In an e-mail, Ms Witterick wrote that the idea that "the whole world must know what is between the baby's legs is unhealthy, unsafe, and voyeuristic".Hey, lady, no one would even be thinking about — ugh! — what's between your baby's legs if you hadn't made a media event out of it.
And as for performing an experiment in gender identity, even assuming it's okay to perform a socio-political experiment on a baby, you haven't controlled the conditions. By calling special attention to the child, you've made his environment abnormal. Why didn't you quietly and seemingly casually do all these gender-neutral things and then, later, reveal what you learned?
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Althouse said, "Why didn't you quietly and seemingly casually do all these gender-neutral things and then, later, reveal what you learned?"
I love the questions AA asks that are already answered by her placement of the question itself.
It's the '70s all over again.
We should be happy to see ideological couples such as this exposing the fundamental error of approach in all gender issues -- either "gender" is a choice, or it is not.
Queer Studies programs in multiple universities proclaim that ALL gender is a socially-determined choice.
How then can homosexual activists claim their right to "rights" based upon immutable biological imperative.
You cannot have it both ways, lefties.
Maybe the genitalia is ambiguous, and will require future assignment.
Maybe Mom is a drama queen looking for a lucrative contract in a reality TV show.
Maybe it's Sunday morning, and I have nothing to do, but make snarky comments about someone's personal life.
Because this has nothing to do with the baby's gender and everything to do with "Look at me. Look how enlightened I am, striking a blow against the patriarchy(insert other here)."
I hate to burst their bubble, but that baby totally looks like a boy. Do they really think that boys and girls are indistinguishable when clothed?
It's a boy. Let's admit it. Let's stop playing this ridiculous charade as if none of us can tell what the sex of that child is.
DA Munroe: I hate to burst their bubble, but that baby totally looks like a boy. Do they really think that boys and girls are indistinguishable when clothed?
They should have put a paper bag over their baby's head.
"Who's the father?"
"The Unknown Comic."
Some parents think that everything their child does and all the choices he makes are a reflection on them. They relive their life through their children. This is just a new version of that.
Of course, there are lots of old paintings of children where it's hard to tell if the child is a boy or a girl, because both sexes used to wear dresses.
If the parents are trying to shield their child from what they consider to be the pernicious influence of gender stereotyping, then all I can do is shrug and say I hope it works out for the best.
I can't help being reminded, however, of an extreme tragic case of a child who was victimized by a quack who believed that gender identity is basically learned, and not inherent:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
WV: mistal.
Seems like this would result in your child feeling ashamed at showing characteristics stereotypical of his or her gender. Rather than take gender out of the equation, this approach seems to make gender to centerpiece of life.
In the longer articles, note the five year old's preoccupation with gender issues.
One of his favourite books is 10,000 Dresses, the story of a boy who loves to dress up. But he doesn’t like being called a girl. Recently, he asked his mom to write a note on his application to the High Park Nature Centre because he likes the group leaders and wants them to know he’s a boy.
Jazz was old enough for school last September, but chose to stay home. “When we would go and visit programs, people — children and adults — would immediately react with Jazz over his gender,” says Witterick, adding the conversation would gravitate to his choice of pink or his hairstyle.
That’s mostly why he doesn’t want to go to school. When asked if it upsets him, he nods, but doesn’t say more.
Instead he grabs a handmade portfolio filled with his drawings and poems. In its pages is a booklet written under his pseudonym, the “Gender Explorer.” In purple and pink lettering, adorned with butterflies, it reads: “Help girls do boy things. Help boys do girl things. Let your kid be whoever they are!”
Jazz clearly identifies as a boy and wants others to identify him as a boy, but his parents have not socialized him on how to accomplish this. Perhaps he even feels that his parents especially approve of his doing stereotypically girlie things, and so, he is torn.
I understand what these people are trying to accomplish, but I think this approach is a poor one.
The hubby or significant other is hen-pecked.
They're special, their kids will fight biology.
Hard-wired evolution & all those multimillions of science research will be proved false by this family. Boys & girls do not learn differently or play differently.
Would I want my child to marry 1?
Look at me, look at me!
R the grandparents "supportive" or keeping their mouths shut so they can see the kids?
The rumor I heard was they want to raise him as a closeted gay.
I've been following this from the beginning and have read dozens of articles and opinion pieces on it. I'm rather surprised at how much it still completely irritates me. It feels like self indulgent navel gazing of the metaphorically fat and content with nothing much real to worry about. They've already manufactured unnecessary social problems for their eldest child, which to me is the bigger travesty than the silly and unsustainable mystery baby.
When the baby starts peeing on things, I think I will get a clue on the gender.
So it's obviously a boy, isn't it?
Having and raising children to advance, confirm and conform to an extreme political or social agenda is surely within the definition of evil. This is surely no better than the Nazi Aryan breeding program, the Hitler Youth or the multiple Communist youth indoctrination programs.
"They fuck you up, your mom and dad/They may not mean to but they do/They fill you up with the faults they had/And add some extra just for you." I wonder if it occurs to these parents that being raised in an air of hothouse publicity and indeterminate sexuality might be as bad for a child's development as being given a GI Joe doll.
Freeman Hunt: Seems like this would result in your child feeling ashamed at showing characteristics stereotypical of his or her gender.
Much more likely to drive the parents nuts when the kid turns his blocks into a gun or her blanket into a doll.
Golly. I thought this variety of idiocy was long dead.
What is the kid supposed to say when, a couple years down the line, another kid asks "Are you a boy or a girl"? What is s/he to do when there are boys' and girls' restrooms at school? And what sort of parents would inflict this amount of confusion and misery on their own child?
The last question is purely rhetorical.
wv: patorig. I shit you not.
The parents are modeling behavior for the kids, and that is the behavior the kids will adopt. There's no such thing as a true neutral. It doesn't exist. The kids will end up behaving in the way their parents teach them, whatever they call it.
From About a Boy with Toni Collette and Hugh Grant:
Fiona: He's expressing himself!
Will: No, he's not! He's expressing YOU!
They got what they wanted - everybody in the world knows who they are.
And the kid will be hearing about it for years.
How is this not child abuse?
This is Canada.
The Canucks recently fined a comedian $15,000 for doing the Don Rickles bit on a pair of lesbians making out in front of the stage at a comedy club.
The comedian earned a 50 buck bar tab for his performance that night.
If you don't want to make a big deal out of something, you follow the societal norm. These people didn't. It's simple and clear but some are extremely adept at monumentally confusing issues.
I agree totally. When I read that article it almost made me mad. Someone needs to do an investigation on that family. The very fact that he is a boy makes him different from a girl. At 5 and 2, the ages of the other kids, someone has to be calling attention to fact that pink is even a choice as is going into the girl section and saying you can choose a dress if you like. The choices are being guided by these parents. It seems to me the better choice is just to ok their choices, but never to lead them into choices.
I wonder if it occurs to these parents that being raised in an air of hothouse publicity and indeterminate sexuality might be as bad for a child's development as being given a GI Joe doll.
Worse. This will be one fucked up kid/adult.
As RuyDiaz said in a post the other day, "many conservatives don't believe in evolution, many liberals don't believe in the implications of the theory." I would argue with the part about conservatives, but a huge percentage of liberals look at the results of millions of years of biological and social evolution with outrage, "this is so unfair, wrong, bias, etc."
It's reality. The better you can cope with it the better your life will be, spitting in the face of reality isn't coping.
You don't tug on superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don't mess around with...
When my daughter was an infant and toddler, I rarely dressed her in girlie clothing with lace and ribbons or stuck a stupid bow on top of her bald head. Mainly because she was sensitive to the scratchy lace and broke out in rashes; and because it was easier and more practical for warmth to dress in tee shirts and padded knee Oshkosh overalls.
It had nothing to do with gender bending but rather with practicality. Those types of clothing were warmer, more protective during play time and lasted longer when washed over and over.
Many people would automatically assume that she was a boy because of the clothing and say...."Oh. What a darling baby, how old is he." I just gave up and said "Thank you....6 months."
As she got older we transitioned into more girly clothing (less scratchy ruffly lace as is on infant clothing) and from age 2 she picked out whatever she wanted to wear and whatever she wanted to play with, which generally became Hello Kitty, dolls, stuffed kitties and puppies, balls and lots of pink and purple clothing. I didn't guide her choices other than being the purchaser $$$.
To make a big deal about gender, as these people are doing, is all about THEM and is seriously harming their child. It borders on child abuse.
I'm a boy, I'm a boy
But my ma won't admit it
I'm a boy, I'm a boy
But if I say I am I get it
Dark Eden: How is this not child abuse?
Because most of what parents do to their kids is of no importance. People used to wrap their babies up like mummies (swaddling clothing) and hang them on a hook all day while they went about their business.
You call these "parents"?
Slap 'em around - SLAP 'EM AROUND!
Spoot the loon. She is so nuts it is news I guess.
Trey
Crack - you wanna bet these parents are into NEW AGE?????
Bart Hall, up-thread, gets to the nub of it all from the public-policy stand-point..
I think they should move to Cuba and try all their stuff there is the great equalizer of all things.
(They love Cuba.)
The communistas in Cuba have created the great equalizer society is what I meant to say but didn't.
Parenting License- DENIED. Mandatory sterilization for both of these morons.
One night about ten years from now these parents will be stabbed to death in their sleep. When the police arrive their blood drenched child will deny guilt claiming that the other personality did it, the "bad one".
Trump should go after the kid's birth certificate.
I'd bet money that child is male.
Bart Hall at 09:00AM,
Sadly you are mistaken. Lefties can have it as many ways as it takes to portray them as always right, no matter how ridiculous.
LOL, you're right, of course, mariner (palm slaps forehead) Lefties ALWAYS want to have it ALL ways regardless of the facts, science, etc: "Reality?--SURELY you jest."
It's all about the NARRATIVE, that's all that REALLY matters..
The Canadian government will be tripping over its own vaginadick to give these fools grant money to continue this experiment into gender identity and generally fucking up your own kid without an iota of consequence.
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