unmarried couples - who's surname did your child take?

[Tigger31]

I'm interested to know how you decided which surname your kids should have?

It seems most common for them to automatically take the bloke's name, but I don't know why that is?

They have DP's surname for no other reason than it's nicer than mine.

goodnessgracious - Because more likely than not it's because other women who have chosen not to go down the traditional route have to get this assumption rubbed in their face ALL the time. I've had comments even from modern, intelligent, normally sensible people suggesting that me not changing my name is an indication I didn't truly love my husband. Or that I didn't see the marriage lasting. Or that my husband is somehow hard done by.

This is very true. On MN it can seem quite apparent, which worries me how prevalent this kind of thinking is in RL - as in, how many people you know in RL think 'well, you didn't get married so you don't really love your partner as much as I love mine'.

It frustrates me on name debates (not this one, as it hasn't gone down that route) but after discussing how you decided, how you made a conscious choice, not to get married, you might then be accused of submitting to the patriarchy by giving your DC your DP's name. It confuses me how people can't sometimes equate one conscious decision with another.

But what this thread really shows is that there's a need, or at least a desire, among some people for a gradual change in naming conventions.

Sian- feminism isn't about 'empowering women'.

Unmarried mums not giving DCs their own name is a new trend, it isn't 'traditional'.

CactusAnnie you're definitely one guilty of snide comments about how it's funny all these women don't like their own names etc, as if they're making it up and it's patronising, I wish you'd give women the credit they deserve and believe that they haven't been posting lies to cover their poor defenceless woman status. We're not all being manipulated or persuaded that our names are shite.

The vast majority have just been answering the question, and defence is the usual response to attack.

With regards to your points about power and possession, there is none associated with having either name, and your vague description of the 'power of childbirth' doesn't explain what power a man gains by passing on his name to his children. It doesn't change what sort of a father he'll be or his 'possession' of the children, they are his if they are nameless or named after somebody else. It is a purely aesthetic decision for many, certainly not a socio-economic issue, and we are all intelligent and grown up enough to make decisions and explain them without having our motives questioned. You clearly don't think much of women if you're so suspicious of their answers and suspect so many of servitude to their partners. It's a bit sad really.

You haven't addressed any of my points at all.

1. You described the power of giving child a name, when I asked you to clarify you pointed to the power of childbirth, which is bugger all to do with it frankly. I am sorry I don't meet your intellectual standards, though, I have a tear running down my face as I type with the hurt of it all.

1. I have gone through the thread again and all of the posts that offended me were written by you. Everyone else is answering the question with their reasons and then you come in to tell people how "funny" it is that so many women prefer their partner's name. Why is it funny? Because you know their real motives, obviously

1. As for the personal attack, I'm just getting a bit tired of you going off on tangents pretending this is some sort of intellectual discussion when you've just been critical, patronising and judgemental of others. I just really don't like it when people post just to be critical, especially when the motives of people are not known to you but you assume you know better. I think people deserve more respect than that.

My DS will be having DP's name. We intend to get married eventually so it doesn't make sense to give him mine.

oneeye when you get married you have to re register your child anyway and you could then change the surname or use both whatever.

But if you never get married your child will always have a different name. This can cause issues if you split up from your partner. And you may regret not giving them your name as you won't be able to change it. Or even if you don't split up it can still cause issues with travelling etc.

5 mad things- What's the logic behind that? How does giving your children your partners name cause trouble if you split?

I have a different name from my kids, it doesn't cause any trouble. Dh's ex and her new husband have different names from the kids, they don't have any trouble, even travelling. I would say the person who has the most trouble is dh, as a nrp, even though he has the same name as the children.

What sort of problems does having a different name cause?

People always say "you'll have problems with a different name" but other than travelling abroad, no one can ever actually say what those problems will be.

I don't entirely see how the situation might be that much different from being married, changing your name, giving your kids that marital surname, and then splitting up for a reason that caused you too to not want to keep his surname either. You read regularly about women wanting to go back to their maiden surname. But while you can change yours, you can't change the kids, do you're in exactly the same boat.

Rhiannon, don't you think it's curious that if this is a true free and neutral choice unaffected by societal conditioning and expectations, then we don't see a closer to 50/50 split between children being given their father's name and their mother's?

Exactly.

As for the personal attack, I'm just getting a bit tired of you going off on tangents pretending this is some sort of intellectual discussion when you've just been critical, patronising and judgemental of others. I just really don't like it when people post just to be critical, especially when the motives of people are not known to you but you assume you know better. I think people deserve more respect than that

I think this thread has been a very thoughtful, honest chat between women presented with choices and explaining the thought process behind those decisions - I haven't read any critical, personal attacks!

I didn't accuse you of a personal attack, I said "as for the personal attack" in reference to the personal attack you accused me of. I haven't attacked you personally and I'm not bothered by your attacks on me, I can take an insult and can handle a discussion, which is still how I see this, but maybe you're more easily offended than me. I don't care that you're mocking me one bit, I am more concerned about how disrespectful you've been to people who came to a different decision to you.

As I have repeatedly said your posts have been questioning other people's motives, have a read of them, they aren't nice and I object to you being so disrespectful of others simply for making a different choice to you. If you think I've been ripping you to shreds, it's been definitely a two way thing. My only reason for posting here has been to defend women who have made an informed decision to give a child a partner's name and are being patronised for doing so. It's a decision which is a family one, and I don't think anybody ought to be judged for it.

As for the "so many men being so determined for their children to have their surname" I don't read many posts where all these determined men are, most of these posts talk about how people came to a decision based on a discussion with their partner or preferred their name, just because you don't believe them it doesn't mean it isn't true. If all these women had posted saying well I did it because it is normal then you'd have a point, but they didn't, they thought about it and did what was best for them, what's your problem with that?

Cactus I've really enjoyed reading your posts, found them fascinating but isn't it strange how the written word can be interpreted - Rhiannon reads them as a personal attack on her choices, I read them as thought provoking.

Rhiannon - so why do so many choose the father's name? It's a valid question when you look broadly, and worthy of examination.

There is a lot of 'it mattered more to him than to me' - those emotions don't exist in a vacuum.

I didn't read it as a personal attack HeeHiles, I was accused of one myself and say so in the opening line of my last post. I'm enjoying the debate actually and am not defending myself, but I'm defending one side of the debate against disrespectful and patronising comments.

Jassy, I haven't said it isn't a valid question, and worthy of examination, what I object to, and I have said this so many times now I am boring myself, is when people are giving their reasons and are being told those aren't really the reasons. There's no point having a debate if you aren't going to believe the contributors, is there?

Of course there are contexts to decisions, have I ever said otherwise? I just believe it is possible to account for that in reasoned discussions between people that love and respect each other. A man can be pass on his name to his children without automatically being assumed to have done so because he has a penis.

But the problem is - by saying that all of our decisions (including mine) are shaped by the society in which we live, we're falling into your neatly-set trap of questioning the basis of individuals' decisions.

Which is why I think it's valid to ask on an individual basis why people it mattered more to the father than the mother. Because a lot of the time the answer is 'he was worried about what his friends/family would say' or 'he felt that it was a traditional male thing'. And yes, those are societal attitudes that don't benefit women in the long-term, so it's as valid to question them as it is to reject assertions that I'm not committed to my marriage or that I've emasculated my husband because I don't share his name.

We certainly managed to have a pretty civil discussion about it in my own home, revisit some of our own individual prejudices, and come up with a solution that worked.

Are any of you with different last names among parents and kids mixed race families?

I'm in one (pregnant with DC1), friends in similar situations have said having a different last name when travelling and a kid who appears to be a different race from you can be a struggle. It was even a challenge for us as a married couple travelling/applying for visas before I changed my name. Immigration staff never saw us as a family because we are different races. You'd be amazed once you step out of the UK how the rest of the world's attitudes are on this matter.

Obviously this is not an issue for everyone, we travel constantly and live abroad so for us it was the main reason I eventually changed my name more than a year after we got married. Too much stress.

I was going to step out of this debate as, like Rhiannon, I felt that women were giving their reasons for the decision that their family took and then being told that they would create problems in the future, that it was unthinkable for a mother to have a different name to her children that it was all really about power and that they were probably being coerced without realising it etc.

I'm not saying that some of those things dont happen and may well be valid points of discussion but the women HERE have given their reasons and there is a line between a general discussion of the wider point and judging and patronising women who have made a free choice. Whether that be to change their name on marriage or give their children their partners surname.

For what it's worth I still maintain that it's equally valid to name a child after its father as after its mother. Certainly in my relationship we are a 50/50 partnership when it comes to parenting. Even if we split up my DS would still have his father in his life to a great extent. I don't think either of us possess DS. I don't feel any need to stamp my name on him on a point of principle.

My DP didn't mind what name we used. He let me decide. Our names would not double-barrel. DS has a name from my family as his first name and DPs middle name (which incidentally is his mothers maiden name). When it came to the surname I simply preferred his. That was it. Really. No coercion. I don't regret it. I LIKE the fact that his brilliant father gets a name check. If that makes me an unwitting victim of a patriarchal society then so be it.

I said upthread that I kind of surprised myself with that decision. We're not conventional. Don't really care about marriage. Highly educated and independent. Would consider myself a feminist. I expected to feel strongly about it but I didn't. I agree with Rhiannon that I can't see a power issue here unless there is actual coercion and that is not the same as the woman not feeling strongly when her partner does and deciding to make a gesture that is of no consequence to her standing in the relationship.