Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Canadians Kathy Witterick and David Stocker are raising their youngest child, Storm, to be "genderless."
As Canadian parenting site ParentCentral reports, the only people who know whether Storm is male or female are Storm’s brothers, a close family friend and the two midwives who helped deliver the baby in a birthing pool at their Toronto home. Although, later in the story we learn that the family has traveled to Cuba and to Mexico (to hang out with Zapatistas and no I am not joking), so I assume the passport office might also have an indication of Storm's parts.
“We’ve decided not to share Storm’s sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm’s lifetime (a more progressive place? …)," the parents wrote in an email announcing the baby's birth. The father teaches at an alternative school and frames his lessons around class, race and gender.
The parents, for their part, are hoping their child will choose its gender, with no mind to genitalia or social norms. They think that if they delay that announcement, the baby might be old enough to decide its gender on its own. The older brothers are encouraged to dress and act in highly feminine ways. Did I mention that one brother writes poems under the name "Gender Explorer"? And that he's afraid to go to school because of the way other children interact with him? How is this not child abuse?
By the way, when I wrote about this elsewhere, a commenter was deeply upset that I was critical of these parents. Her argument -- which actually doesn't even begin to deal with the apparent problems with this family -- was that "gender is a social construction."
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Comments :
Apr '11
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
I personally think this is utterly ridiculous, but, oh well, people can be stupid on their own time if they want to.
May '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Such decadance. What an unfortunate name to give to a child, too. How any parent would let their kids come under the pedagogy of the genderless David Stocker astounds. This is progressivism at its self-parodying worst.
Aug '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Oh brother, do I feel for those kids.
Mar '11
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
The wetness of water is a social construction too.
I feel sorry for those kids and all the confusion that this is going to cause, but on the other hand, they'll have the unique experience of growing up with their own parents. That is assuming the parents grow up.
May '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Wow! I'm sure I heard this as a joke when I was a kid - on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, maybe?
"Is the baby a boy or a girl?"
"We're going to let it grow up and decide for itself!"
History repeats as farce.
Feb '11
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Shrug.
Darwin will correct this sort of idiocy.
Jun '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
I am typically against state intervention in parent-child relationships (sexual and physical abuse being my major exception), but his one comes close to the line.
In the end, I think it is idiotic parenting, but probably not of the type that should cause state intervention. I wouldn't want the left to turn this around and agree with Richard Dawkins that teaching one's children religious principles is a form of child abuse.
These folks need some basic education on the X and Y chromosones.
And Iove the "gender is a social construction" argument. It's a mindless platitude that the class, race, and gender crowd use in place of real argument based on real facts.
Apr '11
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
It gets worse. Their two boys are named Jazz and Kio.
Sep '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
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.
Poor kid.
These parents are sick.
May '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Dan IV
It gets worse. Their two boys are named Jazz and Kio. · May 24 at 6:16pm
Jazz, Kio, and Storm. That's what one names their pets, not their children.
Jul '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
I've told this anecdote here before, but:
My one and only liberal friend - practically a surrogate daughter - married a metrosexual liberal boy and they proceeded to have three boys of their own.
When we visited them, the first boy was about 4 years old and we noted that he was playing with a pink plastic tea set.
Heidi, my friend, seeing me look somewhat askance at a boy muttering to himself as he poured imaginary tea to imaginary friends from a pink tea set, explained, "We just don't want him to be locked into a gender stereotype."
That's what a wildly-expensive education at Holyoke will do for an otherwise smart, level-headed young woman.
Apr '11
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
It is interesting, and perhaps instructive, that the group of people who claim gender, class, and race are simply "social constructs" are willing to arrange their entire political philosophy around these things. somewhat ironic when you stop to think about it.
Apr '11
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
May '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
What are they doing? Jazz? A travesty - this is a game for them.
Jun '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Kenneth:
When we visited them, the first boy was about 4 years old and we noted that he was playing with a pink plastic tea set.
Heidi, my friend, seeing me look somewhat askance at a boy muttering to himself as he poured imaginary tea to imaginary friends from a pink tea set, explained, "We just don't want him to be locked into a gender stereotype."
My grandsons play with a pink tea set too. They use it as the targets for their Nerf dartguns (after they get tired of shooting me in the butt).
Edited on May 24, 2011 at 6:33pmMay '10
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Congratulations to Kathy Witterick and David Stocker. The couple gave birth to a 2.92 kilogram serial killer at their home in Toronto last month. The genderless child is joined by "brothers" Jazz, a future manic depressive and the bipolar Kio. Kio has indicated his desire to visit Buffalo and smuggle explosive devices into Canada.
The parents said that they would support all their children in any endeavor as "mass murder," "kleptomaniac" and "drug addict" are just social constructs.
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Gender is a term of art in grammar. It was first used with regard to human beings in the 1960s. It carries with it a certain political baggage: its use implies that one thinks that the biological differences between the two sexes hardly matter at all and that differences between the two pertaining to patterns of conduct and outlook are purely cultural and have nothing at all to do with underlying biological differences.
I cannot imagine a sane parent who has at least one girl and at least one boy buying into this. We build those differences that reflect culture and are in some measure arbitrary on those that reflect biology. Culturally, we have the freedom to exaggerate or to understate sexual differences, but we cannot escape them, and the notion that they are not there or are not fundamental is insane.
The proper term when applied to human affairs is sex, not gender. The differences between men and women are not arbitrary in the same way that the decision to make the word for tree in a given language feminine as opposed to masculine is.
Jan '11
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Baby also being raised "parentless".
Mar '11
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
How did these people figure out how to reproduce in the first place?
I hope the poor kid doesn't choose "wrong" one.
Re: Baby Being Raised "Genderless"
Matthew Bartle: Wow! I'm sure I heard this as a joke when I was a kid - on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, maybe?
"Is the baby a boy or a girl?"
"We're going to let it grow up and decide for itself!"
History repeats as farce. · May 24 at 6:10pm
It reminded me of how I used to joke (when a sibling was pregnant and I was asked about the sex of the unborn child) that I wasn't sure yet if I'd be an aunt or an uncle this time.