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?

Dammit Nora!

kfca - I think you have an agenda that goes beyond the name issue as you said:

" I think every baby ideally deserves a mum and dad, (all the evidence points to that)"

I don't know much about the evidence myself, but I am sure that someone on here will know lots about it.

I would say for anyone to adopt is pretty special really, what better gift to give to a child is care than a loving parent or loving parents.

Plenty of kids don't have as many (involved interested caring) parents as they would like. I would have thought the more the better.

Still don't get the point you're trying to make, OP.

All children deserve to be raised in a loving safe environment. The sex of the parent(s), or whether they are the biological parent is irrespective really.

OP, are you saying that your heterosexual status will be diminished by equal civil marriage?

Or are you saying that official forms that record Parent A and Parent B are a denial of what in your belief is the best model of parenthood: mother and father?

Oh and just to be wholly up front on where I stand. I would rather my own marriage be refered to as a civil partnership (as the ceremony was held in a registry office as opposed to a religious ceremony) than live with the ridiculous inequality that now exists. Either marriage is marriage, or there is a religious marriage and a civil partnership.

As a practising Christian (and a Catholic one at that) I have to say Only4theOlympics that I agree with your last post wholeheartedly.

devora Thanks for clearing that up, I win!

Hmmm... Reading between the bizarre lines, I think OP is particularly bothered by the thought of MAN GAYS raising children because they wouldn't have a mother!

Actually, OP makes no sense whatsoever. I've had a bad day, I would like some of whatever the OP is smoking.

That's the top-secret plan, MrsDV. Cameron's got you marked for a bit part in Prisoner Cell Block H.

Who gives a shit what it says on some document? A Mother is a Mother and a Father a Father. End of story.

First they decriminalise, then they equalise, the final step is making being gay compulsory. You have been warned! And apologies, this is paraphrasing a very old joke.

Meh.

Devora, just out of interest, in the situation where the male friend has a baby with a lesbian couple, and the non-biological mother adopts the baby to become a legal parent, then what becomes of the father? Does he have to renounce any right to the child? If he doesn't, then is the non-biological mother seen as a step-mother to the child?

One adavantage is that when a new family is started there no longer any need for the usual indecorous wrangling over who gets to be Nana and who has to be Grandma. Grandparental units will simply be referred to as AA, BA, AB and BB.

Ds's dad doesn't see him and I have no partner, so I'm the whole fucking alphabet when it comes to parenting!

Can we call LucieMay a hero or does it not fit with the OP's ideologies?

noblegiraffe, the non-biological mother can only adopt the child if the father agrees to sign away his parenthood. Otherwise, the non-biological mother can get a PRO (parental responsibility order? not sure) but she cannot legally become a third parent.

It probably seems a lot of semantics, but it can have real consequences. If I was to die tomorrow, my dd2 (adopted) would go straight on having my dp as her legal mother. But dd1 (who has a loving involved father, but whose primary parents are and have always been me and my dp) has no legal relationship to my dp and it would be absolutely down to her father what happened to her.

I think the strongest argument that my dp could use in that situation would be about not splitting up siblings, because of course the law recognises the relationship between the children.

I recognise it's a complicated issue, but I do think it's a shame that the law doesn't recognise the reality that some children DO have three parents. Or even four. We always wanted for our dd to have a father and to have a close and loving relationship with him (and he is a great dad, so I can't regret it) but it is a nonsense that there is no legal recognition for a parent who was there at her conception, at her birth, who has changed her nappies and walked up and down with her through the night and picks her up from school every day. The law recognises as a couple in terms of assessing us for tax, benefits etc. It recognises us as a couple for the purposes of adoption. But it won't recognise us both as parents unless my dd's father agrees to renounce his fatherhood of her (which of course he wouldn't do, and we wouldn't ask).

Sorry, that was a longwinded answer to a simple question!

There is irrefutable evidence that children are best raised by their own mother and a father. Even people like Richard Dawkins assert that biological parents have a particularly vested interest in their own offspring (see the selfish gene etc).

I don't know one parent who doesn't object to these changes (although most are far too scared to say so, what with the PC-lobby being so vitriolic and calling us homophobic, which is ridiculous). Our views count too. This issue isn't really about gay people - they all have biological mums and dads too, or didn't you know.

BTW - Very few children are adopted into stranger families, a few hundred a year are adopted from the Adoption register. (I only know 5 who were adopted as children, and all have agreed that while they love their adopted mums and dads, it's definitely not the same (for them, as opposed to for the adopted parents). So this is a serious question - has any serious survey of adults adopted as children ever been carried out.