Hi, WTBH! Sorry if I'm keeping the discussion off-topic... I just wanted to pipe in a bit on the name issues: I went back and forth on changing my name after my divorce. There were 2 reasons I initially held back:
1. I'm very clearly of mixed decent with darker hair and eyes. DS is very, very, blond and blue-eyed. As silly as it seems to me now, I was terrified (thanks in a great deal to AXH's 'joking' that people think I'm DS's nanny rather than Mom) that if we got separated at the grocery store that people wouldn't believe I was DS's mom and how to explain not only the appearance difference but also the name difference...
2. How confusing would it be for DS and his friends that my last name is different from his.
At the same time, life as Mrs. AXH was h-ll. Not all of it, but enough of it. I didn't want to keep on being her.
Maybe DS's school is different, but as I thought about the name change, I realized just how many mom's at the school didn't share the same last name as their kiddos. They either kept their own name when they married, had been divorced and remarried, or hyphenated, or... The kids didn't seem confused. And really, I'm usually addressed as either Ms. Michelle or more commonly "[DS]'s Mom!!"
And the store thing.... AXH is an a-- (for many reasons). There is no way to mistake that I'm DS's mom when he sees me: yelling "MOM!!!" as he runs to tackle-hug me. Or any one who looks at us standing together can plainly see that he has my shape of eyes, my nose and my smile.
At least in this state, I could change my name to a previous name (maiden name) as part of the divorce or I could change it to whatever my little heart desires under a separate change of name case - it'd just be a separate case and additional filing fees. Should DS ever wish to change his name, he could file to do so when he becomes an adult. (As other's had noted, we'd need AXH's authorization to change DS's name as a minor and that won't ever happen.)