444
Opinion of Stevens, J.
Nor does the statute assume that all mothers of illegitimate children will necessarily have a closer relationship with their children than will fathers. It does assume that all of them will be present at the event that transmits their citizenship to the child, that hospital records and birth certificates will normally make a further acknowledgment and formal proof of parentage unnecessary, and that their initial custody will at least give them the opportunity to develop a caring relationship with the child. Section 1409(a)(4)—the only provision that we need consider—is therefore supported by the undisputed assumption that fathers are less likely than mothers to have the opportunity to develop relationships, not simply, as Justice Breyer contends, post, at 482- 483, that they are less likely to take advantage of that opportunity when it exists.25 These assumptions are firmly grounded and adequately explain why Congress found it unnecessary to impose requirements on the mother that were entirely appropriate for the father.
None of the premises on which the statutory classification is grounded can be fairly characterized as an accidental byproduct of a traditional way of thinking about the mem-25 Justice Breyer does not dispute the fact that the unmarried father of a child born abroad is less likely than the unmarried mother to have the opportunity to develop a relationship with the child. He nevertheless would replace the gender-based distinction with either a "knowledge of birth" requirement or a distinction between "Caretaker and Noncaretaker Parents." Post, at 487. Neither substitute seems a likely candidate for serious congressional consideration. The former in practice would be just as gender based as the present requirement, for surely every mother has knowledge of the birth when it occurs; nor would that option eliminate the need for formal steps and time limits to ensure that the parent truly had knowledge during the child's youth. The latter would be confusing at best, for Justice Breyer does not tell us how he would decide whether a father like Mr. Miller would qualify as a "caretaker" or a "non-caretaker"; and it would also be far less protective of families than the present statute, for it would deny citizenship to out-of-wedlock children who have relationships with their citizen parents but are not in the primary care or custody of those parents.
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