Maisie by any other name...

I took Liam and headed south to visit my sister in Annapolis for the weekend--and picked up Maisie on the way; she's home for a week or so before her second three-week stint with her Dad begins. She's happy amd calm; it's so much easier to navigate this custody stuff now that she's older. Things weren't always so easy.

Last night, when Liam was asleep, she asked me how she got the name she has. I don't mean the Maisie part, but her last name, which is mine--not her Dad's. I've dribbled information to her over the years--never wanting to highlight the conflict junctures between Marc and me, and not wanting to prioritize truth telling over her wellbeing--but also determined not to lie to her. Fine lines everywhere. The last name is an issue because Marc wanted her to have his, but since we were never married and would clearly never be together as a family, I honestly didn't and don't get the principle. On her birth certificate, on her school records, on her medical records, she is Maisie My-Last-Name. Every summer, when Maisie's at his house and he sends her to day camp, he signs her up as Maisie His-Last-Name. Every summer I take him to task: "Marc, her identity is not subjective: her name doesn't change with her location." Every summer he nods and sighs. And a year later, he does it again, as it turns out he did this summer.

I take this to be an issue of embarrassment for him, or of ownership. But he solves his problem by making it hers.

Is it me??

So I asked Maisie how it makes her feel. "It bothers me," she says, but I think she may have just been playing to me, knowing (as she surely does by now) that it pisses me off. Does it really bother her? Some day--the day must come--the kid will stand up for herself, as all children do, and she'll decide what really matters. In the meantime, it's so hard to know when to rock the boat, having fought so hard for calm waters.

Well, let me go catch up on everybody's blogs...