A CHILD with trendy parents who uses their first names instead of ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ is having a chilling effect on people.
Seven-year-old Tom Booker’s parents Richard and Helena think it is progressive and egalitarian for him to use their real names, but in reality it is incredibly creepy.
Family friend Emma Bradford said: “The first time I heard Tom call his mum ‘Helena’ the blood turned to ice in my veins. They think it makes him grown-up but he sounds like a junior axe murderer.
“It’s just not natural. If you go round to their house it’s like they’re office workers who keep having meetings with one unusually small colleague.”
However Helena Booker said: “Treating Tom as an adult and equal is great for his development. That’s what it’s all about, not some utterly pathetic attempt to be different.
“It’s not creepy and Tom will not, as my father-in-law has suggested, ‘turn into Damien from The Omen’.”
Professor Henry Brubaker of the Institute for Studies said: “Hitler, Pol Pot and Genghis Khan all called their parents by their first names. Correlation doesn’t show causality, but there’s no smoke without fire.”
