“Slap me now” story of the day: Raising your kids to be “genderless”

You know, I was getting to the point where I really thought that I had pretty much seen and heard it all. But, alas, I was wrong:

β€œSo it’s a boy, right?” a neighbour calls out as Kathy Witterick walks by, her four month old baby, Storm, strapped to her chest in a carrier.

Each week the woman asks the same question about the baby with the squishy cheeks and feathery blond hair.

Witterick smiles, opens her arms wide, comments on the sunny spring day, and keeps walking.

She’s used to it. The neighbours know Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby. But they don’t pretend to understand it.

While there’s nothing ambiguous about Storm’s genitalia, they aren’t telling anyone whether their third child is a boy or a girl.

The only people who know are Storm’s brothers, Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2, a close family friend and the two midwives who helped deliver the baby in a birthing pool at their Toronto home on New Year’s Day.

β€œWhen the baby comes out, even the people who love you the most and know you so intimately, the first question they ask is, β€˜Is it a girl or a boy?’” says Witterick, bouncing Storm, dressed in a red-fleece jumper, on her lap at the kitchen table.

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

Uh huh. Ideally, we inquire in so many words as to what’s between someone’s ears when we meet them, and in the case of these parents, apparently it’s not much.

Continuing:

When Storm was born, the couple sent an email to friends and family: β€œWe’ve decided not to share Storm’s sex for now β€” 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? …).”

Their announcement was met with stony silence. Then the deluge of criticisms began. Not just about Storm, but about how they were parenting their other two children.

The grandparents were supportive, but resented explaining the gender-free baby to friends and co-workers. They worried the children would be ridiculed. Friends said they were imposing their political and ideological values on a newborn. Most of all, people said they were setting their kids up for a life of bullying in a world that can be cruel to outsiders.

Witterick and Stocker believe they are giving their children the freedom to choose who they want to be, unconstrained by social norms about males and females. Some say their choice is alienating.

In an age where helicopter parents hover nervously over their kids micromanaging their lives, and tiger moms ferociously push their progeny to get into Harvard, Stocker, 39, and Witterick, 38, believe kids can make meaningful decisions for themselves from a very early age.

β€œWhat we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious,” says Stocker.

Can you imagine how confused these kids are going to be when they grow up?Β  The behavioral issues? How they’ll struggle to fit in and bond with other kids of the same sex because their parents think it’s “progressive” to withhold their genders from society? This is borderline child abuse. Disgusting.

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