Androgynous Progeny?

I read an article recently about Egalia, a Swedish preschool that refuses to use gender identifiers when referring to the children enrolled in their program. Instead, children are referred to as "friend" and visitors, such as a firefighter who recently visited as part of a series on careers, are referred to by the made-up pronoun, "hen", instead of the Swedish "han" and "hon" (the equivalent of "he" and "she" in English).

On first thought, I found it kinda weird, but not necessarily a bad idea. The underlying theory is the children are released from the standards and expectations placed on them by society because of their gender. Girls are pretty and boys are strong. Girls wear dresses and boys wear pants. Girls play with dolls and boys play with trucks. These rules do not apply to children at Egalia preschool.

Now, I’m all for raising children with a sense of gender equality. Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you can’t work on cars and just because you’re a boy doesn’t mean you can’t take ballet lessons. But there are definite differences between the sexes and ignoring them won’t make them go away. Inventing new words to describe someone without reference to his or her gender seems like it is just beginning to step over the line from normal to fanatical but it hasn’t yet. (…and frankly, that new word would make writing my college papers seem much less officious.)

So, I moved on and didn’t think much about it until I came across another article about a couple in Canada who are refusing to reveal the gender of their baby, Storm, born in January 2011.

Storm is the third child of Kathy Witterick and David Stocker. Their oldest child, Jazz, is a 5-year-old boy who likes pink dresses and wears his hair long and in three braids. Kio is a 2-year-old boy who chooses to wear his hair chin-length and loves the color purple. Their family co-sleeps on two mattresses pushed together on the floor of their master bedroom and Kathy “unschools” the children at home. (I’ll be doing a whole other article on “unschooling”. – …rolls eyes)

Before Storm was born, the family was challenged when Jazz started preparing to begin school. Children at a park refused to play with the “girl-boy” and a sales clerk refused to sell a pink leather boa to Jazz and his mother because he was a boy. That was when the family decided not only to begin to educate their children at home, but also to keep their new baby’s gender a secret.

“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker.

That may be …but then again, we can usually tell…

The Witterick-Stocker family is not the first family to decide to hide their child’s gender. Two years ago, a Swedish couple hit headlines for refusing to reveal the gender of their two-and-a-half-year-old child. They explained their decision stemmed from the belief that gender is a social construction and not based on biology. These parents believe their child, Pop, is developing self-confidence and a personality free of the limitations of gender bias.

Kristina Henkel, a Swedish gender equality consultant (whatever that is!), said the gender roles inflicted on children distract them from simply being human beings.

Really?!? That requires conscious thought?

I think it’s wonderful that, for the first five years of their lives, these children will enjoy the “freedom” to be able to choose what to wear, what to play with, how to act, what colors to like, and a number of other things that are influenced by gender. But then, they will need to start school and join society.

I have one great big revelation for these extremist parents… KIDS ARE CRUEL!

Children lack the emotional development and impulse control to be polite and composed in the face of anything that is glaringly different from “the norm”. As a suburban parent who regularly brings her children into the city, I can tell you children will blurt out, in the loudest stage whisper they can manage, such wonderful statements as “Mommy, that lady has a beard!” or “Daddy, why is that man wearing a dress?” or “Mommy, why did that man eat the sandwich in the trash can?”

Some of these observations are a result of the dreaded gender training to which we are subjecting our children but some of it is simply because these things are different and children notice things that are different. My kids are just as likely to point out the one-legged pigeon that lives in the train station and the tree down the street that has a face carved into it. They aren’t things they see every day.

In 1978, Lois Gould wrote “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story,” an illustrated and rosy-viewed story of a child raised without gender distinction. This story influenced Witterick and Stocker in their decision to keep their child’s gender a secret. In the story, the child is well-adjusted and intelligent. The other children are accepting and enthusiastic after an initial bout of confusion. The real trouble comes in the shape of the other adults, who are outraged at this genderless child and, apparently, do not know how to behave.

Those of us who dare to have our own opinions or to stand out from the crowd know the cruelty these children will face once they join the rest of the world. They will need to attend college, find jobs, start families and live lives as part of something greater than individuals – the human race. Gender is a basic fact and a part of who they are as individuals. Embrace it and show them it has no bounds. They can still be whoever and whatever they want to be.