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’

I see it more as "baby is kicking"
vs
"they is kicking" or "them is kicking"

I haven't RTFT but using they/them for a single person doesn't sound too strange to me.

I think it's fairly common in Scotland.

And I think it's when you're not sure who you're referring to. Eg:

Someone's used the last of the milk again. I wish they wouldn't do that.

As opposed to:

Tom's used the last of the milk again. I wish he wouldn't do that.

You wouldn't say:

Someone's used the last of the milk again. I wish he or she wouldn't do that.

If you don't know the sex of your baby, using they/them seems fine.

HTH

So would the ‘they/them is just gender nonsense’ people not understand or ask the question: ‘Are they a man or a woman?’

They just stands in for ‘this person’!

My colleague told me yesterday that her cousin had been in hospital and I asked (not knowing if cousin was a man or a woman): ‘How are they doing?’

A million possible examples obviously. I don’t believe there’s anyone who doesn’t use they/them like this, even if they (see!) don’t realise it.

Surely finding out the sex has only been common since the 1970s once ultrasound scans became more advanced.

How on earth did anyone cope before?! 😂

I used it 40 years ago when I had my children. I'm sure most people did
"The baby is kicking a lot , I think they are going to be a footballer"
Or "I have been given a lot of clothes for the baby, they are going to have more clothes than me"
Would you say "I have a lot of clothes for the baby, the baby will have more clothes than me" constantly repeating the baby just sounds unatural.

The baby is due on 10 June, unless the baby comes early. The baby is kicking up a real storm today, the baby has clearly enjoyed the snack I had earlier! We have assembled the baby's cot but the baby won't use it for a while, the baby will be in the baby's Moses basket in our room until the baby is about six months old.

Yes. Totally sane.

Are you really pretending the word "are" doesn't exist to try to make it sound weird?!

Yes, there should always be a context before using a pronoun, that’s how we naturally use them without thinking about it. ‘They’re kicking more than usual’ is quite unlikely to be the first thing said in this conversation. It might go more like ‘Oof, my baby is kicking more than usual’, and then after that ‘I think they’re going to be a footballer’.

It unfortunate that the English language does not have a neuter for living creatures as other languages do.

Don't you mean they are your first baby and of course they're precious?

‘It’ serves perfectly well.

“We had a scan for the baby but the person doing the scan couldn’t get all the baby’s measurements. We have to go back and hope the baby is in a different position to check the baby’s spine length. The baby just couldn’t sit still.”

”we had a scan for the baby but they couldn’t get all the baby’s measurements. We have to go back and get the baby in a different position to get their spine length. They won’t sit still.”

Guarantee if someone said the second sentence in real life you wouldn’t even notice, but if they said the first you’d be like “okay, you can stop saying THE BABY now.” Because it sounds weird and overstated.

Yes, one of the many vagaries of English usage is that in this case a singular pronoun takes the common plural form - just as we do with the second person singular.

Just as we say "you are" and never "you is", even if there's only one of you, we say "they are" regardless of number.

Yes. An example the other day.

How is baby?
Me: they are kicking away and healthy
Im not going to say baby is kicking away as they are asking about the baby

And life was much easier without all the pronoun, gender, sex nonsense, we were male or female and she or he. Thank goodness virtual signalling wasn't the fad then! 'It' was perfectly acceptable before birth.

Better than saying "They is due on 10 June, unless they come early. They are kicking up a real storm today, them has clearly enjoyed the snack I had earlier! We have assembled thems cot but they won't use it for a while, they will be in them's Moses basket in our room until they is about six months old."

Which is what the OP is suggesting as they don't like using the word baby at all.

Twenty years ago if you were sat in a pub and saw someone had left an umbrella so you hand it in to the bar in case the owner returns.

’someone’s left their umbrella. Can I leave it with you in case they come back for it?’

You really think that sentence wouldn’t have been used twenty years ago? Or fifty years ago?

You really think people were going around saying ‘someone left his or her umbrella can you hold on to it in case he or she comes back’?

How is she teasing others when she doesnt know the sex of her baby herself? Do you think that she decided not to find out just to make a big mystery out of it?

She doesnt need to pretend that she doesn't know because she actually doesn't know so how on earth is she being petty?

Telling her that no-one actually cares about her baby tells me what sort of person you are. Someone that can't even be bothered to read the OP properly and then tries to take the OP down a peg or two based on a complete misunderstanding of her first post.

Yet nowhere does the person I quoted used the word "are".

It’s the same as saying “I need to see the doctor so they can prescribe me a new treatment.” You wouldn’t repeat “the doctor” twice in one sentence. THAT is bad grammar. You have established you are talking about the doctor, but as you don’t know who the doctor you’ll see is “they” is the appropriate single use pronoun.

It’s not new. Absolute batshittery.

Obviously you can refer to your baby however you want and people are allowed to find it weird or strange.
I couldn't refer to my baby as they/then when I was pregnant the last time as my teenagers have friends who refer to themselves this way so I would have found it weird.
I don't know why you can't just say my baby/our baby/ the baby.
I can remember when my manager was prepared and she'd say on I can feel the baby kicking, would have been weird if she'd said I can feel them kicking.
Still as I said totally up to you how you refer to your child. Why do you care if people find it weird or confusing,?

The opposite of that, in OP's own terms (she doesn't want to even use the word 'baby' at all) is
“We had a scan for them but the person doing the scan couldn’t get all the they’s measurements. We have to go back and hope they is in a different position to check thems spine length. They just couldn’t sit still.”

Why have you deliberately jumbled it up so it's incorrect?

If you'd just written that paragraph normally it would sound completely fine: "They're due on 10 June, unless they come early. They are kicking up a real storm today, they clearly enjoyed the snack I had earlier! We have assembled their cot but they won't use it for a while, they will be in their Moses basket in our room until they're about six months old."

I mean yeah using that grammatically nonsensical formulation believed by people who ignorantly think ‘they’ was never used as a singular pronoun before the last five years.

But when you say it in a grammatically correct way it’s a totally comprehensible answer.

"They are due on 10 June, unless they come early. They are kicking up a real storm today, they have clearly enjoyed the snack I had earlier! We have assembled their cot but they won't use it for a while, they will be in their Moses basket in our room until they are about six months old."

Is it just in this area you struggle with grammar or is it a wider issue?

What is a bit stupid imo is the lengths people will go to to pretend that 'they' has always been used interchangeably with he or she; when anyone who has been present in the world, communicating in English, knows full well that while 'they' singular is grammatically correct, it would be very rarely used in preference to the sex based singular pronoun, where the persons sex is known.Who would say "Chris and Sam are separating. They want to stay in the marital home" when it makes it impossible to ascertain whether Chris, Sam or both want to stay there? Anyone who thinks the OP is referring to multiple babies by her use of 'they' is making a reasonable assumption based on how we usually express ourselves, which is by selecting from the grammatically correct options the one that most clearly conveys our meaning.