AIBU to think this mother is horribly WRONG (hypocrite alert)

[proudnglad]

Ok so yesterday I called for a ban on gender threads. Now, this one is an extreme and unusual one so I think I am allowed a hypocritical U-turn.

A mother in Grazia today says she has not told anyone (except very close family) the sex of her toddler and doesn't intend to do so.

She wants 'it' to be gender neutral so that 'it' doesn't conform to stereotypes etc etc.

Where on earth is she going to send 'it' to school where 'it' won't get bullied or ridiculed or alienated?

The fact that I have to call a child 'it' is awful in itself.

Does anyone on here understand this or defend her decision? Show yourselves!

Fortunately for the DC, I don't think that it will work-unless it has no spirit of their own. Parents can decide what they want, but in reality they have to respond to the DC they have. I have a friend who has a DS and a DD 14 months apart. She didn't do anything as horrible as OP (she isn't a controlling person and is quite normal!)but she decided to treat them equally. Despite all that she got a girl who loved dolls and played a lot of make believe games and a boy who was out on his bike, very active and good at construction toys. He could ride a bike without stabilizers, long before his sister and he was the youngest.
People thought my nephew was a girl when he was about 9 because he had long blond hair in a ponytail, I have also taught a girl that anyone would have taken for a boy up until the age of about 10 but that was their choice in both cases-nothing to do with parents.
Engineering in this way is wrong IMO. Either the DC will have a strong mind of their own and not put up with it or, sadly, they will be completely overshadowed by forceful parents and it will do lasting damage.

I agree, Goblin, up to a point; but can't help thinking a child shouldn't be used as a blank canvas for the preoccupations of its parents, whether those take the form of an obsession with pink frills or a desire to break the mould by performing a social experiment about gender. What it comes down to in both cases is a parent wanting to make a statement of some sort. I don't think it's fair to the kid.

I mean I know we all make decisions on behalf of small dc every day, so it's hard to say where the line should be drawn but ... aaargh, don't know. Too early.

shock

It was one of the first things that I discovered as a parent-a DC isn't a blank canvas and they have decided views of their own!!
It is like deciding your DC will be an atheist, your DC will be vegetarian, your DC will have an academic career and go to university etc etc. You can encourage it but you can only choose for yourself and it isn't your gift to choose for your DC.
You can dress your DD in pink ,but if she doesn't like it she will soon let you know-likewise if you loathe pink yourself you may have to give in to a DD who adored it!

Agree (as so often) with StewieGriffin: things have got more stereotyped in recent years.

Though even 13 years ago, I got odd looks when I took dd out in blue dungarees. The funny thing was, a lot of the blue stuff was given to me by Swedish relatives, and a lot of the (clearly used) pink and lilac stuff was castoffs from a Norwegian friend who only had boys. So can't help feeling Pop's parents may have been overreacting ever so slightly: ime Swedish boys are given dolls to play with and Swedish girls do get to climb trees and use a hammer and saw.

I think experimenting with your own child (other than inexperience) is really bad. Will the child be told off if they reveal their gender? Unless the child id not told what gender they are, surely very soon it is goint to come out? or will the child be sworn to secrecy about it (makes it even worse).

TitsalinaBumSquash, I know quite a few little boys with curly long hair they do not look girly, just like little boys with curly long hair. I agree with whoever said it was easier 25 years ago though, long hair for little boys was the norm and when a girl was passed on her brother clothes there was nothink shocking in it!

DD$ loves pink, everything should be pink in her world, except her dinausaurs, dalecks and legos

Well, quite, is "it" going to live in isolation?

I know there is a lot of pink stuff around, but when I look back at pics of me I almost always have dresses on.

Even Winter-dresses, woolly tights & boots.

Not sure if that was just my mum or if girls just didn´t wear trousers much then.(I´m mid 40s btw)

My daughter has by comparison very rarely worn dresses.

But it´s not just that-even when both parents work FT, the woman often seems to be the one organising the childcare & housework, if not actually doing most of it.

Many children still seem to go to mum for a cuddle when both parents are there.

My oldest DS was looked very much like a girl when he was a tot, he had a doll like pretty face, and his favourite colour was pink, so he often wore his pink and blue striped jumper.

I had quite a few agressive comments from passers by, people on the bus, who said: What a pretty girl, and I would say: It`s a boy actually.

when he was 3 he wanted a doll`s house, he got one.

When he was 4 he was into dino`s and trains.

Now he is into football, star wars and defo no longer wears pink.

Children are not your posession to do with as you please, they are persons in their own right. I hope this mum is guided by her child and what this child wants, rather than her own warped ideas.

The pink revolution does not make me cross, after all it does not last long. You dont see teenage girls dressing as princesses or in pink dresses. Its just parenst giving too much into the pester power of their tots.

But the way you are going to change society is not to hide a child's gender, but to stand up for the rights of your boy to do ballet or your girl to play football if that is what they want to do. And there are parents like that around: I know several boy dancers and likewise girls on the football team.

I think doing this just reinforces gender stereotyping. The more the mother keeps the gender quiet, the more the child will hear people asking his/her mother or him/her in he/she's a boy or a girl. That child will be very conscious that it's a binary decision everyone thinks is important, which is something other children can go a fair way without realizing.

Loads of little children say things like 'I want to be mummy when I grow up' (from a boy), or 'when I am older I will be a boy'. They may be dressed in pink or blue but they don't necessarily have an idea of gender as such a fixed, binary construct. I think this child won't be able to avoid that, and will have the added pressure of being aware there's something odd about him/her.

I think it's very cruel.

Isnt the biggest danger related to the childs own identity and selfworth?

So much of who or what a person essentially is is related to its gender. It is only wrong if we make it so.

I am thinking especially about a case in my sons school, Andreas who is on course for a gender operation, making him Andrea.
The child is 10, and has known since he was very young that he is not really a boy but a girl. It has all to do with him feeling like a girl, and wanting a girls childhood. As Andrea she wears dresses and skirts, wears her long her in pigtails. She only plays with girls. By looking at her, you would not think that this is really a boy. She is given hormone surpressing meds, to prevent early puberty, to give her a better chance of making the right gender choice.

I am not sure what I think this mum referred to in the OP thinks she is doing to the child. Does she want the child to one day chose to be a boy or a girl, with a gender operation if the chosen gender is not what the child is naturally?

Is this really a case of child with a physical problem related to his/her gender? And if so, are they dressing the child gender neutral until they see what happens in puberty, or when the child itself shows signs of a "preference" ?

Oh no, can't believe they have published her story. Blatant attention seeking. Poor child (if this is true). Mother could have mental issues?

It's so doomed to failure why can't the mother see that? She's treatingf her child like some sociological experiment.
I hope the child rebels and turns into a Barbie obsessed little princess or a macho fuelled little bruiser!

There was a boy in America called David Reimer. Due to a botched operation as a baby his penis was badly damaged. A doctor at the time asserted that gender was entirely a learned phenomenon and therefore, if the remainder of the penis was removed and the child reared as a female, this would result in an easier life for the child. To cut a long story short, it didn't and Reimer ended up with many psychological problems culminating in suicide.

So experimentally bringing up a child as 'gender neutral' I would suggest is destined to be problematic. If the parent thinks that gender anonymity solves a social problem, this is unlikely to be the case. Gender behaviour is part-learned but, as in the above example, much of it is innate.

In twenty years time a psychoanalyst is going to have a whale of a time with this one!

There's a big difference between trying to resist gender stereotyping (e.g. through dress, play, etc) and actually keeping the sex of your child secret in the hope that this will achieve a gender-neutral upbringing. I agree with LittleRedDragon - the effect of this is going to make gender a major issue for the child, and suggests it already is one for the mother.

the swedish couple dressed their child in dresses as well as trousers - maybe this couple are doing the same.

I agree with the majority - IMO the best solution is fighting for your child to be an individual (let your son do ballet) while allowing them to understand their gender.
I have a 3yo DS and a 1yo DD and DD seems to have mainly "boys' toys" as she mainly has hand downs. She got a doll for her 1st birthday and hasn't really let go since :o

I think it's a bit cruel and attention seeking :-(

it's really silly, IMO - apart from the obvious bullying issue, in a way it just makes the stereotypes more obvious! "oh darling you're not allowed to tell anybody your gender because if you're a girl they'll make you wear pink, and if you're a boy they'll make you play with guns" - it just makes an issue out of it where you don't really need to.

telling a girl they must never ever wear pink is just as silly and harmful as dressing them in pink every day IMO

"A mother in Grazia today....."

She is doing it for the column inches.... Don't feed those idiotic airheads.

You want to ban something, don't bother with threads on here, Don't buy such crap magazines, then there would be no vehicle for this dreadful, dreadful people.

The Age of Celebrity need the curtain bringing down on it

Quoi??

SloanyPony, my mum did the same. This is not a new experiment, in the 1970's plenty of 'alternative' types dressed their children in unisex clothes and read gender-neutral books and so on. My mum did that, I had the bowl hair-cut and lovely brown dungarees.

Like SloanyPony, however, this just led me to idolise (even as a small child) pretty blonde girls (I was not pretty, not blonde, and had the super NHS specs as well). I also wore a full-face of make-up very young (13), and have been slapping it on ever since (more than twenty years). I could see with my own eyes that blonde pretty girls (such as my relative) attracted the attention of adults and it looked more fun than being earnest, speccy and a bit plain. I am now a rather girly woman, so all those dungarees and letting me play with building equipment didn't really have any lasting effect, which is kind of obvious unless you are going to socially and culturally isolate your child for years.