Apparently New Zealand has some pretty strange things going on with parenting laws. It’s against the law to spank children and they also have a habit of changing children’s names as well. Some parent’s who were going through a custody battle over their daughter, Tula does the Hula, had a rude awakening when a judge ruled her custody of the court in order to change her name. It’s not uncommon there for courts to do this with children who have had parents who have named them something out in left field.

Growing up, I hated my name. Hardly anyone could ever pronounce it (and still can’t) and I was always a little jealous of the girls with such easy to pronounce and common names like Amanda, Leigh or Ashley. However, as you get older and grow into adulthood you can begin to appreciate and love what’s different about you. To a kid though, who wants to just be like everyone else, having a user unfriendly name can be an irritating experience that takes a lot of growing up to be able to overcome. So from the time I was about 8, I took matters into my own hands and made sure that I was known to all of my friends as “Kim”. It wasn’t until I moved away years later that I felt it was too exhausting to keep the fraud going, and decided to just let it go & give into my annoying name Laurel. However, after years of living w/her, I’ve actually grown into my name and today would choose it a million times over a plain name like “Kim”. But I’m all for people being able to name if they don’t like it, it is their name after all.

I’m not quite sure what Tula does the Hula’s parent’s were thinking when they named her. Maybe it was abuse of their power and they didn’t think of the possible cruel and unusual punishment she may suffer in the world? I’m not sure, but I can say that New Zealand doesn’t seem to have any qualms with going in and taking parental choices away. Is this a good thing or a bad thing and where is the line drawn?

Just like other differences are often considered unattractive, crazy or less than, now we are officially trying to make a name conform to standards and pleasantries? Is this another attempt to “normalize” and rather than embrace the unusual or different, destroy it?

By the way, two of my favorite chicks growing up were named off the wall names…Pippi Longstocking & Amelia Bedelia. They wouldn’t have been ½ the fun had they been named Jane or Sallie.

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