This is what happens when you don't register a birth

[easternabeille]

Has anyone read this sad article yet? To summarize it, two girls were born at home in Ky twenty some years ago. They were born at home due to the religious beliefs of their parents, who didn't register their births, never got them a SS number, etc. Now in their early 20s the girls are trying to find legitimate jobs, and to do so they need SS numbers, and to get those they need a birth certificate. The sisters ended up having to sue for a birth certificate! However they still can't get SS numbers...sad!

http://news.yahoo.com/ky-sisters-sue-so ... 10316.html

[IReallyAmHopewell]

Sad. Yep--keep the government out of you life...Poor young women! Hope they made it out of that home sane.

[fundiefan]

When the parents chose to ignore government regulations, they gifted their children with a lifetime of expensive government BS.

Cause and affect are not mysterious concepts.

While I don't get why they can't get SS numbers since they now have birth certificates, the bureaucracy is only part of the problem. The entire problems exists because of the neglect of their parents. The parents should be paying consequences instead of watching their daughter's fight the system. But, I'm sure they're sitting in their hovel raging against the evil government instead of acknowledging they could have - and should have - prevented this all along.

[GenerationCedarchip]

That is really sad. I had to work a case once where a young man had escaped from a fundie (IFB, Gothard-adoration strain) home and was trying to get a driver's license. However, he also had been born at home and had no birth certificate. His parents had cut him off and would not cooperate with providing testimony of the birth. We finally got a birth certificate issued, but this poor guy went through a pretty major ordeal to get it.

[Rosa]

The shitty thing is, not only does this fall on the innocent children of crazy-ass parents, it falls on Black adults born during Jim Crow in areas where hospitals wouldn't serve Black women - try to get a passport so you can go on vacation outside the states, and learn you can't because you don't have a formal birth certificate.

It's a common enough problem, there really ought to be a standardized way to fix it in all the states and with the feds.

[cjsmom]

This is a really sad story. Another way of keeping people in a lifestyle they didn't choose to enter.

[debrand]

The parents should have to face some sort of consequence for their actions

[Maggie Mae]

I had a HUGE issue when I needed a replacement S.S. card a few months ago. Turns out, that my out-of-state license had expired. I couldn't get a state ID or license until I had my social security card. The DMV was all "oh, just go to the SS office and get a letter" and so I did. Found out then that I couldn't even enter the building that the SS Office was in until I got a non expired ID (It had seriously expired the day before.) The SS office kept repeating their script of what they needed to replace it (nothing that I had) by mail, and that was after begging for someone to help me. I couldn't go back to my home state until I have either an ID (to get on a plane) or a passport (to drive through canada). No one had any ideas on what I could do. I ended up contacting the ACLU who were a lot of help. But I couldn't help but wonder what someone would do who had their wallet stolen or all their papework lost in a fire. It was awful.

[Black Aliss]

Why do they need jobs? If they couldn't find husbands to support them, shouldn't they have remained under their father's protection?

#end_sarcasm

[Austin]

I had a HUGE issue when I needed a replacement S.S. card a few months ago. Turns out, that my out-of-state license had expired. I couldn't get a state ID or license until I had my social security card. The DMV was all "oh, just go to the SS office and get a letter" and so I did. Found out then that I couldn't even enter the building that the SS Office was in until I got a non expired ID (It had seriously expired the day before.) The SS office kept repeating their script of what they needed to replace it (nothing that I had) by mail, and that was after begging for someone to help me. I couldn't go back to my home state until I have either an ID (to get on a plane) or a passport (to drive through canada). No one had any ideas on what I could do. I ended up contacting the ACLU who were a lot of help. But I couldn't help but wonder what someone would do who had their wallet stolen or all their papework lost in a fire. It was awful.

Sounds terrible! Were you able to resolve it, and if so, how?

When my niece (18 yo at the time) first came to live with us, she lost her wallet and thus her out-of-state driver's license. Her father in the other state refused to mail her either her birth certificate or SS card (no real reason other than he's a major douchebag). She tried to have the other state reissue her birth certificate, but of course, it was the same thing: she had to have one to get the other and she had nothing.

I offered advice but otherwise stayed out of it as long as I could, mostly because I can't stand her father (or his joyless hag of a wife), but everyone in our family got sick of having to drive her to work and pick her up at 4:00 a.m. pretty quickly, so I called the asshole and basically said everything short of threatening his life (which was not off the table, btw ;) ).

He mailed the documents the next day.

I have no idea what she would have done otherwise.

[deelaem]

When I lost everything in a tornado back in '99, it was a nightmare to get my ID and SS cards back. What I ended up having to do was just mail a whole bunch of things with my name on it and a set of fingerprints to the SS office, and they eventually accepted it. Before that, though, I literally broke down in tears at the SS office, begging for help. The guy was stone-faced and uncaring. Fortunately my sister was with me and she demanded to see a supervisor, who told us about just bombarding them with anything with my name on it. I shudder to think what would have happened if I weren't obviously Caucasian.

Those poor, poor girls. I hope they're able to find someone to help them.

[lilwriter85]

The shitty thing is, not only does this fall on the innocent children of crazy-ass parents, it falls on Black adults born during Jim Crow in areas where hospitals wouldn't serve Black women - try to get a passport so you can go on vacation outside the states, and learn you can't because you don't have a formal birth certificate.

It's a common enough problem, there really ought to be a standardized way to fix it in all the states and with the feds.

I agree stuff like this doesn't only happen to fundies. Similar things happened in New Mexico after it went into statehood. A lot of Hispanos in the northern part of New Mexico had home births that involved midwifes and so quite a bit of Hispanos ended up having to go through late/delayed birth certificate processing later on when they needed to get certain jobs, enter the military or get marriage licenses. The non-registering of births mostly happened between the 1900's (pre-statehood) up until the 1950s.

[Bookworm]

This story is so sad. I really, really hope it is not as hard for the kids of one family I know when they grow up - only the first two had SSN and birth certificates - the next couple only got birth certificates, and all the rest were born at home and not even given birth certificates due to the father's paranoia about the End Times/Ebil Govmnt. I've worried about them for years, hoping it does not mess up their lives too much... although, with all the other ways their family is effed up, they've got a hard row to hoe any way you look at it. They were actually the first homeschooling family that I realized had any problems (as a young teen) and only now do I realize just how scary the dad actually is. It's fine with me if you want to isolate yourself from anything and everything normal, but do not enforce that lifestyle on other people with no choice.

[Lillybee]

I had a client with the same problem, however her parents were old school hippies who lived off the grid, they also didn't want the government to know anything about them.

[Guest Anonymous]

I've got quiverfulls to the right of me and hippys to the left of me. The quiverfulls don't care about their kids BCs they home school. The hippys who chose not to register their eldest sons birth had to scramble for a birth cert. to get the kid registered for school. In talking to her recently she thought it was 'too much' hassle and chose to have hubby home school the boy instead :roll:

My mom didn't have a birth cert. she was an illegal born on a ship on its way to America during the great immigration. Years later she needed one and I remember what a hassle it was. Any one who had been alive and a witness to her birth was long gone.

[alphaeta08]

Why do they need jobs? If they couldn't find husbands to support them, shouldn't they have remained under their father's protection?

#end_sarcasm

I wondered about that, too (sarcasm aside 8-) ). Are these girls still following their parents' lifestyle or not? They're getting jobs, but they still live at home at 23 and 29.

[Curious]

My ID expired when I was in the hospital. Silly me, it wasn't on the top of my list of concerns when I was in the ICU. When I eventually got out of the rehab hospital and recovered enough, we realized it had expired and went to renew it. That was in 2005. I *just* got my ID renewed about a month ago after 6 YEARS of fighting with DMV.

So while I was doing it, I decided to change my name to my husband's name (don't yell at me, I was still using my ex-husband's name and I felt bad that my husband kept getting called Mr. ex-husband all the time. I have zero attachment to my maiden name). So I expected a knock-down drag out fight with the SS office. I had the paper filled out before we went in, which made the woman's day. I had a ton of paperwork with me. I had no problem and it took them about 5 minutes. I kept throwing papers at the woman to prove who I was. She finally said "you had problems with the DMV didn't you?" I laughed and said "yes, how did you know?"

She then told me a story about the DMV: When they first moved here from California her sister was 15 and ready to get her learner's permit so her dad took her sister to the DMV to get it. They kept asking her for her VA birth certificate. Her dad kept saying she doesn't have a VA birth certificate, she wasn't born IN Virginia. She was born in California. They continued to insist that she couldn't get a learner's permit unless she had a VA birth certificate. They eventually got a supervisor involved and after some arguing she was able to get her learner's permit with her CA birth certificate.

[Visionoyahweh]

http://news.yahoo.com/ky-sisters-sue-so ... 10316.html

Raechel Schultz, 29, was born in Madison County, Ky., about an hour or so away from where they live now. Stephanie, 23, was born in Sanford, Ala. Both were delivered at the family's home because of their religious beliefs, though Benge didn't know specifically what those were.

The births were recorded in a family Bible that has been marked up through the years, but some of the changes and deletions didn't pass muster with the Kentucky Office of Vital Statistics, Benge said.

Wow! I read this article and immediately that these poor women were FJ-class homebirthed SAHD's. Too bad they only have minimal contact with the outside world, I'd love to read their blog!

[slickcat79]

My ID expired when I was in the hospital. Silly me, it wasn't on the top of my list of concerns when I was in the ICU. When I eventually got out of the rehab hospital and recovered enough, we realized it had expired and went to renew it. That was in 2005. I *just* got my ID renewed about a month ago after 6 YEARS of fighting with DMV.

That's insane. My ID expired last year. No reason for it, I just didn't notice. It had been expired for a few weeks when I went to the DMV, but except for the usual lines, there were no problems. They didn't even say anything about it being expired, just gave me a temp ID to use until the new one came in the mail :?

[GenerationCedarchip]

There's actually a thread on this already. See "This is what happens when you don't register a birth."

[kpmom]

I wondered about that, too (sarcasm aside 8-) ). Are these girls still following their parents' lifestyle or not? They're getting jobs, but they still live at home at 23 and 29.

I'd love to know more about the story. Are they realizing their parents won't always be there, and they'll need to support themselves one day? Are they rejecting their parent's lifestyle (but still living at home)? Even their attorney seems a little vague on the details.

[emmiedahl]

There was a thread about this on 7XSunday a while back. A fundie mom had not registered her children at all, not with anyone, and now needed to for some reason. She was asking how to do this. Apparently a lot of people on the board don't get birth certificates or ssn's. Cuz, you know, the government is after you.

[Curious]

That's insane. My ID expired last year. No reason for it, I just didn't notice. It had been expired for a few weeks when I went to the DMV, but except for the usual lines, there were no problems. They didn't even say anything about it being expired, just gave me a temp ID to use until the new one came in the mail :?

I was what you could call less than amused by the whole thing. I could not even vote last election because of it. I couldn't get on my husband's bank account. I had to sign checks over to him for him to deposit in his account. They wouldn't deposit our tax refund without jumping through a lot of hoops because i was not on the account (and had no valid ID), so that was fun EVERY year for 6 years. I think they were as happy as we were when I was finally able to be added to the account ;)

What really annoyed me is that it was so much stupid ass red tape bullshit things one after another after another. I would jump through one hoop and then there would be something else wrong.

I had lost my birth certificate in a move and to get a birth certificate you need...a valid ID. So you can see the problem there. It took me about 2.5 years to fight the birth certificate with no valid ID battle. I finally found a place online that you could get one no questions asked. I thought it might be a scam, but it was only $50 and by then I had run out of other options so gave it a go. I'm not really sure how they manage it, but I'm really thankful they can do it and it was above board.

Here is the best part, I FINALLY jumped through the LAST possible freaking hoop there could conceivably be (how did I go from the name on my birth certificate to the name I was currently using, so I had to write to the clerk of courts to get my divorce papers from 24 or so years ago). That was the ONLY thing stopping them from issuing my ID 18 months prior to when I finally got it. Mind you I had a marriage certificate that showed my current name which had the official seal, so clearly I was who I said I was...not to mention the other MOUNTAIN of paperwork I had (including things like tax returns, child support paperwork, social security paperwork etc). I had fought with the supervisor for like 45 minutes and no go..he wanted the paper trail of how I got the name.

Fast forward 18 months after I get the paperwork. We go in and wait forever and finally it's our turn and for some reason I see the same supervisor and I decide I am going to just see what happens WITHOUT that paperwork. My husband is trying to get me to dig it out and I am shushing him and saying just wait and see what they do.

So the girl looks at everything and calls over the supervisor and she says the name is different on the birth certificate, but she has the marriage certificate. My husband is poking me to hand them the divorce paper and I just sat there kind of smirking, waiting to see what happens and sure enough...he says Oh this is good enough. You can see the name trail well enough from this.

It took all my willpower not to fly out of my wheelchair, across the counter and strangle him on the spot. I didn't get a temp ID or anything either. Had to wait 2-3 weeks for it to arrive in the mail. We held our breath the whole time until it arrived.

I don't care if I am on fucking life support, next time it is up for renewal, if my husband has to take me there on portable life support machine I'm not letting that thing expire again!

[Rosa]

You know, we don't have to have ID to vote, here, and if you can't find something with your address on it you just need someone registered in your ward to vouch for you to register. Same-day.

Every year lately the Republicans are wanting to require more ID for voting and say there's never a legitimate reason for someone to not have state ID if they're legal to vote. I wish I could just put all these stories together in a book and share it with the legislature.

[Curious]

You know, we don't have to have ID to vote, here, and if you can't find something with your address on it you just need someone registered in your ward to vouch for you to register. Same-day.

Every year lately the Republicans are wanting to require more ID for voting and say there's never a legitimate reason for someone to not have state ID if they're legal to vote. I wish I could just put all these stories together in a book and share it with the legislature.

I'm not sure if you need ID to actually vote, but I was not registered to vote here and couldn't register without ID. I have voted sporadically (I'm somewhat ashamed to admit), but last election I did want to vote and wasn't able to.

I should add that they have made the rules here way more stringent since 9/11, which I suppose I understand to a certain extent, but I am so pale since I never go outside that I am practically translucent, I'm in a wheelchair, I'm overweight and I'm a citizen, I don't think I am really much of a threat to national security. I get there are bad people that did bad things, but making it impossible for people to get through the system just by using a bit of common sense is not the way to go either.

Once on the phone during this saga, the woman kept telling me I needed a picture ID. She went through the list of things that could be used like passport (never been out of the US..well ok Mexico when I was a kid, but no passport needed), military ID (never been in the military), college ID (I was in college about 15+ years ago) and Driver's License (if I had one I wouldn't need an ID). So the ONLY form of picture ID I had was my (now expired) state ID, which they wouldn't accept because it was..expired. Now keep in mind, it was a state ID issued by THIS same state so it's not like they had no record of me at all. I also have a permanent handicap parking placard on file. So I'm in the system, not just some random person off the street that isn't even in the system at all.

So she kept saying that they couldn't accept that as my picture ID and I should get another form of ID. I said how do you suggest I do that when I don't have a valid ID now? You can't get a passport without a valid ID..duh. She just kept repeating it's expired. Finally, in exasperation I screamed at her YES, BUT I AM NOT!

It's such a stupid, arbitrary thing. I didn't happen to go into the office in exactly 5 years so my life grinds to a halt because now I'm expired. Maybe I just got a particularly bad run of luck and others in VA have had better experience. I'd like to hope so.

edit: finished a thought.