I usually try to avoid news articles as blog fodder and yet this month I made an exception with the whole Camping fiasco and now I am making another.
There has been a story circulating the web over the past few days about a couple in Toronto who aren't telling the gender of their third child. I'm okay with that decision while the child is in utero; after all, learning the gender of your child before the birth is only (recently) possible due to advances in modern medicine and the invention of sonogram technology and plenty of parents tell their health care providers that they want to be surprised.
I already am surprised: little Storm's parents are not sharing the baby's gender and the kid is already four months old.
Only the parents, two older brothers (unschooled children ages 5 and 2), and the midwives who delivered the baby know what sort of tackle is hidden behind the diaper, no one else, not even the grandparents.
Both the grandparents and friends have expressed concern over this decision and fear that the child is being set up for lifelong ridicule and bullying.
Human beings have gender by definition. How much damage are these parents inflicting by trying to neuter their child through non-consensual social experimentation all in the name of their own political and ideological agendas?
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I thought that was kind of weird when I read it. I feel sorry for the child, the two older boys are already dealing with the ridicule as one likes to wear girls clothes and has long hair. Poor baby Storm
I think we are assigned gender by nature and there have been massive studies that gender does have decision making in childrens' lives. I.e. girls will naturally gravitate toward dolls, etc, as they identify with and want to emulate their mother. Boys, at a toddler stage, are often interested in sweeping, wiping down, and organizing b/c they see the mom do it.
I think in trying to create a genderless child in the 1st two, these parents are pushing their boys toward non-conforming toys & activities. The article mentions the pink/purple outfit, the purple bike, etc... does he have trucks & army men? if he wanted them, would he get them as easily as a feather boa?
I think these two parents need to meet with a pyschologist who DOESN'T agree with them and see how what the consequences COULD be.
My input? I don't know if what they are doing is causing more or same level of 'harm' as traditional gender-stereotyping but I read it all with the eyes of a mother whose son (btwn ages of 1-3) had his own sparkly pink fairy skirt that he would regularly wear with a plaid shirt and tractor-decorated sweatshirt. Vive La Diference!
So they're basically seeing if they can raise a child to be free of gender-role stereotyping?
I read a story about this last week as well and am still troubled by it. On one hand, the parent in me is immediately appalled: this people are experimenting(!) with their child(!) without any clear understanding of the potential benefit or harm. In a sense they are gambling with their child's future. On the other hand, I think to myself how potentially liberating this must be. The constraints of gender stereotyping are so rigid--are these constraints any less harmful than the experiment? I think of my own daughter, who would much rather go with her dad to go target shooting with her .22 rifle than play with the sparkly Barbie dolls in her closet. We're blessed that she recognizes that both are equally legitimate choices for her. Anyway, I am definitely conflicted about this.
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