Kids must have dads. Or names, at least

Photo: SCANPIX

Estonia has 20,000 kids with fathers not officially admitting to be parent. Therefore, entry of father in birth certificate might be made mandatory, thinks the social ministry.

For 20 years, Estonia has gone without the obligation of having name of father written into birth certificates of children. In Soviet times, a mother could simply write a male Christian name. Which meant a child was still left in the dark as to who his father was.

Stronger state role

According to Tallinn vital statistics office head Karin Kask, the earlier order of things causes confusion in Western Europe when a grown up with an arbitrary father’s name needs to present birth certificate upon some transactions. «We are issuing them a document specifying that, in the Soviet Union, this was the arrangement,» said Ms Kask. From 1995, about a thousand children are yearly born in Estonia with no father mentioned on birth certificate.

«A child has a right for both parents and a child cannot stand for that right when the mother single-handedly or together with the father decides they will not write father’s name of birth registration,» said social ministry’s children and family department adviser Hanna Vseviov, to substantiate the proposal in a children and families green book being written: to make it mandatory for father’s name to be entered into birth registration.

«If a mother or father will not stand for the rights of a child, the state must assume a greater role in order to protect the most vulnerable party in the triangle.» Ms Vseviov added that the obligation would also protect the rights of fathers should a mother, sitting alone, decide to not tell the father of a child being born.

«A child wants to know who his father is, and a father missing is for the child a tragedy,» observed Ida-Viru County family formalities specialist Raissa Gorski.

According to Ms Vseviov, there is a variety of reasons why the father is not written down; also, there definitely are the instances where the father cannot be identified. The extreme, here, being those pregnant out of rape.

Due to advances in medicine, increasing numbers of children are born out of artificial insemination. This is also true regarding single women by help of anonymous donors.

«I badly wanted to have a baby but for years I did not manage to find a man with whom to establish a family or just get a baby. I took the opportunity to have a child by help of medicine and a donor, and after a couple of tries it worked,» said a lady in her 30ies, supported by grandparents to raise the kid. Her child lacks a father carrying a name; meanwhile, it is not excluded that the lady will yet find a man to marry her and father the child.

Ms Vseviov said the father entry should definitely not be made mandatory by brutal force; even so, such a path would be encouraged by the experience of Norway and Sweden. In these nations, with some exceptions, entry of father is mandatory.

«The issue is, how much right will the state assume to interfere with people’s personal lives; how much may personal relations be regulated. Meanwhile, the right of children need to take front seat,» pondered social ministry children and family department adviser Joanna Paabumets.

«There are the ladies who manage very well and do not want the child to have a father, who are able to see the child has everything while keeping the father’s identity to themselves and unwritten on birth certificate. But is it right for a mother to decide for the child that the latter has no father, as if?» said Ms Paabumets, admitting the complexity of the issue.

Such mothers come in the thousands – as seen when comparing numbers of children fatherless on certificates, and of mothers drawing single parent’s child allowance.

Poverty inspires tricks

Ms Vseviov said a large part of single parents and their kids are in high poverty risk. The maintenance money fund envisioned by Riigikogu will not help such children as have no father officially.

«With my first child, I let the father be entered unto the birth certificate, but then I did not get the single parent allowance – with the second child, I will no longer write the father,» said a single mom. The lady who worked for minimum pay while having two children isn’t living with the father, but the latter does to a degree support them. The under €20 single parent allowance is very small, but still a sure extra income monthly.

The ministry advisers say single parents do definitely need support, but they do not think the allowance could be increased. «If single parent’s allowance be raised to €100 per child, that would be a huge motivation to avoid writing the father in birth registration even more,» explained Ms Vseviov.

In the green book being completed, they say the poverty-stricken single parents, as any parent, might be better helped by lifting the subsistence level and via subsistence benefits. What’s more: the book contains the proposal to consider removing the single parent allowance linked to missing father entry.

«A family with two parents may also live in poverty, but they will not get this extra benefit,» said Ms Paabumets. «This means we are treating two-parent families unequally.»

Single parents have no other direct allowances or benefits, but in Tallinn at least leaving the father unidentified post-birth opens a door to get €320 of childbirth allowance. Namely, Tallinn pays childbirth allowance for only such kids as have both parents registered as inhabitants of Tallinn for at least a year. In case the father is not an in Tallinn resident register, or has not been long enough, the mother at initially is better off becoming a single parent. Indeed, parents may add the fatherhood confirmation unto child’s birth registration afterwards. This is only possible when the parents are not married – in such cases, the father is sure to be entered into birth registration.

To payment of childbirth allowance, conditions are attached by several other local governments as well; even so, it’s rather that at least one parent needs to be an inhabitant of said commune or town.

Indirectly, single parent status may also help getting subsistence benefits – as family income, only mother’s salary is entered. Should doubts arise that maybe the family does also include a father, the commune or town officials must prove the case.

«Economy ministry people have told us that when families with many children apply for housing allowance via KredEx, sometimes the father has been disavowed in order to show a smaller family income and pocket bigger allowance,» said Ms Vseviov to bring another example.

At that, the advisers said that even in such cases the poverty-risk families should still draw state support, but the system ought to be effective and such as does not inspire such tricks.

Affairs and adultery

A reason father is left unidentified is extra-marital affairs where neither parent wants people to find out the real father. «Parents are grown-up people and need to take responsibility for their deeds: in case of an extra-marital affair births a baby, then that’s a fact and comes with responsibility for the child’s rights,» reasoned Ms Vseviov.

The highest percent of fatherless children is in Ida-Virumaa – nearly 15 percent. «There are the married men who come to register a child with another lady,» said Ms Gorski. «Sure they have problems at home, but they assume responsibility,» she said, adding having seen fathers have recourse to courts to confirm, despite resistance by mother, that the child is theirs. In such cases, DNA test will help.

«And of course there are the men who do not want to own up to the child and the women are too proud to go to the court to establish fatherhood,» noted Ms Gorski.

Assuming fatherhood will not automatically mean the man needs to start pay alimonies – if the lady has proposed in her heart to make it alone, or knows there’s nothing much to ask of the man anyway, the latter will develop no financial obligations.

The advisers proceeded to point out another complexity yet. On the one hand, a father will at least officially have the obligation to maintain and to raise the child; on the other hand, however, the child – as he grows up – will develop the obligation to take care of his father. «Regarding this, at times courts have freed children from such obligation if the father has not participated in raising the child,» said Ms Vseviov.

«For the state, it is important to show what kind of a family model we respect, as well as that it is firstly the parents who are responsible for their children. The state or a local government will come and help if a child drops through this initial safety net,» said Ms Paabumets. «The focus must be on the child, not the parents’ twisted understanding.»