What kind of parent calls their child ‘Storm’, ‘Beetroot’, or ‘Brussell Sprout’? Only the kind that hasn’t thought about the consequences for that child. I appeared on Woman’s Hour, with Dea Birkett, who had called her children ‘Storm’ and ‘Savannah’. I complained that called your child ‘Storm’ forces a personality, an attitude, a metaphor upon that child that more anodyne names just don’t. Harmless names like Tom or Charlotte allow children to find their own personalities, whereas ‘Storm’ forces eccentricity upon a child.
We also spoke about the appalling state of boy’s reading on the show. I felt that the teaching profession and reading generally had become too feminised, seen too much as a ‘cissy’ activity. It’s time to bring the machismo back to reading!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04/2008_33_fri.shtml‘
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