Well I am bit behind the eight ball in getting the next post up, and as it happens plenty of news worthy of comment has happened. One of these days I will find time to catch up on them all, but until then I am at the mercy of my other commitments.
I was left scratching my head at the story of Storm, a four month old baby whose parents are not disclosing the sex of as “a tribute to freedom and choice in a place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...).” In effect, they seek to raise a genderless baby and allow the choice of gender to fall upon the child. The parents, Kathy Witterick and David Stocker have been labelled the most politically correct in the world.
At first glance, the whole thing is a ridiculous notion. At a second glance, not much changes and it remains a ridiculous notion. ‘Political correctness’ is such an inaccurate term. Not only do most politically minded people not think this way, it clearly is not correct. Perhaps ‘socially stupid’ is a more fitting label. The parents believe they are freeing Storm from the societally imposed constraints on males and females. They claim children can make meaningful decisions for themselves from a very young age and have told their children to challenge how they're expected to look and act based on their sex. In addition, they call parents who make choices for their children 'obnoxious', an interesting turn of phrase given the choice they have made for theirs.
What these parents fail to realise is that the feminist ideology that drives their little experiment fails to allow for the vast number of differences that exist between males and females beyond the sexual organs. When God said “Male and female He created them”, He was referring to the entire person. Each of the sexes is hardwired due to differences in hormones, how they respond emotionally, sexually, and physically to a variety of stimuli. Even before a baby is born, prenatal hormones developed in the second trimester of pregnancy affect the behaviour and emotions of the foetus in the womb. Research has shown that after learning to speak, male children tell aggressive stories 87% of the time and females only 17%. In group tasks for children under four, boys will use physical tactics 50 times more than girls. Shifting the whole shebang to gender neutrality will not stop Storm from seeking out children of the same sex to play with in a social setting. It will not stop Storm from displaying certain types of behaviours common to boys or girls down through the ages.
Most disturbing is the freedom of choice given to Storm’s older brothers, Jazz and Kio. From the age of 18 months, these boys have been permitted to choose their own clothes from the store and make decisions about their appearance, again with the parents idea of dismantling gender social constructs. Five year old Jazz, for example, wears a pink dress that he loves because it 'really poofs out at the bottom' and 'feels so nice'. He also wears his hair long and in three braids. Two year old Kio loves purple and keeps his curly blond hair just below his chin. Consequently, most people believe the boys are girls, an assumption the parents do not correct. Instead, they leave that up to the discretion of the boys. Already, other children are keeping their distance, not wanting to play with a “girl-boy”, and Jazz confirms that others reaction over his appearance does upset him. So why inflict this upon the child? Is this not abuse to allow this situation to continue? Set appropriate boundaries along gender lines, allow the boys to be comfortable being boys, and nip the socially isolating discomfort of other children in the bud.
Diane Ehrensaft, a Californian psychologist believes parents should support gender-creative children, but said this case is disturbing. These children "will be unable to position his or herself in a world where you are either male, female or in between,” she said, arguing that they have created another category entirely. Susan Pinker, a psychologist and author of The Sexual Paradox says, “Ignoring children's natures simply doesn’t work. Child-rearing should not be about providing an opportunity to prove an ideological point, but about responding to each child’s needs as an individual.” Quite right, and it is more than obvious that those needs are not being met. Too much responsibility is falling onto the children at an age when they should not be making such decisions. Pinker adds, “Children are curious about their own identity, and are likely to gravitate towards others of the same sex during free play time in early childhood.”
Clearly these fruitloops are attempting to change society and using their children as their instruments. They don’t want to impose the limitations of society on the children, but happily impose their own limitations to prevent them identifying with who they are. The reality is that society has gender roles ingrained in every culture in the world and it is not changing any time soon. Men are the hunters, women the gatherers. Men are the warriors, women the nurturers. Occasionally there are exceptions to the recognised gender roles, but for the most part they are well defined. These children are being set up for failure and I would hope the child protection authorities in Canada are onto this one like a rash.
