Swedish Parents Keep 2-year-old's Gender Secret

ruthie14 · 09-04-2010, 02:38 PM

As a teacher of preschoolers for 28 years I can say that I disagree with the parents. No matter what gender the child actually is, children interpret things quite differently than adults. When you ignore some facet of thier basic person, the child usually will internalize this as "something is wrong with my gender because my gender is not addressed" with negative consequences. While I understand pop's parents concerns, I think this is not a postive way to handle it. You can raise a child to make non gender choices ie pink vs blue.. without hiding who they were born genetically. The exeption in my mind, would be a child born with both male and female genitalia. In that case I would wait for the child to show which gender he/she truely is before consenting to surgery. ( i know of a family that this happened to and this was how they handled it. Very successful. ) I have seen many families and children over the years and I can tell you that some parents are sensitive to thier children and some are not. I have seen parents that allow thier children to play with toys that are sometimes considered boys vs girls, wear any colors they want... clothing styles... games and playmates, etc. I know of a mother who lets her daughter wear boy clothes, caps, play baseball etc. The mom is NOT gay... this is not her first child. But she in tune with her daughter and allows her to be herself. I know another little boy who has told me more than once that he wants to be a girl. His mother is also very attentive and I know is helping him on his journey. Just my 2 cents from my experiences. No offense to anyone who believes differently.

View Poll Results: How do you feel about the parents' decision to keep their child's gender a secret?
Agree	21	30.43%
Disagree	22	31.88%
Undecided	26	37.68%
Voters: 69. You may not vote on this poll

09-04-2010, 02:38 PM	#9
ruthie14 Member How Do You Identify?: femme Preferred Pronoun?: she Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: NJ Posts: 844 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 1,904 Thanked 1,245 Times in 461 Posts Rep Power: 5946335	As a teacher of preschoolers for 28 years I can say that I disagree with the parents. No matter what gender the child actually is, children interpret things quite differently than adults. When you ignore some facet of thier basic person, the child usually will internalize this as "something is wrong with my gender because my gender is not addressed" with negative consequences. While I understand pop's parents concerns, I think this is not a postive way to handle it. You can raise a child to make non gender choices ie pink vs blue.. without hiding who they were born genetically. The exeption in my mind, would be a child born with both male and female genitalia. In that case I would wait for the child to show which gender he/she truely is before consenting to surgery. ( i know of a family that this happened to and this was how they handled it. Very successful. ) I have seen many families and children over the years and I can tell you that some parents are sensitive to thier children and some are not. I have seen parents that allow thier children to play with toys that are sometimes considered boys vs girls, wear any colors they want... clothing styles... games and playmates, etc. I know of a mother who lets her daughter wear boy clothes, caps, play baseball etc. The mom is NOT gay... this is not her first child. But she in tune with her daughter and allows her to be herself. I know another little boy who has told me more than once that he wants to be a girl. His mother is also very attentive and I know is helping him on his journey. Just my 2 cents from my experiences. No offense to anyone who believes differently.