Baby Talk

“What worries us the most are the possible immediate and long-term effects of this incident on Baby James. We are appealing to those people playing up this issue and have been spreading and ridiculing Baby James to please leave Baby James alone and respect his innocence and childhood,” Dr. Joy Alcantara of the Party List candidate “Akap Bata” was quoted in the Philippine Daily Inquirer yesterday.

With all due respect to the good doctor, I think they should be worrying more about the long term psychological effects of being forever referred to as “Baby James” than they should about the incident with Manny Villar.

Really.

Fast forward to thirty seven years from now, when he’ll be forty and eligible to run for president.  How could he possibly hope to run a country with a name like “Baby James”?  

I’ve done my research on this by the way and it seems that no one, and I mean no one with “Baby” as part of their given name has really amounted to much. 

A classic example is “Baby Huey”   (i.e. the huge, not so very intelligent duck from old school Disney cartoons).  You don’t remember him?  Obviously he didn’t really have a stellar acting career.

Of note is another popular, yet sad, sad figure from television. Let’s not forget the ubiquitous “Baby Bop” who is first of all, not a baby, not even a recognizable known specie of dinosaur that she pretends to be and who’ll never amount to much other than a sidekick of her boss Barney, the purple dinosaur (who incidentally, does not appear to be very bright either.)

And what about “Baby Ama”?  Remember Baby Ama?  On the upside, there were numerous movies made about his life.  On the downside however, none of the movies made about him ever ended well i.e.  “Bitayin si... Baby Ama! (1976)” ,Anak ni Baby Ama (1990), Hari ng Selda: Anak ng Baby Ama 2 (2006).  Clearly, Baby Ama did not have quite the stellar life his mother would have hoped for.  But then again, I truly believe it was her fault he turned out the way he did.  He probably turned had to a life of crime in a fit of machismo to live down all the teasing and to prove that despite having the name “Baby Ama”, that he was a rough, tough SOB. Of course, someone should have told him that turning to a life of crime is not really the best way to prove one’s manhood.  But again, like I said, as the name implies, he may not have been the sharpest knife in the proverbial drawer.

There’s also Baby Jane of “Tarsan and Baby Jane” fame er…ok, maybe not fame. You know? They were a father-daughter duet in the ‘70s with Sylvia La Torre….  (Ok, I’ll  stop now, my age is showing).   But really, do you think Baby Jane grew up and became a pillar of society?  I don’t think so.  She probably never lived down the double ignominy of (1) having a name like “Baby Jane” and (2) appearing on national television in a fake leopard print mini dress and a styrofoam bone cut-out in her hair.

True, there HAVE been some successful politicians nicknamed “Baby”  but the ones I know of didn’t seem to have come to a happy end either.  Case in point?  Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier who was President of Haiti – up until they arrested him and tried him for murder in 1998.

Really, naming your child “Baby” Anything is JUST. PLAIN. LAZY.   What? Writing “Bob” or “Ana” or “Tom” wasn’t easy enough for you? There’s even less letters in there than “Baby”.  Besides, clearly since it is small, noisy, demanding, pink and has no powers of self-ambulation – we ALREADY know it’s a baby. No need to state the obvious.

In the Philippines, a given name like “Baby” or “Boy” toes the line of acceptability.  I’m sure we all have a Tita, Tito or grandparent (Hi Tita Baby! Love you!)  nicknamed “Baby” or “Boy” – but I think it was a generational thing.  Maybe in 40s, our grandparents were just so traumatized and exhausted by the war that naming their children properly was too much of a mental exercise and hence, excusable.   Hmmm…come to think of it, I don’t know of anyone named “Boy” younger that “Boy Abunda” of  The Buzz fame (and he’s not even really a boy….well maybe biologically.  Or was that wishful thinking on his mom’s part?)

So in sum, I would like to offer these words Akap Bata. 

Dear Dr. Alcantara,

I truly applaud your concern for Baby James Yap’s mental health and psychological well-being.  However, I think that a 30 second film clip of him shouting “Villar!” at a political rally poses very little threat to his psychological development when compared to the iniquity of being referred to as “Baby James” for the remainder of his life.

Perhaps you can file child abuse charges against his mom?

Very truly yours,

A concerned citizen

PS  Ignore this letter if you think I’m being too presumptuous.  

     After, since I named my own daughter after a natural calamity

    (i.e Tempest), who am I to talk?