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’

It's "you make an ass out of u and me" BTW.

It’s not weird, it’s a normal use of they/them…… referring to someone of an unknown gender. Always has been.

I’m pretty sure it’s come up before.
There’s a fairly big intersection between gender critical feminists and grammar nerds, IME, including me!

Don't bring me into it, I'm not the one assuming 💅

Giving the baby puberty blockers before they come out just in case 😔 😔

I avoid personal insults as much as possible on here, so I’ll try to make this as generalised as I can:
Some posters on this thread are incredibly stupid.

For millenia people called their unborn babies he she it or the baby. For millenia this was not an issue until one day a poster suggests mn this is an issue....

Or they 🙂

I am just emerging from thee rock

It is normal. Nothing wrong with pronoun usage whether in infancy or in adulthood.

But of course, I am one of those woke folks who thinks we should live and let live.

Congratulations on your pregnancy, OP, and all best wishes for a safe delivery and healthy baby. They/them are lucky to have such a good mum.

That's evidenced by the number of threads on MN asking "how many scoops of puberty blocker do I mix in my baby's Aptamil?".

My pronoun is not stupid it's cunt. When people see me they say "oi cunt come here". Get it right

I personally totally dislike the use of “they , them” in reference to an individual. It’s just completely against the rule of the English language. I’m NOT English but grew up with English as a second language.

You obviously don't understand the saying if you think it's being derogatory to the person who is the "me" referenced in it.

Cringing for you. And you did the nail polish emoji too. 💀

(You might be overthinking this)

Don't know about that but this thread certainly is.

Just call it 'it' until it's born.

Or carry on as you are and accept you're confusing the hell out of people with that, and your willful misuse of the word 'gender'.

Your call 🤷‍♂️

Back in the day when we had no idea what the baby’s sex would be it was “he, or she” or “the baby”.
My friend had twins so it was always “they/them” because there were two!
Other friends used nicknames.

It actually isn't against the rules of the English language any more than singular you.

English is funny like that, we often use the same pronoun for both singular and multiple referents.

Grammar is not logic and cannot be reasoned like a maths equation - language simply does not work like this.

Oh so it was intentional? Good to know!

I'd rather overthink than underthink tbh 🤭

Sorry but you’re simply wrong. They/them referring to a person of unknown sex is so completely and utterly normal and correct that native English speakers do it without even noticing.

Assuming is kind of like underthinking, isn't it 🤔

Which rule?

We didn't know the sex for ds2 or ds4 but we did for the others. Ds2 was referred to as they/them, the baby, number 2 or little one.

Ds4 was mostly just called he/him because with 3 older brothers it was likely he was a boy too.

It might be grammatically correct, but it's not common parlance now to use they/them to refer to a singular person and that's why people are getting confused.

You can refer to your baby however you want, but you can't control how other people understand you.

It's just a matter of what annoys you more, calling the baby 'it' or 'the baby', or explaining to people what you mean when you say they/them.

Congratulations on your baby, we never find out the sex either!