And it is in pageants. Thank you Zach Galifianakis. You have shown me my destiny as a father.

Popularity of the name Aidan throughout the 20th century.

Okay, this is unscientific almost to the point of being Gladwellian, but I’ve noticed a lot of crazy names written under the pictures of schoolkids in my meanderings through the pre-K and kindergarten classrooms of the New York public schools.

Sometimes I wish we weren’t all so predictable, but in my small sample, the three major ethnic groups populating Upper Manhattan seem to be in a race to prove that, as Denny Green said, they are who we thought they were.

White people: Wow, you really do name your kids Aiden and Addison. I appreciate that yuppies have turned away from Mary and James and such. But it appears that even in the race for creativity, the most empowered majority group to maybe ever walk this planet—the White American—still struggles to avoid hivemind.

Black people: Armani makes a nice suit, but a dubious first name (yes, it was there on one pre-K picture-wall). Years ago, I spent some time in the East Harlem classroom taught by a friend of mine. The big thing then were names with Asia in it, like DeAsia—or just Asia. Not that anybody is looking for my approval, but I liked those names. One name I saw twice in pre-K classes last month that I don’t like so much: Hennessy. I know now from the Internet that it is a Celtic name that means “descendant of Angus.” But something tells me that this Hennessy was more the aspirational, VSOP kind.

Caribbean people: I try to understand. When I lived in Cuba, I knew a girl named Janeeyre (pronounced ha-neh-eh-reh). One of the bravest blogs in the world, Generación Y, is named in honor of all the Cubans with Y-names like “Yanisleidi, Yoandri, Yusimí, Yuniesky.” I was pretty sure Generation Y was a thing of the ’70s, but those caribeño compound names are alive and well in Manhattan pre-K classes: Marisleysis, Dileisy, and even the adverbial Eddily. Props to my friend Alvaro who, when I asked him about it last week, had a joke ready to tell:

Teacher to student: “You’re lazy.”

Student to teacher: “No, my name is Yudelka. That girl over there is Yurleisy.”

Enough said.

Our friend DaddyTypes had a very good week last week. Not only did he bring forth this hilarious Goodnight Moon Star Wars edition by Noah Dziobecki (titled “Goodnight Forest Moon”, of course), but he also reminded us of the awesome that is mid-century New York street photographer Helen Levitt. She’s got an exhibit at the Lawrence Miller Gallery through March 27, but all you need is the Tubes to get a sense of what a mind-blowing documentarian she was. Below is a German-dubbed version of In the Street, a 1947 short film she made with James Agee and Janice Loeb.

After all the handwringing we do about babies in bars, or in car seats, or in preschools, we have clearly neglected the pressing post-war debate: should we let our babies play all day in the gutter?

I doubt that Levitt would have wanted to romanticize poverty, but I’ll ask this anyway: Are our children really that much happier than these kids? We spend a lot of time and money removing our children from the streets, segregating them from the dirt and noise and rhythms of adult life, shuttling them from one overly age-appropriate activity to another, arranging playdates instead of flashmobs, because the literature claims their delicate minds do better in one-on-one interactions. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want my babies to have scabies either. But to see Levitt’s children is to realize that for all our enlightenment, we might not know everything.

Not mine!

JP, cover your ears (or your eyes; this is a blog; oh wait, you’re three–you can’t read; continue with your business): New York HATES you. And let’s not even get into how they feel about Matt’s darling child Sasha. Don’t feel too bad, though, kids: they really hate me.

We’ve been running a lot of hate-as-love about parenting on this site of late, but this article in last week’s Times delved so deeply into the antipathy against city parents that I thought it merited attention.

What’s the new crime? Hyperactivity in restaurants? Nope. Fucked-up kid names? Uh-huh. No, the newest grip is none other than: TOO LOUD PARENTING. A crime so awful I’ve put it in ALL CAPS WITH MULTIPLE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!! That means it’s really bad. Here’s a taste:

“We see them everywhere. And if we’re being honest, we have all had the same frightening and ignoble urge to smash their heads in with a brick. I am speaking about those smug and uber-informative moms and dads who do their parenting in public places — aggressively and at the top of their highly educated lungs. They are easy to recognize, decked out in natural fabrics and larded up with the self-importance that comes from foisting “teachable moments” on an unsuspecting public.”

First: I do this. Second: it has nothing to do with wanting other people to notice how good a parent I am. Third: It’s because I’m usually so frustrated with my child that my “aggressive parenting” is a substitute for not yelling at my son in public. Cause people don’t like that much either.

To her credit the fucking moron journalist who penned this screed is a parent and she admits to having done very same thing:

While I may desperately wish that they would shut up, or at the very least use their “inside voice,” it is not because I am morally opposed to displaying one’s parenting skills for the approval of strangers. I myself was a young mother once, and I remember quite clearly the thrill of maternal showboating. What bothers me about this generation of parental windbags is their painful lack of subtlety; when they speak to little Cassidy or Aidan, it is at an almost nuclear volume.

Not that she’s taking any real blame. The difference between me and her? Style:

I may have been a showoff, but I like to think that I did it with panache. I spoke softly and intimately to my children, as if my words were intended only for them, as if I were indifferent to the gentle Madonna-in-blue-jeans image I presented.

And for this she wants to smash my brains in with a brick? Wow! That’s the kind of passion I can really get behind. I would like to say one thing, though, to all those Jew New Yorkers so upset about the behavior of urban children and their satanic parents: deep breath, friends. Can we really be such a bother?

Let’s have a look at Brooklyn, aka, Land of Obnoxious Babies. According to the Census, only about 11 percent of households have children under 6. That’s not a lot of screaming, menu-chucking, badly-named little miscreants. Surely there have to be other things we can all bitch about.

That said, I do love the hate. So, to all our DadWagon readers (and wayward journalists)–keep spewing. Makes me happy.