But I'm tired and I'm trying so let's just go with it.
One of the "fun" things about getting married is that it changes the way that you register the birth or births of any future children. When our son was born it was assumed that I was his mother, but because my partner and I weren't married at the time, until we went and formally registered his birth and put my partner's name on the birth certificate, he didn't have any legal parental responsibility for him. How that would have worked had something gone wrong I don't really know, but thankfully one of the things that happens following a marriage is that a child is assumed to belong to both the birthing parent and their spouse. (As far as I am aware it is the same for non-binary or same sex couples.)
I'm just going to note that I'm saying I was assumed to be his mother because there are a few legal sticky bits if there's been surrogacy involved or any mix ups at fertility clinics, though I believe they are thankfully very few and far between!
Naturally, that only impacts any future children we have as opposed to the little guy we have now, so what happens with him? Well, we have to re-register his birth as a child of our marriage. Before you say, well he's not, I know. Before you say it's stupid, I know, it is. But it is a legal requirement and what gets even more ridiculous is that it's not even because he's under a certain age. No matter - as I understand it - the age of the child (even if they're an adult) their birth has to be re-registered. And yes, legally you have to do it, even though there is no specific timeline on which you have to do it. (Or a penalty for not doing, as far as I understand.)
And as with a lot of things, I had a bit of an emotional reaction to this, because it feels a bit like re-writing history as though I'm embarrassed that my partner and I weren't married at the time that we had my son and as though that means something about my son. I know in the past it has and there have been some names which people use to describe children born outside of a marriage, and the reason is - at least in part - the inheritance law which was why this appointment existed, but the really stupid thing is, that has been changed! But the marriage law or the registration part wasn't and I don't understand why. To me, it seems like it's just giving the registry office something more to do, as though they're not actually busy (which they are) and stopping these appointments, which are done for free, would free up time to do other things like marriage notice appointments (which are paid for) or marriages (which are paid for) or register births. When we registered little man's birth we registered him in the local authority he was born in (which you have to) and we were able to do that when he was 3 days old, but in the one we live in, you couldn't get an appointment for a few weeks, and there are certain things you need the birth certificate to do, like open a bank account or get a passport, so it seems crazy to have to offer needless appointments which take time away from very important ones!
Even if you're not a big believer in marriage or it's not something you are particularly fussed about, there are things which make it sensible, like thinking about inheritance if something happened to one of you, or for ensuring that if something bad happens, you are the legal next of kin. I realise that all seems to be for planning "if something bad happens" but in those situations, marriage becomes important and not being married is just another stress on top of an already stressful situation. For some, it's the protection of if you split, assets are divided and there is the ability to have the situation looked at from the outside, because if there are kids involved, one of you likely had to pause your career in order to look after them, even if it was for a short time, and financial contributions wouldn't look 50/50, but that's not all there is to family life.
I think this went in a different direction than I was originally intending, but that happens when you write a blog in two halves.
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