Is This the Worst Woman on Earth?

Thought it might be fun to talk a little Freakonomics today. The following video has been making the rounds on the interwebs over the past week. It features Katie Hopkins (a former contestant on The Apprentice and now a social commentator of sorts) explaining why she won't let her children play with other children who have "stupid" names (at least as far as she's concerned). She says a child's first name tells her everything she needs to know about that child's family's social strata, and she's only interested in her children befriending other children whose families represent some networking value. Watch this and then catch up with me after the jump:

Okay, so it's easy to hate on a woman who says things like this, but what I'm interested in today is discussing whether she has a point. We all want what's best for our kids, and we all do our best to give them a leg up in life. While I personally would never tell my kids they couldn't play with another child who had a dumb name, I have steered them away from the obvious problem children in their various circles.

How far is too far when it comes to your kids? I mean, the underlying theme of the whole Freakonomics section on naming children came down to race, and that's a pretty ugly conclusion. If this woman truly believes what she's saying, there almost has to be a racial component to her bias, and that's pretty messed up.

But what do you guys think? Will your kids go on to lead more successful lives if you only let them play with Muffy and Biff? What's in a name, really?

 

Didn't watch the vid, but would you let your kid play with, say, "North West"? Guess in a way the kids with names such as these say something about their parents, which would reflect on their upbringing.

Edit: Obviously, wouldn't want to go by a name alone. But like someone below says, super-weird names would make me judgmental, and thus, cautious.

Move along, nothing to see here.
 

Someone.... please kill this lady... for the love of this world. Shut her up. I had to stop half way through... couldnt do it.

Cant play with them, Cant Talk to them, Cant Stay with them,

Cant do it... cant do it!

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.
 

What kind of world are we living in when someone thinks this is okay? I realize a lot of people live vicariously through their kids, but if purposefully keeping your kid stifled like that gives you pleasure, you need to just lock yourself up and throw away the key.

There are plenty of ways to tell whether someone is bad news besides what their name is.

Metal. Music. Life. www.headofmetal.com
 

This chick is making some massive logical jumps. I get trying to keep your kids away from bad I flue cues but once they get out of grade school this theory of hers is going to be shot to shit. I suppose if her only goal is to keep her kid snorting rails and greeting pounded by wealthy scumbags then this might be successful.

And can I just say how much I find it funny how she is trying to make this about class and by inference how she is "high class". Anyone who is actually high class wouldn't go on a TV show and talk about this shit nor would they wear a snake skin styled dress. Her bio is rather interesting also.

But ultimately I think we all do this to some extent. This woman is just the most radical version of it.

 
TNA:

This chick is making some massive logical jumps. I get trying to keep your kids away from bad I flue cues but once they get out of grade school this theory of hers is going to be shot to shit. I suppose if her only goal is to keep her kid snorting rails and greeting pounded by wealthy scumbags then this might be successful.

And can I just say how much I find it funny how she is trying to make this about class and by inference how she is "high class". Anyone who is actually high class wouldn't go on a TV show and talk about this shit nor would they wear a snake skin styled dress. Her bio is rather interesting also.

But ultimately I think we all do this to some extent. This woman is just the most radical version of it.

iphone or alcohol?

 
Best Response

Interesting topic. I've been watching Freaks and Geeks lately and I can certainly sympathize with the desire to screen who your kids hang out with. Ultimately, instilling your kids with a sense of what kind of friends are a bad influence is probably a good idea, but what makes a kid a bad influence certainly isn't in a name. And even if a kid isn't the best of influences, completely forbidding your kids to hang out with them seems counterproductive. We evidently all have biases when it comes to whom we don't want our kids to hang out with. If I had a son who hung out with a bunch of penny-wearing, lacrosse-playing Brandons I'd probably laugh him out of the house. If my kids hung out with coked-out, Gossip Girl rich kids I'm sure I'd flip.

But to answer the question, I think screening whom your kids hang out with based on name or class will make you end up with dumb, weak kids. I have a solidly upper-middle class background but most of the kids I hung out with until the age of 10 were "working-class" and many of them lived in the projects. Once I started to go to junior high outside my town I split my time between upper middle class kids at school and the basketball team in my town. Kids on my basketball team would literally make fun of me for living in a house to give you a sense of how different that world was. The funny thing is, the kids at school were probably a much worse influence than those I played ball with. When you see kids who get insane grades while getting baked every weekend, you start questioning your work ethic and principles. Much less so when the best player on your team starts smoking so much weed he drops out of the team and becomes a dealer (I have nothing against weed actually, but it works for illustrative purposes). I also never saw someone do coke until I hung out with rich kids in college.

Point is, you can never understand what being poor is like, or what "those people who don't pay taxes" go through without having some friends lower on the income scale. That's a big reason why the current French political class is so useless. Guys like Hollande have no clue what things are like in the hood. The only plan they can come up with is buying people off with shorter work weeks and low retirement ages. The fact that the entire French political spectrum could come together behind the ban on veils in schools is symptomatic about how hopelessly out of touch these politicians are. Saying the ban was for the purpose of laicity is merely a cover story. It was culturally unacceptable for many teachers to have students wearing something on their head in class and so a law had to be passed. Simple as that. Until we get some people who've grown up near or in the "cités" in politics without them being card-carrying communist clowns, France is screwed.

Something similar is happening in the U.S. While inequality to a degree is a fundamental part of capitalism (who would want to start a risky company if you couldn't possibly make some serious loot?), too much inequality ultimately makes the edifice crumble. The U.S. was founded on this principle. The people who came to the U.S. did so because they were stifled by the income inequality and lack of social mobility back home. Romney's presidential bid failed because people like him and Paul Ryan have completely lost sight of this. Saying the people who don't pay taxes don't matter is antithetical to America. Apart from some hillbilly states until the 1960s, discriminating on the basis of income for voting rights has been verboten for much of the U.S.' history. Perhaps if Romney and Ryan had had a few more poor friends they would have had a clue on how to sell themselves to America as a whole nation last year.

 
ZenMaster:

Wow she is horrendous looking. First of all, who hit that for her to get kids?

And secondly, I love the bit when she criticizes people who have kids named after destinations like Paris but the presenter drops that her kid is named India! Boom what a cunt.

Actually, she is well known for having sex with wealthy men and was once caught having sex in a field.

Tramp.

 

Didn't watch the video yet, but I remember that chapter from Freakonomics and always thought it was really interesting. Eddie, aside from there being a strong race component to the names I remember there being a specific class distinction as well. It went along the lines that a name that would pop up among the upper classes would slowly move down the class ladder in later generations, and eventually end up in the lower classes with various misspelled versions. Also, they made a point that the really upper echelon of society always picked the most weird-ass names of all.

Here's one of their recent podcasts that goes even further into people's prejudice with names. http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/04/08/how-much-does-your-name-matter-a…

 

This is absolutely ridiculous. Granted I don't have kids, but they can make their own decisions and mistakes. When I was younger, looking back, my parents let me hang out with some pretty screwed up families. Maybe they didn't like it all the time, but I was a kid and didn't look at other children as being influential in my development or judge them on how much money they had, class, or social status.

Of course, now I see them for who they were (flaky, disgusting, idiots), and think that every child is going to make friends with people their parents don't approve of.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
 

Haha, while I'm sure many on this board would think it a ridiculous imposition on freedom or whatever; I remember reading about a couple in Finland who had their child's name rejected by some name regulatory authority in the country because they tried to name their kid "Metallica".

Honestly, I'm not sure what is going on in some people's heads. All of these celeb babies have some of the stupidest names I've ever seen.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
 
trazer985:

This chick is making some massive logical jumps. I get trying to keep your kids away from bad I flue cues but once they get out of grade school this theory of hers is going to be shot to shit. I suppose if her only goal is to keep her kid snorting rails and greeting pounded by wealthy scumbags then this might be successful.

And can I just say how much I find it funny how she is trying to make this about class and by inference how she is "high class". Anyone who is actually high class wouldn't go on a TV show and talk about this shit nor would they wear a snake skin styled dress. Her bio is rather interesting also.

But ultimately I think we all do this to some extent. This woman is just the most radical version of it.

iphone or alcohol?

Iphone in bed.

 

While this woman is obviously a pretty awful bitch. I'd like to assert that there are a lot of insane names in contemporary America, on not just ones like L'Shantel and LaDarius. I recently met this super duper waspy girl with the name Vandon and wanted to go back to 1980whatever and punch her parents in the face.

My drinkin' problem left today, she packed up all her bags and walked away.
 
streetwannabe:

This is absolutely ridiculous. Granted I don't have kids, but they can make their own decisions and mistakes. When I was younger, looking back, my parents let me hang out with some pretty screwed up families.

Also, wanna know what the best way to ensure your rebellious teenager hangs out with people you don't want them to? Tell them not to hang out with them.

This to all my hatin' folks seeing me getting guac right now..
 

Exactyly. Maybe this lady can get away with it while her kids are under 13 or whatever, but someday it will back fire and these kids will probably be worse off because of her idiotic presumptions.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
 

Ultimately, denying her children the opportunity to meet others will only weaken their ability to learn from other perspectives. A name is a name. I've gotten into shenanigans with a guy named Paul. Conversely, One of my professors was named Tyler. I really hope one of the Windsor kids is named Tyler. I bet she wouldn't mind a play date then...

Elitism 0 Social Mobility 1

PE is the new black.
 

That was a laugh riot, made my day.

You know what's a stupid name? Katie. So is India. So is Poppry. My kids won't be going on play dates with hers.

My favorite part about all this is that her comments are now digitally memorialized on the 'net. When her kids come of age and watch this, they will end up hating her.

She must be a great mother. So who is Katie Hopkins and why do we care? Oh, never mind, I don't care anymore.

@ OP - does she have a point and do names matter? No and no. We have a president named Barack HUSSIEN Obama, I doubt his name mattered.

Man made money, money never made the man
 

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