Pregnant outside of wedlock

[ChantelleKKK]

How'd your family react if you got pregnant and weren't married to your partner?
My friend is concerned about her mum's reaction (she's 30 and dating her boyfriend). They are saving to marry and buy their own place
Any recommendations to deal with it.

Marriage doesn't guarantee stability but it does offer protection to all parties, including children. I have no moral objection to unmarried parents whatsoever but I do think that it is foolish to have a child, buy a property, enter into business or make any other major commitment with another person without proper legal protection, whether from marriage or another arrangement. The common-law marriage myth is still alarmingly prevalent.

FWIW, I have several friends who looked into drawing up equivalent legal protections because it was initially their preference not to marry. All of them found that a £150 registry office wedding was the quickest, simplest, and cheapest solution.

I hope she will be surprised by her parent’s reactions.

They might have strict ideas about the order things should go in.

These ideas may not even be so foolish, given how potentially vulnerable a woman makes herself by becoming pregnant and relying on a man during any pregnancy complications and maternity leave, coupled with our societies ideas on the mother as the ‘default parent’.

However, my experience is that even the holders of these views quickly soften once they know new life has been created.

They are going to be grandparents, and as the old saying goes, ‘there are worse things to happen than a baby’.

DC and their partner will not be married when their baby is born. For DH and me, it is not an issue at all. For my mum and DH's mum, they are just so pleased to be great-grandmothers. My sibling and partner have been together almost 30 years, two dcs and unmarried. No comments from my side at all. DH's siblings all lived with their partners before marriage as do several nieces and nephews. So no comment there. There has only been one snide comment and that was from someone whose own child was born outside marriage as the result of an affair with a married man. They are not important in my dcs life, or mine, so their opinion means nothing to me.
I can't wait to meet my grandchild.

I'm unmarried (though engaged) and pregnant. So far nobody has been the slightest bit bothered, and why should they be?

My mum always said she'd like me to get married before children but only for the reason that it may be easier to afford a wedding, go on the honeymoon we wanted without dcs etc. Me and dp have no interest in getting married, we own a house together and are bringing a baby into the world together and see that as a big enough commitment. And my mum couldn't be happier that I'm pregnant!
As for stability i dont agree with that. A woman should make sure she has her own financial and emotional stability without the help of her dp or dh. You shouldn't get married to give you financial stability.
Marriage is literally just another bit of paper, it doesn't mean a happy home for your child and tbh i think it sometimes keeps people together who are miserable together because they're scared of divorce.

My parents are not religious, but my Mum would have been very disappointed with me, and surprised if I’d found myself in this situation.

My Dad would’ve got used to the idea quickly, but my Mum would’ve kept on saying that I was doing things ‘in the wrong order.’ My Nan also isn’t religious, but would’ve been disgusted with me, and would’ve been telling me to quickly get married in a registry office before I looked pregnant. I have heard her tell others to do this before, so I know that’s what I’d have been told!

Also, some people of different cultures would be very disappointed in their children for getting pregnant/getting someone pregnant outside of marriage, regardless of their age. My DH was raised into a different culture and religion to me, and his parents would’ve been completely mortified if I’d got pregnant before marriage (even whilst engaged), as sex before marriage is seen as a sin. If this had been the case, and anyone in their community found out, it would’ve brought ‘shame’ on the whole family, and people would’ve avoided, and even shunned them.

I knew someone from a different culture to me who became pregnant whilst engaged, and was told by her parents that she’d have to get married in the next month. She was also told not to even tell her in laws to be, as they’d think she was ‘easy.’ Never mind the fact that their son would’ve been the one who got her pregnant!

We weren't married when we had ds1, we had planned a very small wedding the following year, so we just went ahead with that.

I think my adoptive parents were just glad I hadn't followed in my bm steps being only 15 and the stigma that there was then.

I think anyone bothered about it in this day and age should be ashamed of themselves and give their head a good wobble.
It's not nice to grow up knowing you are still somebody's dirty secret

I was worried about this! But turns out my parents were delighted that they were going to be grandparents!

My parents wouldn’t care. However I would! I’m a lot more old fashioned than them somehow. I think it’s really important and too many people have babies in more casual relationships which is sad.

It's the 21st century!

My Dad is quite old fashioned but if I happened to become pregnant before o was married I think he'd have been so delighted to be a grandad even he wouldn't have been bothered about 'wedlock' (such a horrible word too!)

I haven't heard the term 'out of wedlock' for yonks.

I doubt very much anyone would really care any more, in a general sort of sense.

But if her family care about her, then they might ask if she is aware of the legal differences between married and unmarried parenthood, and advise her not to reduce her income, career prospects, pensions contributions or reduce her financial independence in any way, without understanding the implications.

If her parents are here in the present with us then I can't see it being a problem.

If she's a time traveller and her parents are living in the 1800s then maybe it's an issue.

Only on Mn do you hear about the lack of financial protection if you aren’t married when you start a family. I’d never heard of this reason before and never thought about it - I’ve always been able to support myself (and a family) financially. Sad that this is a reason to get married.

The reason you see it on MN is because it matters

No-one says 'you have to get married' (as I didn't) - they do say 'research the situation and make decisions based on proper information, and be wary of eroding your financial well-being' and I expect they will, for as long as there are threads from those who did not consider this before babies came along and find they have been left high and dry.

If you know that you will be able to continue to support yourself, then you can dismiss the note of caution in a blink. But if you want to take a career break, pausing to consider what that means for your future financial stability is important. I'm not trying to tell people the answer - just that it's always worth asking the question and finding your own answers.

Parker231

Only on Mn do you hear about the lack of financial protection if you aren’t married when you start a family. I’d never heard of this reason before and never thought about it - I’ve always been able to support myself (and a family) financially. Sad that this is a reason to get married.

This with bells on.

I think that only really applies if you plan on making yourself financially dependent on your other half, which I would never do. I love my career and I earn significantly more.

To answer the OPs question, my mum was over the moon

We did it and were the first ones in dp's family to do it. I was worried about what his mum would say and we did get comments in the beginning but it's really nobody's business.

It could be considered quite ignorant to write off a whole demographic of families who do in fact have the dynamic where one parent sacrifices career to stay at home with the children while the other goes out as a sole earner, based on personal experience and that if your peers.

I had DD out of wedlock. She turned 3 last week. I turned 30 whilst pregnant with her.

Her father and I are getting married this year, but not because of her! We did it all in the wrong order, but we are happy enough.

It made my mum realise I probably wasn't ever going to get married. So that was nice.

Parker231 I think it's more sad to see the threads where women have been left high and dry by partners walking out and leaving them with children and a career that's suffered while the man's career hasn't been affected.

If you announce you're pregnant and aren't married of course people aren't going to start giving you a lecture on how unwise this is. But it doesn't mean that it isn't in a lot of cases. And as for being a SAHM when not married and possibly even living in a house that is in your partner's name only. How much trouble does that cause.

Morally, no issues with having children “out of wedlock” , but agree with pp that rightly or wrongly, marriage offers important protections that women ignore at their peril.
As an old-fashioned feminist, I would advise any daughter of mine to have her babies within the protection of marriage, get back to work asap and always, always have your own money.

Only on Mn do you hear about the lack of financial protection if you aren’t married when you start a family. I’d never heard of this reason before and never thought about it - I’ve always been able to support myself (and a family) financially. Sad that this is a reason to get married.

I think that only really applies if you plan on making yourself financially dependent on your other half, which I would never do. I love my career and I earn significantly more.

And I'm sure you have measures in place in the event of the sudden death of your partner; lasting powers of attorney in the event that you need to make medical decisions on their behalf; carefully drawn-up wills; any life insurance policies drawn up in trust so that they can pass to your partner; explicitly nomination of your partner to receive the death in service payment from your pension if you die; etc etc.

You may only hear about these things on MN but that is because it is an enormous community where financially independent women have nevertheless fallen foul of these situations.

I was scared to tell my parents I was pregnant - I hadn't been with now DH very long and they didn't even know he existed, as I had recently escaped an abusive relationship with a man who had isolated me from them and my relationship with them was a little damaged. They assumed the baby was his and I didn't correct them for a while. When I eventually told them about DH and that we were planning to marry, I think they were just so relieved that the baby was not my ex's that they weren't negative at all. My dad even said to me before my wedding, a year later, that I didn't have to go through with it just because of DS. I did of course, my parents and DH are great friends now.

And I'm sure you have measures in place in the event of the sudden death of your partner; lasting powers of attorney in the event that you need to make medical decisions on their behalf; carefully drawn-up wills; any life insurance policies drawn up in trust so that they can pass to your partner; explicitly nomination of your partner to receive the death in service payment from your pension if you die; etc etc.

Actually, no I don't have half of that stuff because we don't own a property together, and it's not required due to the way our finances are set up and the fact that DP and his family actually have more assets and money than I do, due to inheritances in the past. He has provision in his will for DS only, which is fine by me because I literally earn twice what he does and could actually manage fine without his income or government benefits.