I kept my maiden name. I never thought I would take my husband's name - just don't agree with it from a philosophical standpoint. It hasn't been an issue in the slightest, however, I do always wear my wedding ring and DH is involved at school and daycare so there's never really been an opportunity for those assumptions to be made about our family. I find it interesting how many women have said they changed their names only after their children were born as a show of family unity. That hadn't occurred to me ... however, we did give the children my last name as their middle name, so there is a little bit of name unity going on.

I kept my name and my DS has my husband's name. No plans to change it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't mind changing my name because it was so common.

Kind of similar, but I am not a jewelry person at all. Pre-kids, I only wore my wedding rings for special occasions. Since having my DC, I make it a point to wear my rings whenever I'm out for the same reason you mentioned OP - I don't want my family stereotyped.

Some of my friends wore fake wedding bands when they were pregnant and their fingers were too swollen to wear their own, just so they could avoid the judgmental unwed mother looks. I get it.

This. My SIL recommended this to me. She told me to wear a fake wedding ring while pregnant to avoid the unwed baby mama stereotype. Crazy, but the stereotype against AA women is real. So sad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an AA woman. Who cares whether people think your child was born out of wedlock? Why are people even thinking about this?

I did not change my name when we first got married, but changed it later. I like having our names the same because we adopted our kids, so it's a point of commonality. Otherwise, would. not. care. Do what feels right for you. People who are going to make assumptions about who you are will just find some other basis for their assumptions.

Truth be told, it does impact they way that people deal with you and your children. I could not care less about how people deal with me, but in my case, certain things were done at daycare that directly impacted my DD.

Really??? Like what?!?!?

Sorry - been in meetings all day.

Let me preface it by saying that my DH works odd hours so I was doing 90% of daycare pickups and such. So given that they rarely saw DH and my daughter and I had different last names, things ran amok and some crazy assumptions were made . The one example where I raised holy hell is [b]DD was not given an invite to the daycare's Father's Day program. The "teacher" thought that it would hurt her feelings to get an invitation on the assumption that her father wasn't around. Another was another teacher "forgetting" to invite DH to the Donuts with Dad activity.[/b] So, most of it was the ignorance of 2-3 people at the daycare. We moved DD, but at the same time I thought it would be easier on all of us to carry the same name. I ended up hypenating at DH's suggestion.

That is absurd! I am so sorry that you had to go through that!

Anonymous wrote:I didn't mind changing my name because it was so common.

Kind of similar, but I am not a jewelry person at all. Pre-kids, I only wore my wedding rings for special occasions. Since having my DC, I make it a point to wear my rings whenever I'm out for the same reason you mentioned OP - I don't want my family stereotyped.

Some of my friends wore fake wedding bands when they were pregnant and their fingers were too swollen to wear their own, just so they could avoid the judgmental unwed mother looks. I get it.

I didn't mind changing my name because it was so common.

Kind of similar, but I am not a jewelry person at all. Pre-kids, I only wore my wedding rings for special occasions. Since having my DC, I make it a point to wear my rings whenever I'm out for the same reason you mentioned OP - I don't want my family stereotyped.

^^ DC will have DH's last name so they'll match

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an AA woman. Who cares whether people think your child was born out of wedlock? Why are people even thinking about this?

I did not change my name when we first got married, but changed it later. I like having our names the same because we adopted our kids, so it's a point of commonality. Otherwise, would. not. care. Do what feels right for you. People who are going to make assumptions about who you are will just find some other basis for their assumptions.

Truth be told, it does impact they way that people deal with you and your children. I could not care less about how people deal with me, but in my case, certain things were done at daycare that directly impacted my DD.

Really??? Like what?!?!?

Sorry - been in meetings all day.

Let me preface it by saying that my DH works odd hours so I was doing 90% of daycare pickups and such. So given that they rarely saw DH and my daughter and I had different last names, things ran amok and some crazy assumptions were made . The one example where I raised holy hell is DD was not given an invite to the daycare's Father's Day program. The "teacher" thought that it would hurt her feelings to get an invitation on the assumption that her father wasn't around. Another was another teacher "forgetting" to invite DH to the Donuts with Dad activity. So, most of it was the ignorance of 2-3 people at the daycare. We moved DD, but at the same time I thought it would be easier on all of us to carry the same name. I ended up hypenating at DH's suggestion.

Thanks for sharing. This is the kind of stuff AA moms really do have to consider unfortunately

Not all AA moms. I'm AA but my husband is going to be the primary caregiver (he's the one with the flexible work schedule) so they'll see him at daycare and I'm not worried about this and still won't be changing my name. But thanks to the person who provided a concrete example!

When I had my first kid, my DH and I weren't married, and I honestly didn't know what kind of father he would be (we were young), so I decided to give our dd a hyphenated last name. That way if he dropped out of the picture and I became her primary parent, we would share the same name and she could drop his.

We ended up marrying three years after she was born, and dd #2 is not hyphenated. I didn't take my husband's name until we were married about five years, and even then I dropped my original middle name and now my maiden name is my middle name.

Our oldest is an adult now and she thinks her hyphenated name sucks, and wishes I'd just picked one or the other. Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose but I wouldn't do anything different. She worries about what name she will give her kids since her own "legal" name is so long. But in general, she has dropped my name and uses DH's last name since she's closer to his family than my family.

My DH had no issues with me not taking his name, or both of our kids having hyphenated names. But I did decide to take his name because I wanted us to present a united family unit to the world and being a young, unwed Mom was a kind of ... unsavory experience, so I felt marriage gave me some legitimacy. Sad, but true. I don't feel that way now because I'm older and wiser and care less about what people think.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an AA woman. Who cares whether people think your child was born out of wedlock? Why are people even thinking about this?

I did not change my name when we first got married, but changed it later. I like having our names the same because we adopted our kids, so it's a point of commonality. Otherwise, would. not. care. Do what feels right for you. People who are going to make assumptions about who you are will just find some other basis for their assumptions.

Truth be told, it does impact they way that people deal with you and your children. I could not care less about how people deal with me, but in my case, certain things were done at daycare that directly impacted my DD.

Really??? Like what?!?!?

Sorry - been in meetings all day.

Let me preface it by saying that my DH works odd hours so I was doing 90% of daycare pickups and such. So given that they rarely saw DH and my daughter and I had different last names, things ran amok and some crazy assumptions were made . The one example where I raised holy hell is DD was not given an invite to the daycare's Father's Day program. The "teacher" thought that it would hurt her feelings to get an invitation on the assumption that her father wasn't around. Another was another teacher "forgetting" to invite DH to the Donuts with Dad activity. So, most of it was the ignorance of 2-3 people at the daycare. We moved DD, but at the same time I thought it would be easier on all of us to carry the same name. I ended up hypenating at DH's suggestion.

Thanks for sharing. This is the kind of stuff AA moms really do have to consider unfortunately

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an AA woman. Who cares whether people think your child was born out of wedlock? Why are people even thinking about this?

I did not change my name when we first got married, but changed it later. I like having our names the same because we adopted our kids, so it's a point of commonality. Otherwise, would. not. care. Do what feels right for you. People who are going to make assumptions about who you are will just find some other basis for their assumptions.

Truth be told, it does impact they way that people deal with you and your children. I could not care less about how people deal with me, but in my case, certain things were done at daycare that directly impacted my DD.

Really??? Like what?!?!?

Sorry - been in meetings all day.

Let me preface it by saying that my DH works odd hours so I was doing 90% of daycare pickups and such. So given that they rarely saw DH and my daughter and I had different last names, things ran amok and some crazy assumptions were made . The one example where I raised holy hell is DD was not given an invite to the daycare's Father's Day program. The "teacher" thought that it would hurt her feelings to get an invitation on the assumption that her father wasn't around. Another was another teacher "forgetting" to invite DH to the Donuts with Dad activity. So, most of it was the ignorance of 2-3 people at the daycare. We moved DD, but at the same time I thought it would be easier on all of us to carry the same name. I ended up hypenating at DH's suggestion.

I plan on keeping my last name when I marry. I have my mom's maiden name as I was born when she was in high school and my parents never married. I would probably hyphenate my future children's names or just give them DH's last name. It's such a hassle trying to change your name, plus I already have an identity with my current name as others have mentioned.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After children some women change their names legally for paperwork, travel, use in school situations, etc, but keep their maiden professionally

I didn't change my name until kids came into the picture. My DH was insistent that the kids birth certificates have my name match his.

well, your DH could have adopted your name if it was so important.

Well it was more important to him than it was to me. He came for a family where his pops didn't claim him or his mom. It made him happy and I was happy to oblige.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a number of AA moms who kept their maiden name including myself. I didn't want the hassle of changing, felt I was a person in my own right, and was used to my own name.

Wait, taking your husband's name makes you less of person in your own right? What an interesting and completely WRONG idea.

to a certain extent you do become another person when you adopt somebody else's last name. you grow up Mary Brown, go to elementary, middle and high school, make tons of friends, go to college, move from one town to another, have a career and all of a sudden, at 35, you become Mary McCarthy. but for all the people who ever met you from birth on you are Mary Brown and Mary McCarthy is a stranger. your current good friends will know, but others will not. professionally, it can be difficult, in many other countries women do not change their last name, so if your career involves contacts will people abroad, changing name will not help you.

ask your husband to change his name to yours, and then you will see how suddenly keeping one's own name become important.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:. I know it's probably silly, but is this something you assume when you see an AA mother/child with last names don't match?

Honestly, yes. Just look at the statistics for how many AA children are born out of wedlock. I don't know why people in this thread are screaming racism.

But I'm a prude. I'd guess most people don't care if your child was born out of wedlock or not.

I appreciate the honesty