"Moon Shyne" wrote in message
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wrote in message
ps.com...
Dear Divorced,

I'm mom of three. Kids don't get the adult inference of surnames. Their
name is their name. It wouldn't occur to a kid that a name "belongs" to
Dad, or that they could make a statement about rejecting someone by
dumping a surname. That's adult logic, not kid logic.

Not true. My daughter, when in the 7th grade, chose to use my family name
as her last name in school - and she was absolutely making a statement
about
rejecting the father who disappeared from her life nearly 5 years ago.

She continues to use my family name, and when her high school pointed out
that she would need to change it back to have her legal name on her
diploma,
she pointed out that she was using the name she wanted to have appear on
her
diploma.

Back to the point I made earlier - Why did you change your married name back
to your family name? Didn't the fact you (or any other mother) changes her
name back to her maiden name cause the child to want to do the same thing to
be accepted by the mother?

If a mother retains her married name doesn't that send a signal to the child
having the same last name as their father is no big deal?

If I am not reading this right I'm sure you'll let me. Then the question
becomes why would a child want to use her mother's maiden name if mom is
still using her married name. Doesn't that cause even more confusion for
the child?

Despite all the denials to the contrary, I think the mother is driving the
name change process by how she deals with her own legal last name.