Danny Burrow

I took my 11 year old to her checkup this morning and the nurse asked me to step out of the room for a moment. I politely declined and she said, "It's just for a moment." And I told her, "No thank you, given all the stories about children being abused my husband and I decided to never leave our children alone with anyone, even medical providers. Anything you need to do or say you can do with me in the room." She looked all miffed and just left, no idea what her plan was but she didn't feel the need to continue it with me present and that makes me even more suspicious?? When she left my daughter thanked me for not leaving, she's already shy about the doctor, her eyes got so wide when the lady asked me to leave.

I think what this position misses is: 1) Kids are gonna have a surname 2) Having the whole household share a surname really is useful for a whole lot of purposes and parents who don't share surnames with their kids often face administrative challenges 3) Making up a new surname for the whole household breaks ties with *both* sides of the family and also most people see it as kinda cringe 4) So it's either his or hers or hyphens 5) Hyphens are fine, many countries do that, but they do make it literally impossible to write your full surname on many documents for many name combos, so you're back at having a name that creates recurrent administrative problems 6) So the lowest-friction solution really is his or hers 7) There's no fundamental reason it has to be his, but either way somebody is gonna give. You can argue it should be the man, but the only argument for that is matriarchy, which is no more compelling than patriarchy. 8) On the other hand the argument for "this is just the convention, don't sweat it too much" is fairly strong

I truly hate this argument, which assumes men simply have names but women’s are all somehow men’s. By this logic, it’s not your dad’s name either - it’s his dad’s. And not his either - his dad’s. Your name is actually your name. And yes of course women should have the legal right to change their names in marriage but let’s please not lie to ourselves that marital name-changing isn’t incredibly sexist and a very literal manifestation of patriarchal power. So is patrilineal naming for children, btw. One answer to “but it’s my dad’s name” might be to stop giving children dad’s name for a while.

“Plushie” and “stuffie” and not words, and just started being used ex nihilo a few years ago. Just say “stuffed animal” or “plush toy” like a decent, God fearing member of society.

sick of these catholic converts showing up and saying "well I have a different interpretation of the scripture" no you don't. that's protestantism and a heresy. don't like it there's the (incredibly beautiful and heavily ornamented with precious metals) door