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’m always really interested in threads like these whether there is anyone out there who has actually changed their (see!) mind?

Obviously I’m biased but the evidence and examples provided that ‘they’ is an acceptable singular pronoun when sex is unknown are irrefutable.

I get this however to avoid confusion because of the woke adoption of 'they' why don't you just say "he or she" instead?
Mine was a surprise but I can't remember how I referred to him when I didn't know!

btw, congratulations!

Extending your sentences unnecessarily to own the libs and fight wokeness, MN never disappoints 🤣

according to some on here you should have text “it’s a male” which I’m sure would not have raised any eyebrows at all.

Not in today's woke society the youngsters fucked it up.

using they is completely normal.

'oh I called the doctor today and they're going to call me back'
you don't assume that's a group call with multiple doctors.

'oh someone posted on mumsnet about how they refer to their baby and people have gone nuts'

get a grip, people can refer to their baby however they want. We didn't want to find out what we were having, we just called him 'bean' or 'them' while he was cooking and people coped just fine.

I think what this thread has exposed is how clear communication is key, as is context.

A lot of people on this thread thought that OP already knew the sex of her baby because she stated:
'We are keeping it as a surprise' - this can be interpreted that she already knows the sex of the baby and her and her DP are 'keeping' this information as a surprise. OP did not clear this until several pages later and still did not take onboard that her language is/was unclear.

Them / they can be used in the singular, HOWEVER, context is critical.

If a pregnant woman, who I didn't know very well, say a colleague, kept referring to her pregnancy as they/them without saying any other context, I could assume she was having twins.

THEM BE BEST BABY I'm sure you mean!😂Make Melania happy too ; all in 4 words.

Yes - all well and good - but do you know the times we live in now tho - they/them is NOW synonymous with gender fluidity etc. They/Them would make me think twins. But - i can see why people would think differently re the gender stuff. Why cant you just say 'the baby' ?

Why would anyone want to do that? Boy and male and girl and female mean the same thing.

She says she doesn't want to use baby at all only they/them. Her friends thinks she woke and she will let the baby decide what gender it wants to be. Op doesn't want to use it or baby when she talks about it. Young people fuck up the language it was never this complicated until the woke shit began.

Pronouns exist for a reason, and in this case it's because saying "the baby" every single time would make you sound as mad as a box of frogs.

To be honest I think it’s you who is over complicating it. I had my 2 before anyone thought of calling individuals they/them and never found out the sex, “baby” or “the baby” did the job

Although not to anyone with a basic grasp of grammar ;) Over use of ‘baby’ or ‘the baby’ in dialogue just sounds contrived and twee to me…

You're not wrong.
"The person who left that box in front of a fire escape is an idiot; I don't know what they were thinking."
"If a customer gives you feedback, thank them, and pass it on."
In each of these cases, the gender of the person is unclear/unknown, so it is absolutely correct to use they/them, and it always has been.
The use of they/them as pronouns for people who identify as non-binary is predicated on the English language already having a pronoun to use for when gender is not known. If other people are too ignorant of their own first language to get their heads round it, that's not your fault.

I didn’t know the gender of dc1.
I just used it, he or she randomly 😂😂

I have to say, it didn’t cross my mind to split hair and go down the route of using they/their instead.
I don’t think many people would have thought about that 20 years ago either. It’s not because it’s controversial blablabla. It just wasn’t a mainstream idea for staying ‘gender neutral’. That’s a very recent idea

What's your pronouns?

Well no because it has to be he or she. You say both.

For all the people claiming that referring to one unborn baby as ‘they’ doesn’t imply twins - how would you refer to unborn twins then? You would surely use ‘they’, so that’s where the confusion comes in.
Oh and if people think they have to know a baby’s SEX before they can buy what they consider an appropriate present, they are using GENDER stereotypes!

Except she didn't say that. You've left out an important word to make a more fun narrative.

She said she didn't like referring to the baby as just baby. And she's since confirmed that yes, she's talking about the use of they/them where the antecedent of "baby" has been part of the conversation.

And she's right. Solely using "the baby" (or worse, "baby") would be insane.

You had your two before Chaucer was writing?

Bloody well done. Kudos.

I don’t know why you’re talking about gender babies do not have a gender. You want to find out the sex when it’s born that’s what most people do without such a fuss and worry. them is a plural word so that’s ridiculous to refer to your baby as them unless you’re having twins.

Someone lost their wallet, I'd better find out who and return it to them.

Am I talking about multiple people there? No? Then we've long established that "them" is not strictly plural.

This thread is magical. You've got the gender/sex frothers, the grammar purists who don't actually know grammar, the professional contrarians, those with deliberate misunderstanding as their superpower, the woke mind virus lot.

Most enjoyable thread in ages.