No Cake for Adolph Hitler

Should this toddler be able to have a birthday cake with his name on it like all other kids?  Did the bakery at Shop Rite grocery store act properly in denying the request of the family?  The ADL thinks the bakery did the right thing by refusing to inscribe the cake with the child's name. But should a child of three be penalized for the stupidity of his parents? Note also the names of his two siblings. I realize that this does not amount to child abuse. But is it tantamount to intentional harrassment through acute embarrassment? The kids are currently 1,2 and 3 years old. What awaits them when they are older?

Comments

[Anna]

I'm sure that, as far as Adolph's concerned, a cake with a giant "A" scrawled on it with frosting by his parents would give him as much delight as either a Shop Right or Wall-Mart cake.

The issue, it seems to me, is less one of cake or no cake, than of the kid's conscription as a vehicle for his parents' first amendment rights.

Let's get out a common sense point made repeatedly in the comments section of the local news article: no one puts a full name on a birthday cake. That is, unless there's something about the full name that they believe will cause a ruckus and get them some publicity.

What most infuriates me in the article is the smug look on the parents' face, and the tentative smile on poor Adolph's face. His parents have turned their child's third birthday into their moment. They've plastered his face in the press in connection with a loathed public figure, so that they could plaster their own faces in the press. As a legal question, that may not constitute abuse. As a policy question, the children might be better off with their natural parents, confused as the parents may be. But, there's no question in my mind that these parents are exploiting and injuring these children. It's not so much the content of the ideology that the children are forced to embody (as distressing as that may be), as its antagonistic pose viz a vis the community in which the children must live. It's like naming the child "F____ you."

Poor Adolph.

[Dean C. Rowan]

Campbell?! Like the soup?!

Anna's point is well taken. Had they named the youngster Jesus Christ--which the ShopRite would likely also have declined to print--the kid would have suffered nearly the same sort of exploitation.

I can imagine parents wanting the full name in the case of a child with very common given and surnames: not John Smith, but John Envelope Smith.

The Solomonic approach would have been to dispense with the name altogether and substitute Mein Kake. Har har.

[Andrew Rosenblum]

Fascists? In Jersey?

And did you catch that Adolph Campbell's younger sister is named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell?

Where are the Blues Brothers to run these guys off a bridge?

[Ruchira Paul]

Ah, Andrew! Who said Jersey is a fascist free zone?

The other sister is called Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell. Who's Hinler? Did the parents confuse it with Himmler, proving that they are not only jerks but also ignorant about the heroes they purport to worship?

[Sujatha]

I think that the Campbells would be wise to take a Wilton cake decorating course, who knows how long the PA Walmart will stand for their 'freedom of speech' request!

Should I mention that the politician son (ex-Mayor) of the current Tamil Nadu (state in India) is named Stalin? I doubt that anyone refused to write his name on a birthday cake. Nor for Adolph Lu Hitleror Frankenstein Momin

[Ruchira Paul]

As was revealed once, I have a cousin named Hitler - see my exchange with Manoj in the comments section. Only, it is his nickname. He has a perfectly decent formal name.

I wrote a post on the Hitler and Frankenstein Sujatha refers to. I am sure they don't have problems with the names where they live. I bet hardly anyone cares for the weird connotation of the monikers in the remote villages and townships of Meghalaya although Hitler himself seems to know what his name stands for. It's all about historical and societal context. The Campbell parents are smug and stupid exhibitionists as Anna says and terribly unfair to their children.