What is in a baby's name? Usually, a distinction between boy or girl. Names, however, are very culture specific, as we again realized two weeks ago at the doctor's office. First, the nurse kept calling our baby with his third name! I corrected her after the first slip but since she kept on using the 'O' name instead of the 'N' name I went along. Actually it was kind of fun since we did give N that extra O because we like that name as well. As my mom always says, I've been given three names and though the first is the first I could switch to one of the other two if I felt that was what I wanted to do. Well, I don't think names are quite as interchangeable, and I noted my lack of enthusiasm for doing so when an old friend announced she now goes by her full name instead of the accustomed nickname. To get back to the doctor's office, the actual doctor then proceeded to assume our N is a girl... When I corrected her on that (with no extra emphasis by now since names were going all over the place by then!), she answered that she'd made the wrong assumption since N was a girl's name. Ouch. Thankfully Baby Boy didn't flinch and I didn't punch... I wasn't offended to be honest, for one because my own name is so weird it raises eyebrows all the time. But later that day I was flipping through a local glossy magazine and POP! I noted another locally based N! And this N was about 50 years old and bearded and beer bellied (quite unlike our bald milk bellied 5 month old). Now I'm just saying but I doubt he'd be too keen to hear his name is a girl's name, as diagnosed by Madame Docteure... Some sensitivity is ingrained in good business sense. I'm just saying.
Frankly I'm not the best to comment on this baby-logo issue since our elder son's name originated from a commercial product!! I kid you not. It was just so cute! Thankfully it also works very well outside the commercialized cuteness box so hopefully he won't grow up to be too confused and bitter about our name choice. If he does he still has those two other safety name options...
Anyway, last fall I came across a child who honestly seemed to carry no logos. I'm not sure 'it' was a boy or a girl! This baby looked, well, very baby - the bald head, chubby cheeks, big diaper bum, the whole deal. It didn't look more girl than boy. It's clothes didn't help either, they were all in the shade of yesterday's Lipton, urban moss, or ghetto gray. And the name... definitely no gender logo there either. It was something seasonal, if I recall. Very nice, actually - for both girl and boy. Quite clever, in that sense.
So, gender sensitivity and gender neutral upbringing. Hmmmm. Not sure what I think about it. Not that it matters but I felt it would have been nice to befriend this baby 'really.' Now I felt I was seeing a veiled baby, a strange thought. I also don't know how gender neutrality works in practice. This baby's parents seemed to be going for neutrality themselves although no guessing needed to be done to figure out they were a same-sex pair.
Does any of this matter? Anyway, it's an interesting phenomenon and tomorrow I'll get back to you after I read a blog entry from one dad's point of view.
Frankly I'm not the best to comment on this baby-logo issue since our elder son's name originated from a commercial product!! I kid you not. It was just so cute! Thankfully it also works very well outside the commercialized cuteness box so hopefully he won't grow up to be too confused and bitter about our name choice. If he does he still has those two other safety name options...
Anyway, last fall I came across a child who honestly seemed to carry no logos. I'm not sure 'it' was a boy or a girl! This baby looked, well, very baby - the bald head, chubby cheeks, big diaper bum, the whole deal. It didn't look more girl than boy. It's clothes didn't help either, they were all in the shade of yesterday's Lipton, urban moss, or ghetto gray. And the name... definitely no gender logo there either. It was something seasonal, if I recall. Very nice, actually - for both girl and boy. Quite clever, in that sense.
So, gender sensitivity and gender neutral upbringing. Hmmmm. Not sure what I think about it. Not that it matters but I felt it would have been nice to befriend this baby 'really.' Now I felt I was seeing a veiled baby, a strange thought. I also don't know how gender neutrality works in practice. This baby's parents seemed to be going for neutrality themselves although no guessing needed to be done to figure out they were a same-sex pair.
Does any of this matter? Anyway, it's an interesting phenomenon and tomorrow I'll get back to you after I read a blog entry from one dad's point of view.
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