Saw this headline, thought "It's GOT to be a Mumsnetter!"

[bupcakesandcunting]

Yeah, yeah, it's a Daily Mail article but still [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389593/Are-PC-parents-world-The-couple-raising-genderless-baby--protect-right-choice.html BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

They're coco loco, right? Surely no-one can say "fuck off, there's a dear" to THIS one?!

Idiot parents.

She wanted a girl and got three boys. The whole thing is barmy and sets her kids up to be bullied.

How can a two year old pick his own clothes and decide when to get his own her cut and in what style. Madness.

Says it all with her keeping her own last name and giving it to her kids.

Says it all with her keeping her own last name and giving it to her kids.

I'm really not sure what their point is. There is nothing wrong with gender, whichever one it is. They're the parents so they'll be responsible for his social conditioning. If they say their boys can't play with toy cars/guns because it's gender stereotyping then that's their prerogative. But this is just weirdy beardy stuff.

Yeah, burn the witch, how dare she have any...wait, wait, wait. Am I going to rise to the bait or am I going to go and have a look at some anus?

I said this on the other thread, and I'll say it again on this one:

Biological sex and gender are not always the same thing. Gender can be fluid and/or androgynous. People can choose to blur the lines, identify as a gender different from their genitals, or conform to the traditional gender stereotypes.

These children may do any or all of these things in their lives. All the parents are doing, IMO, is protecting them from having 'the normal' one of these choices forced upon them.

Well, I loathed blue clothes. DS never wore anything blue other than jeans. DS likes Thomas but HE chose to like Thomas, I didn't shove it down his throat. Like I say, he likes Hello Kitty, he has a doll's pram, pink t-shirts, longish hair. I've pretty much left him to his own devices in that respect because I hate this ELC-endorsed "girls love pink/boys love blue" bullshit. But if I'd raised him as genderless there'd be all kinds of problems when he started pre-school and right past it. I honestly don't see what it is achieving.

Ignore MrSpoc, he is at it again.

"Says it all with her keeping her own last name and giving it to her kids."

What's wrong with that?!

buppy, ignore, ignore....don't feed him.

there is nothing wrong with that but in her situation i think it is typicle. She is pushing her own views and ideas onto the family. I see her as the main instigator.

This experiment was done not so long ago and was show on the BBC. A couple had two children and decided to let them find their own way in life. The couple where actually supprised when their Son grow up very competitive in sport and became a typicle bloke and their daughter became a typicle women.

TYPICAL.

Complete mentalists. Everyone's got a gender. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It seems like they are trying to push a female gender onto their sons just to be different; they'd probably do the reverse if they were girls.

I frigging hated pink and dresses as a girl... my mother tried incredibly hard to get gender neutral toys for both of us - I pretty much bought into it (and still don't do female and fluffy stuff well), little brother went for everything that was possible in the way of disgusting plastic action figures that stab you in the foot when you walk around barefooted and everything fitting a stereotype regardless.

What will come out will come out - yes there's a distinct prevalance of pink moreso these days for girls - but I think if you're going to be a "tomboy" girl, then you're going to be one - and likewise for boys who err on the less stereotypical male side.

If you go into any reception or nursery you're still likely to see a fair few lads in the dressing up corner holding their own with the princess frock collection anyway!

I thought exactly the same as others about it (horrid to have to refer to a child that way) being a boy and them seeming to be revelling in any "feminine" traits and rejoicing at the lack of those "male" traits they might percieve as being negative.

I actually kind of love this story. There have to be people who are willing to break out of society moulds, and posit something new. There were mothers and fathers in the Victorian age (and before) who educated their daughters, allowed them to try for careers, who accepted homosexual sons, or indeed thought it was absurd to have such rigorous gender roles.

For their time they were oddities and freaks, spoken of scornfully and as though they were overturning the natural order. But they persevered. Would any of us say that they should've put up and shut up.

People at the time might've said 'don't teach your daughter, what good will it do her? How will she ever find a husband? She'll be ostracised from society!' Does that mean those parents should've backed down and said we don't want that, so we'll keep to the status quo?

The father is completely right. The LEAST important thing about someone is whats between their legs. The most important thing is who they are as a person. It's a stunning inditement of our society, that the reason people are so worried about unassigned gender, is because they assume that they have to treat people differently according to assigned sex.

And for what it's worth, I think little Shiloh looks cute as anything, and that Jolie is a great mother for being so feminine and yet so accepting of her daughter.

And that model on the cover of the magazine? Smoking hot

Tambern, marry me.

I haven't read the story as I have the Daily Mail blocked for my own safety. But I regularly dress DD in blue as it matches her eyes and instantly get comments like "isn't he smiley". I find this understandable, but fairly sad. I don't have an issue with her gender, but I do find some of the stuff made for little girls a bit twee. I think it is useful in life to have an obvious gender some how as it probably makes social interactions easier and for the same reason we did give DD a gender specific name.

Tambern, gender-stereotyping is NOT the same as gender-less. Obviously there is sexism in the world and that is A Very Bad Thing which needs to be addressed. It should be addressed by showing that both genders are equal but not by denying a biological difference. What Storm's parents are doing is damaging. What Shiloh's parents are doing is completely appropriate.

TobyLerone, we shall have non-gender specific babies by the dozen

OMG, what complete weirdos!

I totally agree with Tambern. I've just said on another thread that the best way to eliminate the lack of equality between the genders is to stop making such a big fucking deal about the differences. If children were just children instead of boys and girls, I think we'd have a much more harmonious society in just one or two generations. I don't allow our children to discriminate on grounds of race or religion any more - we teach them to accept people as people. So why do we make such a big deal of gender? I cannot for the life of me see the benefit of bringing our differences into such sharp relief all the time.

Stillstanding, don't you think it's a sad state of affairs, that the only way parents can ensure that their child is not pigeonholed into a gender that they might not even feel comfortable identifying with, is by denying the child a gender?

It's clear and patently obvious that they're not denying the baby has a gender (which would be stupid) they are saying that the baby's gender is unimportant in the scheme of things. Do you know how much research there has been done into the automatic stereotyping of children, quite literally from birth?

There was a very interesting study done recently that showed that when you dressed babies on different occasions in blue and pink, they were treated differently automatically. A baby (male or female) who was dressed in pink was automatically treated as female, dandled and told 'aren't you pretty' 'aren't you cute'. A baby (male or female) who was dressed in blue was bounced up and down in an active fashion and told 'aren't you strong' 'aren't you big.'

What Storm's parents have done is say 'bugger that.' No-one is going to pick up their child, look at it's clothing, assume it's gender and treat it in a certain way.

Ugh... those poor kids. Baby looks like a boy, older brother looks like a girl... Is it just me who is feeling bitchy and thinks they won't announce the baby's gender to avoid the 'oh you must be so disappointed to have another boy' comments from family and friends?

It's been done before

And I hope it will be done again.

Tambern, IME kids stereotypes are not entirely nurture. I wanted an entirely gun-free house. Yet my baby was pretending to have a gun and making a range of gun noises before he could speak. His sister never did that and we didn't expose the kids to tv except things we chose for them off Netflix, which were non violent... I bet Storm's Mother and Father would go mad if he wanted a toy gun...