Calling my unborn baby they/them

[Irish24]

I am keeping the gender a surprise and the amount of people that are confused when I refer to the baby as they/them’ is starting to aggravate me. I don’t like referring to them as ‘it’ or just ‘baby’. They/them is a word and has been going around for centuries. It also is a singular pronoun and does not always mean multiple. My friends say they can’t get their head around it. I don’t understand. I know they/them is a controversial topic these days and more people are perhaps finding out the gender. I still don’t find it confusing at all and it never even occurred to me that it would be. Anyone else experienced this or am I being over dramatic here? It’s just tiresome having to constantly explain to people, I don’t know the gender so that’s why I’m calling the baby ‘them/they’

You need to do a basic psychology course.

But in general I agree with you, people twisting themselves up in knots trying to be "anti woke" make me laugh. There are so many posts on here with people being offended by basic grammar that's been around for hundreds of years.

i notice you have chosen to not reply to the person who has suggested that you are maybe writing this unclearly.. do you mean you refer to baby as they.. as in:

'when they are born they will sleep in our room', or do you refer to baby as 'when they/them are born, they/them will will in our room?'

this is a big difference

I remember someone who wouldn't refer to baby as it or he/she so decided to use the word for baby in her parent's native language. She used a cute word but she had misinterpreted it and was using the word for 'doll'. It made her look very stupid. Best go with the norm in these things.

This isn’t a debate about your fucking gender beliefs.

People are bonkers this morning OP! They/then refers to single and doesn’t mean you are going to have a gender fluid baby! I referred to my baby as the same before I knew what sex/gender they were. That’s just normal!

Using gender to mean sex is not grammatically incorrect. You could argue it is syntactically incorrect of course, however you would be on rocky ground as there are ample examples of the use of gender as a synonym for sex going back at least 600 years and of course English is defined by usage - we don’t have an equivalent of the Académie Française.

It’s not the zeitgeist, it’s how language has been used for a long time. For example “they’ve left their coat”, or “the new student arrives this afternoon, give them a tour when they arrive”, or “the next person can do it themselves!”.

They/them is by far the most natural pronoun for me to use for a person whose sex is unknown.

Science and biology isn't a 'belief'. It just...is. Unless you think the earth being round is a 'belief', too.

I would imagine you are just using unusual or incorrect grammar so your meaning isn’t clear. Can you give examples? If it’s happening repeatedly then you might want to rethink how you are communicating unless you actually want people discussing how you use pronouns rather than focusing on the baby?

Well done on managing to find a new context to wind up the sex/gender and the pronoun MNers, though OP.

61% voting unreasonable is madness 😂😂

16 pages when really it could have just gone

'Is it correct to refer to my unborn baby as they/them'

'Yes'

And that's it 🤣

Hopefully this thread has reassured you that the only people "confused" by your perfectly normal phrasing are either thick as shit or triggered transophobes (or both)!

My favourite is the people insisting you should say "he or she" every time. That sounds so much more clunky and awkward than "they".

I don't think I've ever read something so absolutely ridiculous as this in all my time on Mumsnet.

They want a 'big reveal' moment. That's the other part of the problem. So they arent just telling people what they are having at 20 weeks in normal conversation which is the norm now

I never found out the sex of my children until they were born. How on earth is that now seen to be attention seeking? The "big reveal"??? Fuuuuucking hell 😂

Well you're not going to say 'baby' every time you refer to the baby are you?

e.g. 'We are going to wait until the baby is born to buy clothes for the baby because the baby might be bigger than the midwife is expecting the baby to be'

That's a bloody mouthful isn't it?

That's what pronouns like he/she/it/they/them which replace names/ other nouns are for.

You think she was gender fluid because she wrote Orlando? Seriously? Woolf was a woman and a feminist.

This thread is a lovely encapsulation of the fact that most people in Britain weren't taught any grammar beyond the rudimentaries in primary school.

For what it's worth, "when the baby comes come, the baby will be sleeping in a Moses basket in our room until the baby is ready to go into its own room, probably when the baby is around six months old" is beyond tortured. You need a pronoun and the singular "they" is just as appropriate as "it".

Just as you'd be more likely to say "hey, someone left their wallet on the table" rather than "hey, someone left its wallet on the table" or "hey, someone left his or her wallet on the table", using "they" and its derivations with the antecedent of "the baby" is grammatically appropriate.

As an aside, I've always found the English habit of referring to babies as "baby" rather than "the baby" (eg "give baby to me") unbearably twee.

I said "they" a few times and someone thought I was having twins! I didn't think about using the term, it just came out of my mouth... I am not into any gender theory etc, absolutely not, but it was a useful way to refer to the baby as a person with sex unknown.

@JassyRadlett Exactly, great post.

So many people just don't understand the grammatical purpose of pronouns, which is completely removed from gender politics!

When you say "why don't you just call the baby 'baby'?" it shows a complete lack of understanding that sometimes that just doesn't work very well linguistically.

One is IT. Twins are THEM.

i had a colleague who made a big mystery out of her child. Honestly, as the parent, you care much more about your child than anyone else. As parents, we all find our own children to be the most delightful, interesting, special ( or one would hope we did, that’s how kids feel seen and supported).

But do not expect anyone else to be so interested, apart from members of your own family. Other parents will guaranteed not find your child as delightful, interesting or special as their own child. If that’s not clear already then it’s quite a good lesson to learn while you are pregnant.

re my colleague, I found her tiresome and annoying with the big mystery. Next time, you don’t want people to know, be kind, and pretend you just dont know yourself. Otherwise, it feels like you are teasing others. Being petty even.

Just give them a silly name, mine were smudge smudge 2 and snack wrap because thats all I ate when I was pregnant

Ridiculous comment lol 😂 I agree. So we are all attention seekers for either not wanting to share what is our own private business or wanting a surprise for ourselves. WTF has the world come to

You cannot be real. No real person thinks like this. I refuse to believe this is real.

I really don’t get why it’s confusing. The world’s gone mad. Nothing wrong with they them :)

Or just use a pronoun like she has been doing FFS! 🤣