Opinion: Has anyone else imagined this future for our children?

by Fu’ad Lawal

There have been all kinds of theories about the type of world our children will be raised in, and the kind of values we will imbibe in them.

This is about none of that. This is about the day they are born. But first, let’s take it back to when the idea of the baby is first born.

Two people come together, and some interesting science happens. Legs split. Sweat breaks. And the seminal idea is planted. Our baby keeps Mummy up at night, sometimes she’s very hungry, sometimes she gets very psychotic. Suffice to say, carrying baby is not the most fun activity in the world.

One day, baby is tired of staying inside mummy, and mummy’s body is just as eager to let baby out, and feel baby’s touch, or smile, or cry — in real life.

So mummy says to daddy, “what shall we name her?”

Remember, this is the year 20-badass. A future where most of the sci-fi movies we’ve seen might actually be wrong.

In this future, Daddy and Mummy have to go to a digital register where they enter in baby’s name. A way of telling the world, “another potential big deal has arrived”.

So they try the first name they’d been thinking about the past nine months;

Alma.

But this register has other plans. So it gives them a response:

Sorry, Alma is taken.

You see, this register doesn’t give a damn about the past few months and why they chose the name Alma. It doesn’t even care that they chose Alma since it means caring, because you know, they want her to grow up and be caring. In this future, no two people shall bear the same name.

They start to panic. Who in the world is bearing their daughter’s name? Is she even any good? They bite their lips wishing they’d had Alma earlier. But they have no plans of giving up.

“Let’s try BeAlma,” they agree on this one again. It’s ugly, and not as pure as their beloved Alma. But they give it a shot anyway.

Sorry, BeAlma is taken.

They try everything- Almanise. Almaly. Almalala. Almanity. Almadible. The register keeps sending the same response:

Sorry, TheRidiculousName is taken.

And out of frustration, Daddy slams the keyboard and screams ‘Abeg na!’ Aha. It’s the future. Voice command is like bread and butter. The register responds of course;

And then Mummy says to Daddy, “I don’t even know what that means” I bet you know what he said next.

                                      It gets the people going!

And so, they agree that she shall be called Abegna. They vow to raise her to be caring. They agree that even when she grows up, and decides to pivot, she won’t be trapped in a meaningful name.

It is as the wise men of the future shall say;

A meaningless name has no limits.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

This article was first published HERE

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