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’

No problem at all really. As long as it stops once they’re born and you’re not going to make them non-binary.

My friends tried to guess the sex of my baby it was all good fun back then in the early 2000's.

You went from twins to non binary. When talking about a baby in the uterus.

That doesn't seem like an overly logical jump to be

Because - "I can't wait for him or her to be here, I just love him or her already and can't believe I'm finally going to get to meet him or her soon, I wonder who he or she will look like, I hope he or she has his or her dad's eyes"

and

"Shall we get this for the baby? He or she will look really cute in it, though I'm not sure what size to get for him or her, the last scan said he or she was heading for the 90th centile so I think he or she is going to be pretty big, shall I get him or her the newborn or the 0-3 months?"

both sound ridiculous.

Same as people saying to repeatedly use the baby, sounds weird if you keep doing it!

• How's the baby?
• The baby is fine, I was nervous this morning thinking the baby was not kicking as much as usual, but I had some orange juice and then the baby was suddenly really active so thank goodness the baby is fine.

This is my favourite thread ever. It's truly brought all of MN's most batshit crazy groups together to froth over a total non-issue. I don't think I've ever seen the GCs, the incorrect grammar nerds and the "NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR BABY!!!1!!" lot in the same thread before.

Bravo, OP.

Yeah there was a laaaaaaarge logical leap there.

So large that you'd have to put a metric fucktonne of effort into it.

I find it really strange that anyone would nitpick how an expectant mother refers to her own unborn baby. I used baby/the baby and then they fairly interchangeably until I found out the sex and nobody pulled me up on it. I don't like using "it" to refer to a baby and I've never come up with a cutesy nickname but people have understood when I've spoken about my baby.

I also found it strange that posters jumped on the OP's use of surprise for not finding out. I thought that was the standard phrasing, I've been asked if I was having a boy, a girl or a surprise.

There seems to be an awful lot of willful misunderstanding on this thread.

The OP has gone from asking a simple grammatical question, which has been answered multiple times over, to somehow wanting to declare her unborn child non binary.

Totally normal behaviour 😵‍💫

"Virtual signalling" has tipped me over the edge

The non binaries came for our pronouns and now they're taking our babies too 😡

I guarantee the performatively confused use singular they every day without thinking about it.

Personally I am outraged about singular you. I am not multiple people, PLEASE ADDRESS ME AS THOU.

Tell that to her friends who are confused.

I haven’t read it all but what I have read of this thread is insane 😂
I don’t see the confusion at all OP! ‘They’ is a completely normal singular pronoun. It wouldn’t even occur to me to question it if I heard you refer to your baby as ‘they’… especially as you don’t know the sex.
People get worked up about the strangest things…

Won't somebody PLEEEASE think of the children!

The wokies are taking our she/hers and he/hims to sacrifice to a drag queen while getting their septum's pierced 😔

I agree with you.

What is the op saying to confuse people there's got to be more to it.

I'll explain how conversations and thoughts develop from them:

"Oooh they are kicking today!"

::::assumption made its twins due to "they"::::

"Ahhh i had no idea you were having twins!"

"I'm not I use they as I don't know the sex of them yet"

:::assumption made the woman will be bringing them up as NB, because IME people usually say "baby" when they don't know the sex:::::

::::exits conversation asap::::

::::find out from Janet that no, the woman is using "they" instead of "baby" and is getting annoyed people are a bit confused::::

::::assumption made the woman must be enjoying the attention due to using "they" when most people IME use "baby::::

::::assumption may be wrong but i remain entirely unbothered and will continue to think that::::

⬆️ yes this! Perfect explanation!

and as somebody else said, all of these people disagreeing with OP probably use singular they ALL the time without even realising.

What, that Careertimenow seems like a confusing individual in their own right? Not sure why they'd be interested tbh.

When you assume, u an ass.

Op wouldn't be here otherwise

Are you saying it's "precious and over complicated" not to want to know a baby's sex before it's born? I think that's the prerogative of the person having the baby, isn't it? Or are you completely misreading the OP?

I don't think you've quite understood what Oregano was saying. Which is entirely unsurprising given your track record on this thread.

It took about 10 seconds tbh 😊

I think thou meanest 'I agree with thee.'

Art thou unable to use singular pronouns?

Turning them into shims and herms and dyeing their hair blue 😭