnet have to rename itself as LegalParentAnet?

Sied - nah, I think OP's construction is that adoptive parenting isn't REAL parenting - it's just unpaid FT childminding of a kid you have no vested interest in. Anyone who took that on would have to be a bit of a hero, right?

Chip - I think the research you want is by Susan Golombok, Cambridge University.

SledYuleCated - perhaps the OP could clarify whether non-parents rate above or below gay and adoptive parents on the OP's hierarchy of heroism.

Oh, waaaaay below, surely.

A woman who doesn't breed? What's the point of that, exactly?

I don't know, but should I worry? I'm worrying. I'm not even Legal Parent A. I'm just A. A what? A giraffe? A poke in the eye?

This thread has brightened my day considerably. Lots of lovely MNers on top form, LalaGabby's contender for Post Of The Week, right at the top. And the realisation that if the anti-gay marriage mob are so desperate that they have to resort to this load of old bollocks then they are really truly screwed.

(So sorry that the adoptive parents got upset along the way though - you do know that the OP is in a minority of one though, don't you? Here, at least.)

Aw, thanks LadyIsabella. I think we're a pretty thick-skinned bunch, actually. Just tiger-like when someone starts dissing our kids

Oh no, adoptive parents are heroes dontcha know? It's why I hang around outside MrsDeVere's house waiting to get her autograph.

My wonderful comment (which wasn't at all angrily thumped out without thinking) got deleted! Oh well

Let me rephrase thoughtfully - It's so awful that OP feels so dreadfully sad about being a parent, and feels reduced, especially to the level of an adoptive parent. Please excuse me from this thread for just a minute, while I go and fetch the world's smallest violin

I love being Parent A, A Parent

Heck, I'm not only Parent A, I'm B, C, D, X, AA, Infinity. I'm the ONLY Parent in this house. So I should get to be everything at once, I think

Spero's spot-on, though, when she talks about how the equal civil marriage debate exposes how some people really do feel that their marriage will be downgraded by it, because the fact that they are married is one of the few places where they can feel 'better' than other people.