They claim they did not want to force their son to be a boy, but by raising him as gender neutral they are still forcing him to be something. I think every person needs to decide for themselves what their identity and gender identity is. What the parents should have done was to raise their son as a boy, but tell him that whoever he chooses to be is fine by them. Educate him about the world and allow him to make his own decision.
They claim it's his choice to wear both male and female clothing, but I expect he does it out of habit after his parents made him wear fairy wings and dresses when he was younger.
Quote:
Last year, Canadians Kathy Witterick and David Stocker insisted that they would raise their baby Storm as a gender-neutral child.
Of that case, Dr Harold Koplewicz, a U.S. child psychiatrist, said he was ‘disturbed’ that well-meaning parents could be so misguided.
‘When children are born, they’re not a blank slate,’ he said. ‘We do have male brains and female brains. There’s a reason why boys do more rough and tumble play; there’s a reason why girls have better language development skills.’
Thoughts?
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back, everything is different…
you once called your brain a hard drive, well say hello to the virus.
I like it a lot and I dont think theyve done anything wrong.
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
I just think it's a bit odd but odd doesnt equate to wrong.
I guess my family had 3 children - I'm the oldest and have been a girly girl all my life, my brother was a boy but not massively masculine and my youngest sister was a proper tomboy she went through a phase where she refused to be called by her first name insisting on being called robert or one of the teenage ninga mutant turtle i.e. leonardo or donatello etc. She hated most things about girlyness and my parents let her be who she was. Now she is pretty girly, she still likes rough and tumble play but she wears dresses and make up and so on.
So yeah I think if you raise your children to be children then this whole gender neutral malarky seems pointless
When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty. ~Woody Allen
Is a chocolate muffin loving glitter ball
IMO.
Gender makes up a large part of a person's identity whether it be expressed in the stereotypical manner or otherwise, so to neutralize and ignore its prevalence isn't beneficial to a child whilst they develop.
Stop thinking about what I want, what he wants, what your parents want. What do you want?
I think they've tried to hide the child's sex as well as their gender. There is more to gender than putting a boy in blue clothes and giving a girl a doll to play with. Giving a boy a doll does not stop him from being a boy, and I don't see the point in trying to cover it up.
IMO.
Gender makes up a large part of a person's identity whether it be expressed in the stereotypical manner or otherwise, so to neutralize and ignore its prevalence isn't beneficial to a child whilst they develop.
Yes gender does make up a large part of one's identity, but neutralizing it is more damaging than enforcing the wrong gender on a child.
I think the parents had a nice idea but perhaps didn't go about it in the right way. But then, I'm not sure what the right way is. Maybe bring up children as their assigned sex at first but make sure they're comfortable with that, and be prepared to adjust if they're not?
"Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher." ~William Wordsworth
Of course I'm sane, when trees start talking to me, I don't talk back.
Yes gender does make up a large part of one's identity, but neutralizing it is more damaging than enforcing the wrong gender on a child.
I think attempting to neutralize gender from a child's identity is no worse than enforcing the wrong gender. Assuming you mean wrong gender as in one that is not their physical gender. If parents brought a girl up as a boy or vice versa I'd view that as abuse. But then again I don't see why parents would be inclined to do that in the first place anyway. It'd be incredibly muddling and damaging.
Stop thinking about what I want, what he wants, what your parents want. What do you want?
Sarah, i agreed with you up untill the point in the article where it says 'sasha is aware he is a boy' . They are not raising him to be gender nutural as such (i.e. to have no gender or sex) - he know she is a boy, they are jsut not confining him to gender sterotypes. if they force him to wear girls clothes as well as boys clothes, and to play with girls toys aswell as boys toys, then yes, i beleive that is wrong. But if they really do just let him chose what he wants to wear and play with, instead of telling him he has to play with boys things and wear boys things, then I don't see anything wrong with it. if they hid his sex to stop other peoples prejudice then I see nothing wrong with that.
I personally would never go as far as not telling people the sex of my child. However, I think I would ask that they didn't exclusively buy girl specific or boy specific toys. When I was growing up it was expected (by other people and to some degree my father) that i would like pink and do ballet and play with dolls etc. And I felt like I was wrong for not liking those things.
"I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell." -Picasso
"No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war." - Picasso
'I have scars becuase I have a past; but they, like my past, do not define my future'
Why can't they just raise the child the sex it was born, offer both gendered and non gendered toys/clothes and then if when s/he grows up s/he says, 'hey mom, I wanna be a boyd/girl/donkey' they just accept it then.... seeing as they are so 'accepting'.
I don't see what's wrong with, initially, accepting a child's born gender. Being born a boy and being interested in 'boy' stuff isn't something to be ashamed of. Neither is being born a girl and being interested in 'girl' stuff. Nor does it mean that if a girl is a 'tomboy' she isn't still a girl (unless she feels otherwise when she is old enough to be able to, however old that is). Likewise for a boy being interested in girl things.
I am female. I have always been female. When I was a child I was brought up in jeans and t-shirts when I wanted to play out in the woods, and dresses when I wanted to go to parties. I played with Brio trainsets and Action Men, Barbies and dolly prams. I played 'fun fights' and I played 'mums and dads'.
But I was brought up as female, because I have certain hormones and genitalia that I feel define that for me.
I'd say they were more forcing then offering the choice...
this
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
I got into a debate in my social sych class today about genetic engineering children - especially deciding their gender. I argues that while it was all well and good a couple wanting a little girl, were they to chose that gender biologically there was no 100% guarantee they would get what they 'ordered' because she may grow up to like more masculine things or, in the extreme, decide she would rather ID as male!
I remember posting about Storm when that story came out last year. Can't tell if I'm surprised or not that there's another couple out there who've tried it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fry
Gender makes up a large part of a person's identity whether it be expressed in the stereotypical manner or otherwise, so to neutralize and ignore its prevalence isn't beneficial to a child whilst they develop.
I agree with this, but also I believe that no matter how neutral this couple and Storm's parents try to be, I think they'll end up influencing their child regardless. For instance, whether they do it consciously or not, whenever Sasha picks up 'girly' toys, because he's going against the stereotype his parents will probably positively reinforce that behaviour even through something as small as smiling more. Its the same in any scenario; when I have children I'd want them to make their own choices about religion, but still if they were to say something noticeably atheistic then its most likely I would be rather more obviously pleased and reinforce it than if they had maybe casually mention God in a matter-of-fact way. So in that sense the whole thing is pretty pointless. Just a thought.
1. They are just asking for this child to be singled out as a "freak", therefore bullied when it goes to school.
2. They are just doing it to draw attention to themselves. Within the next few years, you will see at least one of the parents on Celebrity Big Brother or some other bollocks.
3. Either way, the child will suffer and will learn to despise them for it, which is fair enough, I feel.
Hamleys Toy Shop, Regents Street, London. For piece on educational girls and boys toys Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian
You could call it a bonfire of the vanities. Encourage Suri Cruise and Princess Tiaamii, daughter of Jordan, to bin the general contents of their make-up bags and, after setting alight to these unnecessary accoutrements to toddlerdom, allow each to stride (as opposed to hobble in high heels) into primary school as – well what exactly? As gender intended?
And what precisely might that mean for those children reared in households in which to be female demands the height of self-consciousness and several undercoats before the application of a final high-gloss varnish.
It's a rum world when parents Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper are regarded as crazy for adopting an approach to raising a child that is not, as Dr Daragh McDermott, a psychology lecturer, says "gender-neutral" but is stripped of stereotypes.
So, we are told, when Sasha, now aged five and looking remarkably normal, was born, he was called "the infant", he slept in a yellow room and wore boy's or girl's clothes. Ms Laxton, a web designer, explained last week: "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes? Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with and that shapes the kind of person they become."
Is that any more daft than taking five-year-old girls to suntan parlours and giving them birthday party makeovers? Kieran, the dad, says Sasha is aware he's a boy but presumably after years of doing his own playtime thing he can opt for toy guns and cowboy hats as much as prams and ballet shoes. In theory, what the five-year-old has enjoyed is an early childhood divorced from the crippling expectation of how boys and girls ought to behave – and that's a rare freedom.
Once upon a time, the toys we played with reflected the adult world which we would eventually join. "Good", sweet caring girls stuck to prams and dolls' houses while "real" rumbustious, daring, active boys were given cars, guns, boats and planes It's a tribute to the sticking power of stereotypes that, as many more men are taking on child-rearing duties (hence, perhaps, the reason why the everyday pushchair looks like an aeronautics gadget) and more women are seen on the battle front, the kingdom of toys remains resolutely segregated on traditional lines.
Whether gender is hard-wired, in the genes, socially conditioned, learned behaviour or a mix of all this and something else besides, when the requirement to stick to the man-made stereotypical "norm" is all-powerful, misery almost always ensues. Certainly, if men are taught from an early age that Mars is where proper boys reside, then there's no obvious reward in trying to tiptoe for a short stay on Venus, no matter how strong the urge. And vice versa. Yet, in everyday ordinary life, most of us know people who may not have had Sasha's beginning but somehow have had the guts to forge their own identity.
Beck Laxton says her mother was sporty and thought Beck and her dad were "soppy" for crying over The Wizard of Oz. "It's always seemed obvious to me," she adds, "that stereotypes didn't fit the people I know."
It's not the concept of rearing allegedly gender-neutral children that causes affront – it's fear of those who have the courage (and liberty) not to conform.
1. They are just asking for this child to be singled out as a "freak", therefore bullied when it goes to school.
2. They are just doing it to draw attention to themselves. Within the next few years, you will see at least one of the parents on Celebrity Big Brother or some other bollocks.
3. Either way, the child will suffer and will learn to despise them for it, which is fair enough, I feel.
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I wonder what you are basing these statements on, because they are very strong statements indeed.
How do you know he will be bullied? you don't. And even if he was, surely the problem is with the bullies/the school, not the little boy? why crush someone's individuality for a 'just in case'? why let the type of people who grow up to be bullies win, even before they have met your child?
How do you know they want to draw attention to themselves? Maybe they want to draw attention to the fact you do not have to raise your children to fit gender stereotypes. I think saying they are doing it so that they can be on big brother in the future is wildly inaccurate/an exageration/completely unfounded.
The child will suffer and then dispise his parents? again, you are making assumptions about people you dont know based on one biased news article (all news articles have bias)
Suffering? Having the freedom to wear what you like and play with the toys you like without beign told any of what you like is 'wrong' sounds like heaven to me. Why would you despise your parents for giving you freedom? why would you despise them for not forcing you to wear certian clothes or play with 'boyish' things? regardless of the fact dispise is way too strong a word to use, I think people would be more likely to suffer and be unhappy if they liked pink but were told boys had to like blue, and if they wanted dolls but where told they had to play with cars and army trucks.
Also, I resent the fact you think that because he wears dresses he is a freak. I wear men's clothes (and i'm a girl), does that make me a freak?
"I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell." -Picasso
"No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war." - Picasso
'I have scars becuase I have a past; but they, like my past, do not define my future'
1. They are just asking for this child to be singled out as a "freak", therefore bullied when it goes to school.
2. They are just doing it to draw attention to themselves. Within the next few years, you will see at least one of the parents on Celebrity Big Brother or some other bollocks.
3. Either way, the child will suffer and will learn to despise them for it, which is fair enough, I feel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by [Purple_Rain]
I wonder what you are basing these statements on, because they are very strong statements indeed.
How do you know he will be bullied? you don't. And even if he was, surely the problem is with the bullies/the school, not the little boy? why crush someone's individuality for a 'just in case'? why let the type of people who grow up to be bullies win, even before they have met your child?
How do you know they want to draw attention to themselves? Maybe they want to draw attention to the fact you do not have to raise your children to fit gender stereotypes. I think saying they are doing it so that they can be on big brother in the future is wildly inaccurate/an exageration/completely unfounded.
The child will suffer and then dispise his parents? again, you are making assumptions about people you dont know based on one biased news article (all news articles have bias)
Suffering? Having the freedom to wear what you like and play with the toys you like without beign told any of what you like is 'wrong' sounds like heaven to me. Why would you despise your parents for giving you freedom? why would you despise them for not forcing you to wear certian clothes or play with 'boyish' things? regardless of the fact dispise is way too strong a word to use, I think people would be more likely to suffer and be unhappy if they liked pink but were told boys had to like blue, and if they wanted dolls but where told they had to play with cars and army trucks.
Also, I resent the fact you think that because he wears dresses he is a freak. I wear men's clothes (and i'm a girl), does that make me a freak?
Agreed. Just as you don't blame the victim of mugging/assault/rape or anything where there is a victim, you don't blame the one being bullied. Instead of stopping kids from wearing clothes considered 'abnormal' there should be a greater effort to make children understand differences amongst people and not pick on kids that don't look or act like them. There was only one Korean boy in my first school, and while he didn't get bullied his ethnicity did get him singled out a lot, but to take him out of school and put him, say in a school in the town next to mine where there's a very large Korean community, would essentially be advocating segregation. Kids need to be exposed to people not like themselves as part of their learning, and while they might tease at first most of them will come to understand and won't grow up bigoted. While I've said my part on how I think this whole thing is pretty pointless, there are many children out there who choose not to dress as their gender stereotype demands, or might be considered to behave girly or like a tomboy, and probably many more who would want to behave the way they feel is natural but feel forced to conform for fear of bullying.
I think in 20 years time he'll probably have rejected his parents' beliefs altogether and have gone off to join the army or something to prove what a 'real man' he is.
And the illusion of love is the only promise of defence, and even that will crumble.
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Hamleys Toy Shop, Regents Street, London. For piece on educational girls and boys toys Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian
