My whole life I've had a love/hate relationship with my name. As a child, I was constantly picked on for it. As an adult, I've made it my own. But throughout my life, it's really been a huge part of my identity.
My name started out as a story I've been told and will tell my children (if I ever have them). Both my parents were very close to their grandmothers. My mother took care of her grandmother throughout her adolscence. She gave up her bed for her and sleeping on the couch in the living room for years so she could be more comfortable and in exchange her grandmother gave her attention and love that my mom had never known before in her turbulant short life. Her grandmother's name was Alice (and coincidentially enough her other grandmother's name was Allison).
My father had a close relationship with is grandmother as well. He spent the summers with her in Kentucky every year and for an airforce brat, her home was a safe haven for him where he could just be a kid. She was probably the most influential adult my dad ever had and I think in a lot of ways she made him the man who was a wonderful father to me. As a side note, my mother also adored my great grandmother.
So to make a long story short, they both wanted to name me after there grandmothers...and decided since they couldn't name me after either, they wouldn't name me after anyone. My mother came up with the name Alyssa (spelled like Alicia, but pronounced like Alyssa)...she's a creative lady and did I mention she's smart? After I was born, my dad was talking to a English professor at Rockford College about my name and mentioned the way my mother had chosen to spell it. The professor remarked to him "Oh, did you know that Alicia is Hebrew for Alice". To which my father replied, "Oh....She got me".
As a child, I spent my life correcting teachers and anyone one who would read my name from a piece of paper. I would say "It's not pronounced Alicia, it's pronounced Alyssa". I was teased and harrassed about my name forever, cause that's what kids do. They make fun of anything and everything and this was my cross to bear. In college, I caught on and would tell professors to write my name phoentically on the seating chart or I just would respond to the wrong pronounciation...I knew they were talking to me.
In law school, I took my name into my own hands. I decided that I was going my Ali (my parents had meant that to be my nickname as a kid, it just didn't catch on). I like the way Ali Oliver sounds and Lord, it's easier for everyone involved including me. It confuses people I grew up with and my college friends, but most of them have caught on and humored me.
Now as I prepare to get married, my name is going to change again and I don't know how I feel about it. I mean I love the idea of being a family with Matt and if I do ever have children I'd like to have the same last name. But all the things I've earned, those pieces of paper framed on my wall in my office all say Alicia Paulette Oliver...not Alicia Oliver Leonard. I've worked long and hard professionally to be known and I wonder if I'm giving up something by changing my name.
Now I know they're are benefits and I know relationships are about sacrifices, but I can't help wondering "Are we, as women, giving up our identity for the sake of tradition?" and "Am I compromising who I am publically because it's what our society does?" Part of who I am, something I cling to, is the radical idea that women and men are made equally and should be treated equally. I'm a feminist in every sense of the word. I have a career I take pride in (and btw I think being a stay at home mom is a career that women should take pride in too...it's way more work than I can ever dream of), I've lived on my own, I have a quote posted on the inside of my door about the pay gap between men and women...and I'm changing my name while Matt is keeping his intact.
And let's all be honest, it's not fair (though what in life is?). I don't know any man who's taken his wife's last name and left his completely behind (though I have known one man who changed his name and adopted his wife's last name along with keeping his own). I'm going to have to make a million phone calls and fill out a million forms when I change it (I'll change every account I have personally and professionally) and Matt's going to have to go talk to HR at work to change his marital status and emergency contact. It's a societal double standard and I'm playing into that...so I feel conflicted, but I'm doing it anyway.
I'm not hypenating because frankly I don't want to write that much out (and I'll still have to legally change it).
I'm not complaining (nothing makes me happier than marrying Matt), I'm discussing...why as women are we obligated to change something so concrete to our identity for the sake of forming a family?
Last week was the anniversary of women getting the right to vote in the United States...it's a proud day that should be celebrated by everyone throughout the country. It was the beginning that allowed every woman in the USA to dream of being seen as more than property but as a person with a voice, a dream, and a goal. Everyone is allowed to make there own decisions but let's have a discussion about why we make the choices we do because so many women fought for years to allow us to have a voice.
To me there's something about the idea of sharing a last name that cements the foundation of forming a family...it's attractive and frightening and new. But like most decisions there's drawbacks that I've thought a lot about. I think at the end of the day, I'm going to change my name and that's going to change me a little. In the end, it's about taking chances for better or for worse...but this one's for better
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Like a waterfall in slow motion, Part One
3 years ago
