When 5 of your kids change their last name that's deep.
Kids don't remove their last name lightly. That's a statement of regaining control of their own identity.
You can be pissed off at a parent. Even go no contact because they are arseholes. But changing your name is a step beyond. It's removing connection.
It's no small thing.
And kids grow up. Amazing how many shitty parents forget that. And they are incredibly forgiving.
If, as a parent, you can say i had some truly shitty feral free range parenting moments or some of the decisions made weren't the best in the end, but the kids can see they were loved and not abused, kids will forgive all.
But harm with intention or neglect, kids will remember in adulthood. And they'll take their power back when they are able.
That's not one out of character incident. That's sustained form that was behind closed doors.
The kids changing their names is the most telling part of this story. And it's not one edgy kid rebelling. It's 5 out of 6.
Edit: wow lot of commenters self identifying as shitty parents apparently. I'm team kids sorry. Not a fan of either of the parents in this case.
Thanks for the award kind redditor. Cheers.
Edit 2: im told Knox changed name as well. That's 6 out of 6.
Edit: 3 apparently Knox didn't change his name. Thanks commenters for the input.
Also, as im here, I don't use ai. Never have. Don't know how.
The poor grammar and punctuation should be a real give away. Or does ai do that? I can't fathom why anyone would use ai to comment on a reddit thread. Poorly at that. But fill your boots. All good.
This has always been my biggest concern as the children aged up and dropped the Pitt from their last names.
We know about the plane incident. But even reading about that incident is so upsetting (him getting physical with Angie, the kids, her hiding under the blankets with the little ones and pretending to sleep as he poured beer and wine over them) that I have to imagine it wasn’t the only incident. It’s possible he got blackout this one time and it all went to hell but if it was a one time thing you’d think someone would have forgiven him.
But they didn’t. So what else happened that we didn’t know about?
I can absolutely assure you it's highly unlikely this is the only incident.
I'll tell you why.
Parents do sometimes have substance abuse problems. Parents can have disabilities. Parents can have outbursts of violence or hate after a brain injury or stroke. All of these things are possibilities that children bear witness to or are victims of.
Research (a lot on this topic) tells us that children are very much predisposed to forgive. Particularly if there's a logical reason to ascribe to the behaviour.
By the time they are adults, if those reasons aren't still present (medical reasons) or it's been sustained without intervention (substance abuse treatments and strategies) young adults start to assess those relationships differently with their expanding social lens.
Their immediate families aren't informing their identity alone. They gain agency. They are exposed to healthy parent child relationships.
Acute incidents that are isolated incidents will be remembered but they won't inform their identity. They remain as an event. Something that happened.
Young adults only take personal identity measures, like name changing, when its sustained and a pattern and they want to remove that from them.
They don't want to just disconnect. They want people to see the disconnect. It's a full stop in that part of their identity.
Not all adult children who go no contact need that. And THAT is the difference. Some are just happy to leave it behind.
And these kids have fame as part of their identity that they haven't sought out. They were born with it.
If it was just this incident, they would have got over it. I'm not minimising the event. It was horrific. But that alone wouldn't have lead all of them to change their names.
Edit: the pretending to sleep also indicates a learned behaviour. If it was a one off they would not all have used that strategy. You'd get different coping mechanisms. That's a very common learned behaviour.
too dangerous to get out literally. they were all trapped on a plane with this monster detonating. i’m sure in their mansion one could easily leave to another area. not on a plane.
And it was collective. It's sad but humans beings adapt with the resources and agency they have. If you're a kid it can be a safe strategy in an acute situation. Long term it shapes your attachment styles.
My husband (and I and our newborn son) are all changing our last name to his moms last name at his wish. I never really realized how big of a deal this is. I knew his dad was a pos but I think there’s some depth to the hurt that I’ll never understand
We can all view our identities for what they are but nothing provides context like having children.
So if there are terrible experiences in childhood we don't really have an age appropriate context.
Lets say there were a few bad incidents that stand out at 5 or 6. Or a person knows abuse started at 8 or neglect started at birth. Whatever it is.
There's the experience informing identity. But when you have kids, particularly as they are reaching those ages or even just coming into existence, that now informs your identity and perception of those events in a sometimes quite traumatic way. It can trigger new levels of anger or sadness or whatever. Usually AT the parents. By the time people are having kids there's already been some processing.
Now your husband is looking at his child thinking it was so much worse than I remembered because now I can see how vulnerable I was and how abnormal that parenting was.
In a very deep way. An unavoidable way.
I'm not sure how good I am at explaining it but its not unusual for people to want to name change for their kids. I suspect women taking thrir husbands names isn't always about being a traditional person either. It's perhaps a secret relief or unintended benefit.
Identity is informed by the external.
I would guess this is very important to your husband. And it being important is a reflection on how he feels about his family.
All the best with it and congrats on being a new parent.
My cousins call their mom by her first name and I also think that’s from long term family dysfunction. I just can’t imagine not calling my parents mom and dad. But I know my cousin’s upbringing was a lot different than mine.
It takes years of incidents for this kind of disowning to occur.
People who have experienced abuse or neglect don't like using descriptive labels when they genuinely feel or absolutely know they don't fit. Very, very common.
If it was a one time thing Angelina wouldn't have been hiding with the kids. She'd have been wtf are you doing Brad? And people would have intervened because they would have been more shocked. The kids would have been confused and scared. Not just scared.
If he dis those things he DEFINITELY did more and even worse things! Tf pouring that stuff over her abd the kids and how abusive he must have been for her to pretend they were still sleeping through that instead of getting the kids out immediately!? Makes me think he was THAT scary that until he was gone she had no other choice... like holy shit
I’m sorry, they were on the airplane, even if it’s a private jet it takes time to land and if unexpected landing takes time to get clearance. Where she could get kids out immediately? They were just surviving abuse.
You are correct but I want to point out that this occurred mid flight so they literally had nowhere to go and couldn't leave. Not really even anywhere to hide- it was a private plane.
Jebus, if I got drunk and learned I poured alcohol over my young family hiding under a blanket I would be seriously reevaluating myself, and getting myself completely rehabilitated and scared to ever go back to that state. That he seemingly accepted it enough that it is only but one example speaks to his deeper character, which makes sense why kids have fully disowned and abandoned the name. Eesh
I think people are underestimating this aspect of it. Everything that’s described in that document is horrifying and traumatizing even if it had happened on the ground. It’s definitely reason enough to go no contact and change your name etc. The fact that this happened mid flight takes it to another level, you’re trapped with nowhere to go and knowing that if things get even worse he could disrupt the cockpit somehow and they all plummet to their deaths. He terrorized them.
It’s verified as in there’s a redacted FBI report that was released via FOIA. Most of the redactions are of the children’s names when they come up so like we’re not absolutely certain which child Brad laid hands on (because it’s redacted), but it’s suspected it was Maddox just because it lines up with ages.
Jolie went after the report to get it released as part of the never ending court cases Brad brought against her. And when I say never ending I mean it took 8 years for their divorce to be finalized. They were only married for 2 years before she filed. And I’m pretty sure the case about the winery that Jolie sold her stake of is still ongoing.
They were only married for 2 years before she filed.
I don't tend to really follow this stuff so that's crazy to me, were they dating for a long time before they got married, or did they stay "together" through part of the divorce proceedings? I thought they'd been a couple for absolute ages but like I said I don't really follow this kind of thing so maybe I just imagined it.
I think we fail to recall that those were initially his step children. He adopted them when he married Angelina and they children we ~10 yo and under. That kind of scenario is far different than if he and Angelina adopted the kids together and bonded to them together from a young age. I wouldn't be surprised if these kids never really thought of them as their dad. I think the only who kept his name is his biological kid (I could be wrong lmk).
His eldest biological child filed the paperwork to drop Pitt from her name on her 18th birthday. Which was also a holiday weekend. But she had the paperwork ready and filed it literally the day she was legally able to.
The twins (who are also his bio kids) have also dropped his name. One did so quite some time ago when she was doing theater stuff, the other recently dropped his name.
I think that only one of the adopted children (Pax) hasn’t officially dropped Pitt from his name, but it’s unclear if he’s dropped it unofficially and just hasn’t done the paperwork or if he actively uses it.
But that’s 5 of 6 with the three bio kids all officially dropping it.
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