Monday, November 21, 2011

By Any Other Name

I had my first day back at work today after 3 weeks off and do you know what i realised? Holy mackerel there are a lot of places where i'm going to have to change my name! I've already had to email two seperate departments in my organisation and they're happy to change it from my maiden name to married name without a marriage certificate - but for all the other official type stuff ( bank/RTA/Centrelink ) I'll have to wait.



Truth be told, i really dont want to wait, I'm excited about having a new name. Funnily enough , a few of my friends expressed suprise that i was going to change to Micks surname - i've always been a bit of an independent/girl power type of woman ( to the point where i told Mick if he was ever going to  propose he was NOT to ask my father for permission - i'm not an object to be handed off ! ) and they had assumed i would just keep my own name. But, despite my firm belief in having my own identity as a woman, i'd never even thought about NOT changing my name. Why? Changing my name, to me, is another symbol of our unity as a couple. I'm not saying you cant be united with different surnames - if that works for you then great - but for me i couldnt wait to be " Mrs Amy F ", wife of Mick F and, equally importantly .... mother to Flynn F.

I know that there are lots of mums out there who have different names to their offspring - i mean, so did i for the first 22 months of Flynn's life - but changing my name feels like making our little family unit really complete. Not complete in the sense that we wont be adding to it ( fingers crossed! ) but complete in that we're all one and the same now, all bound together for everyone to see.

Sure i may not be overly fussed to share the same name as my FIL ( hell, thats a whole other post .... ) but i'm Mick's wife and i'm Flynn's mum and i'm happy and proud for everyone to so obviously know it!

2 comments:

  1. It's a lot of work to get your name changed everywhere! People were surprised when I changed my name too, for pretty much the same reasons. I even had a couple of people tell me that my maiden name was 'better' than my married one! But, like you, it was a symbol of us as a couple. I understand the many reasons why some women don't change their names but it never even crossed my mind not to.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know 2 years on and I am still finding things I forgot to change..or was just too hard and couldn't be bothered..like my ebay I still get to sign my 'old' name for kicks :)

    ReplyDelete