Each day I will write a "Dear____" letter.
Today's letter is Dear Parents. Here we go-
Dear Parents,
Please, for the love of all that is good and right in this world, please, I beg of you, enough already with the stupid ass names you give these poor souls. And please, please STOP overindulging your children. Stop telling them they are absolutely perfect in every single way. They aren't. Stop granting them the world on a silver platter. They will never know what it means to work for and appreciate something, anything. And by all means, PLEASE stop telling them they can be or do anything. They can't. I'm sorry, but little Skylar will never grow up to be the P.O.T.U.S. It won't happen. Not because Skylar is an imbecile, we've had plenty of imbecile presidents, but first and foremost because you opted to name him Skylar. Then you went on to fill Skylar's little head with ideas of grandeur. You made him think the world revolved around his over-inflated head. So now when Skylar grows up with you telling him that he can be an astrophysicist or a neurosurgeon, but then life slaps him across the face for having such an idiotic name, well, he won't quite know how to handle the rejection. That's when Skylar goes from potential future P.O.T.U.S. to being just another douche bag waiting in the parking lot for the bar to open on a Tuesday afternoon.
And another thing, Parents: Your child is not exceptional or "gifted" just because they know their alphabet. Maybe if they know the alphabet in 3 languages by the age of 4 you can start to wonder if they are "special", but get over yourself. Most likely, statistically speaking, your child is average. There's nothing wrong with average. Embrace it and accept it. Otherwise you will have a lifetime of letdowns and disappointments while you expect great and unprecedented accomplishments from your absolutely mediocre offspring. It's not fair to you or to poor little Skylar, Tristan, Annabell, or Bentley...Oh! Let's not forget that whole class of ugly on purpose names, Ethel, Gertrude, Omar...Yeah, like naming your daughter Hazel will translate into her growing up with chapter books lining her bookshelf and horseback riding for sport, and taking transatlantic cruises upon graduation from an ivy league school instead of being a texting, bubble gum popping, boy crazy, community college party girl. I mean, some things you just can't change by giving a pretentiously absurd name.
Posts
Hmmm. 15% Offended. 85% True. 100% Honest. I respect your opinion, as always. My issue comes with not telling your child they can do or be anything. I will never limit my children. I will take care to help them have reasonable expectations for the efforts made, and fight like hell for fair treatment, but other than that, the sky will always be the limit. But then I didn't name my kids after my husband. OTHA! Uh?!
To be honest, I'm about 10% offended by it as well :) I agree, we don't want to limit our children, but in my unconventional way I'm just saying that they need to have a dose of reality:
Little Skylar, you CAN be president, but you must work hard and do well for many, may years to get there. You CAN be a neurosurgeon, but you will need to study very difficult subjects in college, so you need to study hard now, too, to be ready for it.
Just a little dose of reality is all I'm trying to say is needed. And a solid foundation that teaches kids that you may not always win everything, and when you don't win, this is the way to handle it, so we don't end up with maladjusted, gun yielding, scrabble losers.
That, and I hate the name Skylar ;)
You gotta be honest with your kids. If your kid is stone stupid, you need to steer him or her into fields that fit his or her talents, not fill them with all kinds of hopes and dreams that they can't achieve. That just leaves them angry and bitter.
Like me. ha! ;-)
Jay
i am 100 percent offended i am called annalise there is nothing wrong with it also my baby cousin is called skylar there is nothing wrong with his name you should not be judgeing peoples name like that it is not up to you what people call there children and would you be happy if someone was saying bad things about your name and my family tell the truth to the kids about the job they can get my cousin asked could he be the king and we said no you probally couldnt so stop thinking that every child with a name like that are all the same you might have a stupid name to me but i wouldnt say that i am only 10 and i do say what i think