I can recall even in the late 70’s pregnant teen girls went out of town and lived with relatives for a few months. Heck the teen daughter of my neighbor across the street disappeared for awhile in the early 90’s. Her parents ended up raising the child. I’ve only seen her at her parent’s home a handful of times since then.
In contrast, June the mom on Honey Boo Boo had 4 illegitimate kids with 4 different men. I guess the complexities of birth control confounded her.
So what is todays view on illegitimate kids? Has it become so common that nobody even cares or notices? Or is it still a cause for concern? If your daughter came home, mom I’m pregnant and I don’t know for sure who the daddy is. Is it a big deal?
Depends on the family and the community, I’m sure, but if I fathered a kid out of wedlock, I’d have reason to feel embarrassed among my clan (New England WASPs, mostly).
I should clarify that marriage per se isn’t the issue. If I’d been seeing the girl for three or four years and we were living together but didn’t want to make it official for some reason, that would be fine. But someone I’d only just started dating, and the kid clearly wasn’t planned? Oops, I fucked up. They wouldn’t disown me or anything, but there’d be some gossip.
My mother (80 y/o) would be appalled. My reaction would vary based on the circumstances. A teen who thought it’d be fun to have a baby - really?? A woman trying to trap a guy into marrying her - not cool at all to use a baby for that. A mature individual fully capable of supporting herself and her baby - sure, why not.
It’s not something I’d have chosen to do, but I don’t think it’s the whispered-about disgrace it was when I was a teen.
I agree the stigma isn’t as bad as it used to be, but there’s still one there. If the couple has been together for years and planned to have a kid, just never got married, I think there’s be some raised eyebrows and curiousity about finances, but that would be it. If they were a couple and had an oops, I think the expectation is to get hitched ASAP - if not, probably a lot of rumors but some support. If it was a one-night-stand that didn’t use protection, but the couple stayed together, then there’s be a lot of rumors and a lot fewer invites to parties, but otherwise acceptance. If the dude didn’t stick around, he’d be ostracized for sure.
Round here a couple who’d been together for a while having a kid would not so much a flicker an eyebrow. ‘Legitimacy’ per se is just not an issue. My mother’s best friend has 3 kids, the eldest being 13, with her unmarried partner, the only issue was deciding their surnames. They own a house together, they share finances, and they’ve been together well over 15 years, they just don’t really care about the whole marriage thing, and neither does anyone else.
There’s a big difference between a planned kid being born into a family prepared to have them, regardless of whether they officially registered the relationship, and a teenager’s ‘oops’ baby. I don’t see the ‘oops’ babies being treated as no cause for concern nowadays, though it isn’t seen as a reason to rush the new or soon-to-be teen parents into a wedding.
We’ve mostly realised that the lack of a wedding is not the issue- the lack of planning and capacity to properly raise a child is the issue.
Heath on Big Valley was the Bastard child that returns to claim his birthright and a piece of that ranch. In the 2nd episode after the pilot Heath is trying to gain the respect of the ranch hands. Nick was injured and Heath had to lead a major trail drive. There’s comments made about the Barkley brand “B” and a reference to Heath. LOL I recall being surprised they got that past the censor.
If a 16 old girl gets pregnant (and it happens at my sons HS) the kids, teachers, and everyone looks at her like either “what a slut” or if they are ok on teen sex its “why the hell didnt you use protection?”. If the boy is known and is in HS he gets the same.
And the kids, imagine if your a 16 year old daughter of this Mom who’s all into being open minded, gave her daughter all the sex advice and birth control she would ever want, and supports planned Parenthood and all. Well that daughter would be just as scared having to tell her Mom she was pregnant.
At work, lets say a single 27 year old female coworker comes to work announcing she is pregnant. People will gossip and sooner or later everyone will figure out she has not been living with anyone or dating anyone and this kid is from a a one night stand. I dont think her corworkers will be giving her any baby showers.
That their are many abortion clinics operating plus pharmacies selling the day after pill tells me that plenty of unplanned pregnancies still do occur.
I think it’s worth separating out teen pregnancy and adult pregnancy. The negative reaction to a teen having a baby can be entirely unrelated to her marital status. An acquaintance, a professional aged in her late thirties, had an IVF baby with donor sperm after giving up on finding Mr Right, and her situation is a world away from a child who hasn’t even finished their schooling.
When my daughter started school last year, there were five girls in her class (tiny school in a farming community). Only one of them had parents who were married at the time of her birth (although her mother is now dead and she’s being raised by her single father). Another’s parents have since married, when their daughter was six. One of the girls is the youngest of five children; getting married just isn’t a priority for her parents.
My children were both born out of wedlock. There’s been very little reaction to that. My mum is funny about it. Some random old lady got a bit judgey one day. People were shocked and surprised when I announced my pregnancy with my first - it wasn’t a one night stand, but it wasn’t a relationship and no one knew I’d been seeing him - but they were very supportive. I don’t do baby showers, but I was given a huge basket of gifts by my co-workers and had a dozen people show up to visit me in hospital the night after she was born.
My feeling is that it’s just not a big deal these days. It’s very common.
Once my daughter comes of age, if she comes home and tells me she’s pregnant, we’ll deal with it. I won’t be happy but I won’t pitch a fit either. Life is, and I’m much to realistic to deny that.
Not knowing who the father is, that’s going to be a problem. A K-T level event, I can accept that life happens, but stupidity and irresponsibility don’t get a free pass.
Around here, it’d be the older or uber religious guard that’d be super judgey. Beyond that, I doubt most people would care much at all unless there was serial situations going on, like with Mama June.
Apropos of nothing, there is a company called West that writes various encyclopedias and digests of American law, and its innovation back in the 19th century was to break down all of the law into organized topic headings and sub-headings (akin to the Dewey Decimal system). One of the topic headings they crafted back in that less sensitive age was “Bastards.”
Somewhere along the first half of the 20th century, they recognized that that term had taken on too much pejorative connotation, and so they decided to switch to something they considered to be more neutral, “Illegitimate Children.”
More recently, they recognized that their earlier effort at avoiding offense had fallen a little bit short, and they moved to the heading they have now, “Children Out Of Wedlock.”
Certainly, I think this reflects the idea that there has been a shift away from any sort of stigma upon the child.
Yeah they will. They would do this 30 years ago and they’ll do it today. Who needs a baby shower more than a single parent? People are not all monsters.
In my area / community, none at all.
There’s a fair bit of judgement on the pregnancies that indicate a total lack of planning, but that is not really linked to the presence or absence of a wedding ring / marriage cert.
For example, a friend of mine had an oops with a non-serious fling. She decided that even though he wasn’t the guy for her, she did want a kid and at her age opportunities to do it the traditional way (find the guy, marry, then get pregnant) were getting slimmer, so she decided to go for it and be a single mum. Nobody cared one bit about the lack of a marriage, and celebrations pre-birth and after the birth happened as usual. Presumably she’d looked at the situation, weighed the pros and cons, decided she could do the single mum thing and continued with the pregnancy. On the other hand, I know a young couple who are ridiculously immature, got married, and are now expecting. There were many raised eyebrows at that one, considering their lack of employment, non-existent financial security and a whole bunch of other reasons. So, just two examples that illustrate that a lot of the attitudes & judgements in my community have shifted to the (presumed) advisability of the pregnancy, not the legitimacy of the pregnancy. Of course, public opinion is still somewhat judgey and often unfairly, or without knowing all the circumstances, but it has shifted.
My oldest child was born out of wedlock. The only stigma I have faced is the legal presumption that I am a deadbeat dad, and secondhand stigma through my child’s mother when she wanted to squeeze me out of the picture to appear more respectable in the mommy hierarchy at her megachurch.
I’d say more people want to pat me on the back for “stepping up” than look down on me but that stems from the same ugly belief that I’m by default a deadbeat.
We’ve had the occasional one at my church- Assembly of God. Some teen couples got married before the births and, with family & church social support, have created pretty solid families. Other young women have decided to raise the baby with their parents till they can support themselves. One independent woman approaching middle-age just wanted to be a mother & got tired of waiting for “Mr. Right”. Whatever people may have said in private, the general feel is “Yeah, it’s not the ideal situation, but it’s a new life from God & better this than choosing abortion.”
My baby daddy and I got married between our first and second kids, when I was 35 and he was 38. No one really cared, although I know that both of our mothers were glad when he made an honest woman out of me.
