I’m really divided on this issue. After all, I’m not a Trekaphobe, some of my best friends watch Trek. Some of them even dress up.
But should they be allowed to adopt?
After all, if your dad dresses up like a Klingon, you are almost sure to get made fun of in school.
And I think studies have shown that kids who grow up in Trek households are more likely to become Trekkies.
Not to mention the health issues. Everyone knows that Trekkers are more overweight than the general population. This is not a healthy environment to raise children in.
And have you ever been to a Con. I have, and let me tell you, it is not a wholesome enviroment to bring children to!
In honor of your perceptive and incisively pointed OP, Dangerosa, I will now do my famous Dance of Uninebriated Joy, with Tuba and Xylophone Accompaniment, and a Side of Fries.
As amarinth points out, some Trekkies have been able to reproduce on their own (God only knows how, I really don’t want to know the details of the Trekkie mating/reproduction rituals - although, open minded soul that I am, I have been to two Trekkie “union ceremonies.” I don’t think they were legal though, but people kept assuring me that as long as the couple was united in spirit and the ceremony was presided over by the Trek Club’s Ships Captian, everything was fine), and, I’m sure some of their kids have managed to turn out just fine. So maybe it isn’t such a bad thing to allow them to adopt. It just feels so wrong though.
Well, now you are really scaring me. Homeschooling would, of course, lead to additional perversions. I mean, learning physics through Star Trek?! They’d maintain Klingon qualified as a foreign language! How would these kids ever be properly socialized or have good non-Trek role models. How would they ever be exposed to “normal” people!
One vote here for “No”, because if a child is brought up in a Trekkie-only environment, he will have no Star Wars role models to pattern himself after. Now, this is okay if the kid is a Trekkie, but if the kid is a Star Wars kid, he won’t know how to act when he grows up and has to interact with other Star Wars people. He’ll act like a Trekkie, which may have unforeseen consequences, especially in the job market, where people may look at him and know he’s a Star Wars kid because of his light saber, but be confused and ultimately biased against him by the fact that he’s pointing it one-handed like a phaser instead of brandishing it. It’s very difficult to get away from these cultural biases, and I don’t think it’s fair to a child to teach him something that’s so totally different from what the rest of the mainstream culture is doing. Light sabers, in today’s culture, are meant to be brandished; phasers are meant to be pointed.
I think that concerned Trekkie parents, if they do adopt a Star Wars kid, should at least expose him to adult Star Wars behavior, perhaps by having him spend time with a Star Wars family friend or relative, so he won’t embarrass himself when he grows up by not knowing the behaviors expected of Star Wars geeks in today’s culture.
Balance. It’s all about balance. There’s a reason why God commanded Noah to gather all the sci-fi geeks into the Ark by Star Trek/Star Wars pairs and not Trekkie/Trekkie or Star Wars/Star Wars pairs.
As a childhood Trekkie myself, I wish only that there had been some adult–if not a parent, a teacher or public figure–who was out as a Trekkie as well. Sure, I read books, but there were hardly any back in the '70s, and they made Trekdom seem bizarre and abnormal. I mean, what about myneed for role models? Against all odds, I have become a fully-functioning adult who even has friends who aren’t Trekkies.
Times have changed. One of my oldest friends is a Trekkie. I’ve known her since 1979, and now she and her girlfriend are having a baby (apparently Trekkies can conceive through artificial insemination)! Twenty years ago that would have been shocking and controversial, but now it seems like a great idea. I know they’ll make great parents as long as they don’t name their son something like Worf or Chakotay.
