first names
Scottie Bowman (bowman@mail.indigo.ie)
Sat, 27 Jun 1998 12:32:45 +0000
I can understand Tim's irritation with those `liberal' families
where the pretence is that parents & children are peers.
The abrogation of responsibility which often goes with this is,
of course, highly damaging to children (& possibly also the adults.)
But I have to confess that my own sons - born in the late 50s -
& our grandchildren - the early 90s - have always called me
& my wife by our nicknames.
In my case it certainly derives from the chap whom I've always
regarded as the `Seymour' of my own life. Although he was
a more obviously glamorous & saturnine figure than Seymour,
there were strange parallels in their thinking (remember that in
the 1950s Buddhism & mysticism & all that jazz were, as fashions,
by no means confined to the upper East side of Manhatten) & he
exerted the same formative power on our gang as Seymour did on
the Glass family. (For what it's worth, he also committed a kind
of suicide - a premature heart attack in his late thirties brought
on, I remain convinced, by his addiction to the extremes of
experience.)
I remember the conversation when I nervously challenged him on
the issue. I said I thought it affected. `But,' he said, with that
paralysing simplicity that was his specialty, ` that IS my name...'
In the case of my own offspring, I can only say that - so far -
they have turned out rather nicer & more successful men than
their father.
So, Tim, is the principle ? Or the clowns who practise it ?
Scottie B.