
As T.S. Eliot – more or less – wrote:
“The Naming of kids 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 child 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.”
Et cetera.
Enough with the poetry though; it’s time to climb that old soap box again.
So, far be it from me to question the wisdom of the New Jersey State Appeals Court but…
… oh well, whom am I kidding: They’re a right set of plonkers – as the following case shows:
“A US couple who gave their children Nazi-themed names, including “Adolf Hitler Campbell, have been denied custody by a New Jersey court. Their children – Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell – have been in foster care since January 2009.”
Let’s first say though that I do think that the parents of these children are most probably unfit to raise dandruff, let alone kids but then they are hardly the first or the last ones you can say that about.
People being people, you will always have a fair share of those who, to use a phrase I’ve used before, would most probably drown in the shallow end of the gene pool.
You have your political nuts, religious fanatics and those who think their children will thrive on a strict diet of Big Macs and jumbo milkshakes. God or the ghost of Darwin knows how many children live(d) miserably blighted lives because of the idiocy of their parents…
… but I’m not sure it’s the state’s place to judge which set of potential parents can become actual parents with the judiciary’s blessing.
There are exceptions to this, obviously. The state should be there to actively frown upon parents who want to sacrifice their children to Baal or Jaweh, or those who mutilate their daughters’ genitals, or those who starve them, beat them or sexually abuse them.
We have, so to speak, been there, done that, bought the headlines – and yet I would say that the state should not interfere if the madness of parents does not directly threaten the well-being of the child and I’m not so sure naming your child ‘Adolf Hitler’ should count as reason enough to take that child away from the parents.
Still, these parents were easy pickings, I presume. They’re probably what’s so lovingly called ‘trailer trash.’ The kind of folks we watch and laugh at on the Jerry Springer Show.
I seriously doubt these kids would have been taken into care if their parents had been rich, or politically well-connected.
I mean, yes, to call your child ‘Adolf Hitler’ is insane and quite vile but not much more so than to raise it in the belief that God is an alien, all psychiatric help is wrong and women should give birth to their children in silence – while even aspirin supposedly interferes with ‘forming mental images’, so good luck with that last bit…
… but even if he had lived within their legal grasp, I seriously doubt the New Jersey State Appeals Court would have taken little Suri away from Tom Cruise.
