Over in the strange world of advice columnists, the best in the business, Carolyn Hax, just got a doozy of a question. Someone named “Confused” is about to have a baby, and her ethically-challenged family, especially the mother-to-be’s mom, is putting on a full court press to guilt the couple into naming their child “Ben.” You see, Uncle Ben, who suffered from bi-polar syndrome, killed himself a couple of years ago, and his still-surviving siblings feel guilty about it. (The expectant parents, in contrast, didn’t have much of a relationship with Ben, and hadn’t spoken to him for years before his tragic demise.) So they all got together in an orgy of crazed presumptuousness, and resolved to send their mea culpas to the cosmos by inflicting the name of the family suicide on a helpless baby. Apparently Confused’s grandfather, Old and Even More Confused, is especially wracked with remorse over what he sees as his part in his brother’s fatal misery, and has decided that a new happy little Ben is just what the spirit of Dead Ben craves, and will make all well between the brothers, just like the old days. Or something.
Yechhh!
Like about 99% of advice columnist letters, this one should have been a breezeto answer before it was written, as in “No! What the hell’s the matter with you people? Get out of our faces: we’ll name our kid what we want, and Ben isn’t even in the running.” Still, I know how relentless mothers can be, especially when backed by reinforcements, so I suppose the writer was just seeking printed support from an expert at telling irrational people to shape up, so she could shake it in their faces. At least, I hope so. If she is seriously considering caving in to this morbid emotional blackmail, young Ben has a miserable life ahead of him in this family, and that name may end up two for two.
Fortunately, Hax comes through, as she usually does, writing,
They’re looking to dump all this historic freight on a baby — blackmailing you with your grandfather’s life! — just so they can keep dodging that painful trip to the mirror. Shame on them. You needn’t say that, though. Just this: “I agree we all need to heal. It is not a baby’s job, though, to heal us — he comes into the world just as himself, with a clean slate. I owe him that. I think we owe him that. I don’t expect you all to agree but hope you’ll respect our decision.”
Then the couple can go ahead and name the kid something else.
Like, say “Robin.”
Ethics Alarms 