Meredith’s Musings: Mrs. Smith

article by Meredith McKinnie

I ’ve had my first and last name for 35 years now. They’re both unique, and I like that. They both start with an “M.” I love alliteration, something my mother no doubt happened upon, completely unplanned. The women in my family, most have no middle names, a blank space convenient to fill with the names of their husbands. Imagine their shock when I refused to take my first husband’s name. It was generic and spelled funny and looked odd tacked on to the back of my perfectly crafted double-M, equally lettered name. I thought of every excuse I could when my mother and grandmother asked about it. It never occurred to them that I wouldn’t take it. My mother handled payroll at one of my three jobs and took it upon herself to change the last name on my check. I refused to cash it, insisted the bank wouldn’t know that girl. Perhaps it was a woman’s intuition, perhaps I’m just a procrastinator, but the longer I went without changing it, the surer I was that I didn’t want to. When we divorced three years later, it became irrelevant.

Jump ahead eight years, and here I was marrying again. And surprise, surprise, my name never came up. Grandmother had passed a few years earlier, and either mom knew better than to ask or simply didn’t care anymore. And here I was marrying a man I was sure about, a man I wanted to be the father of my children, and I still didn’t change my name. Call me a feminist, and I’ll smile. It’s a title I wear well. And while I like the idea of sharing a name with my husband, why is it mine that always must be sacrificed? I struggled for a year about this privately, told myself if we ever had a child, I would rethink the matter. And on our one-year anniversary, I was almost eight months pregnant and it occurred to me, she won’t have my name. I kept putting off the paperwork, planning to change it before she came. But with the incessant pain of my hands and teaching summer school, I kept waiting, and then she came five weeks early.
The hospital put my name on her tag. It was like her daddy wasn’t there. Every time the nursery worker wheeled her in the room, she said, “McKinnie?” and I said yes. Husband never mentioned it, but I felt bad. It wasn’t until a few weeks later when her social security card arrived with her full name, her daddy’s last name, and he smiled. He was so proud of it. And looking at the card, I realized, they shared a name. I was the odd one out. And suddenly, maintaining my uniqueness, my identity, it didn’t matter anymore. This was my family, and they shared something I didn’t. I was still a primary part of this family, regardless of my name, but I wanted to belong with them. It wasn’t just my husband’s name; it was my daughter’s name. I can be me; I can be my unique self all while sharing their name. I can teach my daughter to be her own person, to make her own choices, to make her own rules all while sharing their name. I no longer believe taking his last name will lessen my message. It’s a choice I chose to make after much consideration, much as I hope my daughter makes all her choices.

I want her to be braver than I am, though I’m brave. I want her to be stronger than I, for I’m strong. I want a combination of my mother’s conservative head and my liberal heart to make a well-rounded, strong, thinking young woman, a woman who makes her own choices, but considers others. I want her to be a conglomeration of a patient paternal grandmother, an assertive maternal grandmother, a vocal mother, and her informed self. I’m molding a little girl here, and I want her to know she is more than her name. She’s whatever in the world she chooses to be.