Your opinion please......

There is something that has been bugging me for a while and last weekend just brought it to a head so to speak. I blogged about this on my main blog as well but since this is a mom blog I thought what the heck lets find out what other moms think about this.

My oldest daughter was born a little under a month before I married her father. We made sure that her birth certificate was correct with his last name on it at her birth. Why was she born before you may ask. Well simply because I was still living with my mom and going to college at the time. This of course made it so I was still on her insurance. In order for me to get outside help for medical care I would have had to move out of my mom's place and attempt to support myself on what I made at the time. Not gonna happen my mom said and told us just wait until after. I had no problem, hubby had no problem, my dad had no problem.....his parents had the problem. Once we explained I was under my mom's insurance and we looked at all the options they said ok. And we really never heard another word about it since then.

Well last weekend my sister-in-law (hubby's sister) got married and is about 8 months preggo. At Thanksgiving we all went out for a girl's day and looked at dresses for her wedding. SIL told me that mom had said they NEEDED to get married before the baby came because it was better for the baby that way. To which my reply to SIL was 'why J turned out fine...' We left it at that. But MIL had stuck her foot in her mouth the day before that and said basically that hubby screwed up his life by not going to college....but it worked out in the end because he married me. That's paraphrased but um hello - reason he had to work to support me and your granddaughter - duh! I let that go as well.

At SIL's reception a cousin asked why the wedding was moved up. MIL replied because she is preggo and it's better for the baby to be born in wedlock to legitimize the child. Otherwise the child is a bastard. Cousin said 'oh I thought a bastard was only when the father left the child.' MIL went on to explain nope bastard is child born out of wedlock and it doesn't matter if parents get married after the baby is still a bastard. Glad you think that of my oldest daughter, what else have you got for me mom?!?

See now I thought nothing of the 'bastard' issue because we had a real reason to not get married before she was born. I truthfully thought the same thing. However the fact that it is 2009 made me think that no one outside the Catholics maybe (no offense just saying) that those views would still be valid today. I am a Christian woman and yeah had my life been different everything would have been different - but it wasn't.

I want your thoughts on the subject not judgment on my situation. My MIL's filter is gone these days and I accept what is said with a grain of salt and try to not be there to hear more as often as possible. Does this stop me from letting her see the kids - no she is grandma and I won't take that away because she hurt my feelings.

So what do I want your opinion on - Does having a child before marriage, if to the child's father or another man, make said child a bastard today? Or is it indeed 'better for the child' to get married before it is born?