I’m with Dame Jenni a lot of the time. I sometimes think about my previous name (I’m a proponent of getting rid of the term “maiden name”) with fondness, reveling in its simplicity and ease of letting others know who I was: Ms. Gilbert, or Ms. G to some of the students I taught. At the beginning, I didn’t really like the shortened designation, because it reminded me of a terrible “dorm mom” I had in college, but I began to like it more when I realized that the students who started it and used it were doing so out of respect and connection, not diminishment.
When I was working in a school more recently, I was Mrs. or Ms. Gilbert Redman (I’m not too picky with the designator, but I am also a proponent of getting rid of Miss and Mrs. and just keeping Ms. for women to make it less ridiculous for us when men never deal with such nonsense for a simple greeting). Several years ago, a couple of students in my workplace (including one who was the daughter of a friend of mine) started calling me Mrs. Grrrr. Yes, draw that out into a growl of sorts. I actually preferred that, because it was short and simple. It returned me to the Ms. G days. (My husband actually had the student who started it a few years later, and she also called him Mr. Grrrr sometimes, which was freaking awesome!)
In the end of Dame Jenni’s article, she talks about wishing she hadn’t started the whole process of changing her name and changing her name. I go through stages of wishing the same. The reason isn’t what you think, though. It’s not because I really just wanted to keep my previous name, because I did that–in a roundabout way. I am still a Gilbert, every day.
No, the reason is more about simplicity. I am tired of receiving mail for or being called Jessica Redman. I am tired of even family members “forgetting” that Neal and I have a different last name and just calling us “Mr. and Mrs. Neal Redman.” I’m sure it’s less of a problem for Neal, because he at least once had the name he is being called by. I have never in my entire life been Jessica Redman.
No, my problem is that my own family name, the one I fought to keep, is often wiped out completely in favor of my husband’s former name, a name he no longer has and a surname I’ve never owned. It doesn’t sound as strange to him, because it was his at one point, but I don’t identify with it at all. It’s neither who I was nor who I am. I am still fighting to keep that part of who I am to this day.
I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, but it is frustrating that people put their expectations on you over and over. Even after you explain to them several times that your last name is this, they insist that it is (or, rather, should be) that. Let me be forthright: it’s rude; it’s wrong–trying to wipe out someone’s personal identity to push your own agenda of what you think should be.