Sometimes I wish I had kept my maiden name. I was the very end of my paternal bloodline.
However, I like my shorter married name and I also didn't want the negative assumptions coming my way from other judging types.

Changed name legally and use in family settings, kept maiden professionally

Michelle Obama is a very traditional woman (and she's fab, by the way) and I'm not. It is a well-known fact that Hilary Clinton only changed her name after it was cited as an issue when her husband lost an election. I don't think there would be any professional turmoil, I just don't see any reason for changing my name. My kids are teenagers, and have never expressed the slightest discomfort with it.

Anonymous wrote:I did. It never ocurred to me to change, and my husband didn't care. I have a professional identity and my name is my name. Why should I change it? I'm not my husband's property.

I think this is a funny one, would the profession you work in go into chaos if you changed your name? Even Hillary and Michelle changed their last names. Get over yourself.

Regardless of race it is much easier for the family and children if the parent's have the same last name. No uncomfortable explanations, assumptions etc...

I did. It never ocurred to me to change, and my husband didn't care. I have a professional identity and my name is my name. Why should I change it? I'm not my husband's property.

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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!

I don't think the teacher's assumption itself was absurd (she basically had a 3 in 4 chance of being correct), especially in light of the father's absence at the daycare, but it certainly could've been handled better.

PP here- it was absolutely absurd. 3 out 4 chance based on what? It was completely insensitive to make such a strong and uninformed assumption. And by doing so the child was excluded from school wide social events. How is that not absurd?

Anonymous wrote:AA mom here. I always wear my ring when pregnant because I dont want people to assume I'm unmarried. Respectability politics at it finest.

I do this too, and I'm white. I don't see anything wrong with letting people assume you have morals.

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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!

I don't think the teacher's assumption itself was absurd (she basically had a 3 in 4 chance of being correct), especially in light of the father's absence at the daycare, but it certainly could've been handled better.

Not PP, but depending on the area, the mother's job, etc. she most certainly did not have a 3 in 4 chance of being correct.

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 [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!

I don't think the teacher's assumption itself was absurd (she basically had a 3 in 4 chance of being correct), especially in light of the father's absence at the daycare, but it certainly could've been handled better.

AA mom here. I always wear my ring when pregnant because I dont want people to assume I'm unmarried. Respectability politics at it finest.

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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.

Yeah, no, sorry. I'm the same person. And professionally I'm fine, and I do quite a bit of business overseas. Shockingly enough, my contacts are educated enough to know that lots of Americans change their names! It sounds like you have issues.

This decision really does have more implications for AA women than white women. Interesting discussion

Interesting thread. I had a different last name growing up because I was born out of wedlock and given my biological dad's name. It didn't help matters that my mom looked a lot younger than her age so without knowing her age it looked like she had me at 16. My mom married my step dad so all my half-siblings ended up with the same last name except me. Given that history I had no problems dropping my maiden name, it was a thing that made me stand out in my own family and referenced a relatiosnhip I did not have with my bio dad.

That said, I know a lot of professional women keep their maiden names. I guess that could go either way as a sign of professional success or being an unwed mom with the kid having the last name of the dad. I think the hyphenated last name though is more of a socioeconomic thing as doing that if you have professional success but want to also include husband's last name.

Why is this thread in the relationship forum? Much more of a parenting discussion