From Bush babies to child killers (Careers from Hell)
Let’s start with a quote from a column by Richard Morrison, in The Times:
Every mother knows that childbirth is a stroll in the park compared with the trauma of deciding what to call the puking pink blob that discloses absolutely no clue as to its future personality, appearance or talents. No wonder that, in the world’s less imaginative families, the father simply declares:
“Hell, woman, George Bush was a good enough name for me, so it can damn well do for the nipper too.”
I’m not sure all that many women would actually agree with Morrison’s ’stroll in the park’ statement but it’s true enough that, like T.S. Eliot wrote in his famous poem:
‘The Naming of Brats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a brat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey–
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter–
But all of them sensible everyday names.’
Still, to go from one bit of verse to another: naming the child is just the first hurdle – which is then followed by every parent’s dream, or nightmare, to wit: what will become of what Morrison so charmingly described as their ‘puking pink blobs’:
‘When shall I marry?
This year, next year, sometime, never.
What will my husband be?
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich-man, poor-man, beggar-man, thief.’
Some parents just wish something eminently sensible for their kids. Something traditional. So, if it’s a girl, the mother or father will, from time to time, remark:
“Oh, wouldn’t our puking pink blob just make a perfect nurse?”
And indeed, it’s a noble calling: ameliorating the suffering of patients:
A severely ill patient on a strict “soft food diet” choked to death at a hospital after nurses gave him toast.
Martin Jennings,36, who had problems swallowing, died following “gross failure” at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham when lumps of toast became lodged in his windpipe.
Despite a warning notice on his bed and nurses being aware Mr Jennings could not eat solid food, Birmingham coroner’s court heard they gave him toast because he wanted it.
The court was even told that the nurses “believed it was the patient’s basic human rights” to have toast if he demanded it.
And if these salt-of-the-earth type of parents think of a career for their little pink boy blob, it will be along the lines of something technical, something in sales…
Something utterly dependable, with a steady kind of income – like that enjoyed by a car salesman, for instance.
Again, if not exactly a calling, it is at least a very good and solid call:
A car dealer who found a handgun in a car yard he bought accidentally shot his friend in the testicle while playing with the firearm, a court was told yesterday.
Both men then lied about the shooting to police, telling them it occurred during a robbery.
The court was told Cheers twirled the around his finger while showing it to his friend, Phillip Marino.
The gun discharged, shooting Marino in the scrotum and groin. He lost 15 per cent of his right testicle, the court was told.
Of course, most parents will be pleased enough to turn their puking blobs into respectable nurses and reasonably honest car salesmen, but some parents have bigger dreams. They want their blobs to go out into the world and conquer it. Their little girl won’t be a simple nurse. O no, she will become an honest to God doctor – and with it rich and respected; wise as a wizard and loved as a Goddess.
You simply can’t go wrong, wishing for your child to become a doctor:
An Indian couple has been charged with the murder of one of their sons after they tried to transfuse his blood into his elder brother to make him smarter.
The Indian Express newspaper said the mother had a dream in which a guru advised blood transfusion to make their elder son do better at his studies.
The couple were both doctors.
Most ambitious modern parents simply want their boy blobs to become successful in the world of finance – to become a money merchant or a fiscal warrior. A captain of industry, let’s say a CEO, would be perfect but there are many other, highly satisfying careers that come with loads of money, three piece suits and serious real estate – like, for instance, the mortgage brokering profession.
As parents you can really sit back and relax when your son has become a mortgage broker:
A crazed attacker broke into a Long Island man’s home, beat him with a karaoke machine and bit off his ear, police said.
The 64-year-old Uniondale resident attempted to defend himself with a vacuum cleaner hose.
Luis Hidalgo, a mortgage broker, has been charged with first-degree assault and first-degree burglary. He pleaded not guilty on Friday at his arraignment in First District Court in Hempstead and was being held at the Nassau County jail on $250,000 cash or $500,000 bond.
Police are investigating whether Hidalgo was high on drugs during the burglary or mentally ill.
In truth? The best advice for parents would be to call their new and shiny puking pink blob ‘Lucky’ and just pray that it will rub off.
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