Child Naming Beyond Belief and Superstition -By Leo Igwe

Humanist child naming is an invitation to celebrate this life beyond belief. It provides an alternative to religious naming and offers a secular opportunity for parents and families to rededicate themselves to caring for their babies. Humanist child naming marks a renewal of humanity and a commitment to supporting the growth and development of children without supernatural beliefs and religious dogmas. Too often, hankering after imaginary deities and spirits blinds and distracts humans, occasioning an amnesia and alienation that impinge on the appreciation of natural and worldly events, such as the birth of a child, coming of age, and other milestones in life and in the world. Humanist child naming is a reenactment of a natural duty and fulfillment of this-worldly obligations and responsibilities. The humanist approach to child development and well-being prioritizes the child. Carrying a pregnancy is a task. The process of giving birth entails some labour and cries of pain.

Childbirth is also a development that brings joy and happiness to parents and families. Every parent anticipates the first smile, the first spoken word, the first tooth, and the first walk of the baby. At the same time, child development issues pose enormous challenges to families. They stretch and sometimes overstretch the wit, knowledge, patience, understanding, emotion, and other resources of couples. Child development tests family care abilities and possibilities. When children are slow in growing, teething, talking, or walking, or when they often get sick or wet the bed, parents and guardians are worried. Families start looking for explanations, answers, and solutions. They are alarmed, and often mistakenly attribute the cause to some supernatural force, the devil, the witches, mamiwota, name them.

So interpreted, parents often panic and seek help or answers, sometimes from persons and places that are at least in a position to help, traditional priests, pastors, sheikhs, marabouts, prophets and prophetesses, churches, and shrines. In many cases, the so-called men and women of god deceive and exploit parents; they incite them against their children. These self-acclaimed divine messengers spiritualize and supernaturalize child development problems, subjecting children to exorcism and deliverance and other processes that further complicate their health, growth, and development.

Recently, there have been cases in Rivers state where parents accused their children of witchcraft and demonic possession. They took the children to churches where they bathed them with pigeons’ blood, or flogged them with palm leaves in the name of spiritual cleansing or driving out evil spirits. Not too long ago, a police inspector brutalized his children after accusing them of witchcraft. Another parent poisoned his children using sniper substance following an accusation in Bayelsa state. These horrific incidents reveal the vulnerability of children but also the tendency of parents to abuse their duty and responsibility to their children.

So when challenges of child growth and development arise, parents and guardians should seek out counsel and assistance from competent individuals, trained professionals, and child development experts, not diviners and vision seers who have little or no idea about human biology and development. Parents should go to pediatric doctors, nurses, and health workers, not charlatans or exorcists. They should consult child psychologists, counsellors, and other professionals who do not mix their occupation with their faith. Parents and guardians should be guided by reason, science, and evidence-based information in managing issues that arise in the course of nurturing their babies.

Leo Igwe is a humanist celebrant and board member of Humanists International