A number of years ago now, I decided to conduct a … sociology (?) experiment on myself and the kids. I wanted to see if I could substitute an artificial expletive for the usual excretory and reproductive oaths commonly used.

I was at the magazine store and there was a new ricepaper so I checked it out as I usually do, it being a locally published magazine about the Asian-Canadian experience. In this issue, one of the articles was about surnames for mixed couples a topic I agonized about myself so I bought the issue to read the article. It was a nice piece, mostly from the woman’s point of view. They boiled it down to personal choice with a touch of professional reputation maintenance considerations. They totally missed what I consider to be the big issue. If you and your spouse don’t have the same name, then what happens with the kids?