SINGAPORE – A 34-year-old finance professional is adopting her own two-year-old daughter, to spare her the label of growing up as an illegitimate child.
Born out of wedlock, the toddler has never met her biological father, who has chosen to stay out of her life.
Her mother, Natalie (not her real name), said: “The label of illegitimacy carries a heavy emotional weight for both the child and mother. It suggests that a child’s existence is somehow less valid or less desirable because the parents are not married.
“Adoption to me is a way of reclaiming that legitimacy – a way of saying we are a real family, and my daughter is a deeply loved and wanted child.”
She also wants to cut off all legal ties her daughter has with her former boyfriend, who is the girl’s biological father.
With the adoption, he has consented to giving up his rights and responsibilities to the child.
an average of 745 children
a year were born out of wedlock to Singaporean mothers here from 2020 to 2024, a reply to a parliamentary question on Oct 15 revealed.
Of this group of children, 12 were subsequently adopted by their biological parents within the same five-year period.
Under the Legitimacy Act 1934, a child whose parents are not legally married to each other when the child is born is considered illegitimate. This remains so unless the parents subsequently marry or adopt the child.
Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli said in his response that the Government does not differentiate benefits that support Singaporean children’s growth and development based on their parents’ marital status.
These benefits include subsidies for education, healthcare, childcare and infant care, and the migrant domestic helper levy concession.
