Why are so many kids STILL taking the father's name?

[LefthandRight]

Is this some kind of feminist blind spot? Most kids still get the dads name and I see women saying "it was just easier", "double barrelling was a mouthful", "I don't mind". You even get situations where the mum has not taken the father's name so she has a different name to her kids but "it's no big deal" and it's like... So it's no big deal for the woman but apparently its a huge big deal for the man?

It really makes me angry because I just can't believe women have to go through the effort and intrusiveness/pain of childbirth only to have that ownership "label" whipped off them, it feels unfair

I haven't got a fucking clue. The worst one Is when they aren't married and their kid have some random feckless man's surname

Sure, but very few do that.

Lolll, so anyone who questions the lazy reproduction of patriarchal traditions is an “angry man hater”. Some internalised misogyny you have going on there..

If the mother’s father was feckless they have a random feckless man’s surname already.

Well the 1st 3 letters of my birth name are Fuk (pronounced as spelt). Do want to take a wild guess as to why I took my (now ex), H's name and also gave that name to my DD? BTW 25 years after our divorce I still use "his" name as I now consider it mine.

My daughter is double-barrelled- thankfully my mum made a point when I was pregnant that if we never married I would never share a surname with my daughter. We then separated and I am now married and my husband and I have double barrelled each other's beginning with mine so we now all share initials with my daughter and a first surname as will her subsequent siblings.

I regret giving my ds my partner’s surname.

Before I knew the sex, I told DP we’d use my surname for a girl, his for a boy. I don’t like either of our surnames much, and we did seriously consider changing both our surnames so we were all the same, but we didn’t have a strong candidate for the new name, and it’s a bit of a faff, so went with the original plan.

Now everyone thinks I just conformed to convention.

Believe or not,some women have been told that it's the law that they have to change their name. I kid you not. I had a friend years ago that I met through my DD's playgroup (not in contact with her now). We were talking about surnames and I said that I hated my maiden name so was actually quite relieved to change it when I married. No way was I going to keep my maiden name. She was like 'What? You HAVE to change your name,it's illegal not to'. I don't think she believed me when I said it was not illegal!

Thanks for reminding me about patriarchy, I had no idea.

You and others are missing OP’s point spectacularly. It’s not about you individually, she’s talking about it at a societal level.

No wonder she’s given up.

Children have to have somebody's surname! Why should the mother's trump the father's and vice versa. This is the reason we traditionally have a family name so that the whole family can have that sense of belonging to each other. Double barrelled is somewhat of a solution, but where does that leave the next generation? Eill they end up with quadrupled barrelled names?

@LefthandRight completely agree. I find it weird that almost every woman I know takes on their husband’s name, and if they don’t then the children have his name, and if they double-barrel then the woman’s name goes first and just gets quietly dropped and no one will acknowledge that its systematic and has its roots in the still quite recent past in which women had no autonomy and passed from their father’s control to a husband’s. It’s just that all of those options somehow happen to sound nicer or have some other individual reason why the man’s surname is better. I think the strength of feeing in the angry replies you’ve had is because people don’t want to acknowledge that it isn’t about the sounds and probably know that at some level. I wish people could just own it, and say yeah it comes from centuries of women having no rights, but it’s hard to go against that so it’s a compromise I’ve made. Instead of attacking women who want to talk about it and try and find more fair compromises so furiously. I do think it’s hard to negotiate as an individual and that even the most enlightened of modern men feel emasculated at the idea of the family name being their wife’s. Which says it all about what really happens when it is assumed the reverse will happen, and does make it uncomfortable to challenge for us, the socialised-nice sex.

I hated being called Smith and being at the tail end of the alphabet. I took DH's name on marriage (begins with A) so it was a natural progression that DC would have that name, my name that i chose to have.
If DM had kept her name on marriage I might have felt different. I felt either my name or DH's was a man's name so unless I came up with a completely new one, it was irrelevant which I chose.
There was no pressure from DH but I did want my little family unit to be united by having a name in common, regardless of where it came from. It doesn't mean I compromised myself as a woman. It's just a name, not a title of ownership.
If DD had a child (married or not) I would strongly encourage her to give the child her name, as I did. It just happened that I'd already changed mine before DC were born.

Of course feminism is about choice. It isn’t an ideology.

My child has my husbands name, if I gave him my maiden name then he would have my father’s name. If I gave him my mother’s name then he would have my grandfathers name. It’s gone down the male line already and it can’t be changed.

I also took my second husband’s name when I got married even though I miss my very unique maiden name. I kept my name the first time round. Both my choices.

I fully acknowledge that it’s an exceptionally small sample size, but I always found my double barrelled surname frustratingly long, and a bit of a pain. I can understand my parents’ desire for equity, but it was my siblings and I who had to actually use it (for what it’s worth, neither my two brothers nor I now use the surname we grew up with).

I also think it’s interesting to ponder why neither of our parents chose to saddle themselves with it. My dad got to be Mr Abcdefgh, and my mam Ms Ijklmn. It was me and my siblings who were Mr/Ms Abcdefgh-Ijklmn. It doesn’t necessarily seem like a big deal until you’re writing it out 10-20 times a day for school/college/work. Then (for us it at least) it started to wear thin.

Choose a different surname on the maternal side or choose one that is on neither maternal or paternal side?

If DD had a child (married or not) I would strongly encourage her to give the child her name, as I did.

I don’t understand what you mean by this? You took your DH’s name.

You do know that this is what women in relationships that practice Christian domestic discipline say? That it is all “consensual”/ their “choice”. Would you call that feminism too?

The reason we ‘traditionally’ have surnames was to aid the structuring of society in such a way as to ensure people knew which man women and children belonged to. This was particularly important in terms of children because any (usually male) ones would inherit from their fathers, and the fathers wanted to be sure it was their own lineage that kept the money.

It might be about a nice fluffy feeling of belonging now, but that wasn’t the reason for the ‘tradition’.

I wanted my husbands surname. I would have liked to have kept my maiden name (which is not my original name anyway) in there somewhere, but it absolutely sounds ridiculous together. But I really wanted DH’s surname.

Our kids will also have his surname. If I’d of had my mothers maiden name, I would have double barrelled, whilst it would have been an odd double barrelling, it would have worked to a point - and DHs name would have had to go first. However even my mum doesn’t use that anymore so I’m happy with DH’s name.

Initially we registered DD with her dad's surname because we were engaged but as the relationship broke down I changed it by deed poll with his agreement to mine. On the basis that he was never the one making the appointments etc and both our surnames need spelling out so I was having to spell my surname then DD/his surname every time I rang the Dr and so on.
He is mortally embarrassed that DD has my surname, all his family still call her by their name and he refuses to correct them and will start a massive row with me over it if I say they need to use her correct name. I've offered to double barrel but he thinks that's 'weird'. When I've asked him why he feels DD ought to have his surname and not mine he says that's just what EVERYONE does and I'm fucking ridiculous for wanting her to have my surname etc etc. Safe to say he is now an ex.

Hate my surname. Always have. Got teased for it at school. Very happy for my kids to have their father’s surname. Only time it caused a problem was when my son and I went through passport control and my daughter and partner went through the electric scanning ones. Hadn’t thought through me not having the same surname would mean we were stopped. Son was asked some questions to prove I was his mum and off we went. Really no problem. Sometimes I get called Mrs (partner’s surname). I don’t mind it.

Changing your name to your husband’s is a Western construct.

People in the east would be bemused by it.

https://www.deccanherald.com/india/92-of-indian-youth-believe-that-it-is-normal-not-to-use-husbands-surname-report-1108856.html

Choose a whole new one (unless your mum/grandma etc had already done this and passed it down, thereby breaking the patriarchal name line).