Changing my baby's last name..or hyphenating

[sunny73lj]

My circumstances are not exacly like yours but similar in a way. As much as I hate this, your child (and mine) is ENTITLED to her father's name. She also is not yet old enough to make a decision as far as changing it. My daugher is 12, and legally has her father's last name as well. However, since our divorce was final when she was 2 years old, I have been using my hyphenated name as her last name as well as my own. All her medical and insurance and school records and all other records she might have, have the hyphenated name, and that is the only name she has ever known herself by. She now is almost 13 and has stated that when she is legally old enough, she wants to drop her father's name from the hyphenation and just use my maiden name. I don't know the legal age for that here in Iowa, I believe it is maybe 16. When she decides to do that, I will drop his last name from my name as well. She has had no contact with her father since she was 4 and is only now getting old enough to understand what that means to her and how his non-payment of child support affects her life, and mine as well. I don't really think that any time younger than the legal age is a good idea to let a child make a decision like that. They need those years to sort out their feelings about their other parent and what effect or lack of one it has made in their life.