I Am Angry

I was doing some research for my post about marriage, and I came across one of the many things that annoys me. I think I'll be posting in this group a lot with my rants. So without further ado, my first proper rant:

Parental Responsibility Law in the UK

So let's begin with the simple stuff: Fathers don't get automatic Parental Responsibility.

"All mothers and most fathers have legal rights and responsibilities as a parent - known as ‘parental responsibility’."

What then, does it mean by "Most Fathers"? Well, let's see:

"A father usually has parental responsibility if he’s either:
- married to the child’s mother
- listed on the birth certificate (after a certain date, depending on which part of the UK the child was born in)"

So immediately, we have a problem. The father's DNA makes up half of the baby, just like the mother. But simply because the mother was the one that carried the baby;

"A mother automatically has parental responsibility for her child from birth."

That's just plain wrong. I mean just so, so, wrong. I can't fathom why anyone would think that's a good idea! A father should not have less responsibility for a child simply because he's a man!

But, I will give them some credit.

"You will have parental responsibility if you're:
- the child's birth mother, or
- the husband of the child's birth mother, or
- the female married partner of the child's birth mother and you are treated as the child's legal - parent, or
- an adoptive parent."

So now we see that at least they have equality in their inequality. But this raises questions. If they treat female partners of the birth mother the same way they treat husbands, then it isn't a gender thing. So what could it possibly be?

Here is where I'm stumped. It's not sexism, so what is it? Seriously, what are you people playing at? Genuinely, I want to know.

But now, to move on to the part of Parental Responsibility law in the UK that really scares me. The definition. No I'm not kidding. Take a read:

"Parents with parental responsibility are entitled to have a say in important decisions about a child's life such as the child's home, health, education, religion, name, money and property. Parental responsibility lasts until a child reaches 18 or marries between the ages of 16 and 18."

The home, health, and education part is obvious, and fine. I'm not talking about that. What I will talk about is religion, name, money, and property.

Religion

This is not only scary, but absolutely illogical. It says that "Parents are entitled to have a say in important decisions about a childs life such as the child's [...] religion," and that is terrifying. So parents are allowed to have a say not only in a child's religion, but in decisions about religion too? how does that work? How can a parent possibly decide for a child what they believe? And if they have a say in important decisions, then that can lead to a whole host of problems. But it's so vague, we literally can't know what that means.

Name

Some of you may be confused by this one. Yes, I'm going to argue that parents shouldn't have a say in their child's name. hear me out. I get choosing a name at birth, that only makes sense. But as is said, this lasts until the age of 18. That means changing your name at the age of 17 requires parental permission. That's crazy! I coud drive a car at 17, but I couldn't change my name without my mum's ok. Speaking of cars...

Money and Property

This one scares me the most. Parents have a say in important decisions about money and property? So does that mean that my parents, at the age of 17, could have legally stopped me from buying something? Does that mean that they could have confiscated my car? That's mad! That gives parents far too much power, and for people who were stingy with giving fathers parental responsibility, they're certainly lax with what parental responsibility entails! There really are no freedoms until being 18 or getting married before reaching 18.

And that's my issue. Why does getting married pull people out of this? Surely if they can have responsibility for themselves while married at 16, they can have that responsibility when they're not and they're 16. How does that work? Since when does marrying someone while you're still doing your GCSE's (exams when you're 16 for you non-British people) somehow mean you're a responsible person?

So, Mr David Cameron, I am calling you out on this crap. Do something about it. This is unbelievably unfair to the teenage people of the UK. Controlling their name, money and property is a massive no, but religion is just crossing the final line. Trying to control someone's beliefs is so far beyond wrong I can't even fully express my anger at this right now.

Sources:
- https://www.gov.uk/parental-rights-responsibilities/what-is-parental-responsibility
- https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/relationships/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

Nettle · F

There's a very good reason why it says most men.

SOME men don't want to know their kids - some women don't know who the father is - but mostly it's the age-old problem of absent fathers; they either shag the woman and bog off forever, or during the pregnancy they decide that they can't cope with losing their right to a bachelor lifestyle, and then just dump the woman and their child.

By having his name on his child's birth certificate, a man acknowledges that he's the child's father, and accepts responsibility for the child.

The mother automatically has that - for a start, it's bloody obvious she's the mother - the child just popped out of her! Also, because of the way the country (or even the world) is, she can only get out of her parental responsibilities by first registering the birth, and then giving the child up for adoption. Perhaps it's unfair that women who don't want the child but don't want (or can't get) an abortion are forced to accept parental responsibility, but that's the way it is, probably everywhere.

The issue of being independent of your parents at 16 if you're married is irrelevant, because you need your parents (or the courts') approval for the marriage.

And as for the religion aspect, that's a family thing. You and I may not think it's a good idea for parents to instil their doctrine into the child's mind, but the simple fact is that that's exactly what people do. "Pray to god now dear, or you'll die in your sleep!" "You mustn't ever vote Tory son, they'll close the pits!" "Chopping down trees is morally wrong, we need to protest most strongly!" "marijuana isn't dangerous!" "marijuana is evil!" anything we say is absorbed into a child's brain, and affects their opinions forever. Sometimes only to make them rebel against our beliefs, but often they agree with us - whether that makes us right or not is beside the point.

Back to parental responsibility. It's partly to make it easier for men to gain access to their children after separation, and partly to give women more leverage to get the dads to pay the maintenance.
I don't think it works properly for anyone, but it's better than the old way, where the kids automatically stayed with the mother, and the father did everything in his power to make himself look like a pauper so that he didn't have to pay maintenance - and then he went back to a bachelor lifestyle and bought a fancy house, flash cars, and drove past his kids as they sat in third-hand clothes outside their council flat on a derelict estate.
And before that, the kids automatically went to the father, and the mother was out on her ear with no money (her ex-husband kept it all,) no kids, and no hope. And the kids often weren't taken care of properly either ...