The Collinses didn’t tell me Simone was eight months pregnant when we were making plans for me to spend a Saturday with them at home in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, but I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. They are the poster children of the pronatalist movement, on a mission to save humanity by having as many babies as possible.I don't get these people who act like a bit of population shrinkage would be the worst thing in the world. Remember what a barren, empty hellscape this country was when it only had two thirds as many people as it does now, way back in 1976? Yeah, me too.
Malcolm, 37, answers the door of their 18th-century farmhouse with four-year-old Octavian George, who is thrilled to have a visitor, bringing toy after toy to show me like an overexcited golden retriever. His little brother, two-year-old Torsten Savage, is on his iPad somewhere upstairs. Simone, 36, in an apron that strains across her belly, has her daughter, 16-month-old Titan Invictus, strapped to her back. The imminent arrival of their fourth child, a girl they plan to name Industry Americus Collins, turns out to be only the first in a string of surprises – and one really shocking thing – that I will encounter during my day with the pronatalists.
Also, are these people trying to make their kids hate them?
Me: "Hahahaha those countries with baby-naming laws are so quaint and authoritarian."I'm like "You people get that these aren't, like, Funko Pops or collectible action figures or lifestyle achievement badges to show off to your friends in your private Discord server, but are actual independent humans who are going to have a life of their own in a surprisingly short number of years and are probably going to loathe their weird-ass given names, right?"
These Dweebs: *name their human daughter in 21st Century America "Titan Invictus"*
Me: "Okay, so about those baby-naming laws..."
(And before you say "Well, Black people have been naming their kids funny-sounding names for years..." what I want you to understand is that there's a difference between wanting to have names that are cultural signifiers... yet still recognizably names ...that aren't the ones that had been assigned to your family by the people who bought and sold your ancestors as chattel, and just being weird for the sake of being weird. D'shaun or Latisha are names, made-up names, sure, but names nonetheless*. "Industry Americanus" is a dorky-ass affectation.)
*"Why don't they use names from the part of Africa their families came from?" you ask, and the answer is that nobody knows where they came from because it's not like their abductors or purchasers took careful notes on that stuff.
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