@ContinuewithGoogle I am not sure why it's "confounding" you. Great you made up a new name, I have no interest in doing that. No flipping way would I ever consider doing that, so that's not a universal solution
You have a comprehension issue. I did not say it confounds me that people don’t make up a new name. If it doesn’t interest you, then, sure, it’s not something you would do. That doesn’t confound me whatsoever. What I said was “The whole ‘you need to have the same name as your kids to identify as a family’ always confounds me”. I stand by that as I don’t believe that’s what is required for people to identify as a family, but I guess some people must as this is most often thrown up as a reason for everyone having to have identical names. So, yeah, if people genuinely can’t identify themselves as a family unless they have matching names, then that’s what they need, but I hold my hands up to being confounded about it given myself, and many others I know seem to be able to identify accordingly despite having different names to spouses and/or kids.
Personally, never had any issue with travel. I’m sure others have. When my kids were young we would take copies of relevant ‘connecting’ papers such as birth certs just in case, but funnily never needed to use them. I have had friends who did need to show them, so appreciate it is something that could be encountered, but was told it’s a 2 minute exercise, so hardly such a huge imposition that you need to base your life decisions around it. We did have kids questioned once (weirdly, without us being asked if we had any paperwork) but it only took a few mins and they were convinced by the kids utter genuine confusion about being asked who mummy/daddy were when they thought it was very obvious🤣. It was a one off, less than 5mins, and in no way a bad experience for the kids, the staff just did it in a child chatty way and took less than a few minutes, no drama.