saquigley@watdaisy.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (02/12/84)
The following is a letter I received. I gathered from its grammar that it was actually meant to be posted rather than mailed to me. From watmath!ihnp4!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!oliveb!toml Fri Feb 10 12:19:58 1984 Date: 9 Feb 1984 13:50:06-??? (Thu) I hate to disagree with Sophie, but her suggestion that we make up a new last name for children is a poor one. A child's name belongs to the child, not to the parents. Parents may do what they wish with their own names, but the child's name should be the one the child would choose. When *kids* want different names from their parents, then and only then should they be assigned different names. Tom Long
saquigley@watdaisy.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (02/12/84)
I don't think that the argument "we shouldn't name children this way because that would be imposing our point of view on them" holds any water. Obviously, no matter what decision we take on how to name our children, we are imposing our point of view on them, whether it is to live with the status quo and give them their father's name, or whether it is to do something completely different. No matter what, we are not asking them for their point of view and have no way of doing so, so there is always a chance that they will not like our decision. I think the best we can do is give them some name which is consistent with our philosophy and our tastes, hope that they will be satisfied with the result, and help them change it if they aren't. I am just making this point as I have received letters accusing me of forcing my point of view on my children. I thought that it was pretty obvious that all parents end up forcing their point of wiew on their children, especially in the first years, as it is quite impossible in most cases to find out what their children's point of view is. Apparently some people think that they are bringing up their own children without imposing their ideas on them. Well, I think that's a piece of crap, as crappy as the idea that there is such a thing as an unbiased opinion. But that's another story.... Sophie Quigley watmath!saquigley