So, the conversation on East Side Bride this week about name changing (or not name changing) reminded me that one of you nice mice asked me approximately six million years ago to talk about my reasons for changing my name.
This is what marriage used to look like. My auntie and uncle got hitched in the fifties, when the bras were pointy, the hair was did, and everybody loved Elvis. Getting married was how you got out of your parents' house, and a lot of people did it just for that (although this particular auntie fell deeply in love and still is, never having resurfaced from the crush on the boy who lived down the road).I, on the other hand, grew up stridently feminist. No, really. I was strident by age 6. My best friend in first grade, Michael, gave me the friend breakup after I informed him, one recess, that it was his turn to be the princess because I was bored with waiting around to be rescued. In eight grade, I read everything I could about women's rights and basically went around declaring various elements of the world bullshit until my hippie teachers told me not to read about the suffrage movement anymore. In high school, I found it impossible to keep my mouth shut when people told that horrible battered woman joke or said a woman could never be president.* Somebody gave me Woolf and De Beauvoir. I also said--loudly--in high school and in college that I would never, ever get married. It's just a piece of paper, I proclaimed. I can have a life partner and that will be fine. Then came further education, Buffy, second- and third-wave feminism, alliance movements, the discovery of the idea of heteronormativity...
It turned out, though, as I mellowed, that I wanted to get married. Go figure. I wanted to get married even before I met He-Mouse, so once I did meet him, it was a direct route to the altar. (I can't help it. He has the most open heart I've ever encountered.) I asked him if it was important to him that I take his name, and the man truly, honestly did not care one way or the other. This caused some scuffling. I sort of wanted him to want me to change it. But eventually, I just told him the argument I had come up with:
1) I have always thought my maiden name sounded sort of funny. People have trouble pronouncing and spelling it.
2) Mama Mouse, the person in my natal family to whom I am closest, got remarried to my stepdad, so her name is Mama Mylast Stepname. Therefore, if I were Mouse Mylast Hislast, it would--in a way--be a name closer to hers.
3) I want the same last name as my children, not because I think it will be confusing not to, but because I WANT TO HAVE IT.
4) Changing my name professionally was never on the menu.
Therefore, I declared, professionally, I will stay Mouse Mylast. Personally, I will be Mouse Mylast Hislast (two last names, no hyphen). I assume that various people will get this wrong along the way, and I don't care, as long as they don't call me Mousy without my permission. (Except the cable company and the doctor's office, each of which is totally baffled by the idea of two last names. Um, get it together or I will feminist you, yall.)
He-Mouse sort of nodded, thought about it, and then came back with "Actually, I think it's really cool that you will have my name." I went and signed all the stupid papers and hung out at the DMV for six or seven hundred hours, and that was that.** I sort of wish He-Mouse had taken my name too, but there were good reasons for him not to--he already has three names he uses all the time, for instance, and dropping one would be losing some of his Mexican heritage. Also, four names, he argues, are unwieldy. I agree. I dropped my middle name, which wasn't particularly meaningful to me as an adult.
These days, I find that my feminist self is constantly at war with being married. Or, maybe not at war--maybe just perpetually uncomfortable. It's brimming with contradictions. It totally skeeves me out when someone calls me Mrs. Hislast, for instance, but I LOVE it when we get a card addressed to "The Hislasts" or "The Hislast Family."
And this one is totally creepy: this week was horrible for He-Mouse--the perfect storm of work bullshit, trouble for his favorite sports team, not enough sleep, and some extra work bullshit. On Sunday, he said "This week is just going to be awful," and his lip stuck out a little and he looked all dejected and tired.
And this terrifying impulse uncontrollably welled up from some pre-feminist part of my brain:
I NEED TO BAKE HIM SOMETHING!
Please tell me this isn't just me. xoxo, Mouse.
* By the way, let's get on that, shall we?
** Although I haven't done the passport switch yet. All those damn 2x2 photos. Pain in the ass.
17 comments:
It's not just you. At all.
I'm a bit opposite of you, in that I grew up assuming I would get married at a young age and be a stay at home mother. I have gotten progressively more feminist. Though I too adopted my husband's last name. Sometimes I think it would have been better to keep my maiden name professionally. I think it's great that you like seeing things addressed to your family name - I do too. Though it's certainly been an adjustment, after a year, it's much more natural to introduce myself again.
Oh no, I wrote you a whole comment and it vanished! The essentials:
My wife had a hard week so I baked her a ton of banana bread. Yes, I ate most of it, but my point is that caretaking is natural and not anti-feminist: you want to bake, go for it!
Nextly, your post made me realize that I didn't even consider whether it was feminist of me to change my name. Would you have done the same if you had married a woman? It was important to me that we have the same last name, and it IS thrilling and wondering to get mail for The OurLastName Family.
I think my first post was more eloquent? sorry :(
@roughit That is a fantastic point! Had I married a woman, taking her name would have been about marking us as a family rather than buying in to an anti-feminist tradition (if that's indeed what it was). I think that's what I was doing, marking us as a family.
I am very pro family name. I'm definitely anti take-the-husband's-name-because-that's-what-you-are-supposed-to-do. I really feel like feminism means giving women more options. You had the choice to change your name or keep as is. That's really what it's about (at least in my opinion).
I changed my name over a year ago, and to be totally and completely honest I am still not sure if it was the right choice for me. I like having a family name, but I wish I had pushed for serious discussion of my husband taking my name (even though it's more complicated legally for a man to change his name after marriage, which is total and utter bullshit, but anyway). I am not terribly attached to my last name, but his is difficult for people to understand over the phone (if I had a dime for every time I said "no, not S as in Sam, F as in Frank!") and there is no real reason we chose his name instead of mine except that I didn't realize how much the "default" would bother me until I'd already signed the paperwork.
And, to be perfectly honest, part of my discomfort relates to the fact that I was the one who had to do all of the paperwork and I HATE paperwork with the white hot fire of a thousand suns. I am still slightly pissed that I had to do it and he didn't!
My advice to newlyweds now is this: WAIT. Wait until you are 110% sure about what you want to do. Take the new last name for a test drive with an e-mail account or introducing yourself to new acquaintances as "Me Newlastname." But don't sign any paperwork until you are totally comfortable with your choice.
@PC Yeah, I think I probably rushed it. What makes me really nervous is that Mama Mouse wishes she'd never changed her name. I think this is for professional reasons. But I sort of wish I hadn't, sometimes.
I kept my last name, but that is the law here in Quebec, so I didn't really have a choice. Though I am glad about it.
And...I love baking. :)
Sometimes I suspect that Mouse Mylast Hislast will just be my legal name and I, and everybody else, will just end up using Mouse Mylast.
I really want a family name too but I can't fathom changing my name. I wouldn't change my first name and to me the change of the last name would be just as strange and scary and weird. So I'm still Hannah Mothersname-Dads and David is still Hislast name but when we have children they are going to have my last name. Everyone talks about wanting to have the same last name as their children as if it's not even possible to give children their mother's last name and let their father be the odd man out. For us, I think it's the only way to go.
I too was a sassy feminist since before puberty. I too proclaimed bullshit on all sorts of things including the idea that I would ever traditionally wed loudly and proudly. I too took his last name(and he took mine Mr and Mrs Mylast-Hislast), adore many aspects of "heteronormative" married life and (gasp) pack his lunch on a regular basis all the while shaking my tiny teenage feminist fists at myself for being so happy. This pasy year I was unemployed for about 5 months. My husband watched as I struggled with the reality that I was a housewife even if only temorarily. He started addressing his love notes to "My darling accidental housewife". I loved it as it seemed so true. This had never been my plan. He even worked a bunch of over time and went in with a bunch of my other empowered lady friends to buy me a Roomba for Christmas. A robot that does the vacuuming for you! What every good feminist housewife needs. And now I am a happily employed paramedic and all last week while I worked, he did the laundry and packed my lunch....That may be the real reason I wanted to take his name....He is the best man I know. And while my inner feminist still shakes her tiny fists now and again as I pick up his underpants or ask him to take out the compost, even she knows I have a pretty good thing going.
I think it's just a personal choice. I've never thought about changing mine, and when I asked D, he made it clear that he had never thought I would change it either. Easy. But I love my last name, even though it is difficult. I would never even want him to take it, honestly. It would sound so strange with his first name.
My mom changed her name when she got re-married, so we haven't had the same last name for years. And my stepmom didn't change over to my last name when she married my dad (too hard to spell, which I can totally understand). My sister planned on changing her name when she got married, but had this last minute, gut level reaction and decided not to. So my sister and I will continue to have the same last name, and I kind of like that.
But all this to say - it's a personal choice, and you have to make the choice that's right for you.
No, you're not alone. Neither in baking urges nor in questions of name-changing. As far as the name-changing goes, I'm always fascinated to hear others' reasons for their choices. I think it really underscores the point that this topic is like money: we need to talk about it. Thank you for sharing.
This is one of the first, well-thought out, kick-ass explanations to something that I honestly did not understand before. Also, I have the baking impulse too...although, I'm not very good at it. Next time I have that thought, I should just run to the bakery. :)
LOL - so not just you! I get that "I must bake him something!" urge, too. It's even worse, because I'm unemployed right now, so I get that "I should have dinner on the table when he comes home! And the house should be clean and I should be wearing heels!" feeling (not from him, just from some weird part of my brain - probably the part that watched too much b&w TV LOL).
I kept my name, but we sort of jokingly made up a "family name" (a mishmash of our last names) and we use it for online usernames. :) I also use our names interchangeably when making dinner reservations, etc.
Dude. This post exemplifies the main reason that yours is the ONLY wedding blog that I can stomach. (And its not because I did the same thing with my name...) You just really know how to nail it; how to take ownership of your own stuff and not make getting married and all the stuff that comes with it some existential bloggery b.s. You rule. And so do all of your names - whatever you do with them!
" It totally skeeves me out when someone calls me Mrs. Hislast, for instance, but I LOVE it when we get a card addressed to "The Hislasts" or "The Hislast Family.""
I keep telling my partner that I want to keep my name, but still go by "the hislasts", or even "Mr. and Mrs. HisLast", but remain "Caroline Mylast". I'm not sure how I'm going to work that one out... Possibly by not changing my name legally or professionally (yay I'm still in school, so I have time figure out what to use professionally, it's not a problem yet), and going by either socially. I'm not sure yet how to make it happen.
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