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?

Yes but the point is that the solution of hyphenated names isn’t addressing the real structural imbalance- that the overwhelming norm is dad’s name takes precedence, and if mum doesn’t want to change her name then she puts up with a different name to her children. Hyphenating is a third option which isn’t sustainable. What we need to normalise now is that it becomes just as common for women to give their name to their children and for men to take their female partner’s name in cases where it’s thought desirable for everyone to have a shared name. The latter (where the female partner name is chosen as the sole family name) is so so rare , it is still so hard to negotiate this as a woman imv.

I just don't get the whole 'frenzy' over whether a woman should or should not change their name.
Lots of MNs get their knickers in a twist over how shocking it is for women to make that decision ! Basically it's got F-all to do with anyone else but the woman in question!

Which is fine, but a very different point. Anyone who thinks they're in a position to remove a decision from their child is tragically misguided.

Also, hyphenation is no more or less sustainable than any other option.

Anyone who thinks they're in a position to remove a decision from their child is tragically misguided

What does this mean?

hyphenation is no more or less sustainable than any other option

it’s unsustainable in the sense that you can’t keep hyphenating down the generations or you’ll end up with stupidly long names. I suppose one option is the next generation takes one name from mum and one from dad and everyone always has a hyphenated name. But in any case not everyone likes hyphenated names, they can be long, clumsy, not very elegant etc.

I’m not against hyphenating per se - each to their own!, but it should be part of a range of equal choices. Just advocating for hyphenation doesn’t address the structural imbalance in prioritising dad’s name over mums when a choice has to be made, which will always remain until we normalise the expectation that it is equally preferable to just chose mum’s name.

They make a decision just like any other couple would and of course it is unlikely they'll have 4 surnames.

They might keep their own names
They might use one each of their names
One might decide to take the others name

It was the best option for us. DC is our child so it makes sense that he has both of our names.

The post of mine you quoted was in reply to someone claiming that double barrelling selfishly defers choice to the next generation. But there is no naming choice that could prevent deferring choice to the next generation, because parents choose their child's name, and even if they go along with what their parents did, in a free society they'll still have to make a decision. A parent who thinks they can do anything to prevent this deferral is therefore sadly misguided.

In terms of hyphenation, there are entire cultures that use a surname from both parents. Granted, they don't necessarily hyphenate, but the basic principle is the same. This has been going on for some time. It has been sustained.

But the underlying point is that nothing anyone calls their own child means the child doesn't then have a decision to make if they have DC. Sustainability as an argument simply doesn't make sense in this context, because you don't get to pick whether your decisions are sustained down the generations or not. If you want to argue that we should normalise the use of the mother's name only to try and balance the field, by all means do so, but that's a separate point to the now frankly daft trope about hyphenated.

double barrelling selfishly defers choice to the next generation

I think the point is that it does in the sense that double barrelling doesn’t address head on the structural imbalance which limits women’s choices. Yes each generation needs to make a choice about names, but the problem is that there isn’t currently a balanced/ equal choice to be had/ made: it’s either dad’s name or hyphenation , if everyone in the family wants the same name. It’s exceptionally rare for men to agree to take their female partner’s name. I suppose it’s still seen as emasculating? It’s selfish to defer addressing this inequality to the next generation- we should be prepared to confront it now.

Based on that poster's other contributions in this thread, there is not a chance in hell that what you're saying here was in fact the point. She doesn't like dads having a different name to their DC at all. Read a few posts back!

It's just not helpful for the argument you're making it to try and tie it to a silly claim about double barrels deferring choices.

What you're saying is that you want the framework in which they make the choice to be different. Which isn't the same thing, and additionally, women who are are by definition using their own surnames for their child are not the place to start.

I agree. If the parents aren't married there's no reason for the child to have the fathers surname. I would always assume the mothers surname.

Tbf I didn’t read that posters previous comments, I just saw what (I thought) she meant by that one isolated comment , but maybe I was taking it out of context !

Lol I think it's safe to say so!

DD has my surname (I'm her father) and I've got mixed feelings about it.

DP didn't know she was pregnant until she went into labour. We'd also only been going out for 11 months at this point. We were also both planning on being childfree, so had never really thought about baby names.

As a result we'd never really thought about names and really struggled to come up with a first name we both liked. We finally found one 13 days after DD was born, and DP said she wanted DD to have my surname because it was traditional.

I didn't argue, I wasn't really feeling connected yet to this baby who'd just appeared (We weren't living together at this point, and I'd missed the birth due to working away and not getting back in time.) Also, the only first name we could agree on really didn't go with DPs surname. It sounded like a superheroes girlfriend ( think Lana Lang, Lois Lane, Pepper Potts type of alliteration)

16 years on, I'm glad that we have the same surname for conveniences sake. Men get treated with suspicion when they're with a small child in a way that women just don't, and having someone ask my daughter her name, and me be able to produce ID with the same surname has been a godsend at times.

(An example, me and DD went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour when she was about 12, needed a hotel room the night before. DP loathes HP so didn't come. Lone man sharing with a young girl in a Travelodge not far from a major airport raised some suspicions, so DD was subtly asked some subtle but probing questions by the receptionist. I doubt sharing a surname was the only factor in the receptionist deciding I wasn't a human trafficker, but it can't have hurt.)

However at the same time, I worry sometimes that DP feels slightly on the outside of the family. DDs personality and interests are similar to mine, and she looks more like me (which admittedly was reassuring when there was suddenly a baby who'd been conceived when we'd only been dating a couple of months). DP hasn't said anything, but I do think that extra signifier of "This child is mine, I made her" would be nice for her.

We should have double barrelled really, but I don't think it even occurred to us in the midst of the other chaos at the time.

Why doesn’t your DP change his name to yours and your DD’s?

Oops sorry just realised you’re the Dad! 🤦🏼‍♀️

Our DS has both, unhyphenated, mine last. It was either that or mine alone. I wouldn’t have considered him not having my name at all.

No worries!

To answer your question - DP was engaged and tied financially to a right abusive twat a few years before me. As a result when we got together, she was planning on never doing anything that tied her to a man again. No marriage, no kids, no sharing financials etc.

Obviously the no kids thing went well!, and after a few months she did move in with me, but she was very clear it was my house, and we've always kept money separate. We did finally buy a house together a couple of years ago.

But the idea of her marrying me, or taking my name would have sent her running for the hills. On the flip side, I don't actually like my surname and probably would have been happy to change mine, but the idea of doing that while in a very tenuous relationship that had just had a bomb dropped on it didn't even occur to us. DP hadn't even said "I love you" at this point. (I had, but it made her run away. I mean she actually left the pub and went home!)

I agree.

Hence my kids have my surname.

How so?

This is same here.

Why have both names without a hyphen?

@CurlewKate Preference. I don’t really like the hyphen.

I agree. Currently in the process of changing my children’s surnames post divorce. They want my name and I don’t know why I didn’t double barrel the. At the very least when I got married. Don’t be me!

This

I strongly believe he should change his name to hers if he feels that strongly.

Exactly.

But they don't think their argument through do they. Not the brightest lol.