To think children should have their mothers surname

[Laurendelaney1987]

if the parents are not married. You did the hard work! Why the fuck should the child carry his name?

I agree, no way, would my children have a different surname to me.

I gave DD1 her father's surname, although we weren't married at the time. I took XH's surname on marriage, I couldn't wait to change my surname as I've always hated it!

DD2 was born during the marriage so had her father's name.

I'm now very happily divorced and I've kept my married name because I really can't stand my maiden name!

I couldn't wait to change my surname as I've always hated it!

But you DID wait. You waited until you were married. Why didn't you change it before then if you hated it so much?

It's less of a smack in the teeth to your parents isn't it?!

It’s great that lots more dads of women will get their names passed on than dads of men. That’ll show the patriarchy!

🙄

Why do the dads get their own names in this argument but their kids don't?

Eh?

You referred to dads of women and dads of men getting their names passed down. Why not just women and men, why are they the dads names?

Well, they might not be, I suppose, if a parent changed their name by deed poll.

Otherwise the children will have a father’s name somewhere (more or less immediately) up the family tree. Whether on the father’s side or the mother’s side.

So again, why do you think the surnames are the fathers specifically? Those fathers, as you acknowledge here, are unlikely to have been the first with their names. Why not refer to them as being the names of the daughters and sons they pass them to?

But it's my name. Sure, I got the name from my dad but I've had it for 35+ years, it's my name.

Women's names belong to them, not their dads.

I’m a bit puzzled by what you’re saying.

Taking it in concrete terms, is your surname from your father or your mother? If from your mother, is her surname from her father? (If you changed your surname to something altogether different, that’s a whole new situation.)

If you mean that a woman with her father’s surname is a ‘new start’, as it were, what’s the reason for wanting children to have that surname rather than the ‘new start’ father’s surname? (Other than keeping your maiden name, giving it to your children and avoiding questions at passport control - which I agree can be a good enough reason.)

If there’s a sense of liberation in keeping your own father’s name, or your mother’s father’s name, I’m not feeling it.

They’re asking why you think a woman’s name is her father’s name, but a man’s name is just his. As opposed to his father’s name.

This is a perfect example: If there’s a sense of liberation in keeping your own father’s name, or your mother’s father’s name, I’m not feeling it.

Why do you consider your father’s last name his name, but your mother’s last name is referred to as her father’s? They both came by their last names in the same way.

@WhileMyDishwasherGentlyWeeps I do feel a sense of myself and a pride in myself I guess, from keeping my ‘father’s name’. More so than if I had taken my husband’s ‘father’s name’. I don’t know if it’s ‘liberation’. But I do think if I’d taken my husbands name, or didn’t and my kids had their fathers name, it wouldn’t have felt so good to me.

I don’t think of it as my father’s name. I’d just as happily have changed to my mother’s name in life and given my children that surname also.

My surname has historical meaning to me and to my children. And that does quite profound since I did carry my children, risk my life to give birth, put my career on hold whilst I did the main caring. Why should they not get my historical name?

It makes me feel ‘whole’ I think. My children and me all have the same surname, and it’s one that has huge meaning to me and to them. It was mine from birth and theirs from birth. I love that connection. It feels right.

I'm sure people will leap in to tell me it happens all the time, but I have never heard a man say "I've always hated my last name- I couldn't wait to get married and take my wife's- it's so much nicer."

Because they have internalised misogyny and are blind to the fact they have just proven it for all to see!

Yep, I can see you're puzzled. For the reasons the previous posters have pointed out: you haven't clocked what a colossal double standard you're applying here. The men you're talking about will almost certainly have all got their names the same way as the woman, yet you'll pick out a man as being the one having actual ownership.

People will come up with any concept at all, however strangulated, to avoid admitting that a woman can have her own name. Either nobody has their own name unless they're the first person with it, in which case you're wrong to say that it's women's fathers rather than men's fathers getting their names passed down. Or everyone gets their own name if it's theirs, in which case you're also wrong.

Also, the change has to start somewhere.

In the past, sexist tradition has been to pass the name (and wealth) via the male line. By retaining your own name, as a woman, and giving it to your kids, you are changing this. Yes, it may be the same name as was previously passed down the male line, but now it is being passed down by the female line.

By giving your kids the dad’s name, you are perpetuating, not changing the sexist status quo.

It’s always made more sense to pass on things via the female line - it’s the only way to truly know a genetic link. The reason it was passed via the male lineage is pure misogyny - a way of controlling women by not allowing them ownership or agency.

@DialEmforMurder Once again, totally agree with you.

The kids at school (Yr 5) told me today that I "couldn't be married" when I said "my husband" because I'm Miss * at school.

It was pretty cool actually because then one girl in the class said "So I don't have to become a Mrs if I get married? I never knew that!"

A man going on holiday with a child of a different surname would probably be under more suspicion than a woman.

Yes. Exactly.

The reason I have my child's surname (from his dad, we were married at the time) in my passport as we travel a lot. He is biracial too, so it helps crossing borders. (Not a UK passport so don't know if this is a possibility there).

But if you both had your name, they would also match and no cause any upset.

or if they were different you could show the birth certificate.

not exactly an issue, is it?

I agree. I hate the assumption that a woman will take her husband's name when she gets married and that the kids will take his name regardless of the woman's surname. I kept my own name and we gave our daughter a double barrelled surname which I actually hate but was the only way we could find that was fair.

That's incorrect, no one changes their name in Spain or "join it" with anybody's. The woman's name remains the same regardless of marriage in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries. Everybody, men and women, has two family names: one from their mum and one from their dad. The children inherit the first family name from each parent, and the parents decide in which order they go. Changing anyone's name by marriage is an unknown concept in Spanish culture, and I still haven't figured out why so many anglosaxon countries, some of which have much more progressive and less sexist culture than Spain and Latin America, still have the tradition of women giving up their names for their husband's and their children not having theirs either.

Yeah I would say it’s fair to have the mothers name but if you are going to have kids together the least you can do is get married to show your commitment to each other and the baby..