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HelpI adore Jemima . . .
in reply to a message by Julie
. . . it's so soft and sweet, and the meaning is lovely. Jem is a cute nickname for it, too.
Unfortunately, in Australia, Jemima has always been the name of the rag doll on the childrens' preschool show "Play School", which is watched by pretty much every child who has a TV, and has been running since the 1960s. Jemima means "rag doll" for two and a half generations of Australian children! So I'm not sure it's usable here, even as a middle name (since most kids tell their friends their middle names eventually, and I knew kids at school who were regularly teased for their notable middle names!). However, it's a name that I keep in mind.
♦ Chrisell ♦
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien.
Unfortunately, in Australia, Jemima has always been the name of the rag doll on the childrens' preschool show "Play School", which is watched by pretty much every child who has a TV, and has been running since the 1960s. Jemima means "rag doll" for two and a half generations of Australian children! So I'm not sure it's usable here, even as a middle name (since most kids tell their friends their middle names eventually, and I knew kids at school who were regularly teased for their notable middle names!). However, it's a name that I keep in mind.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien.
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I know a two girls called Jemima and they haven't been teased because of Play School. Its weird because I would have thought exactly the same as you, but they haven't been teased. One Jemima is in my grade at school and we sometimes bring it up as a joke, but not teasing. The other is six and she doesn't even think of it.
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Hmm . . .
I'm not surprised that neither the 6-year-old or the Year 12 Jemima currently get teased - 6-year-olds usually haven't learned that type of bullying yet, and Year 12s are usually over it for the most part. It's the middle years - 9-14 - that are the worst for that kind of teasing.
However, it may also be that the bullying situation has changed significantly since I was at school. In the 1980s the prevailing adult wisdom was that "a bit of teasing" (no matter how bad the bullying was) never hurt anyone, and that it was easier to enforce a "no dobbing" rule than it was to enforce a "no bullying" rule. Since the mid-1990s I've seen massive changes in this attitude so it's quite possible that the kind of targeted bullying that children of my era had to endure has now been significantly reduced in schools.
*shrugs* Either way, I'd still be self-conscious about naming a daughter Jemima because my response to it is "rag doll"!
♦ Chrisell ♦
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien.
I'm not surprised that neither the 6-year-old or the Year 12 Jemima currently get teased - 6-year-olds usually haven't learned that type of bullying yet, and Year 12s are usually over it for the most part. It's the middle years - 9-14 - that are the worst for that kind of teasing.
However, it may also be that the bullying situation has changed significantly since I was at school. In the 1980s the prevailing adult wisdom was that "a bit of teasing" (no matter how bad the bullying was) never hurt anyone, and that it was easier to enforce a "no dobbing" rule than it was to enforce a "no bullying" rule. Since the mid-1990s I've seen massive changes in this attitude so it's quite possible that the kind of targeted bullying that children of my era had to endure has now been significantly reduced in schools.
*shrugs* Either way, I'd still be self-conscious about naming a daughter Jemima because my response to it is "rag doll"!
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien.
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