By Repp Porter (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: January 7, 2015
It is a week into the New Year, and 2015 has already seen the birth of many babies — but obviously none of these babies are as important as the first to burst into the world. Controversy has exploded over who rightfully owns that title, however, between two Abbotsford girls named Jayne Wilson and Michaela Gordon. Wilson has filed a suit against Gordon for the rights to the coveted “First Baby of 2015” status.
This is the first baby-versus-baby suit in Canada, but the case is not altogether unique; in 2011, a four-year-old from New York sued his little sister for being useless and two years younger than himself, and won. This is, however, unprecedented in that this case is between newborns.
While Gordon was technically born eight seconds before Wilson on the midnight of January 1, Wilson argues that she deserves the title more because she “can already talk, walk, and do stuff.” Gordon, who was not born with such advantages, was not available for comment.
Many commenters on the “Michaela Gordon, Number 1” Facebook page have argued that Wilson’s reasoning is flawed because her skills are arbitrary and unrelated to whether she was born first. Wilson’s mother, on the other hand, has spoken to most major Canadian media outlets regarding her child’s right to be considered better than Gordon based on the superiority she demonstrates in other areas.
“Objectively speaking — and I’m not saying this because I’m the mother — it is my little pumpkin’s birthright to have anything she wants,” Mrs. Wilson told The Cascade on Saturday. “She just got born and she’s already better at colouring than I am!”
Indeed, Mrs. Wilson’s colouring seems amateurish compared to her week-old daughter’s, but Gordon’s supporters still insist that these kinds of abilities do not constitute being born first.
Dr. Clara Friar, local expert on babies and global New Year traditions, is not surprised by the lawsuit. “Everybody wants to feel important and powerful on New Year’s,” she says, “and besides, babies do weird shit. It was only a matter of time before they started running the show.”
Friar added in an email: “The public perhaps ought to wait until little Jayne Wilson’s tuckered herself out before judging her; all the rascal needs is a nap.”
Gordon, who does not have her own lawyer because she is a newborn baby and is unaware of not only the lawsuit but of the fact that there are countries and that math exists, will be defended by her prosecutor, Wilson’s father. The hearing begins in late January.
