They know their toddler would want only organic milk, that their primary school-age children have ethical and gastronomic objections to fast food from big multinationals, and that none of their offspring is interested in competitive sport.
But there are two SNAPs who’ve finally snapped.
Canadian couple David Stocker and Kathy Witterick say they are trying to rear a “genderless” child on the basis they don’t want being a male or female to determine its place in the world. They won’t identify four-month-old Storm as a boy or girl to anyone outside their immediate family.
This, they argue, will give him-her the opportunity to decide for himself-herself down the track whether he-she would prefer to be a boy or a girl. (One would think simply looking down might offer a fair sort of clue.)
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And it will stop those around Storm from engaging in that heinous hate crime of gender stereotyping, which would start with a gift of a pink or blue jumpsuit and take an inevitable path to truck driver or nurse.
The Witterick-Stockers have managed to out-American the Americans, taking the wide-eyed US credo of “You can grow up to be whatever you want to be” to its illogical extreme.
“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” Stocker said, summarising the couple’s parenting philosophy for all three kids, including Storm’s two older brothers Jazz, 5 and Kio, 2.
But aren’t their actions the ultimate outsourcing of parental responsibility? Putting it on a child to decide what gender they would prefer to be, particularly when it’s pretty clear the odds are going to be physiologically stacked in favour of one side or the other, is an anxiety-filled burden.
The parents must be fervently hoping the child goes against the gender grain. Otherwise why all the palaver?
You can imagine how proud the couple would be if girl Storm shows an interest in mechanics, or boy Storm in ballet. Their little lab experiment will have worked!
But The Wry Side would love to be a fly on the Witterick-Stocker wall if baby boy Storm takes to Tonka trucks and toy planes or baby girl Storm is content combing out the knots in Barbie’s hair.
“Where did we go wrong?” they will say.
Source:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/gender-politics-just-parental-outsourcing/story-e6frg71o-1226065884244
