From a Mens Rights Activist quoted here.
If you hyphenate your child’s last name, well its just pathetic. It means the mother was an uncompromising shrew.
Yep, and proud of it.
September 19, 2011 by blue milk
From a Mens Rights Activist quoted here.
If you hyphenate your child’s last name, well its just pathetic. It means the mother was an uncompromising shrew.
Yep, and proud of it.
Shrews FTW!
Actually, hyphenating *was* the compromise for us. Shrewish me, I wanted us to come up with a new family name for all of us to use. And, oh my goodness, my shrewish sister! Her daughter (and any other children she and her husband might have) has just her last name. No hyphen, nothing of her husband’s last name. Yes, even though they’re married, and happily so.
Oh man.
We sort of had a backwards problem in that I grew up with my mom’s last name, not my dad’s (they were never married). When I got married, I took my partner’s name for various reasons (not the least of which was that I hated having multiple names in my immediately family growing up and constantly having to explain ourselves – and we both liked his name better than mine).
When our daughter was born, however, I wanted to include my dad’s last name in some way b/c I’d always sort of wished I’d had that one all along. So our kiddo is FirstName MiddleName Dad’sLast Our Last. No hyphens, but two middle names.
I like to think we’re confusing the hell out of her future genealogists and making their work a whole lot more interesting 😉
We did exactly the same thing. Our daughter has two middle names (one of which is my mum’s last name – which I always wished was mine!)
A fellow proud confuser-of-genealogists here!
What I really love (BWIMH) is those folks who go on about traditions in hyphenation of surnames without really understanding how those traditions historically arose, and whether some of their assumptions about why things were done a certain way a while ago might just be a little bit wrong.
I like it because it means that genealogists have more lines to follow – so it’s not just the dudes!
For something that is supposed to be so tough, masculinity sure is easily threatened…
So true, I think I will borrow this and trot it out next time someone complains about how masculinity is being threatened!
Also, I want to say: If you give your child the father’s name, well it’s just pathetic. It means the father was an uncompromising prick.
People are still using the word shrew? That gladdens my heart, in some strange way.
have you seen a shrew -possibly the most adorable little beastie around…
MRAs really need to work out what compromise is, honestly. Compromise is NOT ‘I only ever get my own way’. Sheesh.
I never apply what one person says to a group’s beliefs, unless the group per se mass endorses said remark.
Personally I think creating new names is romantic and trendsetting.
Writers Rand Fleming and Rose D’ath changed their names to Flemath.
I love it.
I think it’s romantic too. I hope it catches on. New, non sexist, non patriarchal traditions are fun 🙂
We considered doing that, but strongly suspected his family would feel hurt and confused. So we went with the uncompromising, shrewish option. With the added bonus of making an insanely ugly looking name that’s hard to spell in two languages.
My latest last name conversation may have involved me sobbing “I just want to be recognised for being more than an incubator and a snack machine!” and him crying “I just won’t be able to handle it if my family hates you”.
It’s pretty ridiculous looking at the whole situation with some distance.
I don’t know… being scared that my body will fall apart and will cease to belong to me for a number of years, and that my career could fall apart or suffer… it just seems like I’m supposed to do all the sacrificing and the risk taking. He is only expected to be as involved as he wants to be… why should he get the privilege of passing on his name when I want to pass mine on as well… it’s not even like I’m asking that the kids *don’t* get his name… so with a hyphen he doesn’t even lose anything. UGH!
Backstory: no kids yet, planning for trying in ~3 years.
One more in the shrew column. My surname-his surname. Sounded better that way because his second syllable is a long one.
Really, how much more are we supposed to ‘compromise’ already?
@Alien Tea – does he take the view that he only has to be as involved as he wants to be? Or is that the view of other people?
@Tamara – that’s what’s expected of him. People don’t expect him to compromise his work or take time off to be a primary carer, they don’t expect him to be taking kids to play group, they don’t expect him to be an expert nappy-changer or to know the developmental stages… all that stuff that mums are expected to do automatically, but dads can do if they’re interested enough (depending on the prevailing attitudes of the community you find yourself in as well as friends and family).
He hadn’t actually thought about it, but he knew he wanted kids. After talking about it though, we’ve decided that we want to share as much parenting as possible, so he obviously does want to be very involved – but it’s still his privilege that lets him make that choice where I can’t – I’ve got no choice about being very involved at the very least during the pregnancy and first few months, and after that I’m still culturally expected to be the most involved.
I absolutely see what you’re saying. My partner was the same. He chooses to be very involved, but the details of what exact things he’s involved in are often optional. I am sometimes pleasantly surprised at what he chooses to be involved in. He doesn’t get cookies for this of course. Our parents were initially very surprised at his level of involvement but now that the novelty’s worn off it goes without saying.
In our social groups I am seeing a lot of really involved, hands-on Dads. It’s pretty heartening.
Yeah – it is really heartening to see hands-on Dads, I was very pleased to hear that his BIL is going to be a stay at home dad for a while. It’ll make it much easier for us if we’ve got good role models around for him.
What does that say about the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha aka Windsor family? They’re a prime example of the patriarchy.