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

Wow, I'm really shocked by this...

But not actually by the story, just by a few of the responses on this thread.

OP what the fuck is wrong with a boy wearing a fairy costume? And I knew a very sexy male Sascha.

Why is he going to end up neurotic and in therapy? Just because his parents chose not to have his early years defined by gender? It's an eccentric decision, for sure, but each to their own eh? The world would be bloody boring if we were all the same, wouldn't it.

And the article states that she didn't have other parents round because they all thought she was a nutter and didn't want to come round, not because she was trying to live in a bubble. I was about the 'combat trousers are forbidden', but am putting that down the DM's shit misquoting reporting.

Hully, actually she is bigheaded enough without me adding anything else on here surprisingly nice below the layers of Beck-ness, and a damn good musician, if that has anything to do with anything.

I don't think there is anything wrong at all with a boy wearing a fairy costume but what these parents did was attention- seeking, potential damaging bollocks.

'potentially'

How was it attention-seeking?

And how was it potentially damaging?

In theory bringing up a child gender neutral and letting their own personalities shine through without bias to either gender isn't a bad idea. They weren't treating him as gender neutral though. They were actively encouraging him to wear flowery tops and play with dolls. The bias seemed to be towards him being a girl. So yes, i think she's bonkers.

And I say this as the mum of a 4 year old ds who has been wearing his sisters pink wellies all week

There's nothing wrong with boys wearing a fairy costume - I was just a bit that the picture has been printed in a newspaper for all his friends to see - no doubt they'll take the mickey out of him.

Why?

woah, she sounds lovely

No, I'd guess the mums will be the ones taking the mick, not the other 4 year olds.

You mean someone has to explain Hullygully.
You think it is OK to put your strong views ahead of your DCs welfare?

I would call allowing photos and interviews with the DM attention seeking. She could have said 'no comment' if approached.

Sasha is a boy's name IME - it's the Russian for Alex and all the Sasha's I've known have been male (and mostly of Slavic origin.)

I begin to despair when parents treat a DC as a social experiment.

How have they put their views ahead of his welfare?

What is wrong with talking about the important issues around gender and saying in a national paper that they were trying to avoid stereotypes and preconceptions and let the child make his own choices?

Gosh, it might make people think.

I also get cross when people wouldn't do it to their own DC but they are quite happy to let some DC they don't know suffer and then justify it. No principle comes before a DC IMO. If you feel strongly find a different way.

What is the difference between putting boys in blue and buying them guns, and girls in pink and buying them kitchens and leaving a child to choose?

Why is one of those three a "social experiment"?

How has this child suffered exactly?

Did the DC get a chance to put his views as a baby! Sometimes words fail me at the sheer selfishness of some people.
If I want to make people think I don't use my child-or anyone else's.

Do the children dressed in blue and given guns put their views forward as babies?

You still have yet to explain how the child "suffered"

His mother will find out Hully when he is older-he will judge. I would be utterly furious with my mother-we would not be best mates! There is nothing she could say to justify experimenting on me. I am a human being-not something from a laboratory.

She hardly grafted a mouse's ear onto his back.

And what about the father?

He might be entirely grateful that he has grown up free of the gender prejudices that you feel so necessary.

I don't think she's used him as a social experiment. And to his playmates, he would just have been 'Sasha'. Children, who know nothing of what's normal, would probably accept him as he was presented to them.

I have concerns about how it would affect his own psyche - the fact that it was not just a gender-neutral start to life, but actively a 'secret'. I would worry that he would feel that being a boy or being a girl was somehow something to be hidden or ashamed of. It depends how the mother dealt with it, though.

I am not sure what the mother has actually accomplished, though. It was certainly the case when my grandparents were children and even later that babies and toddlers were dressed the same, treated the same, had whatever toys were around to play with etc. Their generation is hardly what you would call ideal in the equality stakes.

Hully-she could easily dress him in unisex clothes and let him decide what to play with. It is his life-she ought to read Kahil Gilbran on children.

exoticfruits has said it for me. They have paraded their son and their theories in a national newspaper. How is that NOT attention seeking?

I believe somebody did a similar experiment in the US and the result for that child was catastrophic. It may well be that this boy will be enriched by the experience. I do hope so.