That's the plan. Let him make his own choices but we are still responsible for him until he's 18 and will have the final say until that time. Our hope in doing so is so that he is well prepared as an adult to make good choices, and that he feels that he can come to us if he needs any advice.

I agree that letting child make his own choices is the best way. I'm 17 years old and I don't dink alcohol and I have never tried drugs or cigarettes. My parents have never restricted me this things they just know that they have brough me up good enought (at least they thing it ). If you restrict something without good description you can be sure he will do it.

Thanks BlackCobra, I appreciate the input!

I don't know if this applies to your post exactly but I think it's good for people with Goths in their families to let the kids get to know them so that when they grow up they won't be as likely to pick on others who are different, even if they become a 'non-Goth' for lack of a better term. My girlfriends nephews are heading in the jock direction, but they are really nice and accepting kids in general, and they don't gawk at other people who may look a little different like a lot of kids do. We think that part of this is because they are both so used to seeing me and my girlfriend and they love us both too much to give us any grief, let alone anyone who they see as like us.

I doubt your child would ever rebel in that manner, though I guess I can't say for sure due to lack of knowledge, but you sound like a great parent so that may not be the case ultimately. Seriously I wish that every young parent, or parent in general, put that much effort into the raising of their children. But yeah, just by continuing to be a good 'Goth' role model is a good thing, and maybe your other familiy members who are still afraid that Goth is something evil will come around in the end. I know mine did.

Hope this helps some.

I think that having goths in family will make children more tolerant to different lookong people. And if they will have any problems with classmates they can call parents to scare them...

Hi, Aurora. I can't really give you any advice, as I've no kids of my own. Sounds to me like you and your man are doing okay.

I do have a question for you...

Did you give your child a "gothic" name? Like any of these: Name That Goth.

And, if so, would you mind giving the name here? If you'd rather not, that's cool. It's just that I'm fascinated with what parents name their kids -- particularly goth parents. And also, what special problems you might have with other family members (mothers-in-law and such) regarding your choice of baby name.

Apologies to all if "gothic baby names" have been covered in another thread and I missed it.

-- Nephele

We actually didn't give him a gothic name. His name is Alexander Michael- which are family names. We both have uncles named Michael and my husband's family has several Al's- Alan, Alvin, and my Great-Grandfather Alexander. We call him "Alex" for right now. When he gets old enough if he wants to go by Al or Xander we don't really care. We like the "old fashioned" names, lol. My cousin named her children Cody and Cayden, which are really cute names! But we prefer the classic names. I did come across a few gothic names when looking. Some of them were really cute but there were some that were just like, "why would you name your kid that?" Lol!

Anyways, we both kind of have the outlook that parents should prepare their children for adulthood, so we tend to be pretty liberal when it comes to various things. Smoking pot and drinking are somethings that teenagers just do. When my husband and I talked about it, we talked about us as teenagers and how we got into those things and how our parents were, etc. I'm not saying I support my son doing those things- not at all in fact- but giving him choices will teach him to make good ones, and that freedom comes at the price of responsibility. If he gets busted with a joint; he's staying overnight in a jail cell. Sure we'll bail him out and help him out- but he's gonna have some time to sit there and think about it, even if it kills us! Sometimes life and experience are the best teachers, especially when it comes to things that children just go through as a part of growing up. Being there and giving advice (we think) is the best approach. If he does rebel, it will be against us- that won't affect his ability to relate to his peers and be non-judgemental and accepting towards them.
Thanks again, all, for the input!

Aurora,

I know this is a bit old, nevertheless:



I know exactly what you mean, my husband is convinced our daughter will rebel by becoming either a cheerleader or a cat girl. Maybe we ought to set them up!

Seriously, though, we do pretty much the same thing with our child, emphasis on letting her chose most of her own clothes even if she ends up walking out the door in stripey shirts, squirrel bedecked jeans, a dress and bear themed camo thermals poking out here and there. She's happy, we're happy, the grandparents and great-grandparents are alternately amused or buy her more clothes (their tastes are generally good). I think our kids will be fine. Also, re: Lunamoth, I don't know about primary colors, but high contrast such as black, white, and red was found to have positive effects on little ones' brain development. I personally suspect that's another "Baby Einstein" marketing gimmick for those "developmental" toys, but I've given that piece of mainstream info to relatives in the past. Good luck!
--

Not aimed at me, but I figured I'd chip in on this point, being a goth parent

PreZ and I didn't name our kids with goth names, though the names are not common ones. Our son is called Dashiell Vincent, and our daughter is Matilda Anaïs.

I find the majority of goth baby names kind of silly and stereotypical (and some are just downright lame), and we've always considered the fact that our kids may well not be goth when they grow up. When choosing names for our kids we also considered how the names would be for an adult too. I liked one recommendation that you should pick a name that doesn't look really stupid if you saw it as a newspaper byline (with your kid being the reporter).

The only issues we've really encountered with our name picks is that people seem to find Dashiell hard to pronounce [Dash-eel, though some try and pronounce it as Dash-ee-ell, like some weird version of Danielle]. Which, isn't entirely surprising with my family, given they're Dutch and live in Holland, but for the English speakers it should be easier... given that there's a well-known American author Dashiell Hammett. But, he has the option later of going by Vincent if he wants to.

So, we went with unusual/uncommon names (though Matilda is a lot more popular in the UK/Australia than it is here in the US), but not weird or stupid ones.

In regards to the stuff about dressing kids, we don't dress our kids especially goth. Besides a few pirate themed shirts we have/had for Dash, that's about it. Black isn't exactly a common colour for kids under a certain age which renders it ridiculously hard to find anything black, and I do like normal kids clothes on both kids (though I don't go for super frilly girly clothes on Tilly).

I find it amusing how normal people are worried about what will happen if you dress your kids goth, when most people who are goth now (and this also goes for the majority of suicidal people, I'm sure), were dressed in normal clothes as kids...



I believe it's because it's high contrast, and the really wee ones don't see subtle shades as well when so small (especially when given that their range of vision is also not as far at that age), so high contrast is good. That said, I don't think you're doing your kids any disservice by not having enough high contrast stuff to expose them to at a young age. Most of us turned out fine without the cutting edge educational toys.



Lilith

If I ever do have children, I'm going to make sure they don't get bloody stupid names. My parents decided to bestow such a shackle on me. With some names, I think parents hated the child and gave it a really silly name on purpose.

Jeremy_Clarckson



Well, you would know best how your parents felt about you and all. What a stupid, passive aggressive thing to say to a thread of parents discussing, among other things, naming your kids.
--

I'm talking about specific cases here. A friend of mine is called Adolf. It's names like that of which I'm talking. Sorry if I offended you...

Jeremy_Clarckson,
No problem, I'm a tetchy bitch and hypersensitive of assvice from the non-childed to the childed. Interestingly enough, your anecdote reminds me of the "You Just Can't Buy That Kind of Advertising" post on Cake Wrecks (http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/12/you-just-cant-buy-that-kind-of.html). There certainly are some special people in the world.
--

I've got to agree. As a parent, I can't imagine any parent holding their brand new bundle of joy in their arms and thinking, "I hate you so I will name you something stupid."

You're assuming they necessarily do it on purpose.

I think a lot of kids get named something stupid because their parents don't really put proper thought into how serious naming a child really is.

Hang out on pregnancy/due date forums on livejournal or somewhere, and you'll quickly realise there are many MANY dumbshit pregnant people out there who will be naming their kids something idiotic. They might not be intending to be mean to their kid, but they end up being so regardless.

Too many people think about what they think looks cool or "unique", and give little thought to the real world situations and applications that their child will face when older. Ridiculous spellings of normal names are just a start (in the "let's replace all the vowels with y's" sense... you'd think that if they really wanted something unique they'd actually pick a name that isn't used much, not a normal named spelled in a crazy way).

For lots of entertainment, I highly recommend reading Baby's Named A Bad Bad Thing: http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/ It does kind of make you cry a little on the inside for the unfortunates with parents that stupid that they actually considered or bestowed certain names on their offspring.

Interestingly, an article linked from that site discusses that poor naming choices have been linked to a life of crime:

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/new ... ddbef6e4a5

So carefully considering what you name your kid is certainly in order.


Lilith