A Rose By Any Other Name

I don’t really recall why I was how I was, but I am pretty ashamed to admit that I used to be really quite embarrassed of my last name. I often wonder if my (now) teenage kids, Thing 1 and Thing 2, feel the same way? My wife took my last name as her own on our wedding day and I wince when I think about just how painful a decision that must have been to make!

A chronology: In kindergarten it was 'ladybug'. In primary school it was 'half lady half man'. In high school it was 'girly man' or 'lady boy'. The term 'hermaphrodite' was bounced around infrequently, but I think this one was was beyond the vocabulary dexterity of most of the morons that offered up the abuse. Post high-school the tide turned in my favour and 'Ladies Man' was what I seemed to hear most frequently, which I could live with. 

Beyond the usual school yard ridicule I did have to endure the torment of being summoned by my last name. In upper high I had a hard-ass, weathered old Phys Ed teacher who had a bad case of Short Man Syndrome. He only ever addressed me as “Oi LADYMAN”  which really got my goat; so much so that I actually fronted him on the issue. I won that battle but the war would rage on.

When I was contemplating enrollment in the Army Reserves, I anticipated with near certainty that Ladyman would be the tag by which I would known. Drill Sergeants would be barking it at 100 decibels and my buddies would beckon me by it in the trenches.

Oddly enough, the one place where I genuinely thought my last name would have locals in stitches was Thailand, but on both occasions when I have toured the country Ladyman barely raised a dry smile.

When I accepted the contract to work FIFO I did not consider, for one single second, how I would cope with people making mischief with the family avatar. I may as well have introduced myself as Ladyman, because my first name was given absolutely no regard and it really was not very long before every single one of my fluoro-infused colleagues were playing lingual twister with my last name.

It really was not a drama when it was coming from my blue-collar buddies on the front-line. We were spilling the same blood in the same mud and nicknames were terms of endearment. But when management started to chime in, I had to check myself. My sense of place was launched back in time and I found myself fuming like I did in those upper school Phys Ed classes. To my credit I summoned every ounce of intestinal fortitude, smiled a chipper smile and then turn the other cheek in the face of what many might regard as workplace harassment. But with every occasion that I turned my back to this antagonist, my ill will lifted and drifted further from me like pollen rising on a brisk spring breeze. 

It took only a few days for me to realise and fully appreciate that I was no longer at odds with my family name. In fact, I think I am pretty keen to fully embrace it. It is who I am and I am proud to be a Ladyman. 

As an aside, the origin of the name IS actually Ladies man or man servant to the Lady of the house. I can cope with either of those.