Partnership & Co-Parenting
Downing Street goes family (time) friendly
7I was delighted to learn today that British Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg, have taken to organising some Cabinet meetings around their children’s bedtimes and have expressed their desire to make this a regular occurrence so that they can remain involved with their family lives. Despite what I may think of their partnership and other policies, Cameron and Clegg seem to have taken a firm stance on the importance of spending time together as a family and a work-life balance by not just talking the talk but walking the walk, or at least trying to. And I admire that, even though I think Cameron’s definition of what a family is is entirely too narrow.
But of course, it wasn’t long before the criticisms of Cameron and Clegg’s new ‘flexitime’ practices started coming: ‘What the hell are they THINKING?! Shouldn’t their wives or nannies be doing that? These are important men with important, full-time jobs and a country to run! They need to sort out the economy, not doing little Johnny’s nappies and night-time sing-songs! Working parents all over Britain hardly get to see their children because of the demands their job(s) places on them; why should these rich boffins get to swan off home and rearrange meetings around their little dears?’
That was the sum of the content and comments on this Daily Mail article [I read them so you don't have to; believe me, it's a hot shower needed afterwards].
So, to sum up: Men should stick to the important stuff like running the country and making decisions about all of our lives and The Wives should shoulder the entire burden of childcare/rearing and household management (in addition to their own piddling ‘careers’ if they have one) because what you produce and how much you earn are more important than family and any man who doesn’t realise that is a threat to his own financial security and that of the World Order of Dudeliness And Other Masculine Pursuits.
No wonder we have such a long way to go in allowing women more options and flexibility in their professional lives and men more options and flexibility in their personal lives. Until we can break down these kinds of stereotypes, we’re just running in circles.
Notes for new fathers
1
Accompanying graphic from article
It’s a few months old but I am loving this article from comedian Robert Webb for the Telegraph, in which he lends a few words of advice to new fathers, seeing as he had only recently joined the club himself. I usually find articles like this entirely predictable (“She’ll be a hormonal mess!” and “You’ll be expected to get up in the middle of the night!” and “Who knew so much poo could come from something so small!”) but this contained a few pleasant surprises, not least of all his use of the word ‘patriarchy’ in tip #4:
4. Don’t accept unearned medals.
This ‘Lance’ that I mentioned earlier, the one that rushes home from work to help out with bath time. You have to ask yourself, why the applause? What the hell does he do the rest of the time?
Well, you might argue, he’s the breadwinner: the poor chap has gone out to earn a decent crust of said bread (I know this is a conservative newspaper and forgive me for doing an impression) and what, pray, is the bloody problem with that, Mr Brown? (Enough now.)
Well nothing, except Lance should be aware that even in our unusually rich, happy, free little country, men have an astoundingly easier time of it than women.
Face it: we’re laughing our heads off at every turn. And when we have a baby, the patriarchy really kicks in to defend us. Mothers-in-law and health professionals will be queuing up to tell us how wonderful we are for so much as glancing at a tub of Sudocrem. ‘You got up in the middle of the night to look after the baby one night out of 235? Please accept this OBE.’
It won’t do. Yes, we usually earn more. And that’s not right. Yes, we carry on working because there’s less pressure on us to stop. And that’s not right either. Me, I’m trying to be fair but not much trying to remake the world. The applause is inevitable, but let’s not stay for the bow.
What about the men? Allies, privilege and collaboration
3
There’s often a lot of talk within feminist discourse about involving men in creating change. At points, it does feel like we’ve done all we can to press for new laws, new attitudes and less cultural biases against women. So we surmise that, really, it’s men who need to be taking on more responsibility, creating their own brand of activism and making adjustments, not us. In many areas of women’s rights this is (somewhat) true. While men maintain the upper hand in all of the institutions that govern our lives, there’s only so much we can do before we get the rights we deserve. Ideally, we would have many men in our feminist revolution. If they don’t join or at least acknowledge our movement, it will continue to be more of an uphill struggle than a swift climb towards progress (short of violent protest and economic overthrow, of course, which I do admit to fantasising about on occasion after a run-in with a particularly virulent strain of misogynist or capitalist).
Why, then, does my visceral reaction to certain groups of men trying to get more involved seem to be: ‘Oh, sod off! What do you know about it? Stop making this all about you!’ I’ve noticed that this reaction happens a lot more when it comes to things that are and always will be the exclusive domain of women (pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding) than for things which have nothing to do with biology and everything to do with social conditioning, like gender roles.
For example, men who campaign for more involvement in their children’s gestations and births and demand more antenatal and maternity resources devoted to helping dads-to-be cope with becoming fathers. They want more attention paid to them at antenatal appointments, a bigger role at the birth and literature and support aimed at helping them help their partners succeed at breastfeeding. On paper and rationally, I know that men wanting to be more involved in these things is good, and fair. If it gives a father a greater sense of responsibility and attachment towards his child before it’s even born, I’m all for it. If it helps break down, in his mind, the cultural norm in our society that says babies are women’s business and men are only to provide for them financially and practically, all the better. However, I can’t help but bristle and feel a bit exasperated at the sense of self-importance and inflated vision of a father’s role in these areas that some men exhibit. Perhaps it’s because these issues, like abortion, are to do with our bodies, not theirs. It sometimes seems like just another way to assert control in an area where women should be holding the reins. It can bring to mind those who claim to care about equality but continually challenge the idea of female oppression by pointing to the substantially less common crimes or injustices against men (like male victims of female-perpetrated domestic violence and rape, or job discrimination), which can come across as just a way of saying, “Yes, yes, we know you’re oppressed, but you have been for ages and you’re used to it. But what about us?!”
Just like I can try to be an ally to people of colour and gay/queer/trans individuals, I cannot ever live their experience and know it’s not really my place to demand that greater (already precious and rare) resources be devoted to educating me and ensuring I don’t further screw things up for them. While acknowledgement from the majority/the oppressor is important in securing equality, so is the minority/oppressed’s need to feel safe in their own spaces and that they are creating change with their own voices and own grassroots empowerment; otherwise, ‘success’ will still feel like something that was done for or to that group to make the privileged feel good about themselves, not built on the movement’s own merit, for those most effected by it.
Fathers should be encouraged to ask that schools and medical professionals address them as well as mothers when it comes to their kids’ educations and health; that media outlets not portray them as helpless, bumbling idiots; to campaign for a longer and better paid paternity leave in the postnatal period; to require their employers to offer flexible working hours and situations so they can take an active and equal role in their children’s care; and to raise their boys without macho expectations and their girls without some preconceived idea of femininity. Additionally, all men who want to be feminist allies should be actively speaking out against domestic and sexual violence, the insidious nature of the sex trade, the gender pay gap, the objectification and sexualisation of girls and women and gender stereotypes that constrict both sexes, amongst others.
But when it comes to our bodies and what we do with them, especially reproductively, the utmost sensitivity and restraint should be exercised. Even if the aim is not to control but help and learn, remember that we have been fighting for the right to absolute authority over our bodies and childbearing decisions for centuries and have, in most areas, still have not been granted full autonomy in this regard. Our trust will not come easily. Our need for support from our partners but ultimate command of ourselves means, for many men, relinquishing the role of decision-maker or complete equal. Men may have to take a back seat at times and they should become comfortable with that, not feel threatened or marginalised by it.
Sometimes, it really is all about us.
Selling out on the postnatal ward
14
They say there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. But in the 21st century there’s a third eventuality we cannot escape — advertising.
There’s been a bit of a fuss kicked up in the papers lately about the infamous ‘Bounty ladies’ and how these representatives are allowed to roam maternity wards up and down the country, handing out the free ‘goody bags’ that have become ubiquitous with having a baby in the UK. In addition to the goody bags, some of the Bounty reps also pester new parents to agree to and then purchase photographs of their new arrival, often before the baby has even had its first breastfeed or before the new mother’s stitches have set. They are also asked for their contact details, which are (surprise surprise!) sold onto third parties and used to market additional products, sent directly to the parents’ homes.
The pack contains a few inoffensive and even useful things, certainly — Child Benefit and Child Trust Fund forms, perhaps a ‘guide to your newborn’ or other inane pamphlet — but the rest of it is purely an exercise in corporate PR. It generally features samples of a particular brand of nappies, wipes, nappy rash cream, breast pads, toiletries and laundry tablets, with accompanying coupons and promotional materials. I’m sure that if it weren’t prevented by various ethics and health codes, a carton of formula would be in there, too. To some, it’s less Helpful Items To Get You Started and more Parenthood: What a Cash Cow! The fact the hospitals get £1 per bag handed out, amounting to a tidy profit for them, as well as Bounty, is just the icing on the capitalism cake.
My dislike of blatant marketing aside, this isn’t what disturbs me the most. Many of the mothers who called into Vanessa Feltz’s BBC London radio show on Friday morning to discuss it said that they’d thought the Bounty rep was some kind of hospital aide or auxiliary person and so didn’t feel they could say no, especially to the personal information. This is not to mention the fact that many of the callers said they’d just had cesarean sections and so were pretty drugged up on pain medication and not sure what was going on or who all of the people coming in and out of their rooms were. Even those who’d had vaginal births were, as is to be expected, extremely exhausted and overwhelmed. Women in the immediate postnatal period should not be having to think about whether they want to give their personal details to a spammer, or if they want to pay £10 (or however much it is) to have a single photograph taken of their newborn.
I remember when I had my first child in a birth centre attached to a hospital, the Bounty rep coming and giving me my free pack and asking for my details, all whilst I was attempting to change my daughter’s first Oh My God This Stuff Is Like Tar nappy and before my husband had arrived from his overnight sleep at home. I was in pain, hadn’t slept in two days and was being ignored by the overworked and understaffed midwives, who rarely came when I pressed the buzzer for assistance. I was in absolutely no state to realise she was trying to sell me things, nor did I have the energy to tell her to sod off. Thankfully, I declined the overpriced newborn photo but I was not pleased to begin to receive a mountain of junk mail a few weeks later. I didn’t make the connection between that and the details I’d given the Bounty rep until months later. I was angry that I’d been approached by someone peddling their wares under the guise of concern for new mums and that this lady had been able to wander round the maternity ward as she pleased, going into people’s rooms without being invited in, when my own husband had been kicked out the previous night when ‘visiting hours’ were over, as if he just come to be a spectator at the birth of his child and that was his bit done.
Looking back, that night I spent alone in my room — with a brand new baby in a bassinet next to me that I had to learn to hold and care for and breastfeed, so physically exhausted that I couldn’t lift my arms to wash my hair and with less than two hours’ sleep in 48 hours — was the loneliest, most terrifying and draining of my life, and that’s the night AFTER I gave birth! That my husband wasn’t ‘allowed’ to stay with me was so infuriating. He’d helped make this baby and now he got to go home and get some sleep while I, the one who pushed our 9-lb. daughter out of my body after carrying her for 9 months was supposed to just suck it up and look after her on my own?! It just seemed (and still seems) so cruel. According to this Times article, 70 per cent of parents think a father should be able to stay with his partner after the birth.
Having said that, I understand that with most women being put on wards after they’ve given birth, and not private rooms, this plays a big part in the decision not to allow fathers to stay overnight. The NHS worries about the safety and privacy concerns of other women on the ward, who may be wary of strange men passing by while they’re attempting to breastfeed for the first few times or get out of bed while wearing a flimsy hospital gown. There’s also the cost and practicality issue — the NHS is so stretched as it is, they worry that having to accommodate overnight visitors for each woman in the maternity unit would mean overcrowding, more money spent on reclining chairs or extra beds and possible conflicts over use of the already-oversubscribed toilet and kitchen facilities. I’ve heard many midwives, like this one, say that having fathers stay overnight would be a nightmare. So whilst I understand the reasons against it, I stand firm in my belief that it is not only unfair and cruel to the new mother, but that it sends a very strong message to the new dads that their role is really not all that important and that the mother is chiefly responsible for the baby, with him around as some kind of ‘happy helper’. While only women can give birth and breastfeed, there is no reason that a father couldn’t hold, rock, comfort, bathe and change his baby’s nappies in that first day or two, letting the mother get some well-deserved rest.
That’s why I think, really, that most women are better off at home. Not being left alone and separated from your partner at such a monumentally life-changing and emotionally volatile time seems like common sense to me. Unfortunately, not that many people want or are able to birth at home and the current system and attitudes towards home birth aren’t likely to change any time soon.
One possible solution (aside from the perhaps more unrealistic demand, due to space and finances, that all women have private rooms after birth) is to follow the Dutch model of postnatal care, called Kraamzorg. Under this system, all women who have had relatively uncomplicated births (i.e. not an instrumental or surgical delivery or other medical complications) are discharged within hours and sent home, where a maternity nurse meets them almost straight away. There, in the comfort of their own homes, women are given one-to-one postnatal care which includes checking on the health of mother and baby, breastfeeding advice, preparation of lunch and snacks, light housekeeping, emotional support and practical help with the shopping and visitors, and just allowing the family time to bond with and get to know one another.
We have this here, in the form of a postnatal doula, but it is a service that is not widely known and, because it is done privately, rather costly as well. It is a role that used to be played by a woman’s own mother, or other close family member, but which has become increasingly more rare due to changed family dynamics, work commitments and the logistical difficulties of distance and time that many families face.
Funnily enough, this is something that David Cameron suggested back in 2008 as part of a Conservative reform of maternity services and is probably one of the few areas in which I agree with him. The cost of implementing this system, while perhaps great at first, would be an absolute bargain in the long and even medium-term, as beds are freed up for labouring women or those who had complicated deliveries and with midwives free to concentrate more on those women than the ones who just need a bit of help with breastfeeding or need assistance going to the toilet but are often deprioritised on a busy ward. Breastfeeding rates flourish and postnatal depression rates decrease when one-to-one support is on hand in the first week or two after birth, showing how vital this kind of support in the period immediately after birth is. Until all fathers are taking the the paternity leave they are entitled to (which we know from previous discussions will only likely happen very slowly and with more legislation), an alternative solution and support system for new mothers is desperately needed.
What are your thoughts on better handling the postnatal experience for women? Do you think fathers should be allowed to stay overnight or would you rather they not be there? Are private rooms for all a realistic solution? What do you make of the Kraamzorg system, would you have benefited from and welcomed something like that?
Mindful language: what does ‘mothering’ mean?
7
I’ve been thinking a lot about the language we use when discussing issues pertaining to equality. Take, for example, the use of ‘mothering’ as opposed to ‘parenting’ and vice versa. When I read an article or website that continually refers to mothering (or parenting, or fathering) exclusively, with no mention of the context or meaning, it can be confusing. Which is appropriate to use and in what circumstances?
A site called Only Dads recently sent me an article they’d written about why they believe we should not call ‘Mothering Sunday’ (what it has traditionally been called in the UK) ‘Mother’s Day’ (what some people have taken to calling it as of late, perhaps due to American or corporate marketing influence). Mothering, they argue, can be done by both mothers and fathers and there are a significant number of men out there performing the mothering (i.e. sole care provider, nurturing, etc..) role. Whilst I appreciate and applaud their efforts to normalise and encourage nurturing, responsible parenting among dads, I think the language used is potentially counter-productive.
‘Mothering’ will always be associated with women because only women are mothers. And right now in our society, mothers are the ones who take on the bulk of the caring and domestic roles. ‘Mothering’, therefore, is synonymous with the way women care for children. A father who takes on the role that has traditionally been filled by the mother isn’t ‘mothering’, he is ‘parenting.’ A man caring for his children is not exactly the same as a woman doing so because they are not working within the same societal structures and paradigms. They operate under different pressures, expectations and with different challenges due to cultural beliefs.
According to Andrea O’Reilly, director of the Association for Research on Mothering and the author of Feminist Mothering, “the word ‘mothering’ refers to women’s experiences of mothering that are female-defined and centred and potentially empowering to women” (pg. 3). Mothering is, in and of itself, a valid term because it addresses these differences and acknowledges that women are expected to parent differently than fathers. It doesn’t mean it is always appropriate to use it in preference to ‘parenting’ though.
When speaking generally about the responsibilities of parents to their children and not specifically about how women experience childrearing, I believe it is essential to use ‘parenting’ rather than ‘mothering’ and to understand why these terms are not interchangeable. That leads, then, to the question: what, exactly, is fathering? A look at the dictionary definitions for both ‘fathering’ and ‘mothering’ reveals the cultural bias present: ‘fathering’ is defined as “acting as a father (to a child)” or “acknowledging responsibility for.” What it means to actually father a child (beyond the physical act of procreation) is anyone’s guess, it appears.
Mothering, on the other hand, gets a more specific definition. It is, according to many sources, “the nurturing and raising of a child or children by a mother.” So we know what is expected of mothers but, aside from ‘taking responsibility’ (which is a pretty vague, subjective phrase), fathering isn’t clearly defined. What exactly is expected of a man who is fathering a child? Does ‘taking responsibility’ mean simply acknowledging its existence and providing financial support? Does it mean providing guidance, love and discipline? Is it a father’s job to care for a child’s day-to-day needs and perform the less-abstract and more mundane tasks associated with that child’s care, or does that fall under the ‘mothering’ category, which is the domain of women? By using the term ‘mothering’ to mean ‘caring for and raising a child’, we are cementing the idea that these things are only done by women, or should be.
Have women historically been the primary caregivers for their children? Yes. Should that be discounted or ignored? No. But if we want parenting to be something equally performed by and invested in by both men and women, we need to use language that indicates that desire. As stated above, mothering is a very valid term but usually only in a political context when discussing how gendered expectations influence the way we parent or how we operate within a system prejudiced against women in general. It has a time and a place to be used, certainly. But continually calling play groups ‘Mummy and Me’ or school social events ‘Mums’ Coffee Mornings’ says to fathers that they are not welcome, that they are not really meant to be there (and says to mums that they should). Even if they are a minority in those groups, fathers need not be discounted. Perhaps more dads would become visible in the community, actively parenting their children, if the language used wasn’t so explicit in its belief that only women do these things.
Likewise, involved dads needn’t co-opt the term ‘mothering’ to indicate that they are taking an active role in raising their children. Their experiences as fathers, even those who are the sole care providers for their offspring, are going to be different to mothers’. What they do need to do is think about better defining ‘fathering’ and invite discourse among men on how that role fits into the societal frameworks already present. And if the role they play (or would like to play) doesn’t fit within that framework? Tear it down and start again. Challenge the stereotypes of what a father does. Don’t be afraid to ask for more mindful, inclusive language at your child’s school or at the community centre. Don’t be afraid to do the tasks more commonly associated with ‘mothering’. Don’t let society’s narrow view of masculinity affect the way you care for and interact with your children.
So my response to Only Dads’ article is this: dads don’t need to be included in Mothering Sunday, they need a radical overhaul and fine-tuning of what it means to father. Perhaps campaigning for Father’s Day to be renamed ‘Fathering Sunday’ would be a start? Or maybe, just maybe, we could do away with these his-n-her’s divisions and focus our energies on making parenting a word that brings to mind members of both sexes, performing a variety of roles within their individual families and communities.
The chicken or the egg: Paternity leave and gender roles
12
So as you probably didn’t hear (because I’ve not seen it covered anywhere within the feminist blogosphere – sigh – and only given marginal press within mainstream media), Labour announced a couple days ago quite radical changes to the maternity and paternity leave laws, which will apply to children due on or after 3 April 2011 (provided they win the next general election).
Right now in the UK, a woman who gives birth to or adopts a child while in paid employment* is entitled to nine months’ paid maternity leave (most of which is on the Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) of £123.06 per week; only the first six weeks is paid at 90% of one’s regular salary) and then three further months unpaid, with her partner being eligible for two weeks’ paid paternity leave, also paid at the SMP rate. Some employers pay more on top of that but many don’t so it can be assumed that this is what the majority of employees who take maternity or paternity leave will earn.
The proposed changes would give a woman the option of returning to work after six months, transferring the remaining three months of paid leave over to her partner. Her partner would then have the option of taking a further three months’ leave from his or her** job, unpaid. The total leave would still amount to 12 months (9 paid, 3 unpaid) but would be more easily split between them. In theory, this would give female breadwinners and those who would like to return to work after six months the ability to go back sooner without having to put their babies into non-familial care. It would also give men who earn less than their partners or who want to be more involved in their child’s care in the first year an opportunity to stay at home for 3-6 months without losing their jobs.
That’s the bare-bones of it and how it’s laid out on paper. However, whether and how it is taken up in practise is another matter entirely. Let’s run this through a reality check.
First, let’s look at the various combinations that could be employed with this new legislation. One reality is that some women won’t be able to afford being on the SMP rate at all (a more likely situation for single mums) and so will return to work even sooner than six months. This change does not help her at all, sadly. Another likely scenario for many people will be for the mother to stay at home for the full nine months until the unpaid portion of leave kicks in, which she may or may not take depending on the family’s circumstances. This may be due to personal choice, social conditioning/pressure or practical reasons (such as financial concerns or breastfeeding).
But a woman who takes her six months’ leave and then decides to return to work after this period of time (because she is the higher earner or because her income, though less than her partner’s, is needed, or simply because she wants to) now has the option of putting her 5-6 month-old baby into care or transferring the remainder of her leave entitlement over to her partner (if she has one). In families where it is financially possible for the father to take a 3-6 month financial hit after the mother already has as well, without any severe consequences, this is potentially great news. But in a family where unpaid or reduced-pay leave for the father (even for ‘only’ three months) is not an option, does it seem likely that the male partner will be willing or able to take over the childcare duties for those three months? Will he even want to? Or will it “make more sense” for the woman to stay at home for the three remaining ‘paid’ months, as she has done for the previous six, especially if she is paid less, is breastfeeding and/or already has a daily routine and support system in place?
Though I do think that there are certainly couples out there in which the woman either needs or wants to return to work after six months and the father would be willing, perhaps even eager, to be the sole care provider for his child for at least three months, I don’t think as many men will take it up as one might expect or hope. First, there is the social stigma to deal with. A man wanting to look after his baby in theory faces the reality of having to ask for the leave from his employer and then explain to his colleagues why he will be gone. For most men, caring for children is still widely viewed as ‘women’s work’ and taking on a role almost exclusively performed by women can be viewed as a threat to his status, both socially and professionally; if not by him then certainly by at least some of his peers.
A man who looks after his children is often viewed as a bumbling, inept ‘helper’ to the mother, doing her a favour or humouring her for the sake of the ‘easy life’. Fathers I’ve spoken to (including my own husband) have told me of the times they’ve taken their children out in public without the mother present and gotten comments about how great he is for “taking them off mum’s hands,” or “giving mum the day off” as if that’s the only reason he would be solely responsible for them — as a favour to his wife or partner. Heaven forbid he actually wants and is able to look after them by himself! Some dads even report being asked if they’re divorced and on a ‘weekend pass’ with their children.
The social conditioning that men (and all of us) have been subject to sends the strong message that fathers are the second-string, the back-up team, only needed when mum isn’t around for some (usually selfish) reason. Even then, fathers aren’t expected to perform as well at parenting as their female counterparts. I’ve heard many a story of other women rushing in to offer to make a cake for a single dad who is supposed to contribute to the school’s bake sale, or telling a stay-at-home dad that he doesn’t have to take part in the snack rota at playgroup because he “has his hands full already.” The message to men, from all sides, is that parenting is not really their area of expertise (or at least, combining parenting with household responsibilities isn’t) and that just keeping the children alive and fed and the house standing is all that is expected of them.
The second hurdle in encouraging men to take this option is financial. If a man is the higher earner (as is the case in the majority of partnerships), it will be much more difficult and sometimes even impossible for him to collect SMP wages instead of his normal salary. Of the small proportion of families who would be able to do this, few within that group would be able to function without any income at all on his part, if he were to take the final three months unpaid. It isn’t clear from the wording of the new legislation but I’ve read from other sources that if a couple wants the father to take his three months at SMP but cannot afford for him to take the final three months unpaid, they lose the option for the mother to take it, effectively shortening their total entitlement to just nine months instead of twelve. This is supposedly to encourage more fathers to take at least their three months at SMP.
Again, it sounds good in theory, giving a bit of incentive for men to take the paternity leave they are entitled to, but I remain doubtful that the incentives will be enough to overcome the social and financial hurdles that a lengthened paternity leave presents. Until the social stigma of men caring for children and performing domestic duties is broken and until women receive equal pay and opportunities at work, free from gender discrimination, paternity leave and maternity leave will remain quick fixes for a much wider, more complex problem that is endemic in our society.
**Paternity leave applies to female partners of women who give birth or adopt but for the sake of simplicity and because heterosexual relationships that produce children are more prevalent, I will be using ‘he’ to signify the partners of new mothers
The name change game
22
Everyone knows that you have to pick and choose your battles. Not every single fight can be fought by one person, at least not without compromising one’s mental health, and perhaps even physical health, with all that bashing of heads against brick walls and whatnot.
So it was that I found myself, while eight months pregnant with my first child, changing my surname to my husband’s; something I hadn’t done when we got married six years previously and that I hadn’t envisaged doing at all. The feminist voice inside me screamed but I shut her up by telling myself that it wasn’t that big a deal, really; that I was only changing it from one man’s name (my father’s) to another and that the tradition had roots too far entrenched in society for my stance to make much of a difference. But mostly, I was just tired. I was tired (already) of having this conversation with people:
“So, will Mr. D (my surname) be attending the next scan with you?”
“Yes but he’s not Mr. D, he’s Mr. R.”
“Oh, I see, I’m sorry. I thought you were married.”
“We are but I didn’t change my name.”
“Oh. Okay. So what surname will the baby have?”
“Um, his I guess.”
“Oh.”
It wasn’t that I thought he or she was being judgmental of the fact I hadn’t changed my name or that I was embarrassed to be mistaken for an unmarried mother, but something bothered me nonetheless.
I had endured a rather painful pregnancy, with SPD so bad that I had trouble sitting still for any period of time and could often be found on my hands and knees underneath my desk at work, rocking back and forth in agony trying not to cry. Spasms of pain leapt through my back and wrapped themselves around my vertebrae like the fingers of hot lightning that streak violently through the summer sky during an electrical storm. It felt as if my pelvis were the good-luck wishbone at a turkey feast, being pulled apart with feverish abandon. I couldn’t walk anywhere without a support belt on and even then it was difficult. Needless to say, I had a pretty miserable third trimester.
So when I thought about going through all that pain (not to mention labour!), upheaval and life-changing craziness and then not even getting to share my name with the baby I’d helped create and solely incubated, sustained and birthed…well, it made me quite upset, actually. I knew that, rationally and intellectually, it was just a name and shouldn’t matter what anyone else thinks or what social conventions dictate, but the desire to be a full part of this little family I was creating and not feel like an outsider or in any way detached or different from my little girl was very strong. So strong, in fact, that I gave up on trying to convince my husband to adopt a double-barrelled name with me (he’d grown up with one and hated it so much that he’d officially dropped the second part when he was a teenager) and decided to just take on his. At the time, I had no patience for anything I construed as complicated or a pain in the ass and this was one way to simplify things.
My husband never asked me to do this for him, by the way; it was all my own anxieties and the pressure that I was feeling to conform and be a ‘good mother’ and a ‘good wife’ by the messages all around me, every day, about what that entails. I bought into the idea that not submitting to this tradition would cause more difficulties for myself and confusion for my children than it was worth. And now, almost four years later, I can say that it has and it hasn’t. There hasn’t been any name confusion, certainly. All four of us have the same last name and it is admittedly quite convenient to just jot down ‘The R___ Family’ instead of listing all of the variations. I don’t get misaddressed forms and Christmas cards and paperwork is pretty straightforward.
But that feminist voice inside my head has never stopped whispering “Why’d you do it? Was your reason really good enough? What kind of example are you setting by bucking so many sexist traditions and gender roles but embracing this one without much of a fight? You’re not you any more, you’re somebody’s WIFE.” Sometimes I let that voice get to me and at others, I leave that inner battle well enough alone, content that I’ve made my choice and that there’s no going back now. Let that be someone else’s Waterloo, I say.
Still, I wish women didn’t have to make this decision at all as it brings so many questions of identity to the surface. If by not changing our names we are making some kind of political statement of independence, does that mean that if we do change our names we’ve willingly given up a part of ourselves just for the ease of form-filling and avoiding awkward social situations? Does that make me a (gulp) conformist?
What has been your experience with name-changing after marriage, if that’s an institution you’re involved in? If you aren’t married, have you had any problems with the name presumptions, especially if you have children? Do you ever regret your decision?