Parents keep baby’s sex a secret to avoid gender bias

[Doyoumind]

This story has been covered pretty widely but I don't think it's been mentioned on here.

A couple have a 17 month old who they refer to as 'they' and the couple didn't even tell family what sex the child is.

Fine, keep things gender neutral and avoid stereotypes but referring to your child only as 'they' is totally othering. They will soon hear other children being referred to differently.

Pretty soon that child will be talking. Unless it lives in a bubble and never has stories read to it that child will understand there are boys and girls and wonder which they are. They will start to realise the difference between when mummy and daddy go to the toilet, unless they are never to be seen naked. At that point they will know whether they are a boy or a girl if their parents are honest and explain the physical differences between male and female.

Their parents might be able to shield them from gender stereotypes to some extent bit they can't deny the obvious biology.

Or are they going to say only some men have penises and some women do too?

@Doyoumind

Beyond daft. WTF is the world coming to?

YANBU.

What's wrong with telling the child, you have boy bits or girl bits but you can play with/wear/behave how ever you like, gender doesn't really matter at all and shouldn't define you?

Exactly. This is how I bring up my DC. I hate gender stereotypes and believe they are very damaging, but this is just as damaging.

I send my daughters to nursery. We looked round a few and without exception they all said things like 'ooh shes pretty, oooh I like your hair clip / shoes etc' to her and explained things to us like 'the boys have much more energy / are much noisier / you know what boys are like / the girls prefer reading' etc just on our tour of the nursery. I try to stay neutral at home and avoid commenting on their appearance etc but I feel a bit like I am fighting a losing battle. So I can kind of see why the parents did something drastic

@notacooldad

I have friends who are raising their children to know what sex they are, but also actively encourage them to have free choice over colour of clothes, playing with dolls or fire engines, etc.

These people are doing it right imo.

I have another friend who was determined her daughter wouldn't automatically wear pink, glitter and you name it. That lasted about a week 🤣 and daughter is VERY into all things girly - I cringe, and my gifts to her are almost always as not-specifically-girlie as I can, because she will get a sea of pink glittery nail stuff from everybody else, and my feminist heart dies a little every time.

Gender stereotypes are harmful, now more than ever before our young people are reaping the "benefits" of everything for girls is pink, everything for boys is blue. I can certainly see the attraction in trying to prevent those around the child from gender stereotyping them (studies have literally proven that childminders play differently with babies they believe to be male/female - how very sad that we unconsciously influence kids from such a young age!) ... but I don't think withholding their sex can be the answer.

@LolaSmiles TBF I think it has got worse, even kinder surprises are 'Boy' and 'Girl' now.
But yeah this is bizarre.

Complete non-issue. So what if they want to raise their child differently? Does it affect you? No. They specifically say in the video that the kid will have a choice over how they're referred to. Most likely they'll choose their actual sex once they can understand the concept, but I really don't see how it would screw them up in the meantime! Surely being told what you can do based on your sex is more damaging...?

Think about it, seriously. Does it really matter what clothes children wear, what toys they play with, what activities they do? If you dress your baby boy in "girls clothes" and have a furry pink pram hood, is the world going to end?

We all say that we are bringing up our children to believe they can do anything. But why are women so under represented in STEM subjects at population level and men so under represented in caring jobs? Why do women do the majority of housework and childcare when pre children the wage gap is closing (women graduates now out earn men and the wage gap kicks in at child rearing age). They are getting these ideas of what they can / cant do from somewhere.

I have to admit that I really struggle to deal with all this gender neutral stuff. I am nearly 50, am a girl, have girl parts, was brought up as 'a girl' in an era when (apparently) stereotypes were probably at or near their strongest. However, when I was 6, I can remember running around the school playground pretending that I was a fireman (or possibly the fire engine!), long before there were female firefighters. I played with cars and dolls (probably preferred the cars, especially my fire engine!). Dressed up as a princess (long frock and pointy cone hat, the works). I have had a thirty year career in Engineering, ride motorbikes (stereotypical 'boy stuff') but also love some of the more stereotype 'girl' stuff like cross stitch, crafts and wordsearch puzzles. As others have said, surely the trick somewhere is just to teach our youngsters that they are what they are; can be what they want to be and won't be judged for it? Or at least, if they are judged, the only opinions that really matter are your own (first and foremost) and those of your family and loved ones? Or am I on just a completely different planet?

I haven’t read this particular story but I know a woman personally who has never revealed her baby’s sex. They are referred to as they/them and dressed neutrally, have a ‘unisex’ name.

Unless they go to Waldorf school, they’re going to have a bit of a shock.

I try to stay neutral at home and avoid commenting on their appearance etc but I feel a bit like I am fighting a losing battle.

I know that feeling. You can have all the good intentions you want about telling your child that girls and boys can like/do/play with whatever they want, but unless you're raising them in isolation they will hear the rest of the world telling them differently every day, over and over again. It is so frustrating.

I don't think what this couple has done is a particularly useful solution either but I get why you'd want to find SOME way out of it. I feel like banging my head off a wall sometimes.

It will massively backfire on them.
Yes people do treat boy babies differently from girl babies.

But people also treat unknown sex babies differently from known sex babies. So I agree the “they” is deliberately othering the child.

So the idea that by hiding your child’s sex, they will be treated better is a misconception.

AmIRight Our nursery is fairly alternative and I never hear them saying things like that, when DS was in the younger room you couldn't tell the sex of a lot of the DC...
Now DS is in the 3-5 room and he and his (male) friends spend all their garden time playing 'Batman - Ninja' Oh well, I tried

I think its silly not to tell the child their sexz they'll probably figure it out themselves by 2-2.5ish? (nursery toilets, getting changed for swimming, running around naked on the beach etc)

I think it's less for them and the kid, and more for everyone else, who'll impose all the gendered expectations - they're trying to stave that off for as long as they can.

I appreciate what they're trying to do, but once school hits, unless they have a completely oblivious child (I have one who honestly didn't notice that I didn't have a penis until his younger brother pointed it out to him), the biases will start to be imposed. My youngest loves pink, but keeps it for home/strangers now, he won't wear anything pink to school, because it just gets too many comments, and that's sad.

Hobbit

Tbh I totally get where the parents are coming from. If this is just until the child understands what gender is then I get it..

This is not affecting the child but the perception of people around the child.

To not pigeonhole the child into a box... to not force the child to fit expectations and so on.

I wouldn’t be brave enough to do this but I can honestly see what the parents are doing.

I’m basing my comment on the OP, haven’t read the actual article and haven’t investigated the family.

They might be a bit extreme but maybe they’re surrounded by misogyny and this is their way of defending their child.

I wouldn’t do this though because I do believe in gender differences but I could see how this helps if the child is surrounded by gender discrimination.

Justlovedogs If you're on a different planet, I'm there with you!

I also think gender stereotypes for children have got worse over the years. I was brought up in the 80s, my mum still made a lot of our clothes (yes I am sounding ancient!) and there were a lot of hand me down toys and clothes. So clothes were just clothes, me and my brother shared a lot. And toys were all bright primary colours. Prams and buggies were black. There are boys and girls versions of anything now.

I sold a scooter last week, for a 2 year old. It was white with some red. A lady came to pick it up and I started to explain how it worked and she said it was fine, she had the boys version at home that her older son had used, he has grown out of it but they wanted the girls version for her 2 year old daughter. I couldn't believe people actually waste time and money on buying something they dont need because they think a 2 year old girl cant or shouldn't use a certain colour of scooter.

@AmIRightOrAMeringue no that's the issue! People who preach about gender dont just say "hi I'm Sam" etc they preach out constantly things like "my pronouns are they/them" and push it in your face before you've even said anything. Take a look at Sam Smith for the prime example at the moment. I couldn't give a shiny shit what people choose to do/be etc I'm bisexual but I dont shout it from the rooftops etc. I think that's the issue here - they are making an issue out of a non issue. How they choose to raise their child is up to them I guess but deliberately making a huge issue out of gender is not the best way to do that safely.

What's wrong with telling the child, you have boy bits or girl bits but you can play with/wear/behave how ever you like, gender doesn't really matter at all and shouldn't define yoU

It does define you though. No matter how your parents treat you , society from before day 1 forces gender on to you.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=nWu44AqF0iI

The only way to protect a child from stereotyping is to not reveal it’s sex.

As someone who doesn’t gender conform and dressed my dd practically- ie jeans/leggings and a t-shirt, later choosing short hair, and having witnessed the public arguments, bullying and sheer fuckwittery of society in general over their gender I wish I’d have said FUCK OFF very loudly everytime someone asked if they were a girl or a boy, rather than argue (yes, argue) with a complete stranger who was telling me I was wrong and she clearly was a boy.

Btw this has continued up until her teens. Fortunately dd has more sense and point blank refuses to answer.

I don’t see how refusing to answer the question is much different tbh.

I'm totally fine with this. People DO treat children differently once they know what gender they are and it does influence child development. My three year old is only just now starting to accurately gender children (sometimes!) and she definitely still doesn't "get" that there are anatomical differences. My eldest cottoned onto all of this a lot sooner and so we had many more conversations around sex and gender etc. Until the child expresses curiosity/awareness of sex differences I think it's society's problem and not theirs. We're lucky enough to have some amazing trans men in our lives and have been friends with them throughout their transition so have had cause to educate ourselves on the topic. I would recommend Juliet Jacques, Trans as a great place to start. In an ideal world your sex would be between you and your doctor and partner and gender expression would just be rolled into the broader category of self expression. But we don't live in that ideal world and I respect people trying to make the best of it.

Note the ageist comment 'old ladies in the park'.
"Don't assume our child's sex old lady"

You are not at all unreasonable, it's all gone too far. I read that Paloma Faith (whom I like) was not giving away the sex of her child. Madness.
We are overwhelmingly male or female, the exceptions are few and far between.

“We want to keep a secret- so we’ve gone to the press to let everyone know we have a secret.”

@SpoilsburyToastGirl said it best.

This serves the attention seeking parents, not the child. If anything they’ve created a massive mountain out of a molehill. This is nothing to do with gender discrimination and everything to do with Insta-fame and ‘likes’.