This may be a minority opinion, but it would bother me a lot. If two people in a relationship want to stay unmarried indefinitely, that’s no skin off my nose. But if they choose to bring children into the world, they have a responsibility to ensure the security and stability of their relationship, for the kid’s sake. In our society that means marriage. In other words, if you’re committed enough to have children, then you’re committed enough to be married. Just my humble opinion.
Even if your parents *were *married, it only pushes the “problem” back a generation. Were both your pairs of grandparents married? How about *their *parents? Anyone who researches their family tree will find a few unmarried couples in their ancestry.
I know for a fact that of my four pairs of great-grandparents, two pairs were unmarried. This doesn’t bother me, and I see no reason why it should bother me if it had been my parents, either.
As a child, I just wanted to know I was loved and wanted. Had my parents not been married, but lived together raising me, I don’t think it would have bothered me. I was born before they were married, and went through a philisophical/religious bout at 17 about what that meant for me and my potential entry to heaven, but have since determined that any god that would bar me from his gates because of a “sin” on my parents’ part isnt one I’d like to hang out with anyways.
As a grown up, I have learned all too well that there are people in this world that can love each other desperately, and still can’t stand to be in the same room as each other all the time. I’ve also seen people who can love unconditionally without the sanctity of “marriage”, and in truth, work BETTER in a cohabitating relationship without a binding marriage contract between them. There is something about binding legal commitment that turns the best of people into screaming lunatics. My aunt and “uncle” are a prime example. They have lived together most of my life, and he’s a better person than her first husband was. It may sound wierd, but I could see them changing as people in ways that would frighten me if they were actually married in law. They survive better, and love each other better, as seperate people sharing space than they would if they were “together”, and I, for one, don’t fault them for it.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that each couple is different. If I was a child of a couple that wasn’t married, as long as I didn’t feel different somehow because they weren’t married, I’d be fine with that. As an adult, I don’t see a problem with it in the slightest.
My parents were never married and they never married anyone else after they split up. They chose not to be married and never made a big deal about it. I always knew and it never bothered me. They were good parents to me and my sister. They stayed together until I was around 12 years old. They fought a bit immediately prior to breaking up and after, but they were very careful not to drag us into it.
I believe the break-up was easier because they were not married (and I also believe that it was inevitable, marriage wouldn’thave saved things).
So no, it doesn’t bother me. It even seems like a good thing to me.
(I happen to think it’s cool to be a bona fide bastard).
Actually, it does bother me sometimes, My Parents were never married, and when they had me they were both married to someone else. I am the result of an affair and it really bothers me sometimes, Even to the point where i cry my eyes out when no one is around to see.
Are there any legal issues with using a surname that is not yours to start with? I am just curious. (sorry to derail the topic)
My father and step=mother were together for over 30 years before they got married. It bothered me a lot as a kid, was she my step-mother or not? But when my father was diagnosed with a certainly fatal cancer, they got married quick and tied up all the lose legal ends before he died.
I would be a little upset, but only because there are wedding pictures and wedding stories and everything, and I would have to re-evaluate a lot of the things I believe about my parents if it turned out that they had put that much energy into creating a big lie. (If they had never told me they were married and pictures of the event did not exist, or if it turned out that they thought they were married but weren’t because of some sort of technicality, it wouldn’t bother me at all.)
As long as both parents are in the home and happy, I could care less what their marital status was. My parents split when I was 7.
It wouldn’t bother me if I found out that my parents have been shacking up all these years. In fact, I would be impressed that love, rather than legal shackling, had kept them together. It wouldn’t even bother me if it had come out that they had lied about being married. I would understand why they would lie.
But I would wonder why there was so anti-marriage and if they were secretively unconventional in other ways. And I’d probably be bold enough to ask my father if he had another family. Well, no I wouldn’t, but I sure would be thinking it!
My mom and dad were never married, and it didn’t bother me in the least.
Wouldn’t have bothered me at all.
My parents were married a little under 2 years so I have no concept of my parents being together. I never even saw them in the same room when they were alive.
That said … if my parents were together and never married, yes, it would have bothered me. Why? It just would. I think in most situations people who have kids together and are going to live together, etc. need to get married.
I think it really bothered the children of a former coworker of mine when their dad died and they discovered their mother wasn’t entitled to any of his benefits. And they had to help her clear up the financial mess. And take her in, because his last illnesses had taken most of their savings. That little piece of paper sure would have helped her, and I’m sure he didn’t mean to leave her nearly destitute after 30-odd years together, but he simply refused to get married. Or make a will.
It wouldn’t have bothered me as a child on an emotional or social level. I probably wouldn’t have known the difference until I was a tween or teen and asked about wedding photos.
But it would bother me as an adult. I would envision the same problems kittenblue saw with her coworker. Marriage is not ‘just a piece of paper’ it entitles you to certain rights that you do not have in a cohabitation situation. If you don’t have the Marriage paper, I think it behooves the couple to know what the ramifications in terms of pension, inherititance and potential seperation are. They then need to put together a legal document to deal with those issues.
I would probably either nag my parents into getting married or at least dealing with those issues before someone died/they broke up. Because you know it’s the kids (i.e. me ) who is going to end up cleaning up the mess.
My parents’ marriage was strictly a financial arrangement. Oh, don’t get me wrong – they’re together because they’re in love, and they’re about to hit their 35th anniversary as a couple. But they didn’t actually go get a license and find a JP and an aisle and all that until I was 3ish, and we moved from a state that recognized common law marriages to one that didn’t. Sans official paperwork, Mom wouldn’t have been covered under Dad’s health insurance. :eek: He swung by after work and they went to a 24-hour wedding chapel in the city. I think Mom wore a pantsuit. I assume Dad was still dressed in his engineer best.
A couple decades later, when I was in college, I told my mother it would have be much, much funnier if instead of finding a sitter, she’d had her father follow them down to the chapel with their two small children in tow. 
Without that motivation, I doubt my parents ever would have bothered. I asked my mother once when she started officially using my father’s name, and she said it actually wasn’t until she was in the maternity ward with me. They were so argumentative about the paperwork she was afraid if she insisted on giving her surname as different than mine, they’d lose me, or at least not hand me over unless Dad insisted. By that point they’d already been shacked up together for a few years, and were filing taxes as married – I think Mom just didn’t want to send out all the name change notices.
I honestly don’t know how I would react as a child growing up in the 80s if I knew my parents weren’t married. I assume I wouldn’t like it, given the Catholic environment I grew up in, and the mores of my neighborhood at the time. It certainly would have been seen as somewhat weird.
Today, as an adult? Nah. Don’t give a shit. I know several people in these sorts of arrangements, and they don’t act any better or worse than any married couple raising a kid. Being someone who likes rituals and that sort of thing, I think the symbolic act of matrimony and affirming your commitment and union to be together in front of witnesses is pretty cool. But necessary? Not in the least. The real commitment is between the two individuals, and if both are on the same page, why bother with the public ritual?
If I found out today that my parents had not actually been married, I would totally call my mom out on all the “wait to have sex until you’re married” lectures I received growing up. I would think she was a total hypocrite. But I’d let it go pretty quickly.
If I had found out my parents weren’t married when I was a kid / teenager, I’d’ve been thrilled because then my mother wouldn’t have felt obligated to stay with my dad and he could’ve saved himself. As it is now, he’s just been doomed to a life of hell.