Jennie's Kids

The names we give things
train us how to think about them.

I have been thinking about family.

Maybe because life is dangerous, maybe because human childhood is so vulnerable and lasts so long, maybe because
long-term mating is so advantageous,
physically dominant males dominated family.
Sometimes the domination was brutal.
Sometimes it was just a name.

In the Scandinavian tradition I come from,
families often were identified by their father's name:
Johnson, or Ericsen, or Magnusson.
I was a Simonson, although my father was Gustav:
his father was Simon.

I grew up with my mother's family:
they were Jacobsons.  Like my father's family,
the name had gotten stuck in an earlier generation:
my grandfather was Jonas Jacobson.
Jonas was married to an Olson--Olina Olson--
but they weren't the Jacobson-Olson family:
they were Jacobsons.

I have visited my Dad's family in Norway.
Today they aren't so much Simonsons as they are Røksunds.  
They have taken the name of the little ocean sound
where they live.  
But whether the name was the man
or the place, they called themselves by the man's name:
they weren't the Simonson-Stensland family. 

And we were the Simonsons:  not the Simonson-Jacobsons.
In later years, in an attempt to repair some of that brutal male damage,
I became a Røyksund.  Maybe I should have become
a Jenniekid.  Conrad Jenniekid.  

The years have seen other changes, too.
We seven Jenniekids are genetic siblings.
I have seven children, too,
but only four of them are genetic siblings,
sharing Margaret's genes and mine.
Two more became part of our family when Mari and I married.
One of them has Thai heritage.
Our other daughter is of African descent, born in Guyana.

Our kids do not all have the same family names,
and most of them have honored good male tradition,
keeping, or taking, the male's name in marriage.

What constitutes immediate family has become more diverse,
but the male naming brand generally remains.
The male domination remains.
Our naming customs help preserve male dominance.

Jennie's kids are trying to arrange a gathering;
perhaps their last:  they are getting old.
Unfortunately, most of Jennie's kids behave like Gus' kids
altogether too often; even the women:
even their "maiden name" was a man's name. 

Our names didn't make us what we are.
Our names reflect something of what we are.

But not necessarily.  Not necessarily.

                                        --Conrad Jenniekid