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

Maybe a lot of woman don't have your thought process or emphasis on the importance of a surname. And taking the man's surname and giving it to your kids is a choice, just like your choice to rename yourself something totally different to your family name.

It would be great to see more women choosing to pass their own name down to their children rather than the Dad's name. I hope it becomes more common.

But in most cases, you need to choose one name or the other. Assuming that Mum still has her name (most women still change it at marriage), double-barrelling can sound terrible and only kicks the problem down the road to the next generation, who will not be able to pass on the whole of the double-barrelled name to their own children, and then their children's children, etc. Eventually one parent's name will be erased.

There are plenty of reasons why Dad's might be a better choice. Sounds better. Parents/dc have a closer relationship with Dad's extended family. Etc, etc.

I agree that it many people choose the father's name by default, and clearly Mum's name makes as much sense or more.

But I don't automatically think choosing Dad's name is a regressive choice. Which I admit, I pretty much do think whenever a woman changes her own name at marriage.

Why don't women with apparently awful names change them legally when they reach adulthood? Why wait for marriage if they are so awful?

Gonna chime in again after reading all the “you can’t be a feminist if you don’t support choice” replies. Obviously, yes — but if your choice is rooted in patriarchal tradition that is open for questioning.

I agree.

Given that divorce is so common and the vast majority of resident parents are women/so many absent fathers, it also makes far more practical sense for kids to have their mothers name.

I would hate to have a different name to my children.

Not really. Nobody is accountable to you.

For me it was the least I could do for DP as I always rejected his yearly marriage proposals, hes give up trying now tbf 🤣

So can a woman never have her own name?

Is your DH’s name his own or have you taken FIL’s name?

I agree. I told my SO in the first year of our relationship that any future children way may have will have my own name.
I am not opposed to changing my name (after marriage) or having my SO take my name. But I am very much for "my kids, my name".

I didn’t say it would. Many will refuse to have children however.

Why do we rarely, if ever, refer to men's names as their fathers' names, and why do so few men 'choose' to change their difficult to spell/pronounce surnames when they marry?

Because it just didn’t matter to me at all 🤷‍♀️

Indeed. Feminism may be about choice (deeply arguable imo - for me feminism is about protecting and benefiting women to the exclusion of men, not simply "choice") - but anyway if all one's "choices" benefit men more than women, that's clearly not feminist!

I took my husband's name because it's more indicative of our religion/culture, and I'm proud of my Jewish identity and want to display it.

My birth surname is Jewish but can also be Welsh. DH's is unmistakably Jewish.

I agree that the choice should be questioned. All options should be fully discussed, and if the ‘traditional’ route is taken, this should be in full acknowledgement of the role of tradition in the decision. It does not make that route ‘wrong’, or another route ‘the only right one’.

I chose to take dh name because mine represented abuse and bullying and I was glad to see the back of it.

I think women should choose babies surname with the fathers input if they want

While I agree choice feminism is problematic, the choice here isn’t about choice feminism, it’s about the fact that there is literally a choice to be made – a child needs a name and double barrelling is not sustainable.

Choice feminism should not be applied when the liberty of choice is not equal, but in this instance, it has to be one or the other, so a different set of considerations need to be weighed up.

You do not get to dictate that physically bearing a child invalidates a father’s name anymore than a man gets to dictate that tradition invalidates his partner’s name.

@Westernesse
yes, last time I checked, feminism was about liberation, not choice.

Totally agree! I was married before kids and took my husband’s name as I hated my surname and his is ordinary, easy to spell etc. Kids obviously have this surname too. However if I hadn’t been married/had the same name I absolutely would not have automatically given my baby their dad’s name and it does seem to be a blind spot for many, you’re right.
I wouldn’t want to have a different surname from my children and in my opinion if the parents aren’t going to have the same surname as each other then either the child should have a double-barrel or take the mum’s surname as a default. Let’s face it in the majority of cases (not all, of course) it’s the mum who does the lion’s share of childcare, contact with the school/doctor etc and should the parents split, the mum is usually the main resident parent.

My child is now 25, she has my surname, her dad and I are still together, still happily unmarried.

His family were NOT happy about it and still address post to my DC using the dad's surname 😂. It was very much not the normal decision to make at the time but 100% the right one for us.

Aunts from my partners side of the family felt very sorry for me for ages for not being married. Even though it was not in my interest to be married as I had significant assets of my own when we met and a higher income. I found it a bit annoying at the time.

I'm happy to have started my own matriarchy.

Do you really think so many men only want children for the sole purpose of passing on their surname...? Not because, you know, they want to raise and love their own children?

And I thought I was a bit of a man-hater lol!

"Feminism is about choice" is a 20th century philosophy

So what?

I didn’t change my name when I got married. Never even really considered it and my husband couldn’t understand why I would. I really like my name. When I was pregnant we decided not to double barrel as we’ve both fairly long surnames. So we decided if it was a girl, she’d have my name and boy would have his.

So there it is, we had a boy and he got my husband’s surname. Husband would have been happy either way as was I. So don’t assume it was a huge big deal to the man cause it wasn’t. It was completely by chance in our case. And having different surnames as my son has never once caused an issue.

If we’d have gone on to have a daughter she would have had my surname. As it was we decided one and done.

It was exactly the same for me, I couldn’t wait to get rid of my maiden name and refused to saddle my children with a name that would mark them as being ‘one of that lot’. Some of the shit I got growing up because of a name and accident of birth was unreal.