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 pretty obvious why it's confusing. You're talking about what's in your stomach, so no one can see whether you're talking about one tiny human or two.

We don't really do gender neutral that well with the English language. Although they/them can be used for unknown gender, gender neutral or non-binary, it can also mean multiple people.

I don't love using 'baby' as a name - how is baby? But it does at least make clear you're talking about one baby, and not triplets...

Yes, as long as you just use the definitions that suit you and ignore the others

pronoun: them
1.
used as the object of a verb or preposition to refer to two or more people or things previously mentioned or easily identified.
"I bathed the kids and read them stories"

used after the verb ‘to be’ and after ‘than’ or ‘as’.
"you reckon that's them?"

referring to a person of unspecified sex.
"how well do you have to know someone before you call them a friend?"

referring to a person whose gender identity does not correspond to the traditional binary opposition of male and female.
"Rowan stopped being a mod on this blog, but we still contact them"

2.archaic
themselves.
"they bethought them of a new expedient"
determiner
informal•dialect
determiner: them
those.
"look at them eyes"

I mean, if you think the baby is in OP’s stomach, you’re coming from a baseline position of being quite confused already.

Disintegration of shared language leads to many instances of alienation. Say “the baby” like any sane person.

Gender and sex don’t generally have the same meaning these days…although ‘gender reveals’ etc are an exception, as the majority of people understand gender to mean the sex of the unborn baby then.

I think it’s perfectly normal to use ‘they’ when the sex is unknown OP. The term is often used this way.

If you don't like "it" just say baby.

So you would literally say ‘the baby’ every time you’re referring to them (them), even if you’ve already said ‘the baby’ once in the sentence so everybody already knows you’re talking about the baby?

That’s like saying, ‘that person from Facebook is coming over at 2 to collect the bunkbeds. That person from Facebook says that person from Facebook doesn’t have anyone to help so can we help that person from Facebook load the van’.

’The sky engineer will be here at 2 and the sky engineer is hopefully going to sort out the internet’

’The Baby is due on 2nd May, I can’t wait to meet the baby and squish the baby’s little cheeks’

Instead of the baby you could say ‘him or her’ or ‘his or hers’, but that’s equally as clunky. Hence the words they/them/theirs exists.

We also kept gender a surprise and came up with a nickname, for example something like peanut. Still refer to my 8 year old as the nickname with my own family, it didn't really stick on DH's side.

I have to agree. I was taught English as a second language in the early 90’s and the use of singular they was drilled into us during the first semester. My mother agrees this was considered standard English grammar when she was first taught it. And that would have been in a rural Northern European village in the 1960’s. An environment as far removed from anything ‘woke’ as possible. 😁

I do understand that everyday spoken language is often different, and singular they may sound stiff in some situations. However, it is grammatically correct.

OP: uses gender neutral pronouns because she doesn't know the sex of her baby.

MN: Why don't you just use a noun instead of a pronoun?

It's like people don't even know what pronouns are and why we use them. I actually think this is likely to be the case, which is a sad indictment of our education system I suppose!

Sympathies, OP. I genuinely don't understand what it is about this that people don't understand. (Unless they speak English as a second language.)

English uses "they" when you don't know their sex. Been like it for ages. Mad that people get so irate about this.

"This person's bill is due."
"Great, I'll let them know."

Fin.

They/them is for when you don't know someone's gender. 'Oh no, someone has left their umbrella on this bench' 'I saw someone in the distance but they were too far away to run after them' it's absolutely fine in this context, as long as you're not offended if someone accidentally thinks you mean multiple babies once in a while (and it doesn't sound like you are!)

For all the 'why don't you just say the baby' posters, it has been well explained many times already on the thread but here's an extract from a workbook I bought for my child. It's aimed at Year 4 👍

We didn't want to know the sex of either of my dc and i found it made it all the more exciting and was a lovely surprise when they were born. Was lovely to phone family and friends after the birth and announce what we'd had. I actually think it's boring and less exciting when people know what they're having. I just remembered referring to bump as the baby, or just bump! and maybe I did use they/them. my dc are teens now so was a while back.

Somebody who thinks babies grow in stomachs must be confused by all kinds of normal speech.

This is the most non-problem I’ve ever heard 🤦🏻‍♀️

You’re wrong.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

I don’t think anyone is being unreasonable here. As a parent of a non binary child who recently decided to use the they/them pronouns it is really hard for people of a certain age. I’m late 40s. When I did grammar at school the they/them pronouns were for multiple people and not one. She or he was used for one. Grammar was really drummed into us. The only times it’s really been used apart from that when I was at school was when the teacher was announcing names for a prize and they wanted to describe the person without revealing gender and would use the the they/them. Also just typing this sentence reminded me it would have been used to refer to a person of unknown gender or where the gender didn’t matter - so I was referring to a teacher and generally they were both male and female and so in this instance I’m referring to teachers in general and not one teacher so I used they for the one person.

I have noticed that the younger generation have less issue with this. My children and their peers are happily changing pronouns themselves or have friends who have done so and they usually get it right consistently. 6 month into my child using the they/them pronouns and I’m still struggling to refer to them in a gender neutral way. I respect their choice and try but often I get the pronoun wrong. To me it is a multiple pronoun.

As for the unborn child. Ours was referred to as something else entirely - such as bump. Pronouns never really came into it. We did know the sex but I was always cautious in case the scan had been wrong. I probably did use ‘it’ as well. I couldn’t get overly hung up about it though.

People have always used "they" as singular when they don't know the sex. It's not a new thing.

No one who constructs sentences like this sounds sane:

"Oh I'm really tired. The baby had me up all night. The baby has really started to kick a lot lately. That probably makes sense since the baby is probably taking after the baby's father with his obsession with football haha."

If you honestly think that's a normal way of talking, I don't think you speak to many people.

Or indeed, by the same logic, someone who finds a lost umbrella:

"Oh deal. Someone has lost an umbrella. The person who lost that person's umbrella is really unfortunate as that person will probably get soaked today with that rain. I hope the person who lost that person's umbrella had a spare one."

There does seem to be a huge number of people who think the very notion of pronouns were invented by Stonewall in the last ten years.

This may be the first time the 2002 Cambridge Grammar of the English Language has been included in the wokerati.

This makes absolutely perfect sense. Saying "he or she is kicking away.." is just awkward and not how people speak! You're perfectly normal OP. Whereas most people on here are batshit.

"We will note that they has been in consistent use as a singular pronoun since the late 1300s; that the development of singular they mirrors the development of the singular you from the plural you, yet we don’t complain that singular you is ungrammatical"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/singular-nonbinary-they

‘They’ has been used as a singular pronoun since the 14th century, OP.
I think you’re okay 😉