It’s been a long time since I was a kid. But I still remember how important it was to exercise a little control here or there. It might be wearing my cowboy boots even when my mom made that face. It might be cutting up over Mike Ostermann’s fart joke that wasn’t that funny, but it irritated adults and that was enough.
I didn’t get to pick where I went during the day (school), what we had for dinner (au gratin potatoes–again), which cereal I got to eat (nothing cool like Lucky Charms or Cap’n Crunch), or what time I went to bed.
But when my teacher called me Christopher, at least I could tell her my name was Chris.
That’s because I don’t live in Florida in 2023. In the free state of Florida, the law dictates what name I go by. Before my teacher or anyone else in school can call me what I’m comfortable with my mommy has to sign a permission slip. (And when I told my math teacher to call me Chris, he got all pissed off and threatened detention to the next kid who popped off about their name.)
If I’m a kid today, I spent the better part of a year at home while Ms. Clark kept getting mad because this was so freaking boring on the computer. I didn’t get to see my friends. Or go anywhere, really. My mom and dad were perpetually stressed and the best place to be was in my room.
And now that things are pretty normal, I don’t even get to choose what people call me.
Adults are stupid.
Exhibit 1 is the provision in the so-called Don’t Say Gay law that requires school personnel to call a child by the name on their birth certificate unless their parents sign a permission slip saying otherwise. In other words, parents, who already have to juggle work and bringing up kids and the car needs repair and money’s super tight–those same parents now have to do extra paperwork so their kid can be called what everyone’s always called them.
Because of freedom.
No doubt some are cheering this great step forward for order, decency, and Jesus. But for most, it’s just another instance of adults using kids as their proxy in a culture war that almost all the kids and nearly as many adults never signed up for. It doesn’t take a child psychologist to see this isn’t about the kids. It’s about adults using them to get their way.
Then there’s the teenager who’s irritated because they want to read My Sister’s Keeper (Marcy said it’s really, really, really good) and it used to be at the library but it’s gone with a lot of other books and please, please, please, please, please. (It’s only $12 on Amazon.)
A lot’s been written about helicopter parents who remove all obstacles for their kids. Their kids don’t have the tools to deal with real life where suckage is part of the job description.
How much more will that be true with a generation of kids that was forced to stay home for one to two years of their school careers, had to ask permission to get books bought because they’d been pulled from the library, and now have to have their mommy sign a piece of paper so they aren’t called their stupid full name?
A lot (not all) of the Covid weight we piled on was unavoidable. But as the culture wars increase, we’re taking choices away from all kids because we’re worried about what might happen with a small percentage of them.
Fifteen years from now, we’ll be rolling our eyes because they’re screwed up adults.
Go figure.
By Christopher Allan Hamilton (my mommy didn’t sign the permission slip yet)
Chris Hamilton's Stuff 
My name was Veronica Helen Beckvermit and I had to write that out in full from kindergarten until HS graduation. We moved a lot throughout my school years so it became a kind of special marker whenever I felt settled enough to tell my new friends to call me Ronnie. Unfortunately, that was usually about the time we moved again. High school in Miami was the longest I ever stayed in one place – three years.