I know many women who have a different last name than their child(ren). Somehow, people don’t seem to have a problem with it. I have never heard of someone being assumed to be a step mother. Sure, little kids will call you Mrs. Kidslastname, but it is hardly earth shattering. Adults find it simple to get with the program.
Frankly, in my experience, the only administrative-type people who magically have a “problem” with are those who actually seem to disapprove of a woman keeping her own name and thus make a point of screwing it up.
It’s quite common for professional women I know to answer to both names–their legal name, Mrs Birthname, and the last name of their husband and kids, Mrs Husband’s Last Name. Around here, that isn’t a cause for confusion or assuming a “step” situation. Some just prefer to switch their name when they marry and some don’t.
My secretary and her H became Mr and Mrs HerLastName-HisLastName. That name got pretty long.
Never changed my name, in part for professional reasons, but largely because I didn’t want to wake up with a new name simply because I was married. That was almost 40 years ago and it was not problematic while raising the kids. Lots of local families have parents with different last names.
Don’t know what DD will do. I would bet she knows, though it hasn’t come up yet. Very personal decision and certainly workable either way.
When I was a kid my parents divorced. My Mom remarried and took her H’s last name. Many a teacher and school official would question who was signing our report cards and school documents.
When I got divorced and re-married, I actually kept my Ex-H’s last name.
I had 2 kids in Catholic school, and it just seemed easier.
Honestly, I didn’t plan to change from my maiden name the first time I got married (I am terrible at paperwork/admin things like this), but my secretary at the time was kind enough to fill out a bunch of paperwork without me asking her to, so I figured what the heck.
My D teaches and has a number of students with parents with different names (for several reasons). It is always confusing when parents sign up for conferences or to volunteer and she has to go back and figure out what child matches the name. Schools do have to be conscious of custody, sadly. Each year she has one or two with instructions to not allow one parent or the other access to child.
I think it’s a slight hassle when there are kids and names don’t jive, but I think keeping their own name is getting more and more common and definitely up to the woman.
Nephew’s wedding today - in a field! Weather is nice but hot. SIL (not MOG) and I are providing snacks for wedding parties while they dress. Hopefully enough food - were originally told it was not only meal of the day. Then last night at rehearsal dinner, the MOB said they won’t have eaten. Yikes! Hoping for the best and that they all indeed had something to eat before 2 pm - like late breakfast.
I volunteered a lot in the classroom when S was little. His teachers did not seem to have any problem identifying me as his mother! Maybe if they are people you see once a year or something…I mean, in an elementary school class of at most 23 kids, how difficult can it be?
When my kids were in elementary school in New Jersey, quite a few years ago, the emergency contact form did not have a place for the parent’s last name. It was assumed that the parent’s last name was the same as the child’s – which is not always the case.
This was before cell phones, so it was a significant issue. If Johnny Smith got hurt at school, and his mother’s name was Mrs. Jones, the person who called her employer’s number would ask for Mrs. Smith and never find her because there was no employee named Mrs. Smith.
Today, with cell phones, this is less of a problem. But there are still work environments where people cannot or are not allowed to carry cell phones (my husband works in one of them), so there could still be issues with reaching a parent with a different last name in an emergency.
^I have always been big on squeezing info onto forms if the format didn’t work for me.
My kids’ elementary school was big on having us fill out in triplicate these cardstock forms that were filed in various places - principal’s office, nurse, etc. I remember them not having spaces for info that I deemed necessary such as mother’s full name, etc. I crammed it in there anyway.
Back to wedding stuff, I just found out that j. crew discontinued their bridal line back in December. Kind of surprised because it seemed like they did a good business in bridesmaid dresses and a had a good thing going in that area.
Yes, I cram in info I want in the form, whether it’s supposed to fit or not too. It worked getting kids thru grade school and college.
Sometimes I will use the format the folks want and make my own spreadsheet to present my info so it “fits” and I can type instead of printing, especially med info.
@doschicos , jcrew discontinuing their bridal line surprises me as well. D has 6 attendants that all got their dresses from there, all same color but different styles. They are nice and were very reasonably priced.
I learned they were discontinuing bridal several months ago and I was initially surprised. Both D & DIL used JCrew for bridesmaids dresses and we were fortunate to time both selection periods to when a 30% off promotion was running. I have wondered if inventory maintenance and management was problematic for them because I’m sure we weren’t the only folks pursuing the strategy of ordering several dresses and then returning all but one. When S & DIL were planning their wedding, I ordered 6 different dresses for D to try to see what fit, what she liked, and what DIL thought when she was here over the holidays. That meant I had 5 dresses going back at my house for several weeks, possibly blocking others from those sizes or styles depending on popularity.
I’ve been reading over the past year or so that the J Crew brand has had issues all around, sales, financial. The only part of their brand that seems to be doing well is the Madewell line.
My daughter stopped shopping at J. Crew years ago - partly due to her own changing preferences and partly due to a decline in quality. We noticed that post 2008 financial market debacle, their quality seemed to go down. Thin fabrics getting holes and such. Son still likes some of their men’s line. On the other hand, daughter still frequents Madewell where the quality seems superior in our opinion. I heard that the Madewell brand is the baby and brainchild of the head of the corporation.
