A Name of Dual Heritage.....
On the back of this interview it now seems that the issue of middle class adopters not liking the names of adopted children has reared its ugly head yet again with an article in The Guardian written by Fraser McAlpine.
McAlpine questions whether adoptive parents should be able to change the name of the child they adopt or whether this is denying the child's heritage. At this point I'm struggling with the terminology I can politically correctly use. Am I allowed to say "their child" in relation to the adoptive parents or would that be considered inappropriate and detrimental to the adopted child? Would it ignore their dual heritage?
It's the phrase "dual heritage" that actually interests me the most here. Our children do have a dual heritage - not just one heritage i.e. the one they were born into. Our children are born within one family structure and grow up in another. They will carry with them the legacy of both throughout their lives. Surely the home that they are adopted into is as equally important as the home that they were born into? Both should be acknowledged and embraced. Somehow the child has to grow up being able to fit within that dual heritage and flourish. That's potentially a tall order when it is (apparently) predominantly middle-class families who adopt and those children are probably attending schools within a more affluent area than they might have otherwise attended (although some might say that having more opportunities is actually a good thing). Our children will have to run the gauntlet of all the middle class names and the parents rather like Katie Hopkins who may judge our child on the basis of their name. What are the implications on our child of those judgements? Are they more likely to be ostracised or bullied or will it have more to do with how the parents size me up in the playground? What are the long term implications on the child's life? Will that scar them as much as a change of name might? I honestly don't know because we haven't experienced any of these issues and my children don't have names that would raise that question. It's a question worth asking though before everyone jumps on the bandwagon.
This issue of names not a new topic. The press reported widely on the concern that some adopters would not pursue an adoption because the child's name did not fit within their socioeconomic background when David Cameron announced his reforms to the adoption process. The usual names touted for the benefit of reporting are names like Chardonnay, and Britney (apologies to anyone with those names - I'm just using them as an example). In fact there was an article in the Daily Mail written by Laura Clark regarding the fear that some teachers have of children with so called "chavvy" names and the link with poor behaviour. Would you want your child to be singled out as a potential trouble maker before they've even set foot within the door of their school when they are only 4 or 5?
As an adoptive parent I understand the need to honour the names my children have been given. We respect that their names were given to them by their birth parents and the importance related to that. We honour life story work. We do not seek to deny our children their birth heritage or background but it is a subject that needs to be approached carefully because of the nature of the content and the fact that our children are so very young. Interestingly both our children have names that are important within our family which brought a "meant to be" feel about both children. I will admit we have tweaked those names ever so slightly. They are still fundamentally the same first names but with a drop of a hyphen for one and the removal of an "ie" for the other. We have also given them a middle name. Katie and I have discussed this and I've said that her Birth Mother gave her her first name and we have given her her middle name so she has a gift from us both. I'm not sure from McAlpine's article whether he is just focusing on forenames or is also including middle names.
I'm intriqued as to the origin of all the research on the issue of the damage to our children by the change of a name. I'm a trained counsellor and would like to think that I'm sensitive to issues that might cause my children distress relating to their adoption. I'm also aware that, quite often, it's the people who are upset by something that shout the loudest. The people who feel unaffected by an issue are not generally the ones being quoted in the media. I would be interested to know how many adopted children, who have had their name changed by their adoptive parents, feel aggrieved by this or feel that their background is being dismissed as irrelevant or unimportant? Is this an issue that is derived from the 50s and 60s when the adoption regulations were so very different? When life story work was not considered and children often grew up not even knowing they were adopted? Is there enough data on the outcome of current adoption protocols for this issue to even be debated at this time? Certainly I would question the need to demonise adoptive parents for having feelings about names. I would also like everyone who has made a judgement or pigeon-holed someone because of their name to raise their hand. I think a little honesty might be required here.
I know lots of adopters. We regularly spend time with our network of adoptive families. All the children, without exception, have lovely, perfectly acceptable names. In fact we have often commented on the lovely names that our children have so I do wonder if this issue of names is being blown out of proportion. I've yet to meet an adopted child with any of the names used in any of the articles so I would say to any potential adopter that they shouldn't be put off by all the media coverage at the current time.
My hope for my children is that they can live in this world and flourish and ultimately be happy. I will help my children do that wherever I can. A name is something that sets a child up for life. Names can be inspiring. Names are something some people have to live up to. Naming another person is a big responsibility. Names are also reflective of a period of time within which you were born. The current generation of baby naming parents are experimenting more with names and, in a quest for individuality or trying to be like a celebrity, I'm not sure they are necessarily thinking through the fact that their child has to live their entire life with that name (unless the young person decides to use Deed Poll to change their name once they are older).
Writing as an adopter I don't think we, not only as adopters but also as a society, can deny either of our children's heritages. We need to acknowledge them both and stop making adopters feel like they cannot embrace their child and make them part of their family. I'm getting quite fed up with the media picking on adopters. I don't think they realise just how much we have to take on board as adopters.
I will end by asking the following question though....
Is there anything wrong with both of the child's heritages
being reflected within their name?
This post is being linked up with #WASO at The Adoption Social
This post is being linked up with #WASO at The Adoption Social
as part of a collective response
Fantastic point - we really need to hear from adoptees about what they feel about their names, changed or not. I don't think that a badly researched, adopter-bashing article is really the place to be having this important discussion!
ReplyDeleteTotally agree Laura. I would like to see the research on this. Not just some half cocked personal opinion based on no research.
DeleteI would have thought that there are quite simple ways to get round an problematic chavvy name. My name is Rachel but my mother called me Poppy for the first three years of my life as a pet-name. No one can stop you using a pet name and many of these even stick at school (I knew a Judith who was Tot even at school). Many people are actually known by their middle names and sign themselves e.g. T. William Smith. Finally, you can shorten a name so that people don't know what the full name is. Chardonay could become Chari or Donna. Tyler could become Larry. Britney shortens nicely to the Scandinavian sounding Brit or Bree. The original name is still there if the child wants to re-connect with it later.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely but I wonder if this would appease the writer of the article? His opinion is that we should keep the name as it is. My kids get called all sorts of things (not always polite lol) and I can see this issue being particularly applicable to my son as he has one of those names that suits a you g person but I'm not sure how it will work when he's older. I guess he'll decide as he gets older.
DeleteMay I suggest you take (and Pip) out of brackets. You don't have to publish this comment and it's not a big deal, it just looks like Pip is an afterthought and this is really all about Katie. I know this isn't the case.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good point and I've taken it on board and changed it. I always used the tag line Today at Life with Katie and its been odd changing that. All part of all the changes xxx
DeleteI agree but so wonder how we change something so entrenched in. Our society? X
ReplyDeleteFrankly, names *have* class connotations. They do. The names taken from home and away are seen to be given by the 'unwashed masses'. That said there's 'posh' names like 'Spatula' that are just stupid.
ReplyDeleteThe lady in question is basically an elitist snob. Money and posh names don't make for good breeding.
LOL a good point. They do have class connotations. I think the challenge is seeing beyond that she seeing the person not just the name. I totally agree about the lady in question. I hear she has now moved on to commenting on people with ginger hair. That will really help the gorgeous ginger haired children with difficult names that are waiting to be adopted I am sure!
DeleteAnother good post, very thoughtful. I agree it is overblown as an issue (most children get popular names and most popular names are pretty nice and don't have connotations associated with them) but I think the guardian article claiming parents want to change their name because they have an imaginary child in their head and that isn't reconciled with the reality of an adoptive child is just stupid. Most names are fine and parents won't change them. Some names are awful and aren't. I have colleagues who are teachers and have had children in their class called Lucifer, Rage and Bacardi. If I adopted a child who was known by a name for Satan, an unpleasant emotion or a drink brand, my predominant emotion wouldn't be wanting to preserve that heritage. Those names will be associated with stigma for the child- no way around it. And as a parent you want to protect your child, not comfort a bullied child with "well one day you'll appreciate that I honoured your heritage with making you endure this".
ReplyDeleteYou make some really excellent points and thank you for sharing them. I agree with what you say about this so called imaginary child. I certainly never had one in my head. I can't always believe some of the names that people come up with I have to say.
DeleteVery well said. Personally I didn't feel at all offended by the Guardian article as an adopter - those things have been said before and I don't take them personally - but I did, like you, wonder at the insistence that names must be kept. At the playgroup my son will be attending there is a Kadie-Lee and a Shella-Bella - yes, really! Two of my next-door neighbour's children are called Romeo and Rockall. It's not a class thing - this is my neighbourhood after all - but I do think I'd struggle to introduce my child to others as Rockall or Shella-Bella. Some names are basically cruel and will saddle children with a lifetime of funny looks and outright insulting comments, especially at school. And I think class consciousness works both ways - many of the parents in the community where I live would, I believe, feel uncomfortable about their child playing with someone from a much more economically well-off background. I'm not so sure that it's out and out judgementalism as it is about just being comfortable with what you know.
ReplyDeleteHaving said all of that, one of my friends who was adopted trans-culturally 25 years ago does regret his name change as he feels as though it was a negation of his cultural past. It's not that he would have necessarily preferred to keep the original name, which was very culturally recognisable - he understands why it was changed - but he wonders why his original name wasn't simply adapted (as it easily could have been) to make it fit in with his new culture, while not completely erasing his old one. I guess this would be unlikely to come up these days.
I gave OB a new middle name, but kept his first name and existing middle name - four names now, poor chap! But if he'd been much younger (say less than 6 months) I might have considered making his original name his middle name for no other reason than it is the same name as my nephew. I wouldn't have erased his name though.
As for the suggestion that prospective adopters are being put off by a name, I wonder whether it is at the stage where people are looking through magazines and websites that this might happen. I never did this, but when faced with 20 brown-haired, blue-eyed 3-year-olds and precious little information about any of them, might a bizarre name be a factor in which ones make it to the top of the list? I'm not suggesting shallowness, just that there seems to be so little to go off and some criteria have to be applied. Maybe I'm way off base there, like I say, I didn't adopt like that so I haven't had the experience, but I did blog a while ago on a Daily Mail article written by a social worker saying that she had anecdotal evidence that this was happening.
I don't think I've ever met a Shella-Bella. That is a very identifiable name indeed.
DeleteThat's a very good point about adapting names. I think things are changing significantly with the advice from LAs to adopters these days although there is nothing to stop an adopter totally changing a name once they are legally adopted. I hope that people would stop and think about all the implications nowadays. I am only just starting to feel some ownership of Pip's real name. It takes time especially when you don't name your child. I was surprised at how I felt this time especially as the name is one that is very dear to me.
Like you we didn't adopt via a magazine and I only know a handful of people who have adopted that way. I can see what you are saying though, although they don't use the real names do they in those magazines?
Yes, the names are real and some of them I think would be quite tricky to blend into a family and society and we gaped at them in wonder. We adopted through Be My Parent. Our daughter's name was the 'title' of the 'advert'. She was 4 when we adopted her last year.
DeleteHer name, whilst not particularly chavvy or weird, is not a name I would ever have chosen for a birth child and, in our middle class world, her name has been commented upon, usually in a way that suggests it is unexpected or a poor choice (and only by people who do not know us). I actually think it is weird that people comment on names, especially as naming a child is a very personal thing to do, and we, in our middle class world lay tremendous store by a name (this is not to say that other people do not).
Her name will stand out in her class amongst the Emilys, Graces and Lilys. As a primary teacher I have taught a Romeo, Venus, Destiny, Amadeus, Diesel and Diamond. It is not easy to look at your class list and wonder what these children, and more importantly their families, are like. However, the hardest children I have ever taught were Luke, Laura, Anthony, George, Thomas and Charlie. Teachers look at the whole child, and their name becomes insignificant (until you have to type it and the spell check doesn't recognise it!)
However, her name is HERS. She is her name. The adoption panel made a big deal about her name. They suggested we should not change her surname or consider double barrelling it (in our minds this would make her feel different from the rest of us - how can we expect her to be part of the '** Family' if her name is different?) We also had information about how her birth parents had chosen her name and that was important. So we have given her our surname and her middle name is that of my grandmother, under whose blanket she sleeps and rag doll she cuddles in bed. When we brought her home she was unaware that she had anything other than her first name but clung to that ferociously and when we suggested that she might have another name too she was adamant she didn't. It was only when we told her our names and her sister's and that we all had the same name that she started to try out the idea a month or two later. Once, she was pretending to be called just by her middle name and ended up in floods of heartfelt tears because then she didn't like it and wanted to be her first name!
She has a pet name, Teapot, which she loves. If there is a teapot picture, song, anything, she giggles and says, 'That's me!'
But, she just is who she is and will always be, whatever name she has.