What's in a Name?

Friends of ours at [Happy Little] College, where Stephen and I will both be teaching in the fall, tell us that the students are already calling us "Mr. Dr. [Our Last Name]" and "Mrs. Dr. [Our Last Name]."

I took Stephen's last name when we married, and we have the same first initial.  So, on the class sign-up site, there are a whole lot of classes being taught by "S. [Our Last Name]."

And the students--clever kids!--have already figured out that it's going to be a problem.

I'm not sure why this makes me smile as much as it does.

Maybe it's because "Mr." and "Mrs." seem a little more personal to me than "Dr."  And there's an undeniable "cute" factor to "Mr. Dr." and "Mrs. Dr."

Or maybe it's because nicknames, too, are a sign of familiarity (if not always of affection).  And it's nice to feel that the students are already calling us anything at all--and something more personal than "those new guys that are coming."

One thing I'm sure contributes to my happiness: I'm glad to be going as "Mr. Dr. and Mrs. Dr." and not "Dr. and Mrs."  I'm glad to have finished the doctorate so that Stephen and I are going there on equal footing (at least with respect to our professional accomplishments, if not to our standing at the college).

I'm glad that there's no question of the subtle denigration of my qualifications with respect to his by the application of different titles.

I'm glad that I'll not be subject to the domestication of my professional accomplishments by the assumption that they are dependent on Stephen's.  "Oh, so after got his degree, you got one, too?  How cute!"  "Oh, he put you through school?  What a great guy!  Not many husbands would do that!"  "You must have learned so much about theology while Stephen was getting his degree!"  (At least, not by the students, who will always know us both as Dr.)

I'm glad that, even though people we meet at the local churches and community centers ask, "What does your husband do?" and express surprise that "You work, too?" the students, at least, expect me to show up for class every day.

I have to confess that I had gotten accustomed to the rarefied atmosphere of the Ivory Tower, where the idea of my being a "trailing spouse" had not occurred to anyone, or, if it had, it was more often referred to as "the two-body problem."  A "two-body problem," of course, implies that both bodies are, in general or at least potentially, equally weighted.  There was no suggestion that Stephen's dissertation was weightier than mine (even if it was, quite literally, longer and thus heavier).  In fact, almost none of my professors and mentors even mentioned Stephen when they were talking about my work or my job prospects.

And, before that, to the loving and supportive atmosphere of my family, in which I was never "pretty smart, for a girl" or encouraged to "get a useful degree, in case you can't find a husband."  I'd heard of families and businesses and government agencies where having breasts and ovaries was a liability, but I'd never experienced it--not once.  Not ever.

I can't say that I've had genuinely rude or mean-spirited interactions with any Alabamans yet.  But there have been more than a few of those moments of surprise, those quick recoveries, those raised-and-then-hurriedly-relaxed eyebrows.

I must try to remember not to overreact to those moments.

And knowing that the students are calling Stephen "Mr. Dr." means that they are calling me "Mrs. Dr. [last name]" not to mark my doctorate off from all the doctorates of my male colleagues, but simply to distinguish between the two "Dr. [last name]s" on campus.  "Which Dr. is which?" is such a different question than, "Oh, you're a Dr., too?"

It's a good difference.  And that makes me smile.