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/

RoboChloe · 26-30, F

@bstisapain I agree that things are much better now than they were before, but that's totally beside the point. Just like we have had stepping stones leading the way to what we have now, we are on our way to something better. Back then, I'm sure people very much said the same thing you're saying. It doesn't work properly for anyone, but it's better than the old way. It doesn't work better for anyone, but that's the way it is. Do you think that 150 years ago people could even concieve of what the law would be today? Of course not. Just like we can't for the law 150 years from now. Back then, that was the way it was, and that changed. It can be a lot better.

I get what you're saying about men, but I think you're assuming that women can't, or don't act in exactly the same way. The only difference betweeen the man and the woman is that the woman carries the baby. But once the baby is out, why should that baby be any more the mother's than the father's. Believe me, as the daughter of a phychologist I'd know, the amount of mothers who end up hurting their children is more extreme than you'd think. Especially single mothers. Yeah, some men don't want to know their kids. Same for some women. Some women want the "batchelor lifestyle" and abandon the father with the baby. All of this is not stuck to a specific gender. The only difference is that the father can leave before the baby is born.

As for religion being a family thing, I'm not saying that parents don't or shouldn't teach kids what they believe(even though really they should at least tell them that other viewpoints exist), the part that worries me is that Parents with parental responsibility are entitled to have a say in decisions to do with religion. How mind bogglingly vague. That could mean the most mundane, and also the most damaging things.

It's not the law's role in this matter to govern morality. It's there to provide safety. Allowing parents such exploitable power simply because they have the same DNA is scary. Because it really is so abusable. Imagine working in a summer job and earning a decent amount of money, but not being allowed by your parents to spend it because they have a say in decisions that have to do with money. Or worse, they justify taking it. A child can go to school and come home to find something of theirs sold. Legally. This is unlikely, but could be justified because of how vague the law truly is here. "Important decisions about religion." I wonder how many terrible parents would use that to justify FGM. It's massively extreme, but this one line of the law could lead to, legally or not, some very bad things.

@firefall When you said "just 'a say', whatever the hell that would turn out to mean", you had it spot on. We don't, and rather conveniently the parent and the law don't, know what it means. So it can mean anything. I grew up with one atheist parent, one agnostic, and a Christian extended family. That doesn't mean I was forced into atheism, agnosticism or Christianity.

Thank you both for the responses, this is an important topic to discuss and we should not take it lightly. *grumble grumble I'm looking at you two jokesters, Faerylight and Vetrov.* I look forward to discussing this further.