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’

Travel lodge,you'll be pleased to know I don't, I don't say "velcro" either. I had to mention the Vaseline recently on here, I assured the poster you could obtain much cheaper petroleum jelly.

Sorry to twigger you.

Huh? Another bonkers post. It is entirely normal to not find out the sex of a baby until it's born. I didn't find out with mine until they were born and just like you I didn't give a shit what mine were as long as they were healthy. You're not superior here just because you found out a bit earlier.

Sorry, I have not thought of that. Makes sense then, apologies. Good point.

How do we get this saved in classics. What a thread.

Oxford dictionary has it as a singular use pronoun as early as 1375.

What the fuck else do you use if you don’t know who the person even is? Or if you’re a man and you don’t want to let your Mrs know you were with another woman.

“I went out for lunch with my colleague today, they had soup and a sandwich”

Not sure why people are so confused or annoyed by you not knowing the sex OP. We didn't find out and no one batted an eyelid, and I know plenty of other people who didn't. I had no idea it was so controversial.

I can't remember anyone getting confused by language but I'm not sure I said 'they / them' much. I think I'd have said 'the baby ' or 'he or she' initially and then maybe 'they' if I mentioned them again in the same sentence / conversation. I can't imagine starting a sentence eg ' when they are born' rather than 'when the baby is born', but I can imagine I would say ' when the baby is born they will sleep in our room'.

I think if you are using it like that second example, ie as a singular pronoun after you have already made clear who you are speaking about, people are just being deliberately awkward in saying they don't understand. That's perfectly natural speech. But if you are doing the first example of only calling them they / them, it is a bit ambiguous that you could be taking about twins or someone non binary.

No, funnily enough, I still had my own personhood after giving birth, same as before.

I do sometimes wonder if there is a non-causal association between the terrible state of maternity care and in particular the way women are treated within the system, and the eagerness to de-centre and de-individualise the female patients it's supposed to serve pretty much from the booking-in appointment.

@Irish24 I haven't read every post, but I think what confused me is the talk of 'keeping it a surprise'. If you're telling friends that, they are most likely thinking what I did and that is that you know but you're not telling them. Saying 'we don't know, it'll be a surprise for everyone' makes the use of they/them more sensical, I think. That said, all my nieces and nephews were born in the era before you could find out the sex, so it was always a surprise. My sisters just gave baby a nickname (I think one was called Peanut, one just Bump!) and probably used he as a generic term .

You.

I didn’t find it until birth so he was often referred to as “this thing”.

Well these comments and the frothing have been a joy to read this morning.

Truthfully people are just trying to be kind when they ask about your baby. It’s not enormously important to anyone but you. It’s the same when they ask you about what you’re doing for the weekend or about your Alevels or wedding or Christmas plans. If you want to call your baby they or them most people will think you are having twins or just have clumsy sentence structure, they won’t give it much thought

There are some nasty people on here. I’m with you OP. My babies were “they/them” until I found if they were a boy or girl, as I didn’t like calling them “it” and saying “baby” felt a bit twee to be using all the time. Sure I had a few people go “oh, twins?” when I said they/them but after a 10 second explanation from me, they understood. It’s not a difficult concept for someone of pretty average intelligence to understand.

They may also think it's 'friendly'?

I doubt it. My pregnancies were in the dark ages when maternity care was outstanding compared with now. Nobody was treated as an individual then either.

You are bonkers! OP doesn't know the sex of her baby. They/them can refer to a singular person, e.g. 'I saw John last week', 'oh really, what have they been up to?'.

You are trying to shoe-horn trans issues into a thread that is absolutely not about that. You people are obsessed.

You very much doubt that it's a valid use of them / they? Well, history and grammar would disagree with you.

I care about all those things for my friends, how odd.

No they wouldn't. You tend to use pronouns after already referring to someone more specifically.

If someone said
"My baby's big for my dates,so I'm not sure what weight they'll be when they're born" or
"This is my first baby and I can't wait to meet them" or
"Little Bean is kicking a lot today; I think they're going to be a footballer!"

Then you'd not think they were referring to twins.

What an odd thing for them to think.

Why would this field of healthcare need a completely different approach to "friendliness" with the patients?

Well OP, although "they" can in some cases be used as a singular, when it is used that way, people don't find it confusing.

If your friends are finding it confusing, you are using it in a way that is unnatural and unclear. I'd switch to something else for clarity.

Excellent! I’m full of admiration. But I can’t think of a good synonym for Velcro.

Oooooo. Qoute in context please from Hamlet written by
ShakespearE, because U am amazed at the swiftness you could do that!!!

I often don't know the sex / gender of a person I am talking about in an email, or on a phone call. I live and work in a very multicultural area and lots of names I deal with daily are names I don't know. So I always refer to people as they / them. It would just be clunky and really uncomfortable to refer to them as their name multiple times in a message.