Governmental Prejudice

Apparently, one needs to have his/her children pedigreed by the government in order to claim them on taxes. This seems simple enough, tag the mutt or don't get money off your taxes, right? Will we have to put collars on them? No, the card that must be kept safe is fine at this point, but eventually will they treat our children more like animals with the ID chips?

I drove on over to the local Social Security office this morning because BB hasn't been SSN'd yet. She was born peacefully at home with no midwife and shortly after her birth we registered in that county and received her birth certificate (pedigree?). When tax time came around, we didn't know that we *had* to have her SSN to use the child tax credit (heck, he works and has children, doesn't he deserve the credit? he's furthering the system just by giving them future users!), but we learned that this last year when we began getting billed for it.

We checked online and we need birth certificate plus verification of identification. Cow should be easy enough, we have the form from our midwife stating she was there the moment Cow emerged in this world. How much more could you need? But, BB wasn't attended at birth and all we have is the immunization form from her doctor's visit when she was 3 days old. We hoped for the best.

I walked in, got my number and sat down. BB patiently sat and looked around, a little upset that the door guard wouldn't let her have her water bottle, and Cow nursed. Our number came up and I gave the lady at the window the information. She looked a touch disheartened when she asked what hospital they were born at and I said none. She went over all the possibilities and took BB's info and processed her. But, Cow cannot be given a social security number with the midwife's info.

She went over the possibilities. She made suggestions..
Hospital record: no, not born in one, never needed one
Doctor record: don't have one.
Passport: no, I can get one without the SSN?
Religious certificate: no, I'm Christian, we don't baptize babies.
Child care or Preschool: no, I'm a housewife.

Excuse me? You can accept a form from a childcare facility or preschool that states that my child is enrolled there, but you won't accept a LICENSED MIDWIFE form that states all the vital records from a PERSON WHO WAS THERE??? No, I'm not getting a doctor's note that excuses me to have a child, thank you. I'll go get her a passport. Then maybe I can take a vacation.

Are there any other midwife clients out there who think this is prejudice? The gal was nice enough to tell me my Congressional Representative and suggest that I send him a note about this.