Forums:
I'm looking back on a story idea that I outlined in a forum entry here almost a dozen years ago. It was for a multi-chapter story that seemed way beyond my comfort zone to write in 2010, so it never got any further. Looking at it now, there's a background point I think I need real-world clarification on if I decide to go ahead with it.
In the synopsis, I mentioned that my 14-year old protagonist was the offspring of a talented rock guitarist and a groupie who was a teenaged runaway.
(The forum entry is called "What Happens Now?", if anyone wants to look it up, with the story synopsis in a comment titled "How and Why". I was going to link it here, but it's really not important to the rest of this. Feel free to look it up if you're curious, or to PM me for the URL. As the title there implies, I didn't have an ending in mind when I posted it; I do now.)
Glenn (aka Cory) is genetically male but doesn't identify strongly with either sex. S/he's working as a Disney Lizzie McGuire-Hannah Montana type performer in 1980. (If the Hannah-Montana-in-1980 part sounds familiar, it's probably because a key scene in that story got adapted into my 2018 contest entry, "Corey's Last Concert", which had a TG protagonist and a more conventional family background.)
Getting, finally, to the point:
OK, so it's 1966 or '67, and we're in San Francisco. Kathleen Donnelly, a sophomore at a local Catholic school, rebels against her parents' rigid control. She and a classmate run away to take advantage of the new permissive rock culture. This being the Summer of Love era, they don't run very far, just to the outskirts of the Bay Area. Near the industrial town of Pittsburg, around 45 miles northeast, there's a rock 'n' roll club just south of the city limits called the Far Out. It's part of a loose confederation of dance clubs around the Bay Area organized by a local DJ who owns a record label, which coordinate their schedules so that acts can come in from other parts of the West Coast and have multiple places to play. (That part's basically true, btw, including one venue remote enough to reportedly include members of the house band who'd have found it awkward or impossible to work in a better-policed area.)
Armed with fake photo IDs that identify them as 18-year old twins Hope and Faith Fairchild (though they don't look related), they get jobs at the place in exchange for a room in back to live in. The side benefit is that they have the most immediate access to the visiting bands after hours, with "Faith" often successfully connecting with the lead singer and our girl "Hope" going for the lead guitarist.
Hope becomes pregnant. After an acid trip that convinces her that all life is sacred and interconnected, including her fetus, she decides not to abort it. (The child becomes the story protagonist.) As the pregnancy progresses, she decides to move on. Still seeing the need to avoid higher-profile, centrally-located areas, she takes a waitress job at a coffee shop in south San Jose (the lunch-counter type, not the later Starbucks kind) and rents a small apartment within walking distance.
Here's the question: to get the job and eventually fill out the birth certificate, is she going to have to (or want to) be Kathleen "Hope" Donnelly, age 16? I'd think she'd want to use the Hope Fairchild ID to get the job, since if she'd just turned 16 she might have to face questions about her parents. I could be wrong, but I think an 18-year old unwed prospective mother would get more sympathy and less derision than a 16-year old -- for one thing, if she's 18 she could imply that a fiancé had abandoned her or been sent overseas. I'd prefer it if she didn't have to get paid under the table, since she's still going to be living and working there (with a side job across town as a cocktail waitress) for more than ten years after Glenn is born, though I suppose she could go legit later and keep the job.
Perhaps more importantly, what would the birth certificate say? Can she choose what name and age to use? How about the father's name? Does she have to leave it blank? Can she supply a name just on her unsupported word? Would it be dangerous to do that if the alleged father is a public figure? (Again, we're in 1967: forms are typed or handwritten, not computerized. The informant, usually a parent, signs the form and certifies that the statement is accurate "to the best of my knowledge". If things reach the point of a paternity suit, there aren't any DNA tests, just (AFAIK) blood type comparisons and circumstantial evidence.)
Eric
Different era
Things were loose enough back then, you pretty much were who you said you were. If you had no documentation for who you claimed to be, you still could get away with it by claiming to have been born in some state on the other side of the country. There were still many rural (and inner urban) areas where issuance of a birth certificate was sort of optional, ad hoc, and after the fact.
It's your story, choose the option that works for your needs and just make the effort to seem plausible. Or sweep such problems under the rug, don't ask, don't tell.
This would work even better if you moved the locale of the birth to Nevada or some such less built-up place.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I knew people in California
I knew people in California in the eighties (so, well after the period you mentioned) who didn't like their names, and simply went to the DMV and asked for a license with a new, different name. They presented their old card with their real name, and got a new one with the new name.
I know that this was done by several people who I knew quite well, and the explanation I was given was that you can call yourself whatever you like unless it's to escape prosecution or to commit fraud.
- io
To echo something Erin said, sort of,
I would also recommend a different locale, but for a different reason. It will confuse people from outside the Bay area, few people not from there know there is a Pittsburgh in California. Either that, or have a bit of fun with a couple of characters getting confused with it. I think that a small rural city on the outskirts of the bay area would be just fine for your plans with the DMV.