- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Baby Names
mdotm0904
member
losing the culture? (semi long but easy read...)
mdotm0904
member
in Baby Names
I know the general consensus on here seems that with unmarried parents & last names of children is that if you're not married (& have no plans to be) the child should bear the mother's last name. In my family (& those of many that I know, that's not really the way we do it. Usually if the father is there & claiming the kid, he automatically gets the "honor" of having the child bear his name). (in fact, i always thought when a kid had the mother's last name it's because she didn't kno who the father was....excuse my ignorance. i've seen the light lol)
When i first got pregnant I knew that my baby was going to have the father's last name. Even tho he was less than thrilled at first, he has joint custody of his 3 other children & is an amazing father & i know that he'd be a great dad to this child as well. He even mentioned very early in my pregnancy about the baby having his last name, he didn't object, he just assumed that the baby would have my last name (me being the primary caregiver).
So now that i've been looking into baby names, i've been trying to find some that paired well with my last name. (i didn't have the same last name as my mom growing up & it wasn't that big of a deal to me. but now that i think about legal forms, school papers, doctor's appts...seems like it'd just be easier to share a surname)
my issue is THIS....the father is of another culture & has a very ethnic last name. my fear is that giving the child my last name will take away a bit of that culture!! (altho i'm going to do my best to make sure my child knows their father's culture as well as mine, and i'm sure he will to).
Thought about hyphenating but the poor kid would have a 15 letter long last name! so my thought is to add the father's last name as a second middle name & just use my last name for legal purposes....
or perhaps i should ask the father how big of a deal it is for his child to bear the same last name (it's been a while since we discussed it)
any thoughts or ideas on the subject?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: losing the culture? (semi long but easy read...)
I don't think the child loses culture by not using the name. Do what works best for you without that as a factor.
not sure what you mean by parenting separately? we're not together. no hopes of getting back together. but we're still great friends so we'll be making parenting decisions together. he'll have time & access to the child, it's just that i'll be the main caregiver.
After 7 years trying to concieve, 3 failed IUIs and 2 failed IVFs, my third IVF was a success!
My Christmas baby turned into a turkey bird! Dillon Richard was born at 34 weeks, 5 days on November 28, 2009 after 10 weeks on bedrest for preeclampsia.
<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v705/arriinthere/PJ/?action=view
1998 Ovarian Cancer Survivor. 7 Miscarriages: 6w, 13w2d, 4w2d, 7w4d (DD's twin), 5w. Failed Tubal after c/s (!!): 5w2d, 6w4d
A couple thoughts running through my head... the mn idea could certainly increase the cultural connection you desire. But, even married couples face this. My husband's family immigrated to the US not long ago, and many of his family members speak their native language still. But his last name does not reflect that at all (because his mom's side is the bilingual side). So I guess you could argue he's "lost" some heritage thanks to having his father's name, but that's not really how we look at it. Same with me.. my mom's side are fairly recent immigrants but my dad's name is very English. Most people then do not make the connection that I am 50% of this other background. It doesn't bother me.
I will say, regarding breaking the typical American child-gets-father's name tradition: My parents are divorced with mom being the primary caretaker (have no memories of them as a married couple), and even as a child I was personally quite glad I had my dad's last name. My sibs and I wanted any and every connection we could get to our dad precisely because he didn't live with us and that made us feel more secure (in other words, we never doubted we "belonged" to mommy but we needed extra reassurance that daddy really was equally invested and part of our identity).
after anovulatory diagnosis and TTC for 1 1/2yrs with several medicated cycles and one chemical pregnancy, we have our first bundle of joy!
IT'S A GIRL!
#2 EDD 2/5/13 dx with anti-BIG E antibody, seeing a MFM
I don't take one single minute for granted.
I agree w/ pp ? middle names are a great place to preserve names from one side of the family without hyphenating. All of the kids in my family have my mom's maiden name as a mn and I now have a hyphenated mn (first name, mom's maiden-dad's surname, husband's surname).
I have friends who made a new surname for their daughter by taking letters from each of their last names, though I don't think that that will make logistics/paperwork easy.
Baby Name Popularity by State
Yes, but maybe I am reading this wrong. I am not sure she is simply a "single parent." It sounds like she and the father are going to co-parent... share custody and or at least a mutually expressed desire/plan to have the father be very active in the child's life (which I think is very different than situations where the father will be non-existent or hands off). I think in those cases, you could go either way on the LN. Also, a decision to give her baby her LN means that if she does marry someday, she will probably want to keep her maiden name or else the LN's could really get confusing? (Just something to consider for the future).
exactly. i'm not gonna be a "single parent", we're co-parenting. he will be there. very active. very hands on. sure i'll be a "single" mom, in the sense of i'm a mom that's not married. but not a "single mom" like i'm raising my child alone. anywho, i'm hyphenating when i get married even if my husband has a 40letter long last name or something lol. my dad passed away when i was 11 so it's very important to me to keep my last name.
I am sorry for your loss. My father is here but also very special to me. Like you, I made sure to incorporate his name into my name when I married!
I'm a teacher and see lots of kids with mom's last name and lots of kids with dad's last name. The child usually wants the opposite of the last name he or she was given.
While it is long and burdensome, I am fully on board with single/co-parenting parents hyphenating the child's last name. I think it helps the child feel equally connected to both parents especially when they are no longer together. The child can make the decision to change the last name when he or she gets older if he wants. If something were to happen where my DH and I divorced (God, forbid) I would either hyphenate our child's last name or hyphenate mine so that we would all have the same last name in a sense.
My stepdaughter was born with her stepfather's last name (weird, complicated situation). we're in the process of changing it to her mother's maiden name and DH's last name. When she's with us she just uses our last name and when she's with her mom she uses her mom's last name. I think eventually she'll pick what she wants, but for now she feels connected to both families.
Even though our last name doesn't necessarily indicate culture in this melting pot world, I think with how families are evolving kids are struggling more with identity. Kids want to feel part of something.
Agreed, I think names and culture are two totally different things.
In this situation, I would certainly advocate to use your last name. Perhaps a middle name from the baby's father's culture. But it's ultimately your decision. And I think your decision counts more in this case than his. You don't know what will happen with him in the future.
40/112