WIBU? Asking school to not use Mr and Mrs. R Bonkers

[bonkersLFDT20]

Got a letter from DS1's secondary school.
It was addressed to Mr and Mrs R Bonkers
R is my husband's initial.

I've just written to them suggesting they use more a more modern way to address parents e.g Mr and Mrs Bonkers or Mr R. Bonkers & Mrs M Bonkers.

WIBU?

I can't say it bothers me- no one means anything by it. I would rather miss out the initial, I am not going to write out the surname twice when it just gets thrown away.

I thought they generally wrote 'the parent or guardian of Ruby Bonkers' anyway.

I'm talking about the envelope. I can't find the actual letter now, so I'm not sure what the salutation was. General letters are indeed addressed to "the parent or guardian....".

Joint bills seem to be Mr. R Bonkers and Mrs M Bonkers.

What a depressing thread for women's rights. I'm "old" and when I worked for a mortgage company in the late 1980s, all correspondence had the couple's separate names on it, never Mr and Mrs R Bonkers. I also got married and kept my surname in the 1980s and thought that was what most young women would do and I could never have dreamt that 30 years on, women would still be taking on their husbands' surname. We seem to have gone backwards.

Farewell, it's wrong to you, and Debrett's. It's right to an increasing number of people who think the way you and I were taught it (I, like you, by stickler parents) is wrong and outdated. Both sets of people are right, in their own way, because these things are very personal.

Interestingly, my hugely conventional mother who has always been a stickler for form has decided in the last few years that, actually, her marital status isn't the business of anyone in officialdom and she would like to be addressed by her own first name and officials. She and my dad continue to be happily married but her view was that times and her role have changed and she wants to be addressed in a way that reflects that. I was really interested and surprised by this - and a bit impressed.

I'm very much the wife of my DH, but I'm not a Mrs and we don't share a last name. So what's the 'correct' way to address me? (Our DS has another name again and we feel very much like a single family unit; if we'd felt the need to all have the same name both DH and I would have changed our names as neither of us was keen on taking the other's name.)

And for goodness' sake, it's form and etiquette, not grammar. Quite cross about a school suggesting it might be.

Bonkers, I'm not that sure why we need titles on envelopes anyway. I often just put R & M Bonkers (though obv only if I'm writing to you).

YANBU!! My own mother sent me and DH an anniversary card with it addressed in exactly the way youdescribe...despite her KNOWING that I kept my own name and that I am a feminist. To me, it is being called some completely random name, for it is NOT my name!! Very irritating and disrespectful to me as a separate human being of EQUAL importance to my husband, no less.

I dunno...to me it is quite an important thing.

SplitHead, I'm so very tempted when people send something to Mr & Mrs DH Lastname to send my next letter to them addressed to Mrs and Mrs Wife's MaidenName. Which would be just as correct.

I have resisted the temptation so far.

MrsBW you talk as we have won equality. We haven't and a clear signal of that is women changing their name. You say you made the choice to change your name but you were raised in a culture that pushes you every day to be subservient to men and see you changing your name as the norm. I don't think we can call it a choice until we live in a fair, equal society. One small way of fighting for equality is to see your name as a equal to that of a mans and not something you give up because he wants to marry you.

I don't see my maiden name as my name. I see it as my father's. I know some people will argue with me to kingdom come that it's 'my' name, but to me, it's a constant reminder of a man who walked out on my mother and her new born baby leaving her struggling with severe mental health issues and I will never agree it's 'my' name and not his.

I couldn't wait to get rid of that name. It was a positive choice to change my name to my husband's and have our own family name.

I know very well that we haven't achieved equality. But for people to tell me I shouldn't change my name, rather than afford me the choice, seems to be a real backward step. I would never - in a million years - have chosen to keep the name given to me by my father and yet there are those that would tell me I should have and because I didn't I can't believe in equality?

I think that response from the school is a good one too.

Ladybigtoes, what a load of bs. What constitutes a real feminist? Not shaving our bits? Not shaving your pits.? Never wearing lipstick? Boycotting all shops who use sexist advertising? Moving out of society and having a feminist commune.? Noit sleeping withthe enemy and embracing political lesbianism?

Who gets to decide who is feminist enough?

One thing to add though... Just because I'm happy to be addressed as Mrs BW, I don't assume everyone is.... And I would absolutely refer to people as they requested, not simply follow conventional etiquette.

I prefer 'Jane and Reg Bonkers' myself

I don't think I would have been terribly satisfied with that response.

First, as another poster has already pointed out, it has nothing to do with grammar. It is a social construct and, in my view, a wholly outmoded one. I can remember my mother (now in her 60s) bristling about this when I was a child. She had taken my father's name on marriage, but very much objected to receiving mail adressed to Mrs Michael [surname]. She had never changed her name to Michael.

I am mshisname

I changed my name, but get the rage when I'm called Mrs. I never took on that name. Ms is correct as it only means a woman-marriage status unknown or none of your business.

I suspect that we do get some letters addressed to Mr and Mrs Hisname Oursurname - I haven't noticed, because it wouldn't worry me too much - but that is my personal opinion, and I will l defend anyone's right to hold a different one, and to ask for their choice of address to be used by their dc's schools or wherever.

OP - I am glad you have a satisfactory response from the school.

A bit late to this thread, but I had no idea anyone apart from aged grandaunts addressed letters to Mr & Mrs His Initial His Surname any more? I forgive it in anyone over ninety but get The Rage otherwise.

Lol yes Jassy...I think I might do that too. I satisfied myself by swatting my mum over the head with the envelope!! It kept it goodnatured but at the same time I felt exasperated at how she doesn't see the bigger picture and the message this kind of thing sends out.

I was just glad she was able to hand deliver it so the postman didn't see it!! Hate little things like that, which perpetuate the rubbish that women are secondary to men/their husbands, as the norm.

Ladybigtoes, what a load of bs. What constitutes a real feminist? Not shaving our bits? Not shaving your pits.? Never wearing lipstick? Boycotting all shops who use sexist advertising? Moving out of society and having a feminist commune.? Noit sleeping withthe enemy and embracing political lesbianism?

None of these. This is exactly the problem. When feminism gets bogged down in whether this or that or the other is OK, it always runs into contradictions (e.g, if you say women can't do something because it's not feminist, you are limiting them which is not feminist, etc.) and becomes illogical and falls apart.

Feminism is about equality. It's not about being feminist enough, it's about being feminist at all. If you embrace a tradition which is all about reflecting, embedding and continuing an essential inequality - that is not a feminist thing to do because the concern of feminists is to replace inequality with equality – to act and live in a way that requires and embodies equality between men and women.

If you think it's fine because you are a feminist and you do want equality but you just took his name because it's no big deal, you need to see that these evaluations of men as more important than women are deeply ingrained, and not necessarily conscious. If you can't see that one person in a marriage getting to have their name become the name of the marriage and the family while the other loses their name, and that the loser just happens to be the women, is a big deal then think again. Deep, ingrained acceptance of inequality like this underpins and props up all kinds of much worse, more dangerous manifestations of sexism. It is things like this that make many men think, deep down, that they don't have to pull their weight. That they can be an EA. That hitting her was her fault. Not all men - but that acceptance that men are more important, on the part of all of us, is what we should be trying to get rid of.

To me, it's like saying you're not racist, but it should be fine for black people to take the names of their employers because it's traditional and what happened under slavery, so it's no biggie.

To put it another way, ask 100 men who are about to get married if they are going to change their name to their wife's and point out that around 50% of them should be doing so. How many of them will just happily do it without question because it's no biggie?

Grammatically correct? It is nothing to do with grammar; it is a social convention. "Mistress" does not mean "wife of." It is the feminine equivalent of "Master" from which "Mr" is derived. At one time married and unmarried women were called Mistress and it was abbreviated "Mrs."
The Mrs. Hisfirstname Hissurname convention is sexist. Word usage conventions (and grammar for that matter) change as times change.
The school's response is very pompous.

And why should it be a continued convention that a woman's title conveys her marital status and a man's does not? Give me Ms. or better yet, no title at all (as in the Quaker practice).

"I know very well that we haven't achieved equality. But for people to tell me I shouldn't change my name, rather than afford me the choice, seems to be a real backward step. I would never - in a million years - have chosen to keep the name given to me by my father and yet there are those that would tell me I should have and because I didn't I can't believe in equality?"

Nobody says you have to keep your father's name- you could have changed it to anything you liked as soon as you were 18. Why wait unto you got married to shed a name that had such bad associations for you?

I am equal in every way. If I hadn't been proud to take my husbands name then I wouldn't have married him. The school is correct. At work I am first name, last name and no title except for that which describes my job role. At home I am Mrs His Initial, His last name. If I were addressed as Mrs my first name, his last name it would denote that I was divorced and I am not.

Don't understand why it's such a problem. If he gets a K I'll be delighted to be Lady his first name, his surname. Goes to brush hat and check gloves

Lady BigToes, your post of 19.38 is fantastic.

If I were addressed as Mrs my first name, his last name it would denote that I was divorced and I am not.

Only by outmoded and sexist conventions that are happily dying out.

Deep, ingrained acceptance of inequality like this underpins and props up all kinds of much worse, more dangerous manifestations of sexism.

Yes, this.