If you are not fielding unsolicited opinions about your parenting, how do you even know you’re a parent?
Hearing “helpful advice” and commentary on parenting decisions is a daily, universal experience for most people with offspring, and it’s something we usually tolerate with a polite smile on our faces.
But occasionally a real response to the advice is required and we are driven to TOTALLY LOSE OUR SH*T.
This is the situation that Scary Mommy writer Elizabeth Broadbent found herself in recently regarding incessant commentary on the “unusual” names of her sons. Her frustration is clear in her recent piece on the Scary Mommy site called Yes, My Kids Have Weird Names, and IDGAF What You Think About That.
The mum-of-three, whose sons are called Blaise, Augustine and Simon, explains her choice of “unusual” names, even though, as she says, she shouldn’t have to.
“Yes, people mispronounce my kid’s names. My middle son is the worst: people say Au-gust-een instead of the proper Au-gust-in, which grates on my soul.”
She adds, “It’s so bad that I’ve taken to spelling it without the terminal e anywhere I can get away with it: name tags, doctor’s offices. This makes life easier for everyone. He has an easy nickname though — August — and no one fucks that up, thank God though they sometimes ask where September and October are. Not funny, done before, STFU thanks.”
Broadbent has also lost patience with people who don’t understand the name “Blaise”.