I posted this in my livejournal re: people I work with

[Heddi]

Parents, please don't kill me because of the awful people I work with that give the good .0000000009% of parents a really horrible name :)

At any given point in time there are approximately 4,287,287,992 people pregnant at my place of employment. Which is why I never drink the water there and prefer (much to the chagrin, and often-times amusement, of my patients) straight vodka.

Because of all the children coming in and out of vaginas (mostly out, I guess), I have complied a list of ChildTruths that no one will tell these hapless souls, not even me, except in the extreme privacy of a locked journal. Heh. That'll teach'm to breed.

1) Your Child Is Only Cute To You
You know how we all oooh and aaah over your production of ovulation and copulation? We're flat liars. Your child isn't really that cute. In fact, it looks like every other baby in the world: Penis Like: pink, wrinkly, and stinky. Were I to line up your baby with 10 other babies of the same approximate gestational age, I bet you two Nuva-Rings that neither of us could pick yours out. NO, not even you

2) The Things Your Child Does Is Only Cute/Funny/Precious/Meaningful To You
Yes, we know you love telling and re-telling the story about how your child went to fart and had a number 2 in church and blurted out "IT's NOT FARTS, MOM!!!" (and yes, we read the same email chain letter too, but we're too polite to call you a bloody liar to your face). And we know you love telling and re-telling all the other trite, boring, and over-told stories of gross, indigent, and baseline mentally retarded things your baseline mentally retarded (I mean "GIFTED") child does on a regular basis. And we force a laugh and hope you'll shut up. But you don't. And we are forced to listen to the same stories again and again. Yes, we know the child ate dog-shit for breakfast. Yes, we've heard the one about farting on the dog. It wasn't funny the first time. The only thing that makes me laugh is the realization that one day this shit-eating 7 year old will one day be the person mainly in charge of the medications that keep your heart ticking and your brain from having seizures. Now THAT's funny.

3) No, Your Child Isn't Bright, Gifted, Indigo, or Special. They Have Chromosomal Abnormalities and Mental Retardation
Seriously. They do. Any child that is 6 years old and still has "difficultly" with toilet training has intelligence issues. Yeah, remind me that Albert Einstein shit his pants until the day he died, and I will remind you that 90% of my patients do too and they're not geniuses and neither is Corky II.

4) Just as an SUV Is Compenstation For A Small Penis, Extraneous Letters In Your Child's Name Is Compensation For Having More Teeth Than IQ Points
Yes, Aishleyghe and Trystaynn and Seabaystyn must face the harsh reality that their parents are unadulterated morons. Sorry. Chances are high that one or both parents suffer from unmitigated Fetal Alcohol Syndrome if the child's name has more than one "y" in it. The state should force sterilization on those who think that Romance Novels are really the best place to get Baby Names. Fabyio Alyxzsaindyr thanks you for your support. (please see "http://notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/ " for more harsh reality)

5) Why Don't We Have Children Yet? Because We Are Afraid Of Turning Out Like You
Every day, as your previously fat belly grows fatter, you ask "so when are YOU going to have kids." You're like a Mormon Missionary, trying to bring more hapless souls into your fold. Uh-uh, honey, you're in THIS alone. Just because you were too stupid to understand the intracacies of condom usage doesn't mean we all are. And who can blame us? Every day we hear about your hemorrhoids, your gas, your stretch-marks and varicose veins. We hear about your never-ending cycle of constipation and diarrhea and the vomiting and nausea that never ends. You always call out sick and god forbid we become pre-eclamptic and have to lay at home on bed rest for 8.5 months (so THAT's where you all get the time to read those romance novels for baby names......). Then once the little shit pops out, we're reminded that your tits hurt, you get no sleep, your old man is a lazy louse, baby shit smells bad, diapers are expensive and Safeway ran out of the "Good" formula so you had to buy the formula with a baby's face on one side, and a dog's head on the other.

Yeah. Real fun. Sign me right up.....for a total hysterectomy.

I'm sorry mom's (and dads). But your kids suck. You know it. I know it. But at least I'm honest enough to tell you the awful truth that you can never admit to yourself. Your child sucks as much as you do, and that's really saying a lot.

[Orrex]

1. I'll have you know that my kids *ARE* indeed cute

We sent them out for scientific tests, and we give them daily Cute supplements.

Clearly your data are faulty.

[XanaDUer]

2. God, I'd love to send this thru a work chain email

Only in Amerikkka does the average parent act like reproducing is akin to curing cancer.

[moggie]

7. It confers instant scientific expertise

Particularly in the vaccination field. I don't know why anyone bothers getting medical or scientific degrees, when they could simply get knocked up and achieve the same result.

[PVnRT]

3. I dare you to post this in the Lounge

[Orrex]

4. LOL! But I'll warn you...

If you substitute "cats" for "kids," they'll crucify you.

[TZ]

5. meow.

My cats are my kids..and uhh...I don't think Heddi would appreciate my constant cat stories...:D

[Heddi]

9. noooooooooooo

I don't think so. The Breeder Brigade will be out in no time, reminding me that while they, themselves, don't think it's selfish not to have children, other people do and I really need to keep that in mind when I post something like that blah blah blah but you've never met my kid when he was 5 years old he saved 10,000 elderly quadrapalegics stuck on a sinking tugboat blah blah blah

[moggie]

6. Your children aren't special

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqtcb66Yeyo

"I have wiped entire civilisations off of my chest with a grey gym sock..."

The baby-naming thing has often puzzled me, specifically the link between "exotic" names and low socio-economic class. The site you linked to has a piece on this, on research showing that kids with unpopular names are likely to have a poor family background and become juvenile delinquents:

http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/lotw/index.php

Sadly, I've seen this in my own family. One sister would describe herself as working class (she wears the term "pikey" with pride), her four daughters (all lovely kids, mind) have ridiculous names, and have been repeatedly in trouble with school and the law; another sister would call herself middle class, her two sons have traditional names, and are well-behaved. This naming pattern is fairly new: up until my parents' generation my extended family was solidly manual workers, and everyone of my generation and older has an unremarkable name. I'd like to understand what's behind the desire for weird names, but the obvious theory is rather insulting.

[Warpy]

8. Around here, it's the old Spanish names

some of which are jawbreaking and others of which are beautiful and roll right off your tongue. Alas, there has been a constant influx of hippies and Texans over the past few decades, and the Stupid Baby Name race is on.

In my own family, an autocratic grandpa insisted every kid be named for the most recent relative to have gone to his or her reward.

Personally, I've always been deeply grateful to Auntie Philomene for hanging on until I was safely on the planet for a while.

[lizerdbits]

10. Oh my

I'm glad my family names weren't done that way. My sister, cousin, or I could have been Daisy Belle. Mary Belle is still around, though aging with a couple chronic conditions, and my cousin in pregnant with a boy and girl.

[TZ]

11. Ha.

I could have been Bertha, Edith,Rosie or Fanny.....

[realisticphish]

12. i could have been

bob, bob, bill, dave, or bob.

(I was actually none of these)

imaginative people, my family :D

although, my middle name has been passed down through several generations, which is pretty cool

[LeftishBrit]

13. I was named after my grandmother, but am grateful to my dad ...

for using her on-paper first name, rather than the name she was usually called, which was her middle name. I would have been called Maud, which wouldn't have gone down that well in 1970s London I suspect.

I know two brothers called Linus and Phoenix; they have a double-barrelled last name which adds to the effect.

[varkam]

14. My father wanted to name me Otto. My mother wanted to name me Stryder.

In the end, I got named after the cat. Go figure.

[realisticphish]

15. otto's not bad

and with the other one you could have been nicknamed aragorn ;)

[TZ]

16. Indiana Jones is that you?

:D

[varkam]

17. "The dog's name was Indiana!"

For the record, that movie rocks. Too bad they had to make another one that just ruined my childhood memories. I think a new equivalent for "jump the shark" could be said to be "nuke the fridge".

[onager]

18. My father's name was Dorris.

A name he often said, especially after a couple of drinks, that he wouldn't give to a dog. So I ended up with a very common name shared by about 5 billion other people. But as a kid, I always had right in front of me a living example of how my name could be a helluva lot worse.

When I got older, I could annoy my old man by pointing out that I only knew of one other man in American history named Doris. This annoyed him because my Dad was definitely a man of his time and place, which most of you would pronounce as "racist." And the other guy with his name was Doris (Dorrie) Miller, the African-American sailor who grabbed a machine gun during the Pearl Harbor attack.

My Dad's mother and father must have been ahead of their time. They gave several of their kids pretty bizarre names.

But this was the South. I went to school with guys named Sherrill, Winfred, and Lamar, and I'm forgetting some of the even weirder ones.

This was not limited to the white folks. I worked with a pair of African-American brothers whose family name was Moon. Their given names were Choice Nathaniel and Early. AFAIK, they didn't have a sibling named "Quarter."

[Silent3]

22. Maybe it is a Southern thing.

My first name (the Kerry you see in my screen name) is one that used to be predominantly male, and which may have hung on as a male name longer in the south, but which most people now think is female. My Florida-born mother picked the name. It's more amusing to me now than troublesome most of the time. I had a bit of a tough time growing up, but being smart and not caring much for sports, and having a school teacher for a father pretty much assured a rough time no matter what my name had been.

The main problem I have now is that when I'm asked my name and say "Kerry", which is hardly exotic or hard to pronounce, people think I'm saying Terry, or say "huh" and ask again, as if they couldn't possibly have heard what they thought the heard. I drop off prescriptions at the drug store and get asked in the third person if Kerry will come by later to pick them up. I've been thinking the next time I go to Panera (a slightly pretentious "artisan bread" sandwich/bakery/cafe chain, in case you don't have one in your area), and they ask for my name so they can put it on my order, I'm going to adopt a new restaurant/take-out name of "Dave".

What I think is especially dim is when someone hears the sound of my name correctly, but then writes down Carrie, Kerri, or Kerrie. This often leaves me thinking something like, "Hey, look at me, idiot. I'm a 6' tall squared-jawed 230 lb. man with short, thinning hair. Can you guess that I don't spell "Kerry" with an "i", as if the "i" was dotted with a f*cking heart?" :eyes:

But even with all of that I actually like my name and wouldn't want to change it.

[realisticphish]

24. you should dot it with a heart

very meta :D

[Silent3]

25. How? Dot the "y"?

Might look kind of Icelandic. :)

[realisticphish]

26. Or

use a heart instead of an E :)

[cosmik debris]

23. Doris Miller is from Waco

And a local hero here. He has many local landmarks named after him. But since he had the "wrong" skin color, all his memorials are on the other side of the river.

It is sad that NCLB caused the closing of the local elementary school named after him.

[semillama]

19. My wife had an ultrasound today for the anatomy check on our brewing skeptic

the kid is bilaterally symmetrical and has the appropriate number of heads and limbs and no apparent tail, so that's all good.

But the doctor doing the ultrasound kept calling the baby "cute". Lady, it's an ULTRASOUND. It's not cute, it looks like a midget Eddie (Iron Maiden's mascot). It's downright frightening. CUTE? where is that coming from?

Here, look:



It's a floating BABY SKULL. Cute my ass.

[TZ]

20. Reminds me of the Mars face..

COINCIDENCE--I think not! Alien baby alert!:D

[dropkickpa]

21. See, Dropkid is funny because

She's a contrary but smart pain in the ass. Cuteness aside (I am biased, and can admit it, and can also admit there are a LOT of unattractive babies out there), she does outrageous shit that is amusing to the general public. Those are typically the stories I share.

Her name is not the normal spelling, but the gaelic spelling, because I named her after my grandmother (I wanted a boy, and didn't have any girl names picked out, poor planning on my part, so it was a spur of the moment decision made when they were cleaning up the whole birthing mess), but it causes confusion and people to say "Oh, what a unique and interesting spelling, did you make that up?". The name, as it's pronounced, was once once the #1 common name in the US for decades, and the spelling is *very* common in Ireland, and sharing it with a 90 year old woman kind of takes away from the new unique thing.

Being a parent does suck a lot of the time, because your time stops being your own, and humans are inherently selfish. And, to be honest, I don't like other peoples children, hell, there are times my own makes me wish for the days when I was pre-child and even more dirt poor than I am now because at least then I had freedom to do whatever the fuck I wanted. But I love the little shit, and observing her development is a trip from a purely objective standpoint, I didn't get that objective birdseye view watching my many siblings growing up as we were too busy squabbling, it's like having my own little experiment running around.

There *are* times when I wish my kid was average and normal, because those kids are a *hell* of a lot easier to deal with. Is she special? I dunno. I'm fond of her and think she's special in ways, but I'm also objective and have no problem seeing why her teachers want to commit suicide (she's got a 1st year teacher this year, the poor thing, she's ready to lose it).

And you can't honestly say that my sigline pic isn't the coolest shit. Dropkid was through the roof with that costume when she was 5.

[Orrex]

27. I had no idea that "Dropkid" was Gaelic

But I can say "stick your head up your ass and don't take it out until Monday" in Welsh.

[dropkickpa]

28. Very old Gaelic name

Means "she who never shuts up".

[TZ]

29. Are you trying to start a flamewar with DropkickPa?

I think she could kick your ass, My Dear Orrex.....:rofl: :popcorn:

On edit--evidence of troublemaking tendencies:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x8139840
;) :D

[MountainLaurel]

30. Bravo!

The LJ childfree communities would get a kick out of that.

[beam me up scottie]

31. Rude Pundit, meet your match!

:rofl: