AIBU not to want child to have his surname?

[Jess499427]

Hi all

I am pregnant with my first baby, due in June. Me and DH are married but I didn’t take his surname. There were a few reasons (practicality/effort of changing my name, I quite like my name, and I’ve had it my whole life so would feel strange to change it), but the main reason was that DH’s surname is very unusual and when hearing it for the first time, people often laugh.

We have discussed baby names but have got stuck on the surname. DH is keen for baby to have his surname and I am keen for her NOT to have his surname. I feel like it’s unfair to inflict the name (it is quite awful, it’s hard to describe without actually saying what it is) on a brand new person! I have suggested that she could have my name, we could choose a new name, we could all have a new name... but he is adamant.

AIBU? We are both being quite stubborn. Should I give in? One of us will have to!

I kept my own surname when me and DH got married.
I like my full name and didn't want to change it. DS is 18mo and has my surnams. DH didn't care in the slightest, hes his dad and loves him and his surname makes no difference to how he feels about him.
DS2 is due in 10 weeks and he will also have my surname.
Again, DH is 100% fine with this, his family are less pleased but that doesn't bother me or DH as it was our choice.
Reading things like this always makes me happy that DH respected my choice and was happy with what made me happy.

because its a fact that kids do better in married households than with single parents. by this I mean kids who grow up without fathers

If it's a fact then I'm sure you'll be able to post a link to this evidence.

I'm not convinced that research comparing the children of married couples, with the children of single parents, would have much validity about the impact of marriage specifically though.

There is proof that woman (and men) are happier and more secure both emotionally and financially in a married monoagamous relationship

Proof? Please share it so that we can have a discussion on it. Again, to have validity, it will need to be comparing married and unmarried couples, taking into account confounding factors like socioeconomic status, education, ethnicity etc etc.

There are some very weird people around.
Let's get this straight. I can tell you that children distilled for all sorts of reasons.
The colour of hair maybe one of them. However comparing that to getting laughed at for having a stupid (or whatever you want to call it) name is not viable.
One is unavoidavle, the other is completely avoidable.
If you want to set your child up to have the piss taken out of them for their entire life, then go right ahead.

Also plenty of unmarried women give their child the fathers name so this whole debate about marriage is moot.

Studies have actually shown that marriage is more beneficial to men than it is to women.

adrienneJ
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with taking your husband's name, if that's what you want to do but why should it be that way around. I know that, practically, it doesn't affect you, it's just the principle of the idea, but it could just as easily work the other way around. You could start have a familial unit under the mother's name. Tradition is fine (well, not always) but changing this practice would hardly be detrimental.

Adrienne - dare I ask what you think about same-sex marriage?

Studies have actually shown that marriage is more beneficial to men than it is to women.

Right, that actually depends on the study and which benefits were measured though. From a biological perspective it gives the man a purpose as protector, as men without a purpose tend to destroy it has been argued.

Seriously, there are too many to list in fact i couldn't find even 1 to the contrary but for aguments sake:

US National Library of Medicine
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Journal ListLinacre Qv.81(4); November, 2014PMC4240051

Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.

In future its best if you post evidence to disprove what ive said as then we can debate about it rather than proving studies have been cited

In future its best if you post evidence to disprove what ive said as then we can debate about it rather than proving studies have been cited

My, my. We are getting testy, aren't we?

From a biological perspective it gives the man a purpose as protector, as men without a purpose tend to destroy it has been argued.

Evidence please. You seem to have a terribly low opinion of men; I’m curious to see whether it is backed by any evidence or whether you are simply prejudiced.

The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.

Almost all these studies tend to compare married couple families with divorced or other single parent families with one parent absent - so in fact they’re measuring the impact of being in a family with two parents in a stable long-term relationship v not. I’ve seen very few if any pieces of work that actually consider marriage as the determining factor, rather than the long-term stable relationship. Have you?

But seeing as we're giving one another advice, could you perhaps proof before posting? Your spelling, punctuation, streams of consciousness etc. make for quite difficult reading.

Adrienne - dare I ask what you think about same-sex marriage?

Yes, dare we ask.

@Jess499427 I was in this position a few years ago.

I would say stick you your guns!! I refused to take my now ex's surname if we married and I didn't want our child having it either. After our child was born he bullied me into giving our child his surname.

14 years later and our child hates the name and wants to legally change it. Bullying over it has happened so we had to change schools and he is known as my surname.

Ex is still a twat and claims it's nonsense, as he was never bullied but both his siblings were!

Those of you up in arms about using the’mans’ surname , you do realise that even if you have been given your mothers surname it is most likely it was from her father? If you really are bothered by patriarchy then invent your very own new name .

Sorry op , that was not directed at you! Could you use park of your husband la name with yours to ie if he is Johnson and you are smith - johnsmith?

Part and last
Soz

Those of you up in arms about using the’mans’ surname , you do realise that even if you have been given your mothers surname it is most likely it was from her father?

Such an original comment on MN. It must be hours since someone has posted similar.

So explain this to me: Twins are born, a boy and a girl, both given the same surname. Why is the boy's name considered his own but the girl's name is just being borrowed from her father? At what point can a woman claim a name as her own?

0304mum
Up in arms? It’s traditionally what happened. Shall we go back to how surnames were invented as well? Perhaps everyone should pick their own one. Or just start from where we’ve arrived?

Of course the name would be both of theirs but somehow lost in translation is the fact that surnames are often originally from patriarchal lineage.

Of course they are. But we can't change what happened in generations past. I can only work with the name I was born with.

“ married couple are needed to model their their children and provide positive role models of behaviour to teach boys how to be good men and how to treat women”

Worked well, that, hasn't it?

Of course the name would be both of theirs but somehow lost in translation is the fact that surnames are often originally from patriarchal lineage

Nope, it's just one of the dimwitted reactionary tactics used to argue that men's names are somehow their very own names, whereas women's names are always really someone else's and kind of detachable.

Imagine a world in which men's birth names are described as 'bachelor names' or 'ickle boy starter names' that they were supposed to shed on marriage, like having a woman choose them was the key thing that made them a grown-up -- oh, it's 'tradition'.

Both my children got my surname. I birthed them so I named them.

Adrienne, you need to actually give the citation rather than copying and pasting the bit of the study that you say proves what you say. Research is not equal, you need to give people the chance to critically appraise it, otherwise it's meaningless.

Also, I'd just like to point that saying something is "fact" doesn't mean that other people have to then 'disprove' you. That's not how debate usually works.

To clarify, by critically appraise, I mean consider the methodology used, the statistical significance, whether this supports the conclusions drawn, how the study was conducted and funded etc etc. Just because it's been published is not proof in and of itself.