Be proud of yourselves, parents who “finally revealed child’s gender after five years”. Be as proud of yourselves as you obviously are and don’t worry about the implications of using a CHILD to make your statements. So they didn’t want little boy Sasha to know he was a little boy. No stereotypes. No “slotting people into boxes”. So they did this.
“The big no-no’s are hyper-masculine outfits like skull-print shirts. In one photo, sent to friends and family, Sasha’s dressed in a shiny pink girl’s swimsuit.”
My first concern, of course, is where they got the impression there was something wrong with gender. Please keep all anecdotes at bay, lest we come to the conclusion that all relationships are disastrous and collectively drink the koo-laid.
My second concern is how bad of a job we do at being God. So, THEY of course knew Sasha was a boy and therefore keeping away stereotypes meant keeping away MASCULINE stereotypes. Which resulted in encouraging and embellishing FEMININE stereotypes as a show that being the opposite of what people say you are is empowerment as opposed to futile defiance? And explain to me how this keeps the child from experiencing all those horrible, horrible things that occur in childhood “because of gender”. Can I even pretend they would understand a sociological discussion of what occurs when you introduce someone into an agency of socialization such as public education schooling but whose culture has been purposely marred beforehand so that he is traumatically leaving his home AND being introduced as an alien only he doesn’t know he’s an alien because you acted like this was normal and WHAT PURPOSE DOES THIS SERVE FOR A FIVE YEAR OLD?! If you wanted to make a statement, why didn’t YOU make it?! Sending him to a school with a mixed uniform of a girl’s top and boy bottoms?!
This did not stop the boy from having a gender. Much of gendered behavior is established outside the home, but that’s beside the point. This is basically like my speaking only gibberish to my child for the first five years of his life and then sending him to school. I’m not even able to express all the ways this is unacceptable right now. Absolute foolishness and no amount of smug progessiveness is going to change that. Cheers.
January 20, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Oh my word. I realize it’s tempting to use our children as little sociological experiments, but no. NO, no, no, no, no.
This would have been absurd to try in my own family. From the moment he was born, my son was wired differently from his sisters. Each of them were different from the other, but what made him different was very much a function of his gender and whatever gets programmed into the DNA.
January 20, 2012 at 2:47 pm
WHY do people think this is up to them or should be? And there are some mistakes for which a simple “I’m sorry, kiddo” is not going to suffice.
January 20, 2012 at 2:54 pm
You’re so closed minded, Bethany!
I also feel the need to say that for those people who dislike the drinking, oversexed, sport obsessed man stereotype portrayed by the media, that’s not what masculinity is either. That’s immaturity.
There is a guide for how a man is supposed to behave.
January 20, 2012 at 2:59 pm
WORD.
And for the mother who defended her son’s mixed-gender school uniform decision by saying she wouldn’t do it if it bothered her son… parents are supposed to know BETTER than the child. You’re gonna wait until he knows enough to be pissed off? Thanks, mom. Damage done.