My mom was originally Margaret Cahill. But when she married my dad, she changed her name to Margaret Bottorff. I never understood her reasoning why. She wanted to have the same last name as her kids, but that still didn't resonate with me. Cahill is a great last name, and together her two names screamed Irish-Catholic. As I grew older, I made the decision that I would not want to change my last name when I got married. It is important to my identity that I am a Bottorff. I don't have a lot in common with my dads side of the family. But my last name is very important to me. There is a sense of loyalty I feel to my grandpa. He was a lawyer. I want to be a lawyer too. That goes into my next reason. I am going to work very hard get a degree and be a successful attorney. I want to do that all as myself, not with my husbands last name. I went to law school, not my husband. My third reason is that having the last name as my kids doesn't make us a family. The bond we have and the environment I create is much more important than if they have my last name. My kids can have hyphened names or just take mine. I don't think it is fair that they would only have their dads last name. All of this of course ties into the idea that women need to serve their husbands and that the man is the head of the household. I know that I want to be the breadwinner of my family, so I plan on destroying gender norms in my house.
