Mom gave baby wrong dad’s name

Dear Mrs Macaulay,

I gave birth six months ago and gave the baby my first son’s father’s name, because his actual father was not interested in parenting. Now the father is saying that he wants his son, and I don’t know what to do. My son’s father signed the papers at the hospital. How can I get this sorted out? I know that what I did was illegal, and I don’t want to go to jail.

Oh dear! Why, at the time of reporting the birth of your child, did you not just leave out any particulars of a father? Or you could have, despite the biological father’s stated disinterest in the child at the time, just given his name as the father, without any particulars. If you had done either of the above, all that would be necessary would be for the father who now says that he wants his child, to do a statutory declaration that he is the father, and include his address, occupation, and a reason why he was not available at the time the report of the birth was being made to the registrar, and ask for his name and his particulars to be added to the child’s birth records and for the birth certificate to be corrected. This would mean that all you would have had to do, apart from such statutory declaration, would be to take in the certified birth certificate which you obtained, and which contained the name and particulars of your first child’s father. Such an application to the registrar general of births, to add to or correct an error in the existing birth certificate and records, if done within the first year of the baby’s birth, could have been easily done.

But the fact is that you did not act in either of the above ways, but rather decided to impose on the misguided kindness of your first child’s father, and misrepresented the facts to the registrar when the birth was reported, and he actually signed to the untruths during the process. You both acted in this way, knowing that the statements about the father you were giving were untrue. You both thereby put yourselves squarely within the provisions of section 19B(3)(a) of the Registration (Births and Deaths) Act, which states that a person who wilfully gives incorrect information about the parentage of a child in the prescribed form to the registrar on reporting a birth, shall be guilty of an offence, and if found guilty, shall be liable on summary conviction in the parish court to be fined or to imprisonment.

So what can you do? You can take the birth certificate you have and go and speak with an officer at the Registrar General’s Department. The father of your first child and the biological father of the second should accompany you, so that they can make all the required declarations and sign forms there and then. You can explain how you and your first child’s father came to name him as the father of the baby, and the biological father can explain his side also. If you do this, you can explain that you were upset about the biological father’s denial and abandonment of you and the baby, and that you just wanted to do what you thought was best for the baby, and that it was after, that you realised that what you had done was not legal.

In circumstances like this, honesty with the Registrar General’s office is the best policy. They may decide that a prosecution is not the best way to go in your circumstances, recognising that mothers are extremely emotional at the time of the birth of their babies and for some time after, and that to have added to this, the fact that the biological father denied and abandoned you and your baby, put you in an emotional state and unable to think clearly at the time. Then, you can say that now that the biological father has decided to recognise his child, you want the records to be corrected, and that you are very sorry and would pay all the necessary costs. This is one way to go, and you should try and do this quickly before the baby is a year old, although the Act provides that such parental alterations can be made before 10 years of age, and without a doubt, on the order of the Family Court, a parish court, or the Supreme Court.

The biological father can also go to the Family Court and have them assist him to file an application for a declaration of paternity, and for him to have access to his child. Then, when you are served with his application, you would also go to the Family Court and have their assistance to have your case heard on the same date as his. Your applications would be for legal custody and care and control of your child, and for maintenance orders, including the costs you had to meet during your pregnancy and for the delivery of the child, and attendances at clinics, and costs of transportation thereto and returns home to be made, and for his access to the baby. You would take your receipts, and the full calculations of all the costs relating to the baby’s maintenance, including the proportional part of your rental, and utility charges which must be ascribed to the baby. And you would ask that the order include an annual increase as the baby grows older, so you don’t need to go back to court each year.

I really think that you must, whatever way you decide to act, either by going to the Registrar General’s Department or by way of the applications to the court, ensure that you obtain orders from the court for this man to be legally bound to provide maintenance and have access to his child.

It is clear that you cannot trust that he would be responsible enough to provide for his child on his own merit. It is your duty to ensure that he is made to do so, and to have a relationship with the child, all of which are in the child’s best interests.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.