Fans of A Feminist Sensibility will notice my radio silence over the past two weeks. Without being overly specific, my professional life has taken a little detour down Route Crazy and I’ve been spending most of what little free time I have trying to cope with this new reality.

I’m not complaining, mind you. I love my career and I’m extremely passionate about what I do. However, no matter how professionally stimulating the last two weeks have been, I’ve spent most of my time feeling guilty.

Why guilty? Well, because I have been traveling and working long hours at my job, I have been neglecting other things, like housework, time with my husband, and obligations like writing for Curiata.com. Now, being the modern urban gentleman that he is, Mike has not said one word about the dismal state of disrepair of our house, and he has, in his own way and by his own definition, done his part to keep it “clean.” He also works in the same field as I do (politics), so he understands that until the state budget is signed into law, I’m stuck working late nights.

Thankfully, even though I work long hours during the week, the weekends are my own. However, this does nothing to help the guilt factor. Last weekend, the MUG and I took our dog for a nice, four-mile jaunt in a local park that has some decent hiking trails. Instead of getting a head start on my duty to my legions of readers, I chose to spend time with my family. While I don’t regret that decision, I do, nevertheless, feel guilty that I shirked that responsibility to myself, my colleagues, and all of you.

I feel guilty for a whole host of other reasons, too — even something as menial as not making enough time in my life for fitness. I’ve always expected great things from myself, including impeccable time management skills. My mother once said to me, “Carrie, no one in this world would be as critical of you as you are of yourself. You have to learn to be kinder to yourself and let things go.” She was and is right. But learning to let go and accept that I can’t do it all is something that I still, obviously, struggle with.

In her book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, the chief operating officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, dedicates an entire chapter to the myth of having it all. Throughout the chapter, she regales us with stories about how she tries to balance a career and being a wife and mother. It’s stories like these that make me simultaneously feel better and worse about my frustrations. If someone like Sandberg has struggles, it’s acceptable that I do, too.

Then there’s that little voice inside my head that says, “but you don’t have kids yet … it’s only going to get worse.” And while that’s probably true, the fact remains that the childless and partnerless women in this world still struggle with the feeling of guilt. Women will either feel guilt because they don’t have a partner or children, or they’ll feel guilt because they are probably neglecting their partner and/or children in some way that is ruining their lives.

I could blame the media for inundating us with images that portray women who have it all. I could blame the advertising industry for telling us that if we just had X product, we’d be able to have it all. But in reality, while these things can influence us, they do not control us. Only I can control how I feel about things.

So from today forward, I invite all other women, whether they consider themselves feminist or not, to join me in resolving to be kinder to ourselves. I resolve to stop feeling guilty and beating myself up if I miss a workout, or dinner with my husband, or loading the dishwasher. I resolve to stop trying to “do it all” and will instead focus on “doing what I can.”

A few months ago, an eighth grade science teacher in my kids’ school district was arrested on child pornography charges. My children, ages 9 and 6, are still in elementary school, but these events required a[nother] discussion with my kids about predators — including how to protect themselves.

For the most part, in our house we have a “don’t hit” rule. However, this rule applies only to people who actually live in our house. The kids don’t hit each other or their dad or me; we don’t hit the kids or each other. My husband and I discipline our kids, for sure, but never by spanking, slapping, or hitting.

Anyone else is fair game.

Before you start freaking out, please know that my kids are good kids. They display excellent behavior at school, and we find them to be generally pleasant, fun, and decent kids. We have not given the kids license to settle every playground disagreement by force. Since my children have emerged from their toddler years (where every kid operates in a feral zone), they have not hit another child outside our home. (They do sometimes still hit each other, but these occasions are quite rare.) But when it comes to bad guys, all options are on the table.

Unfortunately, it is hard to tell the good guys from the bad. The term “guys” here does, in fact, refer to males. While there are female sexual predators, the vast majority are men. And since 90 percent of all child victims know their offender, that offender could be a teacher, coach, neighbor, family friend, or relative. And all of them seem so nice. Terrifying, I know.

I had to tell my kids what the teacher in our district had been accused of. I had to tell them exactly why those actions were wrong. I had to tell them that I hoped none of the man’s students were his victims, but until the investigation is complete, we won’t really know. I had to tell them that even if some of the students had been victims, they may be too ashamed to tell. I had to tell them that it’s never the kid’s fault if something like this happens. Never. I had to tell them that if an adult tells a kid to keep a secret, or threatens them, or threatens a kid’s family or pets, that the first thing that kid should do is to tell a trusted adult (a parent, for example).

I had to tell them that their bodies are theirs and no one — not me or their dad, not a relative, a teacher, club leader, or cafeteria aide, not our neighbors, or any of our friends or the kids’ friends — should ever touch them in any way that feels creepy, strange, uncomfortable, painful, weird, or bad.

This can be a challenging rule in light of overly affectionate great aunts or other distant family members. Nonetheless, don’t make your kids hug or kiss relatives if they don’t want to. This is one of the first things you can do to show a child that their body really is theirs. Forcing a child to hug or kiss anyone when they don’t want to sends a message that their bodies are theirs … unless and until someone else wants to do something to them. This is a terrible message.

Giving kids control over their own bodies can be a challenge for caring and nurturing moms and dads. Parenting instincts notwithstanding, don’t make a kid dress for your comfort. If it is cold outside and you, yourself, feel cold, don’t force your kid to bundle up if he tells you he is fine. Doing so demonstrates that your child can’t even tell if her own body is comfortable. And if the child can’t tell when her body is comfortable, how will she be able to tell when it’s not? So, let your kid make these basic decisions about their own bodies, please.

I had to tell my kids that if anyone ever touches them in an inappropriate way or asks to be touched, they can and should say no — loudly and plainly. They can and should get away and get to a safe adult immediately and tell us as soon as possible. I had to tell them that if saying no doesn’t work, or if they couldn’t get away, they should yell, scream, kick, bite, claw, and hit. I had to tell them that not only could they do it, but that they should do it. No matter with whom or where — even if it’s at school, or in public, or in a friend’s house, or in our own home. And I told them that if this ever happened, whether they said no or not, or whether they caused a scene or not, or tried and failed to get away or not, that it would never, ever be their fault.

I reiterated this message and reassured them that they could tell me if anything like this ever happened to them — that it would be an adult conversation, just like the one we were having right then. I reaffirmed that I will not freak out, and I will always listen to them. I told them that they have my and their dad’s full support in using whatever force they deem necessary to protect themselves. I told them that they will never get in trouble by me or their dad for protecting themselves, no matter what method they choose. I also told them that, if they get in trouble by anyone else for protecting themselves, I would handle it.

The kids asked some questions, which I answered as best as I could. Then I took a deep breath and hoped that they heard at least some of our discussion in their bones. Since then, I have raised the subject again a time or two in a casual, informal way. I will continue to do so in the future.

Parents spend a lot of time telling kids what not to do. But these “nots” have some exceptions. We, as parents, need to make sure that we give voice to those exceptions and tell kids exactly when it is OK to ignore the “nots” — and how to go about it.

A few weeks ago, I broached the subject of marital name change from a feminist point of view. I was surprised by how many of you weighed in on the subject, either in the article’s comments section or on various Facebook shares.

That was great, because Curiata.com was created to be a platform for its writers and readers to interact, discuss, and cultivate their opinions and tastes on many different things, from politics to superheros to recipes. There were a lot of excellent points raised in the subsequent discussions, and I wanted to take the opportunity to respond or expand on these thoughts.

First and foremost, one person felt that my column left the reason I decided to change my name unclear. As I said then, the real reason for my article was to highlight that it didn’t matter why I changed my name. The real feminist victory is that I had a choice; I was not forced or coerced to do anything against my will. But it got me thinking about nailing down a more precise answer for why I made the decision I did.

Several other commenters questioned if changing my name was a reflection of a lack of connection to my blood relatives. Some of my own friends have experienced a situation such as this and were happy to adopt their husband’s name for this reason. But for me, it wasn’t a lack of identity, but rather too many identities from which to choose. Let me explain — and no, I do not suffer from multiple personality disorder.

If you look at the surnames of my four grandparents, they are, in no particular order: Goodyear, Kimmel, Zellers, and Reynolds. I am no more or less any one of these names. As a matter of fact, I’ve often been told that I am a younger version of my paternal grandmother (which is odd, because she died when I was only two years old — very little time for her to have a significant impact on my life).

Her last name was originally Kimmel. So because I am similar to her, does that mean that my last name should be Kimmel, because I can identify with her? Maybe so, but in our current setup of naming, we don’t get to choose for ourselves until long after we’ve established an identity. And I inherited my father’s name, who inherited his father’s name, and so on and so forth all the way back to Saxony, Germany, when the original spelling was “Gutjahr.” I can also trace my mother’s family all the way to the 1600s in Ireland.

I don’t suffer from a lack of familial identity, but rather an abundance of it. Before I had finally decided to take my husband’s last name, I watched him trace my ancestry quite diligently. (In fact, I think he was more interested in my roots than I was.) When we linked our family trees, it was a huge patchwork quilt.

My husband is equal parts Hillman and Blackwell, Daley and DeMartine. He didn’t get to choose the surname Hillman, just like I didn’t get to choose the surname Goodyear. But the beauty of society in 2014 is that I do get to choose whether or not to change my name at an important juncture in life — when I begin a new family with my husband.

I would be lying to you if I said I’ve always loved my maiden name, Goodyear. But it’s not because I’m ashamed of or estranged from my parents or other ancestors who bear the name. In middle and high school, I was overweight. It doesn’t take too long or too much creativity for the blimp jokes to start rolling in. Intellectually, I understand that kids will be always be cruel, and I would have been picked on no matter my last name. Nonetheless, my maiden name still carries negative childhood connotations, and I’d rather not pass along this particular demon to my kids.

In fact, that brings me to the more precise reason I did decide to change my name: for the benefit of any future offspring my husband and I may have. I realized that by getting married, we were starting a new, unified family. And that someday, we hope to raise a couple of sensible feminists and/or modern urban gentlemen. I felt it was important to signify to the outside world that we are a team.

To that end, there was a brief moment in time when I toyed with the idea of combining our names to create a new name. The best I could come up with was Hillyear or Goodman. Neither of us was thrilled with either option, and after working so hard to trace our ancestry, it seemed a bit of a waste to start a brand new lineage with us. And since our tradition says that our children will inherit their father’s name, it made sense for me to make that change.

In reality, I understand that there will always be individuals who criticize any decision I make. If I would have kept my maiden name, there would have been individuals who felt that I was being disrespectful and emasculating to my husband. Since I changed my last name, I’m sure there are people who think I am “not feminist enough.”

If we would have opted to combine our last names, there are people who would say that we were being too politically correct, or my personal favorite, they would call us “damn hippies.” Lastly, if Mike would have taken my last name, he would have been mocked mercilessly by some of his male friends and coworkers; I also probably would have been called some interesting names if I had “forced” him into this.

I came to the decision to change my name on my own terms. I’m no longer forced, by law or by society, to take my husband’s name as a sign that I am his property. But not everyone has that level of comfort, and many would be judged cruelly if they make a decision that isn’t popular with the majority.

All of this is a long way of saying: yes, we have come very far in terms of the marital name change. But we still have a long way to go.

When Curiata.com was in its infancy, it became clear to me that the female contributors were outnumbered by the men almost 3 to 1. I resolved to start a feminist column to (hopefully) balance out the testosterone on the site.

The Modern Urban Gentleman and I were having a conversation about my column one night and he said, “You know you are going to have to write a column about your name change, right?” And he’s right.

Up until about a year and a half ago, I had always planned on keeping my maiden name. Intellectually, I knew why women changed their last names in the past, and it wasn’t a symbol of a unified family, but rather a designation of property ownership. Further, it seemed to me that everyone in society expected women to just conform and accept their husband’s last name. It’s just what you do! I, for one, despise that argument for anything in life, and it’s one of the things I used to rail against.

So how did I change my mind, and subsequently my name, after getting married? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. There was never an “aha!” moment when I suddenly knew why I wanted to change my name.

First off, I should state that I do use a combination of my maiden and married name in the professional world — at least for now. My resume says “Carrie Goodyear Hillman” at the top of the page. Part of this is just for practicality. I worked very hard to build an excellent work reputation as Carrie Goodyear, and I felt that completely changing my name would be like throwing all of that hard work out the window. Am I still the same person with the same work ethic? Absolutely. However, our names are extremely similar to the branding of a product. I felt that I (and those around me) needed a transition period.

But none of this answer the question as to why I changed my name. If anything, it makes the argument for why I should have just kept my maiden name. But here’s the rub: Mike and I are not what I would consider a “traditional” couple, though what we are is becoming increasingly common. We cohabited for three years before getting married, which means that we are either going to be just fine in our marriage or we are destined to get a divorce, depending on which study you read. We don’t strictly adhere to traditional gender roles. This was evident over the weekend where our basement started taking on water worse than anything Noah experienced. Today, we both have painful hands and Drylok caked under our fingernails.

In my mind, marriage wasn’t going to change the dynamic of our relationship too drastically. I mean, we already lived together, a marriage ceremony is largely symbolic and, really, it’s the day-in, day-out of a relationship that determines the couple’s level of commitment, not the marriage ceremony itself. So, to our friends and family, we were already a unit, already a team. They received their Christmas cards from the Goodyear/Hillman household.

But, the thought struck me, how would we convey to the outside world that we were in this together? Yes, I would have my wedding band, but there’s something extremely unifying about sharing a last name.

On the other hand, I’ve had a lot of people ask me why I didn’t hyphenate my last name. It was a purely selfish reason. I didn’t want to have to sign Carrie E. Goodyear-Hillman every single time I swiped my credit card. When I was signing as Carrie E. Goodyear, I would get annoyed by the time I reached the “y.”

There are times when I feel like I have to defend my actions to other feminists. But then I realize that is just silly. We have come a long way in women’s rights, but globally we have a long way to go. The marital name change is no longer a requirement or a demonstration of ownership. I changed my name because I wanted to, and because I felt that it was the best decision for me — and that, my friends, is what feminism is all about.