September 2008 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: raising a "genderless" child?
At first I'm thinking, these kids must get bullied at school, but it's ok, they're "unschooled" at home.
"Witterick practices unschooling, an offshoot of home-schooling centred on the belief that learning should be driven by a child?s curiosity. There are no report cards, no textbooks and no tests. For unschoolers, learning is about exploring and asking questions, ?not something that happens by rote from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays in a building with a group of same-age people, planned, implemented and assessed by someone else,? says Witterick. The fringe movement is growing. An unschooling conference in Toronto drew dozens of families last fall."
I read that yesterday ... agreed: off their rocker.
There's another article with more pictures and whatnot with mom always in skirts, in the kitchen, dad going to work ... so how does that not show the stereotypical roles?
Same here.
This worries me more than the gender thing. The gender thing is weird (and could easily be taught another way), but this is setting your child up to not be able to provide for him/herself in the future.
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I fully believe in raising children while trying to limit gender stereotypes. P has or will have the opportunity to explore both tradionally boys' (i.e. trucks) and girls' (i.e. dolls, dress up clothes, kitchen) toys. I will teach him to sew if he shows interest, bake, use tools, play in the dirt, etc. If he was a girl I wouldn't necessarily adjust my parenting style. We decided to adopt our parenting style based on the personality of the child.
I showed little interest in girl toys and preferred building stuff, matchbox cars, playing in the mud, etc. My parents encouraged me to chase my interests, even though they weren't stereotypically girly. Had I been interested in more girly things, I know that they would have supported that, too.
That being said, I don't see the advantage to not revealing the sex of the child (I use sex as the biological description - gender refers to the social science or more emotional aspect). I guess I mean I don't understand what the advantage of that is versus raising children without regards to gender stereotypes. From a medical and health standpoint, at least, I think it is important for the child to understand their sex, regardless of the gender (or lack thereof) with which they identify.
2012 Reading Challenge
I totally agree with this. Becky put what I was thinking into much better words than I could have.
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All of this. I totally agree both with your parenting style and your critique of why it is weird to keep the sex a secret. I agree that society places all of these "rules" on the baby/child once they know the sex (part of why I wanted to be team green and still kind of don't want to find out, even though I know we will), but at the same time it is what it is. I think kids these days are more able to "play outside their gender" and I fully support that. I was into dolls as a kid, but also played in the mud and played with trucks with friends. There's no reason boys can't have dolls or paint their nails if they want to, but I think it is a little odd to let kids decide if they want to be a boy or a girl. Your anatomy decides if you're a boy or a girl, society decides what that means for you, which I agree can be seen negatively, but I think that is more what people should "fight". Does that make sense?
I am completely OK with kids finding out who they are even if their choice is not "the norm" but these people take it way way too far. It sounds like they give their kids entirely too much freedom...not going to school? What's going to happen when they need to start learning basic skills like math, etc? I don't get the "unschooling" thing. A 5 year old can decide that they don't want to go to school?
If the boys want to wear pink, fine. If they want to wear tutu's, fine but I see this whole situation as being a failure in the end. The kids will end up having it tough later on in life when they are subjected to society's criticizms and mommy and daddy aren't there to protect them (adulthood, etc.). I just don't see how these kids are being properly socialized. It's sad for them. They need structure of some sort. It's OK for them to express who they are but what's going to happen when their sheltered life crumbles around them and they have to be on their own? They won't have friends. They won't know how to handle the criticizm they receive if they choose to continue with what's deemed to be gender-innappropriate behavior. I think the parents need to speak to them about all this rather than hustle them off when someone makes a comment they don't agree with.
I don't even know if what I said makes sense. Point is, I'm OK with people choosing to do or go against society's norms when it comes to gender but these people are just a little off in the head.
CRAFTY ME
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I really think these people are a little off.
In theory I understand what they are thinking but in practical terms I just don't see WHY they are doing this to their child. Because the child is the one that is going to take the hit here.
How will they do the childs hair (I know s(he) gets to choose) but what are they going to do when in 5th grade the school talks to them about their bodies and about things related to that.
Are they going to talk to the baby about what types of genitals they have and that it makes them male or female? Or what, it is just so confusing to me.
CRAFTY ME
my read shelf:
This.
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This is what makes me uncomfortable about this style of parenting. It is fine to expose your children to all types of toys, play, and learning to tone down the gender stereotypes. But I think they are doing the children a disservice to not discuss male vs. female from a biological standpoint.