I have heard Englishmen refer to their illegitimate children as a "bastard child," but never heard a word that the children would use for their father; "bastard father" might be logical. Is there any word for this relationship?
Dgsen
Miami

I've seen the term babydaddy used recently for an absentee father.

Welcome dg

Maybe this could be of some help

http://onelook.com/?w=*&loc=revfp2&clue=unwed+father

I think that the lack of name is reflective of the fact that there was a stigma to the child but not to the father. Personally I can think of a few names.
Doesn't babyfather refer to the youth of the parent?

Isn't bastard child a tautology? My understanding is that bastard means "child born out of wedlock" (or at least some recognisable, formalised relationship).

The father would be a fornicator (if the neither parent was married) or an adulterer (if one of them was (or both were but not to each other)). Similarly, the mother would be a fornicatrix or an adulteress. Neither of these terms differentiate those unions that result in a child from those that don't, and I have no idea if such terms exist.

Isn't bastard also used as a sort of adjective like "the Bastard King"? Whenever I see the word 'wedlock' I hear chains rattling.

Willy the Bastard wasn't a child when he came stomping in to England polluting our pure language.

Yes, Zed, and how sexist is that?! The mother certainly suffers stigmatization...
And no, "babydaddy" is as in "my baby['s] daddy", no reference to age.

Do not 'bastard' children refer to their father as my 'natural father' and 'biolological father' or is this about the 'single-word-straitjacket' again?

what's a one word synonym for "single-word-straitjacket'"?



heh

single-word-straitjacket

Does that jacket come with laces?

And only one sleeve if it is single??

Bran, the term natural or biological is gernerally used by adopted children and refers more to the lack of relationship (as in searching for my biological mother) than the marital relationship or the gene providers.

Gene providers! ha! that's a generous word! Yes, maybe as we have so many children born out of wedLOCK and so many women that are conscienciously unmarried mothers; those children just refer to their father as 'my father' whether they ever knew him or not.
( family ties are changing. Adopted and unadopted children, foster children, second marriage children and first marriage children from devorced couples often grow up and sit happily together at the shared grandparent's feasts. Not always, but most often)

Laces or laces?

Laces or laces?

Small-l laces. Could be link or link.

xactly- .Plus I'd like to put a footnote to my former post.
Values are changing so rapidly. It depends mostly on the
mother and the surrounding adults whether the unknown
absentee father of a child is considered as good or evil.
We don't look upon on such a child as a bastard no more.
Maybe with 16 and a half million people on a pinhead size
of a territory we can only live well by being more tolerant.
(though tensions and irritations are increasing here too)