babies

It really doesn’t matter. As long as the child has loving parents that’s what’s really important.

It is 2021 after all.

But children born to unmarried parents are far more likely to spend much of their childhood in a home with only one married parent or in care.

As someone said, deciding to marry is about commitment and not having a child, if at birth, you do not have a reasonable confidence that the relationship between the parents will last long term.

Children are not toys or pets to be had because you fancy having one or want to be like others in your friendship group. There is an enormous amount of research out there that shows how seriously children's education and physical and mental helath are affected by family breakdown, often for life.

My DD and her partner will have been together for thirty years next year. Our GS is fourteen. Neither had any wish to get married, but it hasn’t lessened their commitment to each other. Some marriages don’t last half that time, vows or no vows.

I am afraid Monica is right, this does not mean that there is any judgement, it just means that no marriage means that women and children tend to come off worse. It enables men to opt of their responsibilities to children and leaves women doing all the raising of children. I realise this will also apply to some men who are left raising children, but it is predominately women who this will affect. There is a discussion to be had about protections for women and children because not getting married does not escape the patriarchy in fact it probably enforces it.

greyduster we can all quote the exceptions to the rule, but that doesn't change the fact that unmarried relationships have a higher breakdown rate than married relationships.

Galaxy that is probably taking my comments a bit further than I had in mind, although you are right, but even when a relationship breaksdown and both parents continue to share parenting equally, children still suffer.

Can’t say I’ve ever heard of Little Mix.

Re getting hitched before or not, I dare say it bothers a few people, but nothing like it used to. Whether parents are in a tried-and-tested, committed relationship would seem to be rather more important.

Our dd1 and SIL didn’t get married until their first baby was 6 weeks old and TBH we didn’t give it a second thought. However a few years previously they’d bought their first house together, which to us seemed a pretty good sign of lauf commitment.

Don’t know where that ‘lauf’ came from!

Witzend it isn't how the adults feel about it that matters, it is what it does to the children that really matters.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202112/medium-212992-nintchdbpict000697152296.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202112/medium-476543-nintchdbpict000697149845.jpg

Thank goodness they gave split, hopefully for good. At least our young, impressionable grandchildren won't be subjected to these kind of images taken at some event or other this week. Heaven forbid that this girl goes it alone though.

have split, not gave

Its a dress,a red carpet dress ...nothing more and I think,considering she gave birth to twins 3 months ago ,
she looks incredible .There have always been dresses that raised eyebrows on the red carpet this is nothing new or exceptional.I would be more concerned about the upskirting on some music videos and the bad lyrics .

It's an awful dress and most people wouldn't dream of wearing something so cheap and tarty looking on the red carpet, or anywhere else.

I also hate the way that anyone who still believes that getting married before having children is stuck in the 50s or whatever.

You can live in the modern world while still adhering to some principles that are no longer the dominant ones.

Admittedly it wasn't much of much of a dress on that red carpet!

But here she is feeding one of her twins

No sour lemons from me.

I’m afraid I must be very old-fashioned as I believe in marriage and that children should come afterwards. I know there will always be exceptions but MOnica has demonstrated that unmarried parents are more likely to split up. There is no such thing as a ‘common law marriage’ as referred to by CanadianGran. Some women like to refer to themselves as a common law wife when they are simply a live-in partner. And the law gives them little protection, as many
unfortunately find out if the partner dies.

Beswitched

It's an awful dress and most people wouldn't dream of wearing something so cheap and tarty looking on the red carpet, or anywhere else.

I also hate the way that anyone who still believes that getting married before having children is stuck in the 50s or whatever.

You can live in the modern world while still adhering to some principles that are no longer the dominant ones.

I agree.
I don’t know who she is though I have heard of Little Mix.
The dress is beyond appalling, please please! Don’t wear one like it to The Argy Annual Ball.....the gents are all of a certain age and some have dicky tickers.

CanadianGran

Society has changed the need for conventional marriage. Most young people do not belong to an organized religion so do not see any 'sin' in not being married. Government and law have protections for those in common law relationships so there really is no legal need to be married. And there is a huge 'peer pressure' to have the perfect wedding which sends costs through the roof.

I have 3 adult children, one legally married (no church), and two common law.

What I do like is having a commitment ceremony of some sort. I think having children before really committing to a relationship is more of the issue. I know these things happen, and often long happy relationships are the result, but I have seen too many relationships based on unplanned children that can cause a lot of heartbreak.

I have not heard of Little Mix, and Mel C is my favourite Spice Girl. I love the song she did with Brian Adams.

It may be cited as legal in Canada, if that is were you live. In England there is no legal title of common law spouse, a common misconception.
www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

paddyann54

Its a dress,a red carpet dress ...nothing more and I think,considering she gave birth to twins 3 months ago ,
she looks incredible .There have always been dresses that raised eyebrows on the red carpet this is nothing new or exceptional.I would be more concerned about the upskirting on some music videos and the bad lyrics .

She looks awful.

With the unmarried it's easier to scarper as many do, but having gone through the rituals of a marriage ceremony it makes either party think twice when children come along.

Not necessarily. Divorce is very common, is it not?

Too common. A lot of people have a very dismissive attitude towards marriage nowadays, seeing it as simply a piece of paper.

Obviously some marriages break down irretrievably despite best efforts to save them, or because one partner has been unfaithful or abusive.

But when you see a couple separating a year after the wedding you do wonder how much thought went into the whole commitment.

When I was talking to a work colleague about DDs impending wedding in 2000 I was asked if she children, my response was that she was doing it the old fashioned way! She now has three.

I think it's ok to be unmarried if you refer to your lover as your dp.

I believe a lot of people do consider whether they want to marry, or form some other kind of committed relationship, before deciding to have children.

Admittedly, I have not checked the most recent statistics, but I personally know no women who decided just to go ahead and have a baby without involving the father of the child.

I do, however, know of women who discovered, as a certain percentage of women have always done, that the man responsible for fathering the child didn't want either the child or the responsibility, but this too is fairly rare.

However, a lot of men and women, both in our young days and in the two generations that have followed us, either do not believe in marriage, or see no need to worry about whether they marry first and have a child second, or have a child and then at some later date decide to marry.

Quite honestly, as long as the couple in question are prepared to take responsibility for each other and for a child or children, I do not consider it my business to comment on whether they are married or not.

If asked for advice, I would, however, feel bound to point out that legally there is a great deal of difference between being a married couple and the married parents of your children and being a co-habiting couple, with or without children. It is easier to safeguard each other and ones children as well as more straightforward concerning property and inheritance if you marry than if you don't.

My own preference has always been for a stable marriage as the frame for having and bringing up children, but I would never dream of ramming this down other peoples' throats.

I am very well-aware that marriage is not always possible or sustainable.