November 8 My Name

I was named after the girl who watched my mom laugh so hard in a Martha's Vineyard hardware store that she needed to use a potholder to keep from peeing herself... and then put the potholder back on the rack.

My mom grew up as the youngest of four: Joe, Emmy, Carol and Julia. Emmy and Joe bore the brunt of their father's rigid, cruel "parenting" style. Carol and my mom were able to avoid some of the abuse but not all. The two of them were more closely bonded to each other than any of the siblings. All four kids were profoundly affected by how they were raised each acted out in spectacularly different ways.

I won't use this as a forum to air my family's dirty laundry but suffice to say that some members are no longer on speaking terms, some turned to alcohol, some are unable to deal with their emotions to this day and some continue to try to "fix" the family.

Happily, my mom and my namesake are still close.

None of the women in that family were given middle names. It was expected that they would all take the names of their husbands and use their maiden names as their middle names. Of course they would.

When Carol's husband's family- a good Southern family from North Carolina, learned she had no middle name, they gave her one: Sue. When I finally came into the picture, my parents decided to name me after the person who may have been the key to my mom's relative sanity and positive adjustment to society. I am Carol Suzanne.



Assignment Notes: John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt is not my name. Robert Paulson is not my name.
My name is Laurie.
What's your name? Tell the story of how you got your first, middle, or last name.