Raising a theybie

[HDDD]

A theybie? A theybie?
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/08/parent-raising-gender-free-child

Every time we went to the supermarket she would make a beeline for the aisle with all the dolls and girls toys and get very upset when I told her they weren’t for her

I have no words.

I have, however, met a lot of shop assistants who used to tell my kids that the toy they’d chosen was “for boys”, did they want to put it back and pick up the girls version?

That and “helpfully” guiding them away from the boys aisle with “the girls one’s are over here”.

How can you decide that a 2 year old boy is trans or anything else other than a 2 year old boy just because they prefer playing with dolls.

Friends Ds had a selection of dolls and prams and would often be seen our sporting a fairy outfit.

Friend wouldn’t bat an eyelid. (Childminder who has seen it all before many times)
Friends Ds is in his 20s now and is definitely not trans.
Like everything children play with he grew out of his dolls and fairy costumes and went onto other things.

I am trying to get my head round why a toddlers choice of toys means they must have their body mutilated and their fertility ruined.
It seems so behind the times to have such rigid gender roles and any child not fitting those roles must obviously need correcting.

I used to babysit for a little boy who was very effeminate and played with dolls. He is now a 40 year old gay man. And he’s very happy.

I shudder to think what would happen to him if it was now.

Well! That pose certainly shows you who Doty thinks they are, regardless of observation errors or chosen pronouns. That's the most comprehensive manspreading I have seen in a while! Hides the child too! My what a s/hero!

Wait... the kid's name is Cyril?

Sorry. I am having to reaad it in bite size pieces. It is so fucking self absorbed and irritatingly selfish!

Counter-argument here. www.spiked-online.com/2019/11/18/theybies-raising-alienated-babies/

Nope. Can't read that one either. Infuriating twaddle. I am surprised the reporter made it passed the first paragraph!

@1984looms I think that article hits the nail on the head. I’ve often observed that some people really do not like to think that they are just like everyone else, they have to be special or different in some way or somehow feel the rules don’t apply to them.

Is there any research on how nurseries and childcare facilities, run often by very young women who have made the traditional choice to work with children rather than become engineers or lawyers or carpenters (or whatever), work in this mix?

I have a friend who managed a women's training organisation which was trying to break down gender barriers in STEM training. They offered IT and construction training for women and they also offered a creche for the mothers being trained. Upstairs the feminists were trying to get more women into IT and engineering while downstairs in the creche the nursery staff were still, despite training, giving boys their food on blue plates and girls their food on pink plates. The same with bikes and toys. Girls were taken off the chunky bikes and put onto pink fairy trikes and boys were discouraged from playing with dolls. This was despite all attempts to train the creche workers to be sex and gender blind.

The same goes for primary schools. My SIL retired as the head of a primary school last summer. She's a 1970s feminist and one of her big grumbles was how unconsciously sexist and gendered some of the mainly female young staff were. Her school was in a rural area in a Conservative/ conservative county and so she wasn't under pressure to introduce trans stuff, but she felt she was always having to remind staff to avoid gender stereotyping.

My gal loved boys stuff - all sorts of people used to comment, never in a bad way, but they did assume that she was very clever because of it! She's now 40, a totally heterosexual woman and loves to get her hands on a car engine

@Lottapianos

'Strikingly similar to Susie Green's own story.'

Yes! All seems to start with thinking that your 2 year old boy is gay because of what he likes to play with

I find these stories so weird. My son up until 7 or so loved dolls and playing barbies with his sisters (though often he was Ken) and was into ballet. He sometimes dressed up in dress up princess outfits too.

Now at 10 he will only wear sweatpants, and plays with robot toys, and has given up ballet for rugby and boxing. He still really likes babies though.

Shedbuilder, just a big YES to your whole post. Gender stereotyping is absolutely rife in schools and nurseries. I used to be a HCP working with young children, and visited many schools and nurseries as part of my role. I often had staff members saying stuff about 'typical boys' and it was usually negative, like 'he doesn't listen - typical boy!'. Also not surprised to hear about little girls being guided towards fairy bikes etc. I always challenged this stuff, but the the idea that gendered behaviour is somehow biologically hardwired into children is so hard to shift. It was really depressing

I sometimes had parents of little boys express concern that they loved playing with dolls or teddies or whatever. Again, I always challenged it, and would say that it was really important that their child got to play with what they were interested in, regardless of being a girl or a boy. The mums usually looked relieved, the dads usually looked cynical, but occasionally would accept it, maybe because a professional had told them it was ok. I always felt so sad for the child- what other things were they not allowed to do just because of their sex?

I went on a "raising boys" course run by the local children's centre when DS was about 3 or 4.
I found some parts helpful but they really did stereotype an awful lot and the course leader made jokes that it would all help us understand our husbands better.
One of the examples she gave was that boys only gave affection on their own terms and when they had an ulterior motive. I said I didnt find that to be the case that my DS was a lot freer with giving affection where as DD usually had a favour to ask when she gave me a (allegedly spontaneous) hug. The course leader insisted that I was wrong and that he must have a motive for giving affection and that I probably hadnt worked out what it was!
This was years ago and DS still hugs me several times a day for no apparent reason. He gave me a hug in the street when I was talking to my (chauvinist) neighbour, who said "you dont want to give your mum a hug in the street, what if your friends see, and think you're a mummy's boy?"

That would have annoyed me intensely, @MotherMorph! My son (26) is still living here and frequently gives me a hug.

Crikey @MotherMorph

DH, tapping 60 years old, is a spontaneous hugger, always has been. Just a hug, no reason for it, he's just an affectionate bloke!

'This was years ago and DS still hugs me several times a day for no apparent reason'

Almost like hes an individual with his own personality! I cant bear this idea that all boys are the same, and are inherently different from girls, and vice versa. Its 'Men Are From Mars.....' tripe. That course sounds shocking

If it helps...

I'm a primary school teacher and I work really hard at breaking down stereotypes and ideas of what girls should/shouldn't be or do.

Have to say, I have a job challenging it from other staff members though. I'm mid 40s and the men, early 60s and 20something staff seem to he the worst offenders!

Good work HereComesTheSummer. I think all you can do is challenge it at every opportunity and hope that the seed will be planted in some people's brains at least

Lotta, I think this is a problem that no one is willing to acknowledge because we're feminists and we don't want to knock other women. But let's face it, It's mainly 'traditional' young women with 'traditional' views of what women are good at and what they should enjoy who go into childcare. And most of those young women aren't the high-achieving, questioning, politicised kind.

I'm sure there are some nurseries/ childcare facilities that do try to challenge gender stereotyping. Maybe there's a business opportunity in running a feminist, non-sexist, non-gendered nursery?

My SIL could have retired at 58 but hung on for another few years because she knew that when she retired the school was likely to go woke. She's pleased that Covid-19 has held things up and that in the meantime the tide has begun to turn.

Almost like hes an individual with his own personality! I cant bear this idea that all boys are the same, and are inherently different from girls, and vice versa. Its 'Men Are From Mars.....' tripe. That course sounds shocking

Lots of people had said they found the course really helpful. I appreciated some of the tips but they could have been used for any child, regardless of gender, that fitted the patterns of behaviour they were talking about. It actually annoyed me that I felt like they were almost trying to make boys into a different species. (In a not especially complimentary way) I actually wonder how the dynamic would have been if mums and dads had attended (it was not specifically advertised for mums, but that was the profile of the group)

The child in the Guardian article - I notice they have a very stereotypical boys hair cut with a very stereotypical girls outfit.

Very few three years olds where I live have a ‘short back and sides’ haircut like that. Very few three year olds wear frilly dresses like this on a daily basis.

I Would have thought that someone’s seeking to raise a gender neutral child would had gender neutral clothes and hairstyles. It’s almost as if such things wouldn’t have caused enough attention.

Wouldnt gender neutral clothing just be like spacesuits that people wore in 70s TV shows? Putty coloured with a large V on the front. Ankle boots. Pudding basin haircut.

I Would have thought that someone’s seeking to raise a gender neutral child would had gender neutral clothes and hairstyles. It’s almost as if such things wouldn’t have caused enough attention

Yep, what’s wrong with jeans and a hoodie?

Well gender neutral clothing for a 3 year old in our culture would be anything commonly worn by boys or girls.

So t shirts, jumper, sweat shirts and jackets in bright or neutral colours.
Jeans, shorts, joggers, trainers, crocs, converse, wellies, ankle boots

In fact what many of us wore as children and what I mostly dressed my own children in.

And what many of us are wearing right this very second. I’m wearing a t short and joggers. Yesterday it was trousers and a navy top because I was at work.

Welcome to The world of most British women most of the time.

I wanted to post on precisely this issue. Some communities do have very rigid sex roles (and I'm not talking about ethnic minorities here). I am on a lot of Facebook cooking groups and there are constant questions from women asking what they can feed their menfolk for lunch etc. Suggest a grown man might be able to make his own lunch and they react as if you had said they should make the family dog into a casserole.

It means transgenderism might get some genuine traction among the mass of the population, because the ideology fits so seamlessly with the men-are-from-Mars nonsense.