LIFE | FAMILY

We’re Taking Our Children’s Names

Honouring legacy in broken families

This is not the usual way of things

The phrase ricochets around my brain in the old Irish brogue of my great grandmother.

It’s my only memory of her, standing in her front doorway in a once-white apron, emanating palpable disapproval at the unexpected arrival of my parents and their brood of unruly children.

Perhaps it is not fair that this is how I remember her. I assume she was a good woman whom I loved dearly, an assumption wholly derived from the accompanying memory of holding my breath in the hope she would take us in.

Fair or not, this is my surviving memory of her. Her legacy to me consists entirely of being an admonishing inner voice whenever life seems to stray from the expected path.

This is not the usual way of things

I hear this voice a lot these days. Most recently, on the subject of names.

When my fiancé, Stevie, and I first got engaged it was one of the first things we had agreed upon. Neither of us wanted to keep our surnames; they were the last threads tying us to families we were each long estranged from and had no desire to emulate in the unit we were forming together. It seemed fitting that we would find a new name, a name that was just ours.

We would break the cycles, we would form new legacies not tied with the darkness and heartache of the past.

Finding that new name became a source of fun, hilarity, and good cheer. We had serious, sentimental suggestions, but many that came from inside jokes, obscure references and shared memories only the two of us could ever decipher or understand.

A new world was open to us. A world where our names came with a story we were willing to tell, choosing which story they would tell needed much consideration, if for no other reason than the sheer fun of it.

What we did not expect was that within months we would find ourselves the legal parents of two children that bore neither of our names.

My best friend, Mike was on hospice care, his ex-partner and the mother of his children had disappeared and relinquished parental rights, and so Stevie and I went from living our best DINK (Dual Income, No Kids) life to welcoming two four-year-olds into our family unit.

The question of names now requires new considerations.

Was it best to find a new name for all of us? It could mean a fresh start, a clean slate, a recognition that we belong together.

Should we leave everyone’s names as they are for now? There has already been so much change in their young lives, so much upheaval and grief long before any child should have to navigate these feelings. They were in a new home, and although Stevie and I were family to them from their very first breaths in this world, us being the parents was also new to all of us.

More than that, though, I don’t want them to grow up with a moniker that acts as a symbol that we have erased their origins. Their father was one of the most wonderful human beings I have ever known, he carried his name with pride, he reveled in his family history and their stories.

I want them to have that.

I want them to grow up knowing their history and where they came from. I want them to know that it’s not something they should feel they need to hide, be ashamed of or keep as some hidden part of themselves.

I want these kids to know how much their father loved them and would have done anything for them. I want them to know his stories, their family stories.

Neither Stevie or I had that growing up, we know what a precious gift it is.

We also want them to know that they still have two parents who love them unconditionally, who will do everything we can to help them become healthy, happy adults, whatever that may look like for them.

We want them to know they will always be family, that we will always be their parents.

We also know there will already be enough differences they will probably be asked to explain over the years, perhaps not needing to question why our family doesn’t have the same family name is one small thing we can do to ease even a tiny sense of that othering.

The more we talked about it, the more there seemed to be only one fitting answer.

We would change our names to match theirs.

Neither of us will take the name of our spouse, neither of us will take a name from our family history or our personal history together, and as parents our children will not take on our names.

Instead, we are taking our children’s names.

This is not the usual way of things

We are an unusual family, perhaps, but we are a family that loves one another dearly for all they have ever been and all they are yet to become.

I hope our kids come to see that in our family name.

Thank you so much for stopping by and showing your support, it’s greatly appreciated.

~Lottie