to think this mum is a bit bonkers!!

[Dartfordmummy]

Don't know if there is already a thread on this but am a bit about this story!!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089474/Its-boy-Couple-brought-child-gender-neutral-reveal-sex-The-Infant--keeping-secret-FIVE-YEARS.html

Poor Sasha

Last year, there was an article about a similar couple, with similar beliefs, in the Daily Mail. The article was heavily slanted towards "crazy woman wants a girl" angle. I did a bit of googling, and found what had been the source for the DM article. The DM journalist had trimmed down a very balanced and interesting 2-3 page interview, given to the couple's local newspaper (the Toronto Star IIRC) into a half page biased article, by means of selective trimming.

I wish I'd saved them, to show you all.

The Daily Mail had a clear agenda then, and I doubt it's changed since last year.

Too many " trimming"s there in my post above! Nearly as much trimming as that DM journalist had done of the Toronto Star.

Just read the Cambridge News - she's almost gleeful about the fact Sasha is an experiment designed to prove what bad mothers everyone except herself is. The other playgroup mums didn't think she was mental, they picked up on the fact she despises them all.

Might have already been pointed out, but the fairy picture is one she sent out as her own email Christmas card. And he gets to play with gender-neutral toys - plus dolls!

(Also, if you read the Daily Mail copy and the Telegraph's, both are pretty much word-for-word the same, and clearly lifted from the Cambridge News's, probably by an agency, so the spin isn't the Mail's - hth.)

As an aside, what is with this mumsnet trend of using the word 'frothing' when a group of people quite strongly disagree with you?

It is a patronising put down -the person who says it is a deep thinking, intellectual and you are just a silly Daily Mail reader and not worth listening to.

if the cap fits..

I haven't frothed in my life Hully. Neither have I exposed my DCs to Nationwide newspapers because I thought my views were so important.
I also don't call pink fairy dresses gender neutral. I haven't given them flowery tops, banned combat trousers and told everyone they 'chose' it.

If she wants a fair experiment she should have had the whole range of toys and clothes available and left Sasha free to choose without influence. Children want to please their parents and they read body language very well.

Here comes Hully sneering again...

I have to say I was rather offended at the mother's description of little girls as 'boring' and not being able to play because of what they wear.
My 5 year old loves pink and 'girly' clothes (no thanks to me) but she still comes home from school with a dirty uniform every day having spent her time running around the playground and getting all messy.

Her reasoning for concealing her child's gender was to avoid stereotypes. But she goes on to disprove her own point by saying her own mother was v practical and 'masculine' whereas her father was a lot more sensitive. Yet both of them were presumably gender-stereotyped from birth?

All I get from this story (I'm referring to the Cambridge news article) is Smug Mother. It's not about her child, it's all about her.

At the end of the day the secrecy about Sasha's gender was totally unnecessary.

Many people (including myself) don't want to 'force' their children into gender stereotypes. However, most people can manage to achieve this without the need to conceal their child's gender.

Wouldn't it have made far more sense to simply allow Sasha to choose whichever toys and clothes he wants, without influencing him into either masculine or feminine choices?

Sasha's parents 'encourage' him to play with dolls and to dress in feminine clothes, which rather defeats the object of what they are trying to achieve and also shows that this is very parent-led. They would have been far better off letting Sasha take the lead and not encouraging him into any choices, but instead letting him choose whatever he likes the most.

As I said before, they are making gender a far bigger part of Sasha's life than it needs to be and he will be much more conscious of his gender than the other children, which again defeats the object of what they are trying to achieve.

This will have an effect on Sasha as a child and an adult, and we will have to just wait and see what the effect is. I hope it doesn't have a negative effect on him, but sadly I think it will. :(

cakeismysaviour (me too by the way)- absolutely!

I think many people have missed the point that the parents concealed Sasha's sex from people because they didn't want those people and their preconceptions to influence his gender.

But concealing Sasha's (who is a real human being by the way, not a lab rat) sex is such an extreme way to prove a point. I really cannot undertand why someone would purposely single out their child in such a way. What if in 10 years time he hates his mother for 'making him different from all the other kids'?

Again agreeing with the poster who said that this is SUCH a first world middle class problem!

Samandi. I don't think anybody has missed the point. It's not difficult to grasp.

But surely Sasha knew he was male and could probably knew 'stereotypical boys' and 'stereotypical girls'. Even though other people (with their preconceptions) didn't know his gender, Sasha would still have been aware of such preconceptions around him.

The mother herself is full of preconeptions. Preconceptions about girls (possibly because she has a boy?), preconptions about why labour was so easy for her and so hard for everyone else...
Considering she wants to avoid judgement for her child, how hypocritical is it that the whole article is full of her own judginess?

anonacfr - what you just said!

It's dehumanising to refer to your own child as an 'it'. Children should be appreciated for everything they are and gender is a portion of that however they choose to express it for themselves.

They weren't raising the child gender neutral, they were raising him to be feminine, encouraging dolls/tutu's/flowery tops and pink while banning combats (too male).

It was also wrong to force him to wear clothes while going to a normal toddler nude phase, how it that allowing him to express himself? They made him hide himself so that nobody would see his biological sex.

This woman in her obsession with gender identity has forced a female gender identity on her boy in the name of gender neutrality.

She's not just bonkers, she's stupid.

I saw this. The mum must have deliberately purchased the girls frilly school blouse (as she did with all the other more feminine clothes he has) She is totally manipulating him,imo.
It made me laugh when she mentioned no one would come back to hers for coffee!! No shit,Sherlock! I can just imagine...there she is at playgroup with her newborn, another mum goes
"Aww,so lovely.Is it a girl or a boy?"
Sasha's Mum : "I'd rather not say"
Other Mum :"Erm,sorry?"
Sasha's Mum : "I would rather you see my baby as a person and not as a male or a female. I prefer not have "The Infant's" life diminished in anyway due to their gender"
Other Mum: "Oooookay"
Sasha's Mum: Do you fancy coming round to mine for a coffee,we could discuss the impacts of gender identity in more detail?"
Other Mum: No thanks (you total fucking weirdo)

I am glad that common sense has come along. I agree bobbledunk and AngryBeaver. When you have a child you set about trying to ease them into society and you help them to make friends. You go to toddler groups so they can mix. I befriended women that I maybe wouldn't have chosen because it was nice for my DC to socialise with other children. I would have marked down Sasha's mum as a loon, and kept my distance.

DCs need role models. My DSs father died when he was a baby. I wanted him to have good male role models and set about finding them. I believe he needed them. I live in an all male house and they are very different-and why not? What is wrong with men? It appears, from some posters that there is no difference and yet when it comes to the lifeboat situation they should stand back and let mothers in first!! (apparently, although they are the same mothers are more important than fathers )

In the Cambridge News she states she is a radical feminist.
I believe that she wanted a girl. She didn't ask the sex for 30 mins because she didn't want the news it was a boy.

She didn't want any of the traditional boy characteristics.

I wouldn't mind quite so much (although I still don't think that you should experiment with humans) if it really was neutral gender. HOWEVER she was actively pushing the girl type toys and clothes and withholding the boy type ones. Having got him into flowery tops and banned combat trousers she tells us it was his choice.

She then gets his picture in all the newspaper-dressed as a fairy-although my guess is that she got him into it for the photo call. I can't imagine doing an interview for the press and having him dressed as Bob the Builder!

Some asked why the father wasn't getting equal blame, but he appears to be a shadowy figure and isn't photographed or asked an opinion. At least Storm in Canada had both parents as equals.

I think that nature has far more influence than nurture. I have seen many DCs grow from babies to adults and you very often don't get what you expect. I think that the mother here is in for a big shock. Only time will tell but you don't turn your DC into an experiment and get away with it IMO.

It has also reminded me why I keep off feminist threads-say anything which offends and you are patronised and dismissed as frothing.

I would love to have the view of a parent who knows the family.

A really interesting discussion. I agree that people are hung up.about gender,however, in this case I think the parents have made more of an issue about it than anyone else. I am a gay mum and remember meeting some of my gay friends in town when my D D was about 4. DD wanted to go and look around a wedding dress shop because she loves pretty dresses. Friends were appalled and sneered at me for taking her. Told them "this is who she is , sorry if it doesn't t sit wel with your politics".

For the record I am quite girly.myself but Dds other mum is the opposite. She has always been a huge tomboy, is a pilot and despite growing up in a very ausere African household she has never co.formed to female stereotypes, however, she is still very much a woman and proud of it. If you give you kids love and the support to be who they are then they will be. You dont need to go to these lengths!

I agree with a lot of what you say, anonacfr. The Cambridge News article made the mother seem quite unpleasant. The 'boring' girls in the sandpit and the boys running around having fun was very odd.

The fact that she worries that parents who find out the sex of their baby immediately lump a ton of preconceptions on them etc. suggests to me that she feels herself quite superior. And short-sighted, too. It's only recently that we have been able to find out the sex and human history has hardly been a shining beacon of equality because of it. And anyway, if you have really strong preconceptions, what's the difference between finding out at 20 weeks or at birth?

The only thing I can think of with banning combats is that she is a pacifist and doesn't like the association with the army! Seems odd, otherwise, especially as girls wear combats too. That's just my theory though.

I think the point of dolls, flowers, pink etc is that she does not see them as being gendered clothing or toys. I think generally, especially with clothing, there are many more girls' clothes, colours and patterns than boys', so it would quickly look like someone was pishing girls' clothes more than boys'. And dolls really are not girls' toys, are they?

I don't think that any toys have to be gender specific. My DSs played happily with irons and ironing boards etc.
I can't see why they can't just have a free choice.
The woman was weird-e.g. pushing dolls on him when he was in danger of revealing all in the summer. She was the one who had hang ups about gender. I don't think that DCs do. It is sad that parents have to force their own opinions on them e.g. withholding pink etc. If a girl wants to play with Barbie it is no big deal-it isn't if a boy wants to play with it. If the parent doesn't like it they don't have to play!!

But he was allowed to run around naked in the summer. According to the Cambridge article, anyway. And she never pushed dolls onto him after that specifically - or is this from the DM article?

A really interesting discussion. I agree that people are hung up.about gender,however, in this case I think the parents have made more of an issue about it than anyone else. I am a gay mum and remember meeting some of my gay friends in town when my D D was about 4. DD wanted to go and look around a wedding dress shop because she loves pretty dresses. Friends were appalled and sneered at me for taking her. Told them "this is who she is , sorry if it doesn't t sit wel with your politics".

For the record I am quite girly.myself but Dds other mum is the opposite. She has always been a huge tomboy, is a pilot and despite growing up in a very ausere African household she has never co.formed to female stereotypes, however, she is still very much a woman and proud of it. If you give you kids love and the support to be who they are then they will be. You dont need to go to these lengths!