I originally curated this post to share when Greta Gerwig’s, Barbie, was going to release in 2023, but then life happened and I just never got around to finishing it. However, maybe I was meant to wait until now since we have a baby girl of our own who is due to arrive in just three weeks on my late father’s birthday, July 22nd. This year also marks 10 years since his passing. Crazy symbolic, right?
Side Story: I’m no longer in a deep state of grief, but I remember the first time I watched Rue’s monologue for her father from Euphoria I was in pieces for daaaaayyyyssss. I did have one moment during my pregnancy where I reflected on the irony of her due date wishing my dad was here to meet her. I balled my eyes out, but quickly tried to get it together because I didn’t want my sadness to impact her. Now I’m mostly happy that I have plenty of memories of him to share with her.
Cue Donny Hathaway’s A Song for You
Raising a Daughter
When Joe and I found out we were having a girl I instantly felt an enormous amount of pressure come over me. Although I loved my dad very much, he often had very misogynistic views of what I should and shouldn’t do as a female. So I’ve been thinking a lot about how I feel obligated to teach her how to be mentally strong and confident enough to brush off misogynistic commentary. Nowadays, I have more of an understanding of where his mindset stemmed from and the toxic masculinity he had to endure as a male himself both in the Philippines and in the United States, but previously I would really let it get to me.
I was a kid who loved to play in the mud and race around the jungle gym. My mom enjoyed dressing me in frilly clothes and put bows she made in my hair. I recently learned that she briefly worked for a bow making company, but she mostly enjoyed dressing me up for the Kingdom Hall/Church. I don’t remember at what age this started, but I do recall wanting to always wear hats backwards, hating wearing dresses, and especially having to pose for photos. I probably developed my more tomboy tendencies from hanging out with my brothers all the time. I remember playing hide-and-seek, video games, and rough housing with them while my sisters were off living their own lives.
In reference to my dad, what’s funny is that I have core memories of him asking me to help him with building different things for our backyard. I would hold a piece of wood as he would saw, hammer nails, or grab him tools. I remember seeing his sketches for what he wanted to make so that could’ve started to inspire a sense of independence in me and desire to create with my hands. However, I specifically remember one instance when I wanted to learn Eskrima, a form of Filipino martial arts, after I saw a drill team of girls, ranging in all ages, perform in Seattle, WA. I saw it as another way to connect with my Filipino roots and thought he’d be proud that I was interested. Instead, he told me that “girls shouldn’t fight.”
Eskrima paints a dance of blades using wooden sticks and was created to help Filipinos prepare for battle with the Spanish. It was disguised as a dance using wooden sticks in place of swords. I believe barongs were created for Filipinos to wear transparent garments so that they couldn’t hide any weapons underneath their clothing.
Like most people, I didn’t like being told I wasn’t allowed to do something and it didn’t help that I had a personality like my headstrong mother. To this day, my mom will always say what’s on her mind for better or worse. My sisters and I have each adopted this same, deeply rooted sense of grit and vigor. We question overly tight reigns and don’t often sit too in discomfort. I’m thankful I’ve had so many strong and independent women in my life to learn from and I hope I can be just as much of an exemplary model for my own daughter (and other potential future children).
I am, however, thankful that my parents allowed me to explore my interests in the fine arts. Not only did this opportunity allow me to learn a craft that would amplify my self-expression, but it encouraged me to learn about abstraction and experiment meaningfully. I was able to see beyond conventional labels and feel confident in creating my own identity. I had a rebellious personality and often tried to breakaway from stereotypes and especially gender stereotypes.
Baby Names Pt. 1
Joe and I have been racking our brains on what name to choose for our daughter. First and foremost, we know that we won’t be able to make a final decision until we see her. It’s not just important for us to see her face, but we have to feel her energy.
Parents can often start drumming up aspirations for their children before they’re even born. It’s not bad to have ideas of what you hope your children can accomplish. However, it starts to get really challenging when parents can’t unleash those dreams in order to support the direction or ambitions their kids have found for themselves instead. This is when disappointment can creep in from the parents, sometimes not even expressed directly, and cause the most unsettling friction that often breaks what could’e been close bonds between the parent and child.
We won’t nail it perfectly, but I hope Joe and I will play key observers of our child(ren)’s behaviors and interests so that we can take cues on how to support an exploration of them. We’ve recently been reading up on Montessori practices (The Montessori Baby: A Parent's Guide to Nurturing Your Baby with Love, Respect, and Understanding) and hope to implement quite a few of their teachings. I also hope we’ll be able to distinguish when the guidance we share with them is from a place of concern for their well-being and safety in mind versus us trying to lay on pressure for ideas that they were never fully invested in. We definitely want to avoid them developing a people pleasing behavior where they only want to follow dreams we have for them.
Toxic Masculinity
Recently, I came across a dad who was telling Joe and I the importance of “daddy-daughter dates” and I didn’t agree with him entirely. I agreed with the idea of a parent spending one-on-one time with their kid. I did not, however, agree with the point he was trying to make about needing to show her what a “gentleman” looks like so she doesn’t have “low standards”. I don’t remember his exact words, but it was along the line of doing overly chivalrous gestures like opening doors or bringing her flowers. It wasn’t the place or time to have the debate so I just smiled and told him thank you for his advice. From my perspective, that sounded more like raising an entitled little girl rather than a self-sufficient or generally respectful human being. Also, what if she’s into girls instead of guys?
Personally, one of my biggest pet peeves is when I’m holding open a door for someone who happens to be a male and they come behind me and put their hand on the door and say “oh no, please, after you.” At that point, my once courteous gesture just turns into an inefficient act and is a complete waste of time. It’s like just walk through the damn door and say thank you, man. LOL.
Baby Names Pt. 2
Gender Neutral Names
Back to the name thing though... we’ve been discussing the significance of having a gender neutral name. Personally, I feel like doing so could prevent her from being boxed into gender stereotypes, but also with the use of pronouns becoming more relevant, I feel like it could make the transition “easier”for her if she decides to head that route in the future. However, then I start to think... well maybe she’ll grow confident enough to not give a shit about what stereotypical perceptions people have of the name we give her and she’ll just carry on with whatever ratio of masculine and feminine energy she wants! So then I think “who are we to try and preset that idea?”
There are male identifying people who flourish in femme energy and haven’t had the desire to change their “traditional masculine” names and vice versa as well. I can also understand why some people may feel the desire to completely rewrite their story though and utilize a name change as a bold statement telling people everyone they have a new identity. That’s undeniable change right there! I do plan on reaching out to more of my LGBTQ+ friends to gain more insight on this. At the moment, my intention is to help protect and prepare her from people who are less forward thinking, especially in this currently male dominated society, but I just need to trust that she’s going to make it her own.
ENTRY UPDATE: I was able to talk to two friends of the LGBTQ+ community, one who has been through the journey themselves and another who is a parent of child who changed to a gender neutral name. They are both amazingly kind and thoughtful people of course so it was of no surprise that they gave me such insightful advice. So a couple of things:
“A name is a gift. We give our child(ren) a name, but they get to choose what to do with it.”
“Anyone can change their name for any reason at all.”
Growing up they had stronger feelings about not at least having a nickname that could be gender neutral.
Now more than ever, it’s important to remember that we should “ask our child(ren) what they want to be called.” We can be those parents who can teach them about pronouns and etc.
Brilliant. Seriously. I respect those two so much and am so glad I reached out to them! There are sooo many things I can’t wait to discuss with out kids just to see whats brewing in their minds and how curious they are. I’m glad to know that Joe and I will be doing our best to learn from our kids just as much as want to share with them and (hopefully) give them the space and time to feel empowered about creating their own path and identity.
Culture Assimilation
And then I start to think about the challenge of being a person of color. I’ve had this idea in my head that we need to “whitewash” her name and give her one that is “easy” for Americans to pronounce. My initial thought was that this would give her a better chance of gaining the access and the respect she needs if she wants to rise to an executive level role, a space which is currently dominated by white cis males.
This concept was recently illustrated in an episode of This Is Us when Miguel submits two identical résumés, but one has the name Miguel Rivas listed and the other has the name Mike Rivers. When the interviewer calls out Mike, he’s surprised to see a person of color answer. (Miguel and his roots)
Joe emphasizes, however, that by the time she’s of that age, the demographics of leadership roles may have diversified. We can only hope so and who knows, she might not even want that type of role. Also, she can’t hide the fact that her last name is Laguerta so there’s really no getting around that one.
Strong Names
I’ve also thought we should give her a “strong” or more masculine name to position her better and to be respected rather than a “dainty” name. There’s also something about her being a first born that makes me want to give her a strong name. First born children typically have to fall into leader type roles whether they like it or not and unfortunately often end up having to bare the brunt of consequences that involve multiple siblings. Parents can easily fall into blaming the older sibling saying that the oldest “should’ve known better” or been more responsible. So she may have to develop a sense of resiliency in that regard as well. Regardless of my intentions to “protect and prepare”, this all proves that even I’m still playing into stereotypes myself!
One Name, Not Two
Technically, both Joe and I have two name first names: Mary Anne and Joe Peter. All of my siblings have two part first names: Marvin Joi, Mark Paulo, Melanie Vanessa, and Michael John. However, in the United States, my name is the only one that translates as a first name fairly easily. At some point, I’m not sure if it was their doing or my parents, three of my sibling dropped the 2nd half of their name to be a part of their middle name. This ended up being the same case for Joe.
Side Story: Joe Peter was given to him based off of his grandfathers’ names: Jose (maternal) and Pedro (paternal)
Having two part names has been such a challenge for us, but especially me. Due to the space in my name, the majority of people and institutions end up assuming that Anne is my middle name. This can be especially frustrating when this comes to government or medical documents. I just filled out a state disability application that said “If you have a name that does not fit the space in the online form, you will need to fill out a paper application.” So there are a lot more hoops and huddles people with long names have to jump through than others may realize. Overall though, it ends up giving the person a complex and it caused identity issues for me very early on. I developed a passive personality overtime because there were circumstances where I just didn’t even bother to correct people, especially if I knew we were only going to have a brief interaction.
Other considerations (drop down sections):
+ Short and Sweet
For similar reasons, we also want to give her a short name. That way her name doesn’t get cut off on things like our names do on bank cards, IDs, accounts, etc.
+ Middle Names
Many Filipinos include the mother’s maiden name as a part of their childrens’ middle name. We will be incorporating this tradition so her middle name will be Matel. We will not, however, be giving her a second “first name” as a middle name. Unfortunately, there are some entitled people who like to use people’s full government names when they’re trying to be “serious” or even just using their middle name as a flex or status of familiarity, but not just that, usually it’s in a way where they’re calling them by their middle name in an authoritarian or condescending manner. I hate that shit so much lol! It’s like calling them by their middle names gives them some special privilege over that person and I doubt the person ever give them permission to do that. You typically see the person’s name who is being called rolling their eyes or something.
+ Pronunciation
Earlier I mentioned wanted to have a name Americans could “easily” pronounce. Of course there are different accents even within the the United States itself too, but Joe and I do general test runs of how many different ways people could mispronounce the name.
+ Nicknames
Filipinos also love giving kids unique nicknames. Sometimes these can just be out right unpredictable lol, so we don’t put too much of an effort trying to brainstorm what those could be. We have experimented with some playground variations of each name because can be straight up assholes when they’re teaching each other. We can’t avoid them all, but we did try to avoid some obvious ones.
Barbie
So yea I definitely enjoyed the barbie movie and it’s satirical messaging on toxic masculinity. I saw a few posts about the movie and may have even read some of America Ferrera’s monologue before I actually watched the movie, but I still balled my eyes out when I watched her perform it in the movie. I could relate to everything she said and it was so moving to have some just say it so plain and concrete, especially for a mainstream audience.
America Ferrera’s Monologue
It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.
You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.
But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful.
You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know.
Mother Daughter Relationship
Hopefully I’ve made it pretty clear why I feel such immense pressure to help our daughter develop a resilient and determined mindset. Personally, I imagine myself having a relationship similar to the one Enola Holmes has with her mom in Netflix’s 2022 Enola Holmes 2, or at least the relationship in the flashbacks as I hope to be more present than she was in some of the movie lol.
No doubt I’ve got quite a bit of clutter going on in my head, but I’m confident that Joe and I, with the help of the amazing loved ones surrounding us, will do a great job. At the very least, I think Joe and I can both agree we want her to have a life full of play and wonder! We’ll take from her cues for the rest!
Name Bank
So what are we going to name her? We have a running list we’re working from, but again, we want to meet her before we decide. I’ll come back and edit this post to share the full list once we’ve already named her, but for now:
V_ _ _
K _ _
L _ _
A _ _ _ _
I _ _ _ _ _
V _ _ _ _ _
C _ _ _ _ _ _
S _ _ _ _ _
Here are some names we liked, but won’t be using:
+ Too long:
- Cassian
- Penelope
- Lilian
+ Other affiliations too close to home:
- Carmen
- Robin
- Riley
- Max
- Ruby
- Airen
- Soren
- Morgan
- Jordan
- Taylor
- Andy
- Ivy
+ Didn’t give “first born” vibes:
- Emery (A combination of our mother’s names)
- Piper
- Quinn
- Reese
+ Just didn’t stick:
- Norah
- Finn
- Peyton
- Althea
- Hazel
- Grey
- Ivory
- Jade
- Sage
- Ash
- Aila
- Blair
- Sam
- Alex
- Brooks
- Aiden
- Harper
+ Didn’t win majority vote
- Elle
- Valen
- Savene
- Aiza
