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

[PearlsNLace]

WOW. I know I have grown up in an instant gratification culture- I desperately want to fast forward, and see where this childs story goes.

Thank you for sharing!

[AtLast]

I am having some trouble with this in terms of the possibility of human experiement, on one hand, but on the other, I agree with Pop's parent's premise. And this being done in isolation (one kid, one home), I don't know that it will prove all that beneficial in terms of what the parents are trying to accomplish. Pop will be out and about in a world that unfortunately (but perhaps not to the degree in the US), will make gender assumptions eventually.

Since I do not know all that much about Swedish culture really, I know better than to make any judgement based upon my own. From the little I do know, my guess would be that Pop will have a much less patriarchal structure to deal with in terms of gender than in the US.

This is one of those situations in which time will tell!

I do know as someone from a generation of feminist ideology that wanted to erradicate sex role identification with our kids (terminology used at the time), so many of us were slapped in the face as the kids reached shool age (and pre-school). However, there is a whole lot more to this than pink and blue and trucks and dolls. Just not that simple and how we interact with each other based upon gender and sex roles was really the important piece. But, how kids end up as adults can look nothing like them as children! And with a more gender fluid context that many are living today, the variables are just not the same. Nor, are what may influence sex role behaviors.


This is interesting to say the least!

[Nat]

I think, especially when I was under the age of 5, my mom was invested in giving me a childhood experience more like that of boys than of girls. She did let me wear dresses, but she put me in a lot of boyish seventies clothes and didn't readily consent to my yearnings for barbies. (In fact, I didn't receive my first doll until I was 3, and that was a gift from a great grandmother). She decorated my room with peter rabbit stuff and tried to veer me toward bedtime stories that had nothing to do with good little princesses. When she read studies about the differences between the ways boys and girls are treated, she would often resolve to treat me the way boys were more typically treated. (Stuff like carrying me facing outward rather than in after reading that boys are more likely to be carried this way compared to girls). What I find so interesting about this attempt at parenting (and I do think that's what it is - an attempt - and I think all good parenting does involve some level of experimentation) is that rather than force a girl child into boy roles (like certain mothers of kids around my age were wont to do, they are avoiding forcing any roles onto the kid. I would guess it is a largely impossible task, no matter how much they try.

After Toughy's post mentioning she'd read this before somewhere, I went back and looked at this article. The date on it is over a year old. I searched for an update, and there is no update. Pop was 2 and a half when this was written, so Pop is a bit over 3 and a half now. I wish they would update.

I don't think what the parents are doing can be that harmful to the kid compared with some of the most screwed up stuff that is inflicted on kids in this world. My guess is that the kid will gravitate toward a gender on hir own.

[Toughy]

My parents bought me a Ken doll when they bought my baby sister a Barbie doll. (18 months apart....we shared a room) It was the first year they came out....1959....I was seven and she was six. I was dark-haired Ken with the cool car and my little sister was blonde Barbie. My mother knew who both of us were.

Feminists who forced girls into more traditionally done by boys roles are no different than those who insist boy is blue and girl is pink.

The idea is to let the kids pick for themselves or, at least, know your children as well as my parents knew my sisters and me. Children...........hell everyone......but especially young children should be allowed to explore the world with joy and figure out who and what they are.