Back to make one last comment .....
As I have previously stated, I am in complete disagreement with the decisions that you have and are making regarding your children. I had to come back to make something very clear. I am a long time Junction resident and I can honestly say that I am thankful that my Son is not the same age as any of your children. Simply because I would not want my Son to be playing with a boy who is wearing a dress. I have chosen to rear my Son in a normal way. I don't think society needs to be exposed to you and your absurd ideologies, or your experiments. Just saying ........
First of all, have you considered going back to school. One does not have decisions, one makes decisions. One has beliefs, which might be what you're going for there.
Secondly, unless your son is the Messiah, you do not capitalize "son".
Thirdly, they're raising the child to be genderless, so why did you go straight to "boy in a dress"? That's . . . odd of you.
Thirdly, what do you suppose would happen if your SON played with a boy in a dress? I mean, I'm trying, but I can't quite . . . hmmm . . . .
1. SON plays with boy in dress
2. ?????
3. SON grows up to be a liberal gay atheoislamo terrorist.
I mean, I've spent some time with men who enjoy wearing women's clothing (women wearing men's clothing? totally normal! you may be doing it right now!) and I swear to you, nothing happened. Nothing at all. I did not become gay, I did not feel an urge to blow up any skyscrapers, I did not come down with a terrible dis- wait a minute. That was right before the porphyria kicked in.
Holy fuck, male transvestites cause porphyria! Lock up the children!
Wait, what's that? Oh, right, genetics. My bad. Transvestites do not actually have the power to change my DNA. They are not, in fact, radioactive.
Well, then, I just have nothing. Other than the fact that once you spend a little time around a person different from you, you realize that people are people and it becomes harder and harder to hate based on small differences. And you wouldn't want that for your SON.
Anyway, enjoy this video. It is the story of an elephant and a dog who are best friends. Then think very, very hard about why humans can't get along with other groups of humans, but an elephant and a dog can be the best of friends.
There are a lot of things to get upset about. A boy wearing a dress? It's pretty meh on my meh meter.
ReplyDeleteI think the "boy in a dress" thing comes from the fact that the couples have two other children, one of whom is a boy who likes to wear dresses.
ReplyDeleteThat honestly was my reaction. "So, he's not in a dress setting the school on fire?" Buy him another ballgown and count yourself lucky he isn't doing meth or driving 150mph down the highway.
ReplyDeleteReally, there are just so many ways children can be irritating, and so many ways childrearing can go wrong, that "in a dress" is just not worth talking about.
Of course, I used to get people bitching at me because I let my niece drink out of a champagne flute. I didn't let her drink champagne, mind you, I just let her drink out of the cool glass. Nobody could ever tell me why this was wrong, just that it was and I should stop it right now!
Raising a genderless child sounds amazing and incredibly hard to do. Storm's parents are what I aspire to be. So many parents think that they are not discriminating but still wouldn't let their boy wear a Disney princess dress or give their daughters tinker toys. Hopefully their homeschooling helps protect their children from the stupidity of the general public. If I ever had kids, I would want them to play with those children.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how much work a parent does, society has a way of interfering. "It sets them up for not knowing who they are." Seriously? I think they know who they are then all the little girls forced into dresses. Also, I think Storm will figure out what is going on in the undies.
And how cute is big brother/sister/who-cares Jazz!
I like it, too. I think it's incredibly naive, in that, as you mentioned, societal messages will get through, but it's a good thing, too.
ReplyDeleteI think parents, even very forward thinking ones, don't want to be judged as bad parents and they don't want their children being bullied in school, so they accede to gender norms.
Plus, no matter how hard I tried to keep Disney princesses out of my niece's life while I was raising her, I couldn't stop other relatives from introducing her to them. But I did watch the movies with her and point out all the feminism fails in a very, "aren't they just stupid!" way.
Today, she's 12, loves jewelry and makeup and going to baseball games and is very proud of throwing one heck of a punch thanks to her uncle's tutoring. (Not that she hits people.) Oh, and she's going to Oxford for university.
Hypothesis: Nobody who concludes a statement with "Just saying" followed by a triple ellipsis has ever had anything to say that was worth the electrons it took to display it.
ReplyDeleteI have yet to encounter any evidence against my hypothesis.
(Not that this post was immensely worthwhile, I'll admit, but rrgggh "just saying" makes me stabby.)
I've read various articles about Storm online and what strikes me most is the gnashing fury in the comments.
ReplyDeleteAnd, really, when you boil it right down, being angry that a child isn't gendered equates to saying "I need to know what kind of genitals this baby has! How dare you keep this information from me! I MUST KNOW whether there's a penis or a vagina under that diaper and you have to tell me RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"
Which...I mean...unless you're planning on fucking the kid, why do you need to know so badly?*
It really makes you realize how differently we treat boys from girls when people are that confounded by an ungendered child. But of course the solution to this is to stop treating the sexes differently, not to label everyone so they can be easily categorized!
The other thing that struck me about the comments is all the "Stop forcing your ideology on your child!" stuff. Yes, Storm's parents are forcing their ideology on a kid too young to voice an opinion on the subject...but so are all the parents who give a baby a girl's name and dress it all in pink just because it has a vagina. An infant child doesn't have an ideology yet so the parents kind of have to push theirs by default.
*NB: some people aren't even particular in an about-to-fuck situation. See: pansexuals.
Ok, so since it was Jazz's idea to keep the baby's gender private, this means that if you let boys wear dresses, that makes babies genderless. If Jazz played with Son, Son might come home Neutered! Neuter cooties!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry. I used to live around people like this, and since, you know, spirituality and prayer change things, all SORTS of threatening things are contagious.
I don't see the problem. Storm will decide to be what he/she is when he/she is old enough to do so. Before that Storm is a baby, period. Gender identity isn't exactly a big deal to a kid who hasn't yet developed a theory of mind.
ReplyDeleteI think the parents are a bit weird for making a big deal about keeping it a secret, but hey: we live in a weird world.
I recently read Ilario by Mary Gentle (grandparents got me the book as a birthday present). Can't really recommend the book: I didn't enjoy it, as a whole. But the titular character was a true hermaphrodite, in a medieval setting, which was interesting. He/she cycled between pretending to be male and female throughout the book.
I once tried to write a short story with a gender neutral character.* It's really quite difficult. The english language relies heavily on gender-specific pronouns (Illario was written in first person, avoiding this issue).
*footnote: Speaking of which, said gender-neutral character actually keeps finding his/her way into the background of other stories of mine. Never in a main character role, and not truly gender neutral, but it does swap around a bit: in one story she's female, in another he's male. He/she also always shares a few defining features (thin, blond/e, glasses, introversion) with myself. My stuff could make a psychologist somewhere very rich.
Katie;
ReplyDeletei often say "Just sayin'"
like that. no ellipses [although i grant i overuse ellipses as a whole. wait - is "ellipses" the proper plural of "ellipsis"? it can't be "ellipsises"? can it? Oh, English, you bastard tounge, you. just sayin' :) ]
i'll try to do it less.
i have NEVER understood this whole "what sex does that sexless baby have?" thing. i don't. it's a BABY - anyone sick enough to want to have sex with a baby doesn't CARE about it's gender/sex [which one is correct here? I THINK it's sex?]
i mean - i often say things in a way to allow a parent to tell me the sex of their child, because people get REALLY fucking offended when i say "what a pretty girl" if it's a boy [they get MORE offended when i say "what a pretty boy!" no matter the gender... in truth, i have YET to see an infant who DOESN'T look like Winston Churchill... but if you have any value for your life, you don't say this. EVER.]
and... it's a baby. the epitome of innocence - including sexual innocence. why the FUCK do we have to hang all our fucking baggage on poor defenseless infants from the moment we know their sex?
[my mom and i have not-fights about my niece and nephew that she's raising - i buy matching toys for them. one year, i got them both "armor" and "sword" and "shield" - all plastic - and told my mom [and her husband, who was delighted with the whole thing] that "now they can fight like REAL siblings, but have armor to protect them!" even my mom laughed at that. and the nephew WILL play with dolls, and that niece WILL play with trucks - but, over all, she mostly plays princess faery dress-up and he mostly plays with legos and such, and i DESPAIR over this - because their MOTHER, my stupid-ass-BLONDE-sister, really rigidly enforces gender rolls. when she visits, she'll take a doll away from nephew saying "BOYS don't play with dolls. only girls" and vice versa to niece about trucks [legos she ignores, thankfully]. nothing i - or my mother or her husband - say changes how my stupid selfish self-centered BLONDE sister acts. i keep saying blonde because she's the EPITOME of that stereotype, she works at it and is proud of it - and is trying to turn her 6-year-old daughter into another one.
thankfully, she's so fucking selfish and self-centered, she isn't around enough to REALLY destroy them. except her random comings-and-goings hurt them a lot - and now i'm off topic, sorry]
i hated, absolutely LOATHED "girl toys". i wanted transformers and GI Joes and VOLTRON [i had the giant Voltron, it was so very awesome!]. i tried, often, to "be a boy" - not that i was [or am] trans in any sense, but i was treated BADLY because i was girl, and boys weren't treated badly; they got the cool toys and people didn't hate them for being smart and... my mother hated my tomboyishness.
it's a measure of how MUCH my mother has changed that she DOES buy "boy toys" for niece, and "girl toys" for nephew, if they ask for them - she WOULD NOT buy them for me, and hated me having them [but they were generally from my dad so she couldn't do anything about it]. now, she plays with trucks with niece, and taught nephew how to "feed" the doll and "change" the doll - PROOF! that i raised my mother right :)
also - that video was AWESOME! i'm gonna share it around.
ReplyDelete