For me personally, no, I don't think there has to be a head of a family— if there are two mentally competent adults in a family, they should make decisions together. I have never encountered a decision on which my husband and I have failed to reach an agreement. Some things I care about more and he goes along, some…

I don't think there is one answer. You could both take your name, or both take hers, or each keep your own, or hyphenate, or make up a new one. I just don't think the reasoning should be based on who is the woman and who is the man. I just wanted to let you know that many women are just as uncomfortable with the idea…

First, I wouldn't advocate getting married if your only reason to do it is because it's traditional.

I think tradition is a bad reason to do something. There are all sorts of bad things that are or were traditional. I really don't think you should get to determine another grown adult's identity.

Why wouldn't a woman want to leave her name as a legacy? And, yeah, after all of the work of carrying and delivering the kid, it seems like women should get to give him/her their names. How does it make sense that you sit there and do relatively little AND you get that reward?

Same here, except I married two different guys. I never got used to my new name the first time around, and it was such a relief to change it back. I would never even consider marrying someone who thought I should change it.

I just wanted to thank you for the laugh. This is such a fantastic parody of the elitist, pseudo-intellectual, ivory tower type.

I think the issue here isn't that people change their name, it's the reasons for it. Is it because you like your spouse's name better? It's easier to pronounce? It comes earlier in the alphabet and, as a life-long Zimmerman, that is appealing to you? You currently have the same name as your dad and he was an abusive…

Except that I have made an identity for myself under that name over the past 3 decades. I have two diplomas in that name. My dissertation is published under that name. All of my colleagues at jobs going back ten years know me under that name. Long-lost friends from grade school know me by that name. That is MY name.…

I don't think that is the point of the original comment, actually. The "you" in the original comment has a choice between "taking" your father's or your husband's name. She's not talking about how to name a child, she's talking about a grown woman who has been carrying a name for multiple decades. The idea that the…

I love this. I kept my name and our son is FirstName Mom'sLast Dad'sLast, which is kind of similar.

It's MY last name. I've had it my entire life. It's how I and everyone around me identifies me as me. This has been said a million times: why is a man's name his own, but a woman's is her father's or her husband's?

When I moved to the midwest I tried to adapt/blend in and smile and say hi to random strangers. When I moved home I was relieved to not have to do that anymore. We're not rude, it's a different culture. And if a stranger here smiles and says hi to me, it doesn't make my day, it creeps me out. I mean, you do you, just…

Part of growing up is sometimes having older people tell you when you're acting stupid.

Yeah, he should ask his agent to get him a likeable character next time. He sure is good at being a dipshit, though.

I'm impressed by your patience!

I just realized maybe it is because we get streaming plus dvds, and you are talking about streaming?

I am pretty sure we are all caught up and we watch on Netflix. Unless I am confused and my husband caved and paid for it somewhere else, but I don't think so.

This all just makes me wonder what middle class really means. To me, it means that you probably own your own home, but it's nothing fancy. You can take vacations every year or every other year, but they are driving distance or maybe someplace like Florida. You always have food on the table and clothes on your back,…

Wow, that one is huge! Definitely not much different from a balcony.