9 hours ago
The mom who agreed to let the Internet choose her baby?s name for $5,000 doesn?t know what all the fuss is about.
?Especially now with people all around me trying to pay their mortgages and get by, I have $5,000 I can put towards my baby?s future, and $5,000 makes a difference in my life,? Natasha Hill, a single, children?s art teacher in Los Angeles, told TODAY Moms. ?Here?s the chance for me to do something really positive for my unborn son or daughter.?
Natasha Hill
Natasha Hill is defending her choice for getting paid to have her baby's name voted on through an Internet voting contest.
Due in September with her first child, the 27-year-old Hill won a contest sponsored by the baby-name website Belly Ballot, which offered $5,000 for naming rights. Online voters will choose Baby Hill?s name from a list of five girl and five boy names, supplied by the website, which will include advertiser-sponsored suggestions. Voters will be allowed one vote per person per sex.
?Nothing crazy or a brand name or anything,? explains Lacey Moler, Belly Ballot?s founder and mother of three young children in Austin, Texas. Voting starts March 18 and ends March 22; the contest has been so popular, Moler told TODAY Moms she?s considering a second one.
?Crazy? is exactly what many critics are calling the contest, with some decrying it as a sign of the erosion of traditional family values. Most simply can?t understand why a parent would entrust such a major decision to strangers.
But Hill says her critics are missing the point. Her own parents are on board, she told TODAY Moms: ?Sure, they understand that I?m going through this creative name process. But they know that I?m going to be a loving and nurturing mom, which is the most important part of parenting.?
Hill said she plans to pay off debt so her child can be born into a debt-free home, and put at least $3,000 into a college savings account.
She?s quick to point out to mothers who are judging her that ?strangers, after all, wrote all those baby naming books? and ?just opening one up and picking something you like with your finger? is a pretty random way to decide on a name for your child, too.
Hill is still in her first trimester, and doesn?t yet know if she?s having a boy or girl. Even if she hates the winning name, Hill could always just use a nickname ? or change the child?s name a few weeks or months later.
A ?baby naming contract? like the one in the contest is likely not legally enforceable, said Arthur Jacobson, a contracts professor at The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City. Hill hasn?t signed anything, and more importantly, judges usually void agreements that are found to be against public policy. Making a mom call her child something that she doesn?t like or prohibiting her from changing a baby?s name sound like a pretty textbook example of such a situation.
While advertisers or the website could always ask for their money back, they couldn?t really get her to keep the winning name if she didn?t want to.
Still, this isn't the first time and it probably won't be the last that money has influenced baby-naming decisions. Some grandparents have tried to pressure expectant moms and dads to use a beloved family name, even using promises of a college fund donation as incentive. And it seems Ebay has seen it's fair share of would-be baby name auctioneers, so much so that the site has, from time to time, had to crack down on such transactions over the past decade."
Moler, whose company promises to harness social media like Twitter in order to help parents find the perfect names for their little ones, says online voting is the new frontier in baby names. She said parents who don?t want to participate in crowdsourcing or online balloting shouldn?t have a problem if another mother wants to let strangers help name her child for her.
Even high-powered moms like Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer have turned to crowdsourcing for name inspiration. Mayer emailed friends and tweeted followers shortly after her son?s birth, looking for any and all digital input. Though, the name she and her husband eventually chose, Macallister, was one they?d already been considering for some time.
However, asking for suggestions on Twitter is a few big steps removed from letting the online public decide whether your bundle of joy is a Martha or a Mackenzie. Christian-parenting advocacy group Rosa Cee has called the contest an affront to traditional family values and asked Belly Ballot to cancel it, and and has threatened to boycott any advertisers who participate. Rosa Cee spokesperson Kasey Candela said in a press release, ?A baby?s name isn?t like a baseball stadium, up to the highest bidder. Certain elements of our family and children must be off limits to advertisers for capitalistic opportunity.?
According to Moler, many of the 80 contestants who applied for the March contest cited economic concerns and a real desire for a better future for their family.
Mom-to-be Jaime Rodriquez, who agreed to share her application with TODAY Moms, wrote that she tried for nine and a half years to conceive, and now that she?s finally pregnant, wanted to put the money away in a savings account for her unborn child to have when he is older.
Carly Hamilton, a Canadian resident on government assistance, wrote that she wishes for nothing more than to pay off her student loans before her new addition comes ? she dreams of building her credit and one day buying a home with a small backyard for two children to play outside.
Meanwhile, Hill is sticking by her choice to enter the contest ? and wants the voting public to know that she?s pulling for the name James (if it turns out it's a boy; she doesn't have a favorite girl name yet).
What do you think of having online voters choose a baby name? Share your thoughts on the TODAY Moms Facebook page.
Source: http://www.today.com/moms/mom-defends-5-000-payoff-baby-name-rights-1C8626277
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