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’

GODDAMN WOKERATI ADOPTING OUR PRONOUNS WHERE WILL THIS END!!!

You should definitely avoid using they/them OP, imagine if someone thought you were woke! 😮🤣

Is the confusion because people think the OP is saying things like: ‘If the baby is fussy, I’ll give they/them with a dummy’?

That’d be funny

Is it really that hard where people are now over thinking how to talk about their pregnancy. Why would you talk about using they/them unless she is letting the child decide on what gender they want to be. I don't believe the op is that clueless she is trying to be woke.

Now I see where you’ve gone wrong gender and sex being totally different things. Related yes but different. Sex is a biological fact gender describes a range of behaviours and attributes and other stuff that someone chooses as they grow up.

I had my baby 8 years ago. We didn't find out her sex so I used to call her "they" while I was pregnant. The only confusion I ever had was people going, "ooh twins?" otherwise no one gave a shit, because it's completely normal and grammatically accurate to refer to a singular gender-unspecified person as "they".

"My friend came over the other day - they dropped off a gift."
"My family member is so annoying - not naming names, but they're so weird"
"I don't know who this person is but they won't stop writing shit on mumsnet"

and so on.

I sometimes would refer to her as "the baby" but "they" was just as easy.

Why can’t you just say him or her??

I'm strongly gender critical - a position I largely came to having been 'peaked', which is a phrase I learned here on mumsnet.

But fuck me if this thread isn't in danger of peaking me right back.

I can't believe it's still going on! You've had a quote from the actual Oxford English Dictionary saying it's a correct/ centuries long established usage and people are still arguing it's not.

"And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, They wol come up […]" - Chaucer, The Pardoner's Tale ( The Canterbury Tales)

“There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend
” - Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors

“I shouldn’t like to punish anyone, even if they’d done me wrong.” —George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

"I was never aware of any young lady trying to catch me, nor do I believe that anyone has ever given themselves that useless trouble" Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

"Who is in love with her? Who makes you their confidant" Jane Austen, Emma

"To be sure, you knew no actual good of me -- but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love." Jane Austen again, Pride and Prejudice

I'd assume you were having twins.

Once you'd confirm that's not the case I would then assume you'd want your child to be non binary

If I then found out no, you're just using a strange way - instead of using the very simple word "baby" - to reference not knowing the sex of baby I'd assume you were just attention seeking and actually enjoying creating confusion and would lose any interest in your pregnancy.

Oh fuck me these people can't be real. These people cannot walk amongst us.

Nobody is giving their baby their/them pronouns in fucking uterus.

As amazing as this thread has been people are really making my head hurt

Because you use "they" and "them" as singular pronouns when you don't know the sex, unless you're so brainwashed by right wing anti-woke bollocks that you'll unnecessarily use "he or she" constantly.

You seem irrationally angry?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using ‘they’ like this. It’s how it has been used for hundreds of years.

Sex is unknown in your examples.
Which I guess you could make a case for OP but I would find it a bit odd. " So they kicked me so hard in the tummy this morning and then they did a big roll. They are causing me drama already"
It sounds weird.

This is sad and your brain is rotting if you cannot think of anything other than "oh she's woke and her baby is nonbinary" when someone uses the very common word "they" in reference to an entity that they don't know the sex of. Jesus h christ.

Why the fuck would you assume this?! This is 100% a you issue. 100%>

Her friends are getting confused I don't know how the op looks or how she presents herself to the rest of the world. Let me tell you something no one ever confused what came out of my mouth when I was talking about my pregnancy. I'll leave at that.

Because "they/them" has a pretty long history as a singular pronoun and has been the preferred form since at least the 90s. For most people, this isn't overthinking - for most people giving birth now, it's just using the dominant usage for a person of unknown sex/gender [delete according to your own obsessions] - that has been the dominant usage for the entirety of their lives.

Those "overthinking" are those who've decided that normal usage is somehow "woke" or whatever silly terms you want to throw around.

And it's still not a good excuse for misrepresenting what a poster has said.

If anything, why aren't the anti-woke crowd trying to protect our perfectly good and reasonable pronouns? Why, I ask you?

I mean you've got us all confused by the bollocks you're typing on this thread so I find that hard to believe.

That's the great thing about having my own thoughts and assumptions - they are mine 😊 don't like it, ignore. Simple.

Do you genuinely think that you are being clever here? That this is some sort of 'gotcha' to the OP?

Pretending that OP wouldn't use proper grammar rather than the ridiculous gobbledygook that you have posted here? She would actually say:

"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."

I'd be so embarrassed if I were you, but you seem incapable of shame in your zeal to shoehorn your ridiculous prejudices into OP's non-ideological post.

Shocking lack of knowledge on this thread.

’They’ is used when you don’t know the sex of someone. It’s been used that way since Shakespeare’s time. (‘Has the postie been? I didn’t see them.’)

It’s not just used for someone who is non-binary. That’s a much more recent use.

OP is using it correctly.

You are may or may not be pregnant now i don't know how you present yourself to the rest of the world but you have some pretty confusing stuff coming out of your mouth now tbh

My old man before he died liked to be called Mary at the weekends so I ain't that brainwashed lovely.

I've literally explained why I'd assume that

I rest my case.

Mate, your posts confused what the OP said in her actual OP and you don't seem to understand what pronouns are. I'd be stunned to find you were a paragon of clarity in the outside world.