Good Enough Page 6

  Elsewhere in celeb land, actor Kate Hudson has admitted she had to work out six hours a day to get her body ‘red carpet ready’ while rocker Pink revealed she worked out twice a day after her baby was born. Not to be outdone, singer Beyoncé admitted she lost 27 kilograms in four months in preparation for her first concert by ‘hitting the treadmill and basically eating lettuce’, and last year when respected journalist Katie Couric’s new show Katie premiered, it hit screens with a world exclusive on – wait for it – Jessica Simpson’s post-baby body reveal. Yep, now this is a woman who could have interviewed absolutely anyone in the world, and this is what she chose to debut with. As sad as it is, she was clearly on the money because ratings were phenomenal. It seems we’re much more interested in how other women lose their baby weight than anything else happening in the world.

  So, the next time you feel shitty about your flabby tummy, do what I do and ask yourself, would you really want to live like that? Yes, you may not be rocking a bikini this summer but that’s okay, because you’re not having a daily diet of lettuce and six-hour workouts to get your body ready for a show/shoot/movie (although pay me $30 million to star in something and I’d be throwing back the icebergs like nobody’s business). And that’s just it, isn’t it? These women with their astronomical salaries not only have the luxury of Photoshop approval, they also have the pressure of tens of lenses trained on them at all times. At most, we have a partner who holds the baby while we shower and run to the Medicare office to chase up yet another bullshit query before they shut up shop for the day. Yeah, our bodies are never going to be what they were, but you know what, your partner’s probably isn’t either.

  I finally ask Lee one day why he doesn’t fret about his looks as he gets older and he looks at me like I’m deranged. ‘What the hell for?’ he says, confusion stamped all over his face. ‘I’m holding up alright and besides I don’t think you’re going to love me a little less just because I’m a bit softer or greyer.’ Ah men, sometimes we just don’t give them enough credit.

  How to stop feeling like crap about your new body

  Many women today strive to be a yummy mummy (who doesn’t know someone who hits the playground like she’s dressed up for Fashion Week?), but it’s a nametag body image expert Flinders University’s Professor Marika Tiggemann can’t stand. ‘There’s so much pressure on mums today – it wasn’t so long ago women used to be able to get off the body image treadmill when they had a baby, to forget about how they looked for a while,’ she says. ‘Now appearance has become so important that we must strive to look our best and be conscious of how we look at all times and if we don’t achieve this, we feel like failures.’ And Professor Tiggemann believes the media is to blame. ‘There is much more publicity and media commentary on celebrity mothers than there used to be. This then gets kind of normalised or internalised, then reinforced by friends and other mothers, and starts to become part of what everyone expects to be our reality.’

  Still feeling shit about your post-baby body? Tiggemann recommends the following:

  1. Say thank you to your body. Remember it’s just given birth to a healthy baby and this is truly an awesome thing. (Evidence suggests we should focus on what the body can do, rather than how it looks, for wellbeing.)

  2. Be grateful that you have a healthy baby. So say thank you to the universe (or whomever). Gratitude increases wellbeing.

  3. Remind yourself that your first priority is your baby. You are spending your time looking after a new person, which is far more important than how you look.

  4. Remember that the celebrities and models have personal trainers and spend hours exercising, etc. It is part of their job. It is not part of yours.

  5. Take pride in valuing what is important (your baby) and not getting sucked into the superficial game of appearance.

  I go all Ku Klux Klan when naming my children

  Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like had I been born Alison Jones or Sarah Huntington-Smith. Would I by now be flashing my ridiculously white chompers from the comfort of my overstuffed armchair on a daily variety talk show I host? Presiding over the women’s lifestyle division of a major publishing arm? Or perhaps I would have put in a short stint in a public relations firm before leaving to marry a hedge-fund/polo-playing billionaire and living out the remainder of my days perfecting the art of matching cushions and rugs? It’s easy to speculate and impossible to know, of course, but I can’t shake the feeling that had I graced this Earth with a more ‘white’ moniker, my career and life trajectory might have been a little different.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love being a Dilvin; it’s unusual, it’s phonetic and aside from the odd bogan who asks me if they can call me Dolphin because Dilvin’s just too difficult, it’s pretty simple. But let’s be honest here, for the average person it’s also a name that suggests – among others – tabouli, Islam, kebabs and a very slight possibility that I might like blowing up commercial airliners.

  Back in the early days of my career when I was stuck in entry-level hell, I felt the full brunt of this rather curious reaction to my name first hand. Every week I would fire off what felt like hundreds of application letters for positions I was more than qualified for – sometimes over-qualified for – and rarely did I even receive a ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ response. My colleagues on the other hand, all flaxen-haired porcelain dolls, had no such trouble. Every time a position came up within the company, we would all apply and they would get interviews (and inevitably, the position), while I would sit around listening to the sound of my wails accompanying a mixtape of Michael Bolton classics. ‘I don’t get it!’ I would cry to my mother. ‘I’m far more experienced than Elizabeth Snowfield and she got the job!’ After hearing my complaints one too many times, even my mother threw in the towel. ‘Why don’t you change your name on your CV to see if it makes a difference?’ Well boy, was she onto something! The minute I changed my name on my CV, the interview requests came rolling in. I was outraged!

  Of course I’m no different from many of my friends and family who’ve had to take drastic measures to ensure career success and ‘fit in’. My cousin, a bright and incredibly talented woman, changed her name from Sezen to Sarah and since then her career has skyrocketed. She’s happy with how far she’s come, but less than thrilled about what she had to do to get there. ‘I would have liked to have made it under my original name, but let’s be honest, it was never going to happen – I mean, people couldn’t even pronounce it,’ she says in disgust. She’s not the only one in my family – my brother changed his name from Erkut to David the minute he turned 18, so frustrated was he with how it marginalised him. ‘I wanted to be employable, yes, but mostly I just wanted to be like everyone else,’ he admits. This was back in the early 80s when there was still plenty of public ‘wog bashing’ going on, so it’s no wonder he was traumatised.

  Recently, a study came out stating what most people from non-English-speaking backgrounds already knew: people from ethnic backgrounds are not receiving the same amount of callbacks for job interviews as Caucasians – 30 per cent fewer, in fact. You reckon? When I tweeted about this, the responses were shocking to say the least. ‘I tried for over a year to get a job with my original name,’ revealed a guy by the name of Sanjit. ‘But once I changed my name to Sam, I got a job within two weeks.’ The exact same CV, he was quick to add, just a whole new perceived identity. Another girl, Gemma, whom I happen to know from my high school days and is as white as the driven snow, discovered the pitfalls of having an ethnic name when she married a man of Lebanese heritage and found applying for jobs as Gemma Ayoub was not getting her anywhere. A quick change on her CV back to her original ‘white’ surname and she was immediately employable again. Go Australia!

  Long story short, this is why I always knew I would never give my child a name consistent with my ethnic heritage. The problem was I couldn’t exactly imagine giving my daughter a classic Aussie name like Julie or Karen, either. Fortunately there are thousands of
baby name books with the most overwhelming figures stamped all over the covers to assist parents with this level of decision-making – ‘60,001 best baby names ever’ screams one book; ‘The coolest baby names in the world’ states another. And it’s not just the books, you can also upload the ‘150,000 baby name’ apps onto your phones so you can torture yourselves no matter where you are. You can choose between city names, celebrity names, video game names (yes, seriously), space names, literary names and the list goes on. But no matter which angle you go with, you’d better take this shit seriously because study after countless study has shown the name you’re given can have a profound effect on you which reverberates well into your adult years. It’s linked to what kind of job you’ll have, whether you’ll end up in trouble with the police, and as egalitarian as we all think we are, how people view your status. So basically, if you don’t circle the right name in that baby book, you might be buying your kid a one-way ticket to a life of serial killing, or at the very least, tax fraud. No pressure.

  To run you through a quick list of these studies, you may want to sit down and pour yourself a stiff drink, because it’s not pretty.

  In one study, when people were asked how they thought a student with a certain name would do academically, the lowest ranking names were Travis and Amber. The highest were Samuel and Katherine. They didn’t actually know the students personally so Travis and Amber could very well have been high achievers, they were just making judgments on how ‘dumb-arse’ the names sounded, because we’re all a little judgmental like that. Give your darling son a feminine name such as Lindsay, Shannon or Ashley? You can look forward to regular 3am knocks on the door from the boys in blue because these guys are much more likely to suffer from behavioural issues than their peers with more masculine names. (Have you considered Chuck or Brock? Think about it.) How does a name like Lindsay destroy your son’s whole life before he’s even entered the big bad world, I hear you ask? Researchers have said it’s unlikely to be the name itself, but rather your son’s reaction to it that will play the biggest role. Disliking your name has a strong link with low self-esteem and if you have the aforementioned girly name, your behavioural problems can often be attributed to feelings of self-consciousness. As one researcher so delicately puts it, ‘If you’ve got the same name as the girl whose breasts you are desperate to squeeze, and you’re being teased relentlessly about your name, that’s the stuff that can really screw you up.’

  Adding further weight to this theory is the study showing that regardless of race, juveniles with unpopular names are more likely to be engaged in criminal activity than garden-variety Jacks and Toms. Boys in the United States with names like Michael and David are far less likely to commit crimes than Ernest and Ivan. Apparently if you have what is classed as an unpopular name, you are often treated differently by your peers, making it more difficult for you to form meaningful relationships and thus more prone to engage in criminal activity. Researchers do argue there would be other factors at play here, such as a disadvantaged home environment, low socio-economic status or growing up in a single-parent household.

  Conversely, some names can actually propel your child forward and give them the kind of life most of us could only ever dream about. Hoping to raise a future CEO? Try Deborah, Carolyn, Peter or Robert. Fancy your kid to be the next Serena Williams? You’ll get them well on their way by naming him or her Ryan, Matt or Jessica. Want your daughter to make money while shimmying topless against a silver-haired fox wearing an expensive suit (no one does, but you might appreciate the warning)? Naming her Madison, Crystal or Misty will do enough damage (although I also suggest missing a few school plays here and there).

  If you’re already on your way to the Births, Deaths and Marriages registry to change little Travis’s name, try not to be too alarmed. It’s all well and good there are these great research papers into the effects your birth name has on your life, but let’s have a bit of perspective, as in: most of the time, like with almost everything else in life, the parents are to blame. You see, what people name their kids often reflects their socio-economic status and level of education. The middle and upper class tend to go for strong, common names, while the working class go for more ‘aspirational’ names and they’re often a proxy for the parents’ philosophy on life in general. For example, if you’re the kind of parent who says (after smoking the world’s biggest doobie), ‘Man, I want to, like, give our love child a truly far-out name no one else has, like Moon Unit, yeah Moon Unit,’ chances are you probably already have a liberal parenting style that emphasises uniqueness, chronic drug use and the importance of standing out. I don’t think we necessarily need a researcher to prove how that’s all going to turn out because Moon Unit’s parents are likely to be parenting very differently from the conservative mums and dads who say, ‘I want a good, strong name that will help my child fit in.’ I’m not saying one is particularly better than the other, but there’s a world of difference between Jack and Jaxxon and the fact you’re the sort of parent who has chosen one over the other will have more of an effect on your child’s life than the actual moniker itself.

  So now I’m pregnant again with a stack of baby books beside me and an empty notebook waiting for the addition of a name, any name, but I’m frozen up with terror. All these studies I’ve read and written about have traumatised me and it’s not likely to get any better with the help of my daughter’s input. ‘We should name her Hannah, Sophie or Tinkerbell,’ she announces, tottering into the room in her plastic dress-up heels. ‘And while we’re there, I want to change my name too because I hate it.’ My heart sinks as she says this; I’ve been waiting for this moment. ‘I see – and what would you like to change your name to, darling?’ I ask. ‘Cinderella,’ she answers seriously and I break out in a big smile. ‘Good luck with that, sweetheart,’ I tell her gently as I kiss the top of her head. ‘Just don’t expect me to pick you up from prison.’

  What’s in a name?

  Finding the perfect name for your baby can often be compared with finding a needle in a haystack, or undergoing root canal therapy. Where do you even start? Laura Wattenberg, creator of the website babynamewizard.com and author of The Baby Name Wizard, lays down her top tips to get you started:

  1. Don’t fixate on finding a ‘strong’ name because that’s entirely subjective. One parent will say single-syllable names like Cole or Blake sound strong and the next will say they sound like nicknames and you’ll need to lengthen them if anyone’s ever to take them seriously. In the end, a ‘strong’ name turns out to just be a name you like.

  2. Names that are elaborate inventions with a lot of unusual letters and punctuation are often markers of low socio-economic status. There is mounting evidence that people do react to social cues in names – whether consciously or subconsciously – and studies reveal a child with such a name suffers disadvantages at school compared with their own siblings with less marked names. They were more likely to be held back a year, and less likely to be recommended for gifted programs.

  3. You might like to take your cues from Hollywood and give your child an eye-catching name like Blue Ivy or Tennessee, but you need to remember, the parents of children with these types of names are creative artists who have worked hard to get themselves in the spotlight so it’s no surprise that some of them would want spotlight-grabbing names for their kids. Don’t assume your child will also want that spotlight. You need to consider if a celeb-style name choice will work as well for a shy, scholarly type.

  4. Many parents like to keep their name choice a closely guarded secret. This can make the ultimate announcement a lot of fun (and spare you some unwanted opinions). But it’s worthwhile to run the name by a few trusted confidants, just in case there’s something about the name you missed. (‘What do you mean Aurora is a Disney Princess??’)

  5. If you choose a truly unusual name, assume that you’ll spend a lot of time correcting spelling and punctuation, and don’t take offence. Face that part of the unique-name exper
ience politely and cheerfully, and your child will follow your lead.

  6. This isn’t a competition. It’s easy to get caught up in the fashion wars, trying to impress other adults with your cutting-edge name choice. But this name will belong to your son or daughter for a lifetime. Most important is choosing a great name that will wear well.

  7. The ultimate test: if you were brand new today, starting off in this world and looking to the future, what name would you want to represent you?

  The top ten male CEO names worldwide according to LinkedIn:

  1. Peter

  2. Bob

  3. Jack

  4. Bruce

  5. Fred

  6. Bill

  7. Ron

  8. Christian

  9. Alexander

  10. Don

  The top ten female CEO names worldwide:

  1. Deborah

  2. Sally

  3. Debra

  4. Cynthia

  5. Carolyn

  6. Pamela

  7. Ann

  8. Cheryl

  9. Linda

  10. Janet

  I love breastfeeding (but it’s not for everyone)

  The very last time I breastfeed Cella, I can’t help but cry. I’d love to give you the visual that I silently wipe away a solitary tear like a Sicilian widow at a mafia trial, but I don’t. No, I sob like a little girl in pigtails crying for her mama, all snot and heaving shoulders. You see, I just can’t help it – I have loved every minute of it. If it were up to me, I would continue past this day, Cella’s first birthday, and keep right on going, but Cella won’t have a bar of it. For the past month, she has fought me at every turn, sucking for only a few minutes under great duress and frankly, it’s starting to get weird. So although I am sad, I also know I have been very lucky to have had the experience I’ve had. Others haven’t been so fortunate.