I know that I was faced with a big decision when I was about to get married – whether to take my husband’s surname or continue going by my maiden name (despite being married). I played with the idea of hyphenation but ‘Hyland-Baran’ didn’t sound right to me.
As it turned out, I ended up taking my husband’s surname but I sometimes wonder if it would even matter that much – any subsequent children of the marriage will take hubby’s surname (which I have nothing against), and so there’d be little to be confused or worried about. I do sometimes wish I’d stuck with my maiden name, however most of the time I don’t even think about it.
This got me thinking about women who do hyphenate their names.
Say John Smith married Jane Jones, and Jane decides to hyphenate her name to Jones-Smith. Fine, fair enough.
But do the children then take on the name of their father (Smith) or do they take on their mother’s hyphenated name (Jones-Smith). The latter case worries me a little, because when a male child grows up, they’re then passing on their father’s and mother’s surname on to both their new wife (assuming she takes on his name at all) and possibly their children will then take on the same name. This then gives three generations with a hyphenated surname.
I’m probably looking too much into it, but it’s kind of a personal annoyance of mine – if you decide to hyphenate your name when you marry, that’s your decision, but in the majority of cases (other in those where the child is a product of rape or if the father doesn’t want to be involved in its life, for example) I do think that children should take on their father’s surname. It just makes things… easier in the long term.
What are your thoughts?
Sorry for being MIA for so long. I actually completely forgot about the whole blogging thing in amongst everything that I’ve had going on.
In August and September, I was helping to prepare, organise and enjoy the Australian Wiccan Conference – we had an absolute ball. It was an amazing energy with incredible people that I’ll never forget. Considering it was my first large gathering, included my first large ritual (ie more than 5-6 people) and my first national gathering, it was a real eye-opener for me, and a really emotional, spiritual experience. Loved every minute of it. The energy was just awesome.
So most weekends in August and the start of September was taken up with preparing decorations and small items for the Conference. I loved every minute of helping to organise the event and would do it again in a heartbeat.
My parents left for Europe on Saturday just been and it’s been really quite strange without them around already (it’s only been 4 days out of a 3-week trip!). I’m trying to keep an eye on my brother after last time without being too overbearing. I know that was over two years ago but I’m still not sure if he’s grown up much since then.
Unfortunately, at 2:00am Monday morning, Michael received a phone call that his Grandma had passed away. 2011 has not been a good year for us in terms of loss – I’ve lost more people close to me in the last 6 months than most people do in 5+ years. We’re not sure when the funeral will be, most likely next Monday or Tuesday, but that will mean a trip to Adelaide for Michael – we can’t both afford to go so just him and his sister will be attending.
So really, it’s been a hectic couple of months, hence my only posting now. Hopefully life will get back on track a little more and we can live some normalcy for a while. I’m trying to get in touch with myself again, spiritually. Finding it difficult to focus with everything going on but will try my best.
Cole is giving away a book called ‘The Medium Next Door’ – you can enter hereeee!
I know there’s people in the world way worse off than me, but damn having no money sucks ass.
Told myself I wouldn’t worry so much about money this year – I’m worrying about it more than ever.
