Department Of Yeah What He Said
MH forwarded a link this article, to moiself and our offspring, with the comment, “Why weren’t *we* interviewed for this article?”
Why Parents Give Their Children a Last Name Other Than the Father’s:
Some American parents have been breaking the patrilineal tradition for generations, but the number who do so remains small.
(Upshot, The NY Times 12-27-23)
Seems like everything lately is sending moiself into a memory spiral. Exhibit A B C D E F G: one of the first things I thought of, after reading the above article, was my Letter to the Editor which was published in, the (now defunct) Brain, Child magazine. I wrote the letter in response to an article in Brain, Child’s “debate” section. I remember joking to another editor that, given BC’s circulation, the letter probably garnered me more readership than most of my published stories.
Behold my missive, in its entirety: [1]
LB , the writer of “Does a Family Need to Share a Surname?” (Brain, Child’s Debate section, Winter 2009) claims she is a feminist, but that her intention to take her future husband’s surname “…is not a feminist issue for me. It’s a family one.”
Say what? Since when are feminism and family issues separate?
LB feels that a family should share a surname. As for those who feel the same and do so by blending names she declares, “Think of the strife involved in that…it sounds fine, but it causes issues in school…at the doctor’s office…whether it’s right or not, our wider administrative world operates largely on an assumption that a family shares the same name.”
Ms. LB (Mrs. Soon-to-be-His-Last-Name?) needs to get out more. The “administrative world” deals quite effectively, every day, with blended, step and foster families, whose inhabitants often have three or more differing surnames.
My husband made the bold step of keeping his name when we married (oh yeah, so did I). Our children share a blended name, and we refer to ourselves collectively using that name, as the Wagnell family. Who knows (or cares) what people say behind our backs, but we’ve had nothing but positive comments to our fronts:
“Oh, I get it!”
“How clever!”
“We’ll remember your family!” (And guess what? They do.).
It has caused us no trouble, or even inconvenience. Even if it did, how long does it take to say, “I’m Robyn Parnell, Belle Wagnell’s mother” when you call the doctor or meet your kid’s teacher?
Any cultural anthropologist (or weekend genealogist) can tell you that naming customs have varied, all over the world for all of recorded history, and somehow, people have always been able to keep track of who belongs with whom.
Like LB, I am also a writer of short stories. I would point out to her that, more important than any alleged administrative inconvenience is the story that your choice of a surname tells, regarding to what or whom your family is and belongs. Few things are more personal than your name; it is part of your life story. Sure, your surname is (most likely) your father’s. But it’s your father’s, not someone else’s father’s name.
If you take your husband’s name, some people will judge you…just as they should, because you call yourself a feminist but cling to the most personal aspect of traditionalism. Feminism has always involved thinking outside the box re the ways people structure relationships. “Giving away” your name makes a statement, whether you intend that or not, which is why women in many cultures and countries are not allowed to keep their surnames.
Don’t take your rights for granted; don’t say you’re a feminist when you go for the traditional, patriarchal choice. Proclaiming feminism only to “give away” your name tells your children and the world something very basic, even Orwellian: all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
If you really want to share the same name with your husband, both of you can change your names. After all, it is a new family unit you’re creating, isn’t it? You can look into your joint family histories, or favorite books or mythologies, until you find a name you both like and both change your surname (we have several friends who’ve done this; again, the “wider administrative world” has not imploded). Many options are consistent with a feminist world view. Taking his name isn’t one of them.
BTW and FYI, re that pesky administrative world: do you realize that if you take hubby’s name you’ll have to change or append your driver’s license, passport, bank account information, medical records, credit cards, your country’s version of a social security card, and…?
Robyn Parnell
Hillsboro, OR
It’s been years since I’ve read that. Looking back, perhaps I was a bit hard on LB, but, ahem: she’d written the article for the BC section titled, *debate.* So, I did.
In real life/practice, separate from our wider administrative world (that phrase still cracks me up), given moiself’s passion re this issue one might wonder, what does moiself think about the decisions my friends and family have made re this matter?
With a few exceptions, I am in the minority (re my female friends and family who’ve maintained their given surnames [2] ). Now, do I think my friends who took their husbands’ surnames are cowards, or anti-feminist, or under the thumb of The Man ®, or whatever? No; of course not.
When it comes to personal life logistics, most of us wind up going for the easiest, everyone-does-it options. Translation: we follow tradition/the past of least resistance, even as we may (at least theoretically) understand how problematic and stifling these paths and traditions have been. When ideals meet up with technicalities and emotional issues in a dark alley, guess what side typically wins that mugging?
Also, there are *so* many variables. I’ve met some righteous feminist warriors who have been happy to take on a new last name, due to their less-than-pleasant attachment (e.g., cultural or familial or parental estrangement and/or abuse) to their birth surname. Some women recognize the limits of their energy and chose to battle on different/bigger fronts, and don’t t want to waste time and emotional wattage braving the criticism that comes from doing something different….and other women just never liked their original surname – perhaps it was awkward to pronounce or spell, or strange/embarrassing in some way [3] – but they feared that changing it “on their own” would be insulting to their parents, while changing to their husband’s name was the easy out.
My own stance was both idealistic and personal. My parents were pleased that my name remained my name –
Excuse the digression, but right here we have a prime example of male privilege:
99% of guys never even have to *think* of changing this basic part of their identity.
My parents were pleased that my name remained my name. [4] There was a wee bit o’ blowback from MH’s side of the family – two incidents – early on in our marriage. The first was a letter from his maternal grandmother to the two of us, which she addressed to Mr. and Mrs. MH….
Come to think of it, we had a bit of that – the misnaming of moiself in post-marital correspondence from MH’s side of friends/family (from people with whom I had previously corresponded and/or met, people to whom I had been introduced by my first and last names, and then these same people introduced me to their friends and family using both of my names, so it’s not like they didn’t know my last name). Moiself and MH didn’t belabor the point but we’d made it clear, both in the wedding invitations and in the wedding itself, what our names would be.
Y’all are familiar with how at the end of a wedding ceremony, the officiant introduces the couple with something like, “It is my pleasure to introduce to you, for the first time as husband and wife….”? Our wedding officiant, as per our instructions, expressed his pleasure at introducing us “…as husband and wife, MH and Robyn Parnell.” An hour or so later, during our wedding reception, a friend-of-MH’s family good-naturedly ribbed moiself about it – about how MH and I having two different surnames would be soooo hard for him to remember. I got no small amount of WTF? mileage from that comment:
This is amazing – What powers I possess!
By merely changing my marital status, I have somehow
reduced the memory capacity of the brains of grown-ass adults,
who are no longer able to recall the TWO syllables
of the last name which has always accompanied my first name.
How can she expect us to remember! The horror!
Once again, I digress.
To continue with Incident 1: MH’s grandmother never had any kind of problem with my name before I was married (and had written me thank you and other notes addressed to moiself’s first and name). Thus, when she pulled the Mr. and Mrs. thing, MH took point, seeing as how she was *his* relative. He gently reminded her that my name was still my name; there was no harm and no foul, and she got it right from then on.
Incident 2 came in the form of a letter, to moiself , from one of MH’s parents. While MH was mortified by the letter [5] I actually welcomed it, as it allowed what was obviously a concern (for that person) to get out into the open, and also provided moiself with the opportunity to share my opinions and reasoning. [6]
I do not think any less of my friends or family re their surname choices; with the exception of this particular blog post, I do not think of it at all in our interactions.
I do, however, occasionally think of the reaction of a long-time male friend re this matter. This friend is a smart, kind, empathetic, funny, creative, across-the-board-feminist-and-human-rights-advocate and one of the Best Men I Know ® (and moiself knows a lot of great men). When he heard about a mutual acquaintance who was getting married and had announced that she’d be taking her husband’s last name, [7] the very first thing he blurted out was,
“How will women ever be taken seriously
if they don’t even keep their own names!?”
* * *
Department Of Lightbulb Moments
Dateline: several weeks ago, out for a walk, listening to a rebroadcast of an older Freakonomics podcast, subjec: religion and tithing and does it – (tithing; i.e., giving away money to religious organizations) make you happy. Don’t ask moiself if the podcast reached any conclusions on the matter, as my mind wandered away from the podcast and began to jostle around an aha! epiphany:
Churches are habituaries.
Churches are habituaries. Yes, I’m making up that word, because it needs to exist.
As in, churches (chapels, cathedrals, mosques, temples, gurdwaras, tabernacles, any houses of religious worship) are habituaries– places where one becomes habituated to churchy ideas. A habituary is where one becomes habituated to intellectual and cultural fallacies; that is, to theologies and beliefs which you’d consider absurd at face value if they were coming from a *different* habituary. [8] But, in your habituary, your church, you get used to them – so used to them that you forget they are even there, and also what they look like to outsiders. You sing the songs, repeat the liturgies, without thinking about what you are saying, without considering, Is this plausible? Is this true? Without applying the kind of reasoning you would to any other statements purporting to explain reality.
I think this is also true for many liberal and/or nominally religious believers. [9] Examples include the family who lives in a neighborhood with not-so-great public schools, and joins a Catholic church so that their children may attend the church sponsored school, despite the fact that they do not support the church’s stands on political and/or social issues… [10] or people who attend and even join a church because they enjoy the social club aspect (churchy term: “fellowship”), of having yet another venue for meeting people, outside of work/school/neighborhood connections.
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [11]
* * *
May you carefully consider the absurdities of any habituaries you might frequent;
May you have fun responding to invitations to debate;
May you enjoy (or at least tolerate) the names you have kept or chosen;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] The letter was marginally edited for publication.
[2] “Maiden name” is a term that belongs in the Middle Ages. Don’t use it around me; respect yourself and don’t use it around anyone.
[3] My mother’s birth surname was Hole. While her Norwegian father was proud of his heritage and claimed that, back in The Old Country, Hole was a surname of respected landowners, his four daughters lived in Minnesota, not Norway, and were saddled with “Ha, ha, hole in the ground; fell in a hole… [or worse] “ jibes until they married and took on their respective husbands’ surnames.
[4] Thinking (correctly, in one part) that I was honoring them. My father went so far as to tell me, privately, how he’d wished (at least one of) my sisters had done the same.
[5] You bet I showed it to him.
[6] After I responded, kindly and firmly and “educationally” to the family member who had expressed their concerns to me, that person never brought it up again.
[7] His surname name was rather…odd, and her own was so great , as in, memorable – and it alliterated with her first name!
[8] Christians are very good at turning the critical eye of rationalism to the tenets of Islam (the absurdities of which include the micromanaging of all of life, such as – if you awake at night, wash your nose with water and blow it out three times because Satan stays in the upper part of everyone’s nose at night [Sahi Al-Bukhari Vol. 4, Bk. 54, No. 516] or those of, Hinduism with its karma and reincarnation and other irrationalities), but fail to recognize the absurdities within their own religion (e.g., to many outside the Christian faith the rite of communion = symbolic cannibalism), because they are *used to* them.
[10] And so they hold their noses/try not to think about such things until their kids graduate or they move to a better public school district.
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.
No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
