'Mother is a social construct'

[Teateaandmoretea]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/04/transgender-man-appeals-decision-not-to-be-named-father?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Discuss

My first reaction is that a mother is a woman who has given birth to a baby (whether or not the baby lives) OR a woman who has adopted a child and brings them up as their own.

That is not social construct to me.

Arguing for women to be called mothers on birth certificates of their own biological children is not arguing for women’s rights? Or children they will parent with their partner conceived through a donor?

I’m using this situation to argue for greater women’s rights. This is a situation close to my heart as it personally affects me.

Its not about you.
Its about the rights of children to have their birth recorded.

To untether the registration of the mother puts children at risk.

Yes, but I see being able to record a birth without a father as a positive thing (due to men being responsible for 98% of violent crime and 2 women being beaten to death by their male partners every week)

Why don’t you, Elsie?

Feminism isn’t about equality, we don’t want to be the same as men.
it’s about liberation from men.

To untether the registration of the mother puts children at risk.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

No, because it is arguing for the rights of some of the most privileged women in the world at the expense of the ordinary women and children that the registration of births is designed by the UN to protect.

There could be an appendix where a child is adopted to include the adoptee details.

An adoption certificate sits on top of a birth certificate.
The birth certificate is not changed.

This is extremely important for people who have been adopted.

I’m not arguing for the woman who gave birth not to be recorded, or to be recorded as something different, I’m arguing for women to be able to registered mothers regardless of whether they’re the ones giving birth in cases such as surrogacy or same sex couples. I would prefer birth mother and “other mother” as an example. I understand you may not see this as an issue to you as it doesn’t affect you, but to be the legal mother of the child I have with my wife rather than “other parent” is important to me, just like men can be legal father of a child they have with their wives conceived using a donor rather than “other parent”.

23 million children a year go uneregistered - one of the main reasons because of discrimination against birth mothers who were raped, or unmarried, or children at the time of the birth, and the insistence that a man must claim the baby and register the birth.

No. Absolutely not.

Birth giver = mother.
We’ve had some long and detailed threads about surrogacy and the utter awfulness about the proposed changes to the law.

Adoption certificates record adoptive parents.

If you didn’t give birth, nobody needs to check on your maternal health care, or check whether or not you were a child at the time that you gave birth, two of the other stated purposes of a birth certificate.

Surrogacy does not always involve poor women coerced by rich women, I have endometriosis and my fiancée (soon to be wife) has offered to be surrogate for my biological child should I need her to be. There have been plenty of cases of relatives or friends being surrogates for infertile women. There is more to being a mother than giving birth.

"Playing devils advocate does it not just reduce “mothers” to incubators"
You know, it is kind of cute when you see such sexist nonsense, and can trace it back to (at least), the ancient greeks............

To be specific, the trial of Orestes, who 'executed' his mother Clytemnestra for killing his father Agamemnon (who had buggered off to the Trojan wars with his mate Odysseus and a load of geezers in ships, claiming they were rescuing Helen, but actually just roister-doistering and enjoying themselves drinking, fighting and wenching for far too many years!). Where, I believe, Apollo claims that the father is the one true parent (mother just incubator and/or provides base matter with the far more important sperm providing the magic spark that makes a proper human (read male)), and Athena then votes for not guilty. But then she was born from the head of Zeus, so has a screwed-up view of parenthood herself.

But over and over again, it's the same inability of the male to cope with the fact that he can't do it all alone, that even the sacred male comes from the messy, bloody, birth-canal of a female. So, he either tries to deny her significance, or become her by his own actions and force of will. It really is the same ancient theme repeated again and again. The rib of Adam, the head of Zeus, the desperate wish that males could remove the female................

‘Other mother’ is a nightmarish character from Coraline!

You get to be named as mother on the birth certificate of the child you birth, Elsie same as all women who birth children.

but to be the legal mother of the child I have with my wife rather than “other parent” is important to me, just like men can be legal father of a child they have with their wives conceived using a donor rather than “other parent

The birth certificate isn’t about you it’s for the child.

I speak as someone who’s birth certificate doesn’t have my father named. I feel angry about that to be quite honest with you because my mother made a spiteful choice to exclude him.

The birth certificate is ultimately for the child.

@Nameofchanges and that wouldn’t be changed by recording the other mother as other mother rather than other parent, the birth mother would still be recorded and registered.

Surrogacy is the removal of a child from it’s mother at birth. It’s not in the interest of the child.

My (adoptive) mother was legally my mother. Ditto my (adoptive) father. I don't have a birth certificate that names them as such though.

I have an original long-form BC that has bio parents and all other factual details as recorded at time of birth. I then have a short-form BC that has my adoptive name, (actual) place of birth and my date of birth.

I don't know if this is still how they are issued though.

@Elsiebear90

You name the father, the biological father, because they had a biological input!

As someone who only has half of their family history, a birth certificate is incredibly important.

Where my dna comes from is important.

Who chooses to raise me is also important but the birth certificate isn’t there to cover that. That’s a separate matter IMO.

Changing other parent to other mother would contribute absolutely nothing to the stated purposes of a birth certificate for protecting mothers (women and girls who give birth) and their children.

@DuLANGMondeFOREVER I am aware of that, like I said you may not see the significance of being called a mother on the birth certificate of a child you have with your own wife, the same way men are called father in the exact same situation (using donors), but I would imagine this is because this situation doesn’t apply to you. I think I am going to bow out of this thread now, because I’ve got nothing else to say about this and it’s derailing the thread.

It’s not because the situation doesn’t apply, it’s because it is utterly trivial compared to the actual human rights of children and women who give birth.

Some years ago my lesbian friends had a baby through donor insemination. At that time, for both parents to be recorded as legal guardians the mother had to give up her birth rights and then readopt her own child with her partner as the second parent. This was a massive faff, involved social workers and court time and all sorts (I had to meet with a social worker to provide a face to face reference for the non birth mother).

It’s a really great thing that the law has been updated so that the second parent can just be added to the certificate at the registrar, but the second parent is not the mother. They are still the same as they were back in the bad old days of the lengthy adoption process, a second adult with parental responsibility.

What pet names the family use is up to them, but the legal and biological facts are mother and legal parent two.

‘Other mother’ - what nonsense. There can only be one mother - the role you ( elsiebear) have is the partner of the actual mother at the time of the child’s birth.

It’s not about you. It’s record of fact for the child.