RSS
Home
Happy birthday, poor little Adolf Hitler
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
So this story is making the rounds. (A quick recap: a couple names their kids Adolf Hitler, Aryan Nations, and (possibly? Along with their other glaring flaws, they seem to be unable to spell the name of one of their heroes) Himmler. A local bakery refuses to print Hitler's name on a birthday cake. Father of the Year there basks in the public eye.) There's so much to object to here: that this guy is getting the national attention he so desperately craves; that Wal-mart (apparently lacking any sense of P.R.) went right ahead and printed a birthday cake that said "Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler"; and my old favorite, the hate-monger who feigns startled innocence when confronted with the consequences of being a, you know, hate-monger.
Anyway, whether this guy ought to be rewarded for his behavior or not, people are weighing in on this everywhere -- I am a particular fan of Rachel Maddow's point about why people like this don't just legally change their own names instead of saddling an innocent little kid with this kind of burden. That brings up an interesting point for me: whether parents ought to be allowed to have unlimited power in limiting their kids' future in this particular (and deliberate) way.
There are, of course, countries in which parents are constrained in one way or another when it comes to naming their kids. In some countries there are lists that parents have to choose from; in others, there are laws that disallow certain names or combinations. Most relevant, in this instance, is Germany, where it would be against the law to give Nazi-glorifying names to kids. Laws like this always make the American part of me nervous, but the part of me that considers children to be actual persons with their own rights thinks that maybe this is not the wrong way to go.
It's not like I have any desire to see everyone named Jennifer and Jason -- I certainly enjoy having a relatively unusual name, and my kids all have old-fashioned names which I thought would be unusual in their peer group. (I was wrong, incidentally, which is possibly another topic for another day -- what causes generational naming trends anyway?) I also belong to a community where children tend to have less-than-traditional names, and I really enjoy that. And while I might roll my eyes when I come across the parent who thought it was a good idea to name their kid "Neveah" or "Heart" or "Xootee (pronounced Susie)" I'm enough of a grown-up to see that people might express their love and hopes for their children in ways that I wouldn't, and that's okay. The kid can grow to enjoy being named "Raindrop Peaceflower" or can change his name to "Joe" when he turns eighteen, and in the long run it's not that big a deal.
But what about that tiny minority of people who give their kids stupid or offensive names just for the sake of being slime? When I was a kid it there was the joke about Mr. Pig, who named his girls Ima and Ura, or the woman who named her baby Vagina because she thought she it was a lovely name when she heard it in the hospital. Snopes debunks these [eta -- I guess there was an Ima Hogg. Who knew?], but, as we see above, these people do exist, and they seem to see naming their kids as an opportunity draw attention (sweet, sweet attention, and who cares what kind of effect it has on the kids) to themselves. There really are people who don't see a difference between their child and a bumper sticker they display to anger other drivers.
So, readers, I put the question to you: What about those people? Should there be a law? Is it worth it to keep them from deliberately hurting their kids in the name of smart-assery, even if you accidentally catch "Xootee" in the cross hairs? Or is it too draconian for this country to limit the 99.6% of us who don't need laws like that anyway?
I'm torn. The one thing I am totally sure of, though, is that just giving this repulsive couple (and their unfortunate children) any publicity at all makes me feel the need for a long, scalding shower.
Related Articles:
Comments
