Tuesday, December 30, 2008

What's in a Name?

One of the reasons I enjoy this blog (even if I don't post much) is that it has led me to find lots of other interesting women in science/science mother blogs. One of my recent favourites is Two Women Blogging. Reading it this morning I found this post Things I Could Do Without: Old Not-Quite-Friends Edition. Now I'll confess to being someone who likes sending Christmas cards, and I got an interesting insight in what that might to do other people from that post, but I like getting them, so I will continue to send them.... perhaps more selectively in the future though...

Anyway the thing which really resonated with me in that post was the comments about the labeling of mail. I also have not changed my name to match my husbands and remain confused at how hard this concept is to grasp for people. We have the added complication that the combination of our two names is vaguely obscene sounding, so it always amuses me when people decide to go for the hyphenation route! My favourite though is the Drs. HisName and MyName. I actually don't really care how I'm addressed, but I am amused at the variety people come up with!

All this is minor compared with state confusion over the names.... Once when travelling into the US there was a minor problem with my documentation and I was brought round to a back room to have it checked further. My new husband (a US citizen) was not allowed to accompany me as "we did not have the same family name". At the time this was a bit concerning, but not really a big deal. However we're travelling to the US this week and I do now have some questions about my status, so I would say it's 50-50 that this will happen again. I think I'll have to insist that husband and little one (at the end of 10+ hour flight) *will* come with me this time though.... Surely they can't be within their rights to separate a mother and child simply because we have different last names?

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