I will definitely dig into your blog, because I am very interested in what you have to say. With my youngest son I contemplated about not registering him. With the other three, I had just never heard of it. However, there are a few problems with this that the system created to make it so much harder for people to do so. One being child benefit. I am not 100% sure how this works in countries like the US or in Canada, but these payments are often essential for a lot of families. When my son was born 3 years ago, I had just left my then partner the month before and on my own again with now four instead of three mouths to feed would have been impossible at the time. In Ireland the child benefit payments are quite high and in our case, I just wouldn't have been able to pay the bills without it. BUT: no registration, no child benefit. And then, there is of course the issue of passports. While there are some people who are quite content to never leave where they live, a lot are not. Just looking at myself: I live in Ireland but I am from Holland. Not being able to travel would mean never to see family and some friends again. Of course, for my children I would make the sacrifice, but that would then mean to be 'stuck' in a country and not being able to leave in the case of any issues (in our case, a move in the near future is becoming reality, for reasons concerning my experiences with CPS here...). But I think this has all been done on purpose. In Ireland alone, unemployment rates are very high. So people either have to rely on their social welfare payments and the child benefit each month, or move to another country for jobs. They KNOW that this is the case for a lot of families, and therefore they have them where they want them. Also, I have a friend in California who's sister decided to not register her child. When the child was 8 months old, CPS came and the child was removed from their home with force. There were no problems, but they made everything into a problem. Eventually, the reasons they gave were as follows: child was removed to give it a better chance to a normal life, as enrolling in school, hospital visits etc. would not be possible or harder in the case of non registration. This is 1 year ago, and she is only allowed supervised visits once every two weeks....Anyway, I enjoyed reading your comment and am looking forward to read more.