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Parental responsibility —
the big legal issue for unmarried parents
For many couples becoming
parents creates a natural and positive trigger for thinking
about the future.
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"I hadn't really thought about stuff until
Emma had Jay. I knew I wanted to be her dad and do whatever I
had to do to make Emma feel sure of me. Having parental responsibility
was a way of saying to Jay and to Emma that I am serious."
Parental responsibility is a legal term. It means:
"all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities,
and authorities which by law a parent of a child has in relation
to the child and his property".
Without parental responsibility you don't have any legal right
to make decisions such as where your child lives, their education,
religion or medical treatment.
Unlike mothers, fathers do not always have automatic parental
responsibility for their children. Being
unmarried means that a father has no automatic rights as a parent
- he will have to take action to acquire those rights.
How your child's
birth is registered and who registers it will affect who has parental
responsibility. For more information on birth registration,
go to the
General
Register Office website.
You can find more information on parental responsibility at:
Advicenow's
website.
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