Parents forced to reveal child's sex

Annasopra · 22-01-2012 09:47AM

I don't see a problem with raising children in a gender neutral way

yawha · 22-01-2012 10:10AM

mango salsa wrote: »

I don't see a problem with raising children in a gender neutral way

Neither do I. I think the issue here is that, at least from reading that article, it seems a little like the parents attempted to push him towards things society regards as feminine. It is a poorly written article in general though. For example, it's hard to discern from the article whether or not "hyper-masculine" clothing was not preferred by the child or if the parents banned it. The way it's written it appears to be the latter.

tempura · 22-01-2012 10:19AM

Oh ffs, this kind of wanky parenting drives me insane.

Im sure mam and dad will start getting with the programme when young sasha arrives home from school with his tofu sandwich mashed into his face and a black eye.

kupus · 22-01-2012 10:27AM

You can only be so open-minded before your brains fall out.

Poor kid is in for a lifetime of ridicule. Seriously somebody somewhere just.....ah I give up,
maybe our alien overlords will do a better job next time round.

Show Time · 22-01-2012 10:52AM

You need a licence for a dog but any pair of idiots can raise a child.

gbee · 22-01-2012 11:00AM

I don't know the parents in this case.

I do understand the Psychology and it's fine, it should be accompanied by no Santa and no religion too.

However, I suspect one of the parents just wanted another girl.

pickarooney · 22-01-2012 11:15AM

I've never met a female Sasha. All the ones I know are boys. Then again, Sasha is a diminutive of Alexander so it might work for Alexandra as well.

Dudess · 22-01-2012 02:00PM

mango salsa wrote: »

I don't see a problem with raising children in a gender neutral way

I don't think a child's biological make-up should be denied to them, but otherwise, let them express themselves in whatever way they wish. Clearly these parents aren't raising the child in a gender-neutral way though.

Logical Fallacy · 22-01-2012 02:11PM

Dudess wrote: »

I don't think a child's biological make-up should be denied to them, but otherwise, let them express themselves in whatever way they wish. Clearly these parents aren't raising the child in a gender-neutral way though.

Exactly, there is still a lot of influence coming down from the parents, who are not raising their child in a gender neutral way at all...but rather are adopting the term "gender neutral" to hide the fact that they don't want certain things influencing their child.

The fact that their are clothes they do not want him to wear, toys they do not want him to play with and the fact that they told close family members the sex means they will , subconciously, be treating him as they would any other boy.

This child is not being raised gender neutral because to do that you need to be completely beyond the concept of gender based social constructs and these parents are obviously mired in them up to their eyeballs.

Good money says if the child was born a girl then she would be allowed to wear cargo pants and t-shirts with skulls on them...as they child is born a boy any desire to do so would appear to masculine to the parents.

Pile of ****.

Jumpy · 22-01-2012 02:16PM

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

Sasha is a masculine gender name. Russian, I believe. I find it odd when people give the name to their daughter.

Oh my god ... who touched Sasha? WHO TOUCHED MY GUN?!

juan.kerr · 22-01-2012 02:19PM

Sounds like they wanted a girl and are working through a plan to get the kid to request a sex change, possibly fincanced by the state?

Paddy Cow · 22-01-2012 02:21PM

gurramok wrote: »

I worked with a bloke called Sasha before, its quite a common name in Ireland and Euroland for blokes.

I've only met one Sasha in Ireland. I work with two russian guys who were both called Alexander. One got called Alex and the other Sasha.

Yahew · 22-01-2012 02:38PM

gbee wrote: »

I don't know the parents in this case.

I do understand the Psychology and it's fine, it should be accompanied by no Santa and no religion too.

However, I suspect one of the parents just wanted another girl.

Human's like all other mammals have pre-programmed sexual differences. There are sometimes cultural amplifications of this - as humans have culture to a much larger extent than any other primates - but, like every single animal in nature we have significant sexual differences at birth. Humans do not come into the world gender neutral.

SeanW · 22-01-2012 03:14PM

This is the most ****ed up thing I've ever read!

This poor child should be taken from his stratospherically deranged and insane parents. And renamed a very manly name. And given lots of Tonka trucks, toy guns and hard rock T-Shirts.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 22-01-2012 03:50PM

SeanW wrote: »

This is the most ****ed up thing I've ever read!

This poor child should be taken from his stratospherically deranged and insane parents. And renamed a very manly name. And given lots of Tonka trucks, toy guns and hard rock T-Shirts.

Playing devil's advocate a bit, here, I know, but... isn't that also forcing a gneder-identiy...?

Irish Guitarist · 22-01-2012 04:07PM

I love how they say they let him wear whatever he likes except for masculine clothes like cargo pants (which aren't even that masculine, plenty of girls wear them).

When I was about fifteen I bought a t-shirt with a picture of a silver peacock on it. I really liked it but my sisters said it looked too feminine. I went back and exchanged it for a Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine t-shirt with a picture of a smiling penis.

juan.kerr · 22-01-2012 04:10PM

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Playing devil's advocate a bit, here, I know, but... isn't that also forcing a gneder-identiy...?

I think you missed the posters point...he means this to help reverse the damage already done.

saa · 22-01-2012 04:14PM

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Playing devil's advocate a bit, here, I know, but... isn't that also forcing a gneder-identiy...?

I think it is, I'm not buying it as it seems like they decided what he would be allowed to wear for the rest of his childhood well before he could walk, just as bad imo.
The kid is wearing dresses, "girly" colours and beads from his older sister, so they let her "choose" hmmm they seem a bit too proactive to let this happen.
anywho..
What happened to putting children in gender neutral clothes, it used to be a mad colourful jumper, cotton t shirt and some cords or shorts and little runners, the problem is today that childrens clothes are just miniature adult fashions even so you can teach your child about gender issues without doing this, some little boys will go towards wanting more feminine clothes that's not for the parents to decide or overly influence

Neeson · 22-01-2012 04:17PM

He wore a girl's swimsuit, but would there not be a bulge where his balls are?

El Siglo · 22-01-2012 04:18PM

The best comment made on that article:

A good parent is one you don't need to recover from.

They're fucking idiots, this is as bad as that Canadian couple that had a child called "Storm" and were raising 'it' as gender neutral.

juan.kerr · 22-01-2012 04:20PM

Neeson wrote: »

He wore a girl's swimsuit, but would there not be a bulge where his balls are?

No, they felt so emasculated by the parents behaviour that they self inverted.

Dudess · 22-01-2012 04:21PM

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Playing devil's advocate a bit, here, I know, but... isn't that also forcing a gneder-identiy...?

juan.kerr wrote: »

I think you missed the posters point...he means this to help reverse the damage already done.

I think he was just messing.

Rasmus · 22-01-2012 04:24PM

Why do people think they know best about identity and social issues just because its their child? Sasha was born a boy and they should let him be that way unless he expresses interest otherwise.

One of the key skills of being a supportive parent means allowing your child to be themselves. There is nothing wrong with a boy being a boy and identifying with 'feminine' interests, or a girl being a girl identifying with 'masculine' interests.
They may think they're liberating him, but in fact they're sending a message that he can't be a boy and also be an unexpressed female element of himself.

Of course, we can't judge others' parenting skills - but hey, they allowed their personal lives become a discussion on the world stage.

Solair · 22-01-2012 04:25PM

Looking at that image, I think the parents are definitely imposing very feminine clothes on that kid. They are not being gender-neutral at all.

Just thinking about it, the majority of male clothes, other than maybe business suits, are 100% transferrable to women. I mean, if I look through my wardrobe it's mostly jeans, cargo pants, baggy shorts for the gym, t-shirts, shirts, etc. There's really very little in there, other than business suits, that a 6'3" woman couldn't wear. OK, they might not be glamorous, but in general, I wouldn't really notice if a woman was wearing 'man clothes'.

I also think men's clothes are probably a lot more colourful than they were say in the 1950s. So, it's hard to describe them as stereotyped anymore.

Female clothes however can go into a very feminine, female-only style that is absolutely not transferrable to men, without being a cross-dresser.

Unless you're dressing your son in a suit and tie, I don't really see how his clothes could be anything other than fairly gender-neutral. The same could not be said for a lot of girls' clothes.

I think perhaps, if you wanted to avoid gender-stereotyping, it would be more important to look at things like sports, toys, etc.

I've actually come across a parent actively discouraging her daughter from taking an interest in cars! It seemed a bit ridiculous to me. I don't see anything odd/strange about a woman who is interested in engineering. I know plenty of them! In fact, some of the biggest techie nerds I know are female.

I just think you should let kids be kids and play with / do whatever they're into (as long as it's not physically dangerous!).

Everyone's different and everyone will have their own interests and I think the worst thing you can do is shoe-horn someone into a stereotype of what they should do.

I think these parents are doing EXACTLY that with their son. Just let him figure himself out and stop trying to impose your view of the world on him.

juan.kerr · 22-01-2012 04:27PM

Dudess wrote: »

I think he was just messing.

:eek: Aren't we all?

It's not as if the parents are following the thread and will change their behaviour because of it...

Solair · 22-01-2012 04:30PM

juan.kerr wrote: »

:eek: Aren't we all?

It's not as if the parents are following the thread and will change their behaviour because of it...

They'll find it if they Google the article though!

Lawliet · 22-01-2012 04:41PM

Yahew wrote: »

Human's like all other mammals have pre-programmed sexual differences. There are sometimes cultural amplifications of this - as humans have culture to a much larger extent than any other primates - but, like every single animal in nature we have significant sexual differences at birth. Humans do not come into the world gender neutral.

Humans aren't pre-programmed to associate's pink sparkly things with being female though.

A lot of people in this thread seem to be confusing sex with gender. One of them is biological, the other is a rather out dated and arbitrary set of social characteristics we use to distinguish the two sexes.
Now I don't fully agree with how these parents went about it, but I do admire their wish to protect their child from gender stereotyping in a society that calls a five-year-old a freak for wearing pink and playing with dolls.

SeanW · 22-01-2012 04:44PM

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Playing devil's advocate a bit, here, I know, but... isn't that also forcing a gneder-identiy...?

I think nature already forced the gender identity, I only suggest that he be raised as a boy, not some kind of gender neutral girly-man which his looney tune parents seem to be after.

I'm only half-joking btw. This is borderline child abuse.

Yahew · 22-01-2012 06:36PM

Lawliet wrote: »

Humans aren't pre-programmed to associate's pink sparkly things with being female though.

A lot of people in this thread seem to be confusing sex with gender. One of them is biological, the other is a rather out dated and arbitrary set of social characteristics we use to distinguish the two sexes.
Now I don't fully agree with how these parents went about it, but I do admire their wish to protect their child from gender stereotyping in a society that calls a five-year-old a freak for wearing pink and playing with dolls.

Pink is largely a red-herring, and largely feminists bring it up because pink ( I am guessing a redish pink) used to be for male children, and blue ( i think light blue) was for female children about 100 years ago, that has changed. That does not mean that sexual differences have changed.

These "social characterestics" are based, largely, on biological differences, as are the same differences across the animal kindgom. In fact humans are more sexually dimorphic than many animals and that was clearly going to affect how human culture evolved.

ColeTrain · 22-01-2012 06:52PM

So they didn't refer to their son as "him" or "her" even. They referred to their child as "it" or "yeah that's my thing there in the dress playing football". Fkin sadists.

Parents forced to reveal child's sex

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