It’s interesting that they have gone so public about keeping the baby’s gender private. They are asking for lots of unnecessary gender related attention from their community. Gender conscious attention could be very confusing and upsetting. Actually I think asking kids to be secretive about anything is upsetting and confusing. Unless these kids are raised in isolation they will have eventual unsupervised contact with the outside world. A gender neutral name and haircut would have been fine but publicizing the baby’s gender neutrality will cause a sensational amt of gender attention. This kid could grow up believing that gender is of the utmost importance since it causes the most attention. They may be defeating the whole purpose of their experiment. When I met a child who isn’t obviously boy or girl I don’t rudely inquire their sex. The kid could have had a more gender-less environment without the sensational publicity.
I have to agree. Keeping secrets is wrong. Of course it works now because they are all young but as they age it will become an issue. What if they go to school? They will have contact to the outside world. There are many forms and such that ask if you are male or female. People aren’t going to care if he says to them: I don’t know my mom won’t tell me , or its none of your business.
Its just the way the world is.
You can easily tell people you have a son but let him dress up or put on nail polish. I see it everyday. Doesn’t affect the child if he knows he’s a boy.
I think the experiment is wrong on all levels because then your keeping secrets from your family in general. I think too its an experiment that will eventually go bad. You just can’t avoid who God made you to be. Girls and boys have different brains and science has proven that time and time again. You can’t escape that no matter what you do.
I actually heard an interview on a local radio station. They don’t force there other children to keep the gender a secret. According to her they are free to tell people if they so desire, but It sounds like there eldest son had a lot of issues with his gender and they have I guess chosen this route to avoid those problems. I don’t know. It me it sounds more likely to cause a lot more attention upon the child and even more social issues. But then again I would not allow my 5 year old boy to have braid pig tails so perhaps I’m just ignorant when it comes to this stuff. I think God created woman and men with the intentions that they are different and that’s good. If my step daughter wants to play trucks, or my son wants to watch Tinkerbell, feel free! However if my son started wanting to wear pink dresses to the mall and my stepdaughter wanted a buzz cut I would put my foot down and not allow it.
This story reminds me of a fiction book I read a few years ago called Maybe Baby
http://www.amazon.com/Maybe-Baby-Tenaya-Darlington/dp/0316000752
Crazy. I saw it on the news a few days ago. I agree with everyone in that it is drawing way more attention to the issue of gender than making it a non-issue as they are hoping.
I personally thought I would be open minded about my son and what he wanted to play and dress like. I even bought him a baby doll and a high chair. He has a kitchen set and a Cinderella play phone that I bought 2nd hand. I really thought I was on the way to being okay with gender - I thought I didn’t see things as being a boy toy or a girl toy…until the day we looked at bicycle helmets. My adorable little boy wanted the pink helmet with a princess on the front. I kiboshed it. Then he turned his sights on the purple one with sparkling butterflies all over it. “Yikes!” I thought - “I’m not ready to be open-minded”.
We bought a black one with blue and silver racing stripes on it.
So, I guess I’m one of the many people this family would like to convince and win over.
I remember the discomfort on peoples’ faces when I told them I was a vegan in college. Especially people at church. As if for some reason my food choice was offensive to them. Or the comments people made about my mother home-schooling my siblings and I. “What our schools aren’t good enough for you?” I heard one of my one woman say once.
So for that I say, let them bring up their children the way that they see fit. They obviously aren’t trying to damage them. They are trying to raise them the best way that they see fit. And something obviously happened to their oldest child to cause them to want to create this type of environment for their youngest child. I applaud them for caring enough about their children to take a stand on something whether or not I agree with it.
That being said, my opinion on the subject of gender neutrality is as follows:
The truth is the truth. Either a child is a boy or a girl (in almost all cases). I believe in teaching children the unique and wonderful qualities of their gender, instead of pretending that they are generic. Working with ones specific gifts and talents and qualities, and learning to appreciate them for what they are is healthy and builds self confidence.
It is important to remember that the egg did not come before the chicken. No one sat down and made a list of things that boys should like and girls should like for the world to abide by, such as pink must only be for girls and toy cars must only be for boys. These are things that each respective gender is naturally drawn to. For example girls are naturally more nurturing and have the ability to bear children and they like to play with dolls. Before there were toy dolls, little girls would make dolls out of dish rags or corn husks. And yes we encourage this naturally occurring desire to nurture by buying them dolls. But we don’t force them to play with dolls. Quite the opposite. But we don’t necessarily offer toy trucks to little girls either. Why would we, most girls wouldn’t want to play with them.
If this family has two boys who are both asking to have long hair and wear braids without being prompted to do so, they are the exception and not the rule. I wonder why a little boy would want to have braids in their hair. Do they admire a female in their life who wears braids in their hair? Do they have an interest in Native American culture? Or are do they think they are girls? I bet there is a logical explanation, and I think that a heart to heart discussion with a child about whatever it is that they want to do (that is incongruent with the norms of gender in our society) would reveal that the child does not in fact have gender confusion, but that they have another reason for wanting that thing.
It is possible that this family is trying to create a gender neutral environment and may be creating a gender confusing environment. Not to mention an environment where gender distinction is something to be ashamed of. This is frightening to me, but I don’t think that this is their intention, and I am not an expert so, take my opinion is only my perception.
I heard on a breakfast TV program this morning that a preschool in Sweden now forbids identification of gender. No-one is allowed to use terms for the kids like “him” and “her” or “his” and "hers’. Seriously, if they want to make us genderless they need to chop our private parts off and give us hormone anti-therapy to stop us being male or female, and thinking male or female. From what I have experienced, boys tend towards cars and guns and girls towards dolls and pink things. What are they trying to do? Deliberately confuse people as to their gender and sexuality? I think there is enough confusion these days without social experimenters causing more. This is no diffferent to scientists using babies as guinea pigs many years ago to test their theories and totally damaging those kids psyches in the process. (Dont allow affection, see what happens. Oops…they die). The only children that could rightfully be not called him or her (“it” perhaps? Does that sound nice?) would be hermaphrodites. Yet it would still seem horrible for those unfortunates to not be assigned a gender.
I read a wonderful inspiring story called ‘A Child Called X’ a few years ago, which seems to be what these people are trying to do. In the story the child is tested and found to be the most physchologically normal and well balanced in the school. Unfortunately, that is a STORY! I just don’t see it happening in real life.
I think it is important not to force children to like something because we think it is what they should like, but a very good example of the psychological make-up of boys is found in my son. I refused to buy him anything transport based as a toy, barring a traditional train set and a clicking car track. I did this because I felt that there is too much focus on transport as the only thing boys can be interested in. I bought lots of animals and dinosaurs and traditional gender-neutral toys, like blocks and instruments and a kitchen.
But despite this, he has become as transport-obsessed as the next boy. And now that he’s showing an interest, I am more than happy to buy him cars, or whatever he chooses. In fact, I bought him two cars today 
I think it is great to let the child lead the interest, and not to force gender lines (I wouldn’t object if my son wanted to take ballet, for example) but forcing a child to be genderless… I can’t see it doing any good. Maybe they’ll proove us all wrong!