To name all of your children after your ex husband

It’s shorthand for ‘this was the tradition that we followed for centuries’. You can obviously do what you want, but the expectation that kids have the surname of a non-resident non-primary carer is very modern and, I’d argue, suggests that the mother’s heritage, convenience and authority are less important. A lot of young women erroneously feel that they have to give their children the father’s surname (not legally but by tradition and expectation). This simply isn’t true.

What does Mr Blogs think about it?

It means that she is less likely to be asked to prove they are her kids when she is going through passport control.

People do what’s important to them and honestly that’s fair. I wanted to share a last name with my children, I told my husband if I took his name and we used it for our children he was never getting it back if we split.
I believe it should be society norm that children automatically get the mothers name but it’s not, so here we are.

No it isn’t

Nothing to do with you. Doesn't affect you at all.
You just came on here with a judgemental view of someone in the hope everyone else would agree with you and also judge & condemn someone they don't know.

Maybe reflect on that?

What part do you disagree with? It's a factual statement?

A lot of people do this for all sorts of reasons, mostly sonyhe children don't feel different from having different names.

Huh?
That is their family name. Or are you complaining about women not changing names on marriage now? What even is your point?

That's being eroded anyway. And it's not like the custom of women name changing on marriage ever seamlessly accommodated divorce, because it wasn't supposed to.

But the nearest available option in a situation where a woman has already name changed, given the child that name and then has more in different relationships is for her to keep using it. If you want them to have a family name, this is it! And you clearly articulated the 'something' that it means.

You know, this has made me think about this from a different viewpoint.
I think children should have their mother's surname. End of it.
For whatever reason we are still giving them the father's surname, for people to criticise whether sibblings have different surnames, or the same or more than one father or whatever bullshit flaw they can spot on someone's live just from their names.
I think it is enough. Let's name the child after the mother and the mother only. All accross the world.
She carries them, bring them to this world, nurse them and raise them. Her surname should be it.

Thank you, but I'd have to have known who I was to be able to pick one that felt better. I knew what I wasnt - a true sibling, a kid with a father, somebody who didnt deserve to be lied to until those half siblings put me straight and she finally spoke about him when I was 19 and she wasn't receiving benefits for me anymore.. But I didn't know who I actually was until he had also died

But it's not "his surname". She hasn't borrowed it like a library book. It became her name. And I can totally understand why she wants her family to all have a shared name. She can't change her oldest child's so if they want one name, that's it.

Another one who expected four boys called Steve. Disappointed.

You’ve literally just explained the key reason for her doing what she did. Her family (her and her own children) all share a name. Their family name. She clearly wanted all her children to share a last name. If she had done differently, she wouldn’t have adhered to your ‘family name’ principle…

I disagree with your statement.

This poster is correct that historically the child's surname was meant to be their mother's. Obviously these days there's no hard and fast rule.

I did wonder if she’d called four children Keith. Now that would have been unusual.

Why are children “meant “ to have their mother’s surname ? What a load of crap sorry. My kids have a different surname to me. Hasn’t made any difference to my life or theirs so far I have to say

But the mother has the “sperm donor” of her first child’s name. Ridiculous comment

No it’s her name. Very normal and sensible to give the children her surname.

Do you not mean you live somewhere where there are long traditions about men’s names, where men’s names mean something? Because that’s how it’s coming across!

But what sort of world do you live in where children all having the same last name as their mother is odd? Or what sort of world are you in where women can’t own names?

Well it does still belong to the Smiths. She and her children are still Smiths.

Presumably If the Browns bought the Smiths Farm you would say “let’s go to the Browns farm”, you would keep calling it the Smiths farm. If someone looked puzzled you’d then elaborate that the Browns have bought it. Thats like people still calling something Woolworths when it’s now a Boots and Woolworths stopped having shops ages ago.

This honestly isn't the big deal you think it is. My mum married three times and each time kept the name of the last husband until she married the next one. Some people aren't super attached to their surnames, any one will do, and hate paperwork. Simple as that. And why wouldn't she want the same surname as her children, and for them all to have the same surname? Having one with her married surname it makes sense to carry on.

Honestly I'd be more concerned with the fact she keeps on having kids with obviously incompatible men and then breaking up with them, thus complicating her children's lives unduly. 4 kids by different dads? Stop picking blokes lass, you're no good at it!