Confessions of a Stepford wife (was Names)

[lrcjestes at earthlink.net]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Rita Winston" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> 
> What I accidentally left out of the previous post (it isn't really 
> relevant to this post) is that Miss Manners wrote that people can 
do 
> whatever they want to their own names, but the actual rule of 
> etiquette is to CHANGE the last name, that is, keep first and 
middle 
> names, drop maiden name, add husband's surname. That is only one of 
> a myriad of examples in which what EVERYONE does is opposite of 
what 
> Miss Manners say is etiquette.

Wow, I really went with what Miss Manners said? Very rare. I took my 
husband's last name for 3 reasons.  1) I was never fond of my maiden 
name (its rather odd, and I got teased a lot about it when I was 
young)  and 2) it is a whole lot less complicated when you have 
kids.  My sister changed her last name after a divorce, has since 
remarried (twice) but kept her "purchased" last name (went through 
the whloe court thing) "I paid good money for this name, I'll be 
damned if I'm going to change it now"  and 3)I got to move up in the 
alphabet..from S to E.  I don't have to wait as long for my name to 
be called!

Anyway...because my maiden name was so odd...and because I always 
really liked my middle name (more than my first name actually) I kept 
my middle name rather than move the maiden name up to the middle.  I 
planned on using my middle name as a girls' name if I ever had a 
girl...but I didn't sooo I'm glad I kept it for myself.

On forms I use Ms. (It adds a certain amount of privacy) but to my 
kids friends I'm Mrs. Estes...or more likely just Brian's mom  (or 
Steven's mom or Matthew's mom...we don't really have names)

carole