'Genderless' Baby Raises A Storm Of Controversy

ParentDish:

By Laura Stampler

When Kathy Witterick gave birth to her third child in January, friends and family knew not to send blue or pink balloons.

The Toronto Star reports that, following their home waterbirth, Witterick, 38, and her husband, David Stocker, 39, sent a simple email to everyone in their social network, explaining that they planned to keep their child's biological sex a secret.

Read the whole story

Comments

[mamyoung]

03:52 PM on 05/31/2011

What will he be called? He, she or it? He looks all boy to me. Prolly end up as a raspy voiced toughy in the mud throwing rocks and catching frogs, the whole bit! :P That'll show them.

[Rivka Elise Orlik]

01:12 AM on 06/20/2011

The baby's name is Storm.

[Mariah Dailey]

07:45 AM on 06/20/2011

Yes I know, but we are all referred to at times by the use of a pronoun. He went to the store. She's in the living room. How do you explain to your child, who clearly knows their gender by just seeing their own body, that they are not allowed by mommy and daddy to Tell other people what they are? Talk about making this poor thing feel like a freak! He will grow up and tell stories about what his freaky parents did to him.

[Puffin16]

02:46 PM on 05/31/2011

I work wth a control freak who wanted a girl so badly that she accused the ultrasound technician of not knowing her job! She ranted on and on about how she didn't know how to interpret the image. She paid money out of her own pocket to get a second opinion, which of course was the same as the first one. Then she insisted that she really wanted a boy all along.

That's a baby you should feel sorry for.

[babybecks]

05:44 PM on 05/30/2011

What exactly is the big deal that people are objecting to here? This is not a 10 year old. It's a baby who doesn't have a concept of gender yet. At this stage, it doesn't matter.

[skipptown]

04:02 AM on 05/30/2011

I thought this was going to be about Schwarzenegger's love child!

[AbrahamMcLemore]

01:46 AM on 05/30/2011

I suppose they will leave gender identification up to the child.
Can't raise the child as the sex it is.
Can't tell the child about spiritual things. "Let him decide for himself whenever he wants."

If the parents are not going to act as parents, why not leave the child alone and let him or her make their own medical decisions, do their own cooking, and come and go as he pleases?

[babybecks]

05:40 PM on 05/30/2011

That was a pretty huge leap you made. The first line seemed to be more along the lines as you mentioned. But the rest you just completely fabricated unless you know something that wasn't mentioned in the article.

[AbrahamMcLemore]

09:33 PM on 05/30/2011

You are correct.
I did make too big of a leap. I do NOT know anything other than what is in the article.
It seems to fit the pattern but it was not appropriate.
Good catch. Thanks.

[Chigirl60]

08:50 PM on 05/29/2011

These parents very irresponsibly involved their other young sons in an experiment they cannot possibly understand. They have made their new child far more important in their family than the child's siblings, which cannot bode well for any of them. So much thought about gender and so little thought about anything else.

[Nerdiac]

08:37 AM on 05/29/2011

This is a cute idea and all, but I hope these rich hippie Canadian parents realize that gender, like sexual orientation, is not something that can be molded. Men love cars for a reason; numerous studies have been done showing that these traditional gender roles didn't just pop up out of nowhere. Just as you are born hetero or homosexual, you are born male or female. Even intersex people have a predominant chromosome and a set "way they feel". No shaping or molding necessary.

What I want to know is, how did this make the news? Are these actually rich hippie Canadians like I joked? What do they do for a living that people care so much about how they raise their kids?! The kid will be fine, the parental units are the ones I'm worried about. They're either doing this for publicity or to impress their uber-existentialist circle of friends.

[glamarama]

12:21 AM on 05/29/2011

These parents have rocks in their head! What are they proving? They can keep a secret? The gender will show in the features eventually unless They alter hair or dress wear. They will confuse the child if someone says what a pretty girl (or boy) and they say "oh its neither or its a secret". Obviously the child has one or the other organ . What bathroom will that child use in public? boy or girl room? The parents are not thinking of consequences this decision will have on their child. Mommy what am I? OH honey you'll see as you get older and you decide?

[Chiku Gardiner]

05:44 PM on 05/28/2011

I hope they get home schooled because they are 100% bully fodder!

[jkamen]

05:41 PM on 05/28/2011

The gender-free parents are selfish, utopian air heads.
Kids have to go through enough challenge, pain and frustration without their self-delusional biological parents injecting the slow poison of gender confusion into their developing brains!
They remind me of the really nice parents who express their love for their babies by denying them vaccines. The result of vaccine denials in the name of preventing autism is lots of babies coming down with preventable diseases and no provable benefit in the battle against autism.
As for the genderless parents, well, aren't they sweet? Let's all smile a lot and deny science over and over and over again and see if maybe it will be a nicer, more progressive world? Irresponsible twaddle!
Shame on them for creating a new brand of child abuse.

[Rivka Elise Orlik]

01:25 AM on 06/20/2011

I was just WAITING for someone to come out with the "Child abuse" card. Oh my god, Storm is being exposed to gender neutrality! The horror!

Maybe it didn't occur to you that the parents AREN'T trying to prove anything? -_- Gender IS a societal construct.... many non-Christian (and non-Islamic and non-Jewish) societies are matriarchal and have been for ages. Women go out and work in the fields while men stay at home and supervise the children. Some African tribes are like this and many successful Native American societies were like this too. Sexual roles are one thing, but do not confuse them with gender classifications.

Your comment is the embodiment of the self-righteousness that characterizes Western "ideals."

[jkamen]

05:41 AM on 06/20/2011

Rivka Elise Orlik is, of course, quite accurate in her description of matriarchal societies. I was born into one version of them and have lived to happily tell the tale. However, none of that has any bearing whatsoever on the dipsy-doodle utopian nonsense that Witterick and Stocker are inflicting on Gandolf -the-Genderless. Unless the 'rents get with the old reality check, "it" is in for a needlessly rocky ride (new form of abuse) until "it" hits 18 and rescues itself by getting the hell out of the house. As for my alleged, "self-righteousness that characterizes Western 'ideals,' well, I would be pleased to let Ms. Orlick borrow my full-length mirror. There is plenty of room in it for her.
With best wishes for all interested in this debate and more importantly, that poor child,
Jeff Kamen
Beijing

[Raven1970]

10:02 AM on 05/28/2011

Two questions and one comment:

1) When did having a gender become a bad thing?

2) Do you really think your infant should be the object in your own social experiment?

This is so dumb.

[hershobr]

07:23 AM on 05/28/2011

Come on are they serious, it's obviously a boy.

[hershobr]

07:21 AM on 05/28/2011

I wonder how they explain to their "genderless" kid how it took two distinct genders to create that child.

[StrawHat]

05:55 AM on 05/28/2011

I made a decision thirty years ago that my first-born would be given a 'gender free' first year on this planet. It's no one's business, really, what the gender of an infant is. People need to get over putting babies into gender-stereotype strangle-holds before they've even learned how to walk. Bravo to this family for seeing gender stereotyping for what it is.

[hershobr]

07:22 AM on 05/28/2011

There are two genders in life. It's not a bad thing. Males are better at certain things, females are better at other things. You're not going to change science.

[Rivka Elise Orlik]

01:28 AM on 06/20/2011

You're confusing gender with sex. Gender is not black-and-white, but an expansive spectrum of ideals that are impressed upon people based on their sexual organs.

[glamarama]

12:30 AM on 05/29/2011

What is the satisfaction to parent or child to be gender free? I see it as a form of parental control. There is no stereotyping kids...boys that want to will play with dolls and dress in girls clothes and have kitchen sets and then there are girls who will wear jeans and a tshirt and roll around in dirt and beat up boys...All this knowing what and who they are along with everyone else. Give me one good point of keeping the gender a secret.

[Jared Drury]

12:10 PM on 05/27/2011

I just saw a picture of FDR in a dress with long hair as a child. Aparently in the past all children where considered girls untill they where like 9 or so. I wonder what the famly vaules crowd thinks about that as they like to emulate history so much.

[StrawHat]

05:59 AM on 05/28/2011

No one cared if a baby was in a "dress" or not up until my generation. Check out the traditional Christening dresses in every family album or folded into tissue in the attic. People are soooooooooooooo silly sometimes.