Daughter wants to change her surname...

Random

black-saturn wrote: »

You can do a declaration if you want it to be unofficial. If you want passports to be changed and everything official you have to do it by deed poll. With an unofficial declaration you can call yourself whatever you want

As I said before, I changed my son's name by declaration, had it witnessed by a solicitor, and he got a passport in the new name no questions asked. I think it was called a statutory declaration?

Tao81

Seven years ago I had my DD surname changed from her birth name on her certificate (fathers surname) to my maiden name, at her request (she'd not had any contact with her father for years and he had been denied parental responsibility via the courts when she was 14 months old).

I did this through a solicitor via deed poll which cost me approx £25, didn't need his permission due to him not having parental responsibility, think he would have had to be informed and agree if he did have this - now if I want to apply for anything in an official capacity all I have to do is supply a copy of the deed poll name change, no problems so far.

What irritates me is that if her father hadn't been there at the registration of her birth for whatever reason she could change the surname on her birth certificate too if she wished, but because at the time I wasn't aware of this stupdity in the law and took him along, she'll always have to tolerate the inconvenience of having his name on her birth certificate for life - madness!:mad: :mad:

English law is an !!!! and historically always been loaded with sexist !!!!!!! As anyone who knows where the saying 'rule of thumb' comes from would agree!! :eek: :mad:

loftus

~evanesco~ wrote: »

I will not force her to do anything against her will, how will she stand up for herself in this society if I force her to do things she doesn't want to do, not fair parenting, not in my opinion at least.

What if she wakes up in the morning and decides she doesn't want to go to school?

loftus

Tao81 wrote: »

Seven years ago I had my DD surname changed from her birth name on her certificate (fathers surname) to my maiden name, at her request (she'd not had any contact with her father for years and he had been denied parental responsibility via the courts when she was 14 months old).

I did this through a solicitor via deed poll which cost me approx £25, didn't need his permission due to him not having parental responsibility, think he would have had to be informed and agree if he did have this - now if I want to apply for anything in an official capacity all I have to do is supply a copy of the deed poll name change, no problems so far.

What irritates me is that if her father hadn't been there at the registration of her birth for whatever reason she could change the surname on her birth certificate too if she wished, but because at the time I wasn't aware of this stupdity in the law and took him along, she'll always have to tolerate the inconvenience of having his name on her birth certificate for life - madness!:mad: :mad:

English law is an !!!! and historically always been loaded with sexist !!!!!!! As anyone who knows where the saying 'rule of thumb' comes from would agree!! :eek: :mad:

From Wikipedia:-

"Origin of the Phrase
The earliest citation comes from Sir William Hope’s The Compleat Fencing-Master, second edition, 1692, page 157: "What he doth, he doth by rule of thumb, and not by art"[2]
The notion that the "rule of thumb" was a law that limited the width of a rod that a man may use to beat his wife has been partially discredited. Wife beating has been explicitly illegal in British law since the 1700s, and has never been legally sanctioned in America.[3] However, at least four judges and other legal authorities from 1782 to 1897 have referred to the bogus law in spite of the fact that it never existed.[4]The non-law gained popularity after feminist Del Martin wrote in 1976:

Our law, based upon the old English common-law doctrines, explicitly permitted wife-beating for correctional purposes. However . . . the common-law doctrine had been modified to allow the husband 'the right to whip his wife, provided that he used a switch no bigger than his thumb'--a rule of thumb, so to speak.

It is now firmly entrenched as an urban myth"

BernadetteN

~evanesco~ wrote: »

I also think that she is free to make her own choices in her life

A parent is there to bring up their child, letting go little by little, making all choices at birth and hopefully by adulthood a child will be capable of making mature choices without a parent's guidance. However, at 7 years old, I just think it is far too young to be expecting a child to make this choice. Of course your daughter is bound to make mistakes and learn from them in her teenage years but allowing her to make all choices regarding her life at the age of 7 (i'm sure that's not what you mean anyway, it's more likely you mean to say that you will allow her to make some decisions herself that you deem her able to make at her age now) does not seem a very wise decision - let go slowly and she will learn to make far more sensible decisions in later life.

Now this is not aimed at the OP .....
I just don't understand this rush to change children's names just because of family breakdown. It almost feels like you are trying to deny a child's origins, just because of adults falling out. Would it not be wiser to take both parents surnames and stick with them? It's not children's faults that their parents' relationships break down so why should they change names (unless there are sound reasons for doing so for such as their safety)?

The Spanish and Portuguese have both parents' surnames on their official documents, but use both or either names according to different situations.

Carmina_Piranha_3

burnsguitarman wrote: »

Maybe you should take some time and wait longer before doing anything.

i was going to say that too - but the OP is just asking for general information - she isn't saying she's going to get it changed this week.

to the OP - if you were thinking of getting it changed this week i would recommend thinking about it for a couple of months.

tao i think that having the name of a man who is a rubbish father/stranger to the child on the birth certificate is better than having no name at all, i really do. my firstborn has no name and i wish my ex had made the effort. he was up a mountain in india 'finding himself' at the time of the birth :rolleyes: but he could have added his name afterwards, during the first couple of years of contact before he disappeared completely. i think it's an insult to the child for him not to bother putting the name on the certificate.

Carmina_Piranha_3

am i the only one who thinks a 7 year old should be able to make the decision for herself if she wants to?

i honestly think that from a child's point of view their surname belongs to THEM. keeping or not keeping the father's surname won't affect the child's relationship with her father unless the father wants it to.

if mum and siblings etc. all have one name then it's only natural that the one with her father's name might want to adopt the same name as her mum. equally, if the child does not want to change their name then the mother should not change it.

this is an area where parents can be very selfish and competitive.

~evanesco~

Thankyou for all you're replies, it's quite clear that some people question my parenting, skilss that's fine, I don't judge anybody elses, but people can judge me, despite the fact I have stated, she is well balance.

Loftus -your flippant coment of 'what if she doesn't want to go to school', I believe I said I have boundaries and limits, one of those being, she must attend school I still haven't decided what to do, but the knowledge of how simple it will be is something that I definately asked for when posting this thread.

CP - I agree with you, I think having a surname is such patriarchal bull****, and wouldn't have one at all if it didn't carry so many problems with, it's not easy to go through life with out a surname. And if my daughter doesn't want to share her father's, but would rather share my father's instead, I'm ok with that.

I'll leave it now until after Christmas and see if she approaches the subject again, if she does, I think i'll let her, if she doesn't that's fine with me.

haylibo

What if she wakes up in the morning and decides she doesn't want to go to school?
Home educate her.

black-saturn

I've just realised why I had to go about it so officially. A new rule came out just after I did it that made it easier to change a child's surname. I can't remember what that rule was now but I slightly remember having a discussion about it at Gingerbread.