Saturday, August 18, 2012

Yeah, not so much

So we are 80-some days out from Rabid Weasel II's estimated day of arrival and still don't have much more than a vague clue on names.

Naturally, this opens us up to suggestions from EVERYBODY.  I'm not sure what part of "No, we don't have a name yet" sounds like "Suggest something to me that clearly isn't my style", but there you have it.

And there is one recurring theme:

Well, if you have a boy, name it Erik Keith.

Sigh.

Look, I'm not necessarily against the idea of juniors.  Or at least, I wasn't when I was younger.  But there are things that wear really thin.  I spent three pregnancies hearing some variant on "Why don't you name the baby after Robert if it's a boy?"  I would have thought naming the first child after him (Bobbie = daughter of Robert, at least in the South) would have stopped that, but...yeah...not so much.

And of course changing husbands/baby daddies didn't change the content of the suggestions, just the specifics.  Hell, some really enterprising people have said that Erika is a nice name.  (Sorry, but I can't stand that name, in spite of knowing several really great Ericas.)

At any rate, in my old age, I have found myself greatly annoyed by the suggestion to just name a boy after his daddy.  And it's not any of that "he needs his own identity" BS either.

No, the reason is very simple:

For six pregnancies (including the one I lost), not one person has ever said "Well, if it's a girl you could name it Sabra Ellen." 

I realize that our culture's history is of naming boys after fathers rather than girls after mothers.  I also realize that there's no logical reason for this and it's honestly starting to piss me off a little bit.  The mother, after all, is the one who carries the pregnancy, who goes through birth, who nurses it (or gives it the bulk of bottles), who changes most of the diapers, who does most of the work, even in our enlightened age (I am not complaining about that, mind; I really do consider it a privilege)...But the mom isn't worthy of having the child carry her name? 

Yeah, I'll pass on that too.  Thanks anyway.

1 comment:

breda said...

Ellen is the most excellent middle name. :)