1. The last paragraph is tidily consistent with the current vogue for abdication-as-power-display.
2. For the last goddamned time, "none" is singular.
1.1: That is a breathtakingly harsh reaction.
That letter becomes increasingly well-said. It begins a little defensively -- understandably -- but this:
If I had to convince my children not to share Storm's sex (which I don't because my children simply are not interested at this point) -- I would teach them that someone else's genitals and sense of how they relate to their gender is their private business, to be shared by them or in a context where safety, acceptance and sensitivity are paramount.
and this:
I know from experience and research that the argument that children need a binary gender orthodoxy taught to them in order to feel safe is simply incorrect
are thought-provoking.
2: I am not unsympathetic to the woman's expressed desire to value, and to have others appreciate, the kid without assessing her/his conformity, but, as a passage in the woman's own song of herself, this particular expression is not without larger resonance.
Why don't you just spell it out, Flip? Rather than alluding to it.
I think she should have either told everybody to go fuck themselves or admitted it was some weird publicity stunt that got too big. Writing letters saying "nobody understands the real me" is something you can't really get away with at that age.
I was surprised by the fact that not sharing Storm's gender was the kid(s?)'(s) idea, rather than at the parents' instigation.
And yes, friendly and likeable. It seemed to me that she could well be someone who commented here... A marked contrast to the picture that we got in the first article.
7.1: Yeah, so was I.
6: I just don't understand. She's written a follow-up set of remarks by way of clarification. What's wrong with that? This is not a rhetorical question.
Christian Scientist mothers may be sympathetic and likable too but that doesn't mean they aren't putting their children at risk. Kathy Witterick is experimenting on her children and (in my opinion) there is a substantial chance things will turn out badly.
Her letter sounds like a "Modern Love" column, except about a baby, not a lover.
7.1, 8.1: At that age, saying that not sharing the new baby's sex was the big sibling's idea can be true in some sense, but not in any way that makes it not largely the parents' idea. I'm not saying that calling it the kid's idea was untrue -- the kid might have said precisely that first -- but in the context of a family that almost certainly talks a lot about the oppressiveness of gender-preconceptions and how to avoid having those preconceptions imposed on kids, I wouldn't call it an unguided suggestion.
It's also not clear to me that the parents invited the media blitz. It's possible that some reporter just heard about it and it gained momentum.
And I strongly doubt that the parents are doing the kids any more harm than they would be by raising them in any other moderately visibly unconventional way -- the kids will grow up having the experience of being weird kids with weird parents, but lots of us lived through that just fine.
10: Again, as with Flip's comments, I'd ask for specifics. What do you object to, substantively? Is it just a problem with tone? You feel it's badly written or edited? It sounds hippie-ish? I don't really want to have to provide you with whatever your own objections might be. You need to state them yourself.
6: Actually, I thought the letter was a very polite and restrained way of telling everyone to go fuck themselves, which is part of why I like it.
I really don't understand the apparent need to find some reason to criticize this woman and her family.
13: The strength of the fight against anything weird -- unconventional -- just astonishes me sometimes.
We just found one of Caroline's notebooks, where she had written a paragraph under the heading "My Dream." It began "I want to be fashionabul [sic] and have boys like me." She's getting this from her older cousin, who is currently steeped in the gender roles alloted a 14 year old girl.
We need to talk to Caroline about basing your self esteem too much on the opinions of others. (Also, spelling.)
Right of the bat, though, I'm not sure there's more harm in aggressively pushing kids away from current gender roles than there is in allowing them to fall into them.
16: I'd think that a noticeably horrible outcome for this sort of unconventional childrearing would be more, rather than less, visible than the reverse. If the kids turn out fine, who remembers how they were brought up? If they grow up to molest sheep before setting them on fire, everyone's going to find the old articles about the gender-nonconforming upbringing and drag them out.
She's getting this from her older cousin
Or, of course, from Heebie at about the same age.
I didn't really follow the earlier thread, or read the earlier articles, but just based on this letter I like this woman.
15: Too polite for me, but maybe in Canada it comes off that way.
14: Yes, tone. You can either try to subvert society's norms or work through on your feelings. Aside from personal/family history, the letter is appealing to outside authorities, including that of her older kids.
16, to the extent that it's an argument for playing the gender-conformity game, seems to me to trade on risk-aversiveness. Things could go wrong if you buck convention! And if you think, in retrospect, that they didn't, that's probably because it worked out fine for you, but what about all those people for whom it didn't work out?! You wouldn't want to be them, would you? So beware! Of nonconformity.
19: I'm sure they'll be fine, but I bet at least one of them grows up to be a libertarian just out of sheer genetically-induced need to make family conflict.
Oh, yeah, I'm sure there's rebellion in the future, I just doubt it will do them any lasting harm.
I agree with Shearer (and most of the previous thread) that this is basically these parents running an experiment on this child, and I'm not convinced that it's a good idea to do so, but based on this letter I can better understand why they would.
And yes, it's a very polite "none of your business."
12: It's also not clear to me that the parents invited the media blitz. It's possible that some reporter just heard about it and it gained momentum.
As I commented at CT it is the degree to which they did or did not seek the original publicity that "interests" me at all in this case. I have not real interest in how these folks raise their children and am mostly on the "no big deal" side (plus my personal experience is that it is the unintentional aspects of parents' personalities which most shape their children). Still don't know the answer to their role, but clearly it went beyond anything that was intended. Her letter would have been "stronger" and more sympathetic to me if she had at least addressed that aspect of it. She certainly does not "owe" me or anyone else that explanation, but neither did I (or most likely anyone else) seek out the original information on her child-raising decisions.
You know, even if they did talk to a reporter originally for somewhat self-aggrandizing reasons ("We're raising our kids in a fascinatingly enlightened way! Watch us being enlightened!") I can't see that it's likely to do anyone, including the kids, any harm.
28: Might have done the parents some harm. I bet they're way flinchier about their decision now.
I forgot that there was a CT thread about this, and haven't read it, probably because the subject too easily strays from what's actually of interest -- the strength of gender role conformity in our society -- to raking these people over the coals.
28: Yes, the kids will probably all be fucking fine! (Or as fine as any kids are likely or unlikely to be.) Does not mean I have to think well of their parents. The letter is generally well done, but if you're going to complain about the unintended media shitstorm, you might get more traction if you acknowledge whatever role you played in launching it ("little did we know ...", whatever). It's a minor point, admittedly.
Eh, this whole thing reminds me what a stupid and obnoxious and soul-destroying pastime it is to make fun of people on the Internet. Don't know why I'm so attracted to it -- some combination of boredom and insecurity.
what a stupid and obnoxious and soul-destroying pastime it is to make fun of people on the Internet.
I mostly don't regret linking to that woman's travelblog about her daughter playing violin to the poor nomadic children who had never known music before.
It's a minor point, admittedly.
Well, yeah. If we were talking about inviting a shitstorm that hurt their kids, I'd get judgy. If they're complaining about a shitstorm that they found unpleasant, but that they got themselves into, I'm not totally devoid of sympathy -- incautious, and they'll be more careful next time, but just because they got themselves into it doesn't mean that it's just retribution for wrongdoing.
You know, even if they did talk to a reporter originally for somewhat self-aggrandizing reasons ("We're raising our kids in a fascinatingly enlightened way! Watch us being enlightened!") I can't see that it's likely to do anyone, including the kids, any harm.
Agreed, but if they did seek out publicity for "Look how enlightened we are!" reasons that does make it at least somewhat OK to snark about them. Doesn't it?
36: Oh, sure. I don't feel even a little bad about any role I had in causing "A Child Named Storm" to be disseminated across the Internet (and would actually rather like to aggrandize that role, peripheral though it was, as much as possible). Making fun of and thinking ill of people are entirely separate -- they've invited the first to some extent, but I don't think they deserve the second.
26: this is basically these parents running an experiment on this child, and I'm not convinced that it's a good idea to do so
Any time you find yourself agreeing with Shearer, you should probably take a step back and reevaluate your position.
The thing about experimentation is that all parents are doing it all the time. Is it going to mess up your kid if you move to Saudi Arabia for 8 years to teach English, as some cousins of mine did? Is it going to mess up your kid if you give up your comfortable, upper-class existence in the Phillipines to move to the US and work low-level service economy jobs, as the parents of one of my close friends did? How about making your child's education the basis of a test case to desegregate schools, as Oliver Brown did?
Any decision you make about your life or your child's life is, on a very significant level, an experiment. Some of these experiments may be wise, some may be foolish, some may be partially beyond your control. But just throwing out the word "experiment", as though any decision that goes against the current orthodoxy is tantamount to locking your kid in a Skinner box for 10 years is prejudicial, irrational, poor argumentation.
One thing I wanted to mention is the degree to which the initial story was greeted with interest and approbation by my feminist, queer and transgender parent friends on Facebook. I realize that it's probably outside the day-to-day experience of most commenters here to think that there are transgender people raising healthy, happy, well-adjusted children, but I'm here to tell you that this is indeed the case. You want to talk about "experimenting" on kids? How about the gigantic, ongoing experiment in seeing how children respond to having their queer sexuality beaten, drugged and shamed out of them? There's a pretty sizable set of data for that experiment.
How about the gigantic, ongoing experiment in seeing how children respond to having their queer sexuality beaten, drugged and shamed out of them? There's a pretty sizable set of data for that experiment.
Yes, I find this sort of thing much more upsetting.
40 is well put -- I was thinking along the same lines, that we're all 'experimenting' on our kids all the time, but didn't get it said.
This thread is pissing me off way less than the first one. Well done, Mineshaft!
There's a code of honor among parents where they can never admit that non-parents can say something insightful about parenting. Since LB broke that code in comment 43, I can just agree with 43 and stay on the right side of the law.
It's not like a plan for parenting exists, and all that matters is faithfully executing it. No one actually knows what they are doing, especially at the start.
40: Exactly right. And even for the parents whose approach is by-the-books conventional, there is a real risk that it will go tragically wrong.
I will say that gender (and related issues) is one of the few areas of child-rearing where I was frequently not very happy with how things were unfolding. I was comfortable with our views in isolation, but never quite knew how to deal with those of our larger community and kept getting unpleasantly surprised by the multitude of ways gender norms would sneak into, well, everything.
And now off to swim back down into the pit of despair.
Based on Mrs. K-sky's tiara collection, I strongly suspect that our hypothetical offspring will have a strong pro-pretty-little-princess bias whether they are male or female.
||
Can any of the more academically inclined commenters guide me to the latest or most impressive collection of Disney cultural studies? Especially regarding race, religion and history, inclusive of the theme parks as well as the movies.
This looked good, wondering if people know of anything else.
|>
Parent's don't make that big of a difference. in general, as long as you don't abuse the kids they will turn out ok. Even those skinner box kids turned out fine.
48: the multitude of ways gender norms would sneak into, well, everything.
I think that's what's most remarkable to me about the discussions regarding Storm's parents: wow, gender conformity really does seem to be one of the last bastions of small-c conservatism, understood as resistance to challenge or change.
Look at the arsenal of objections raised:
- You'll fuck up the kids, I swear you will! (concern trolling)
- You're doing this for attention. (media whore)
- Oh, aren't you precious.
- You're doing this to be contrary and get in people's faces. (hippie-bashing)
- This is really about you, being a child, abdicating responsibility. (parenting mafia)
These are the kinds of objections people pull out when they ain't got nothing left, it seems to me.
51: Carl Hiaasen's Team Rodent may have a bibliography or otherwise indicate some potential sources.
53: Oh, aren't you precious seems close to what I think, rolling my eyes like a troop of teenaged girls in an Aubrey Plaza-impersonator contest, although I'd note that that isn't really an objection and, as Natilo said above, it's not like the status quo of gender education/awareness is anything I'd recommend to future generations.
The language of experimentation might actually be informative here. In medical experimentation, the most basic requirement is clinical equipoise: the experimenter has to believe that patients are as well off in the experimental group as they would be in the control group. You test against established treatments if you think the experimental treatment is as likely to help as the current treatment. You test against a placebo if you think the experimental treatment is as good as doing nothing.
In this case, I'm actually fairly confident that the experiment the parents are performing is about as likely to screw up the kid as indoctrinating the child with current gender norms would be.
But what about consent, you say? Experiments are performed on children all the time. You need to get proxy consent. From the parents.
54: Thanks, Flip. I just read my first Hiassen on a Christmastime Florida trip. Don't know why I waited that long.
55: That's why non-conforming people usually, mostly, decide to stay under the radar. People might roll their eyes!
like a troop of teenaged girls
Speaking of which! There was a piece on Christiane Amanpour's Sunday talk show this morning about the challenging job market for newly-minted college grads. One of the representative grads was a young alumna from Harvard ('11), and seriously, she began every sentence with "So." She also uptalked.
"So, I don't know why everybody is eager to talk after they see my resumé but nobody hires me."
57: Less journalistic than Hiaasen, although probably less specific than you seek, Neal Gabler's biography of Walt Disney might provide a few more leads.
One of the representative grads was a young alumna from Harvard ('11), and seriously, she began every sentence with "So."
I hate that. Far more than uptalking, strangely.
61: It'd be a toss-up for me which bothers me more. In any case, the two in combination was awful.
"So my feeling about my choice of concentrations in college, in history and English Lit, is that they provide me with the creative tools needed for this more malleable, adaptive job environment?" "So the college experience for my generation really demands internships or similar extracurricular experience in addition to coursework?"
51: Doesn't sound like it meets all of your criteria, but there's a chapter on the development of the theme park in this history book.
I am basically a very shy and private person, as anyone can see from reading either of the articles in a national newspaper in which I discuss my child's genitals.
There ought to be a name for this rhetorical trope.
19
I'd think that a noticeably horrible outcome for this sort of unconventional childrearing would be more, rather than less, visible than the reverse. If the kids turn out fine, who remembers how they were brought up? If they grow up to molest sheep before setting them on fire, everyone's going to find the old articles about the gender-nonconforming upbringing and drag them out.
If you are judging by people you know there is a bias if you mostly interact with successful people.
And Storm's upbringing is not just moderately unconventional, it is extremely unconventional.
65.last Storm is like 4 months old. That not announcing Storm's gender at a stage of life when it really can't possibly matter should be "extreme" suggests gender holds a rather extremely central role in your world.
The urban planning side of Disney (probably not what you want) is well-explored in this book, Walt Disney and the Quest for Community (Design & the Built Environment). These two blog posts I just discovered seem to be interesting reads on that as well. (You were just kidding about the academically-inclined, right?)
My favorite read on Disney is, "Stories of the Storytelling Organization: A postmodern analysis of Disney as 'Tamara-Land'". Not that recent (1995) but a good bibliography of material that is likely quite relevant, if dated. I came across that one after I came home from a conference at Disney World during which I figured out after a day or so that the "Cast Members Only" door down the hall was actually a supply closet for the maids and janitors. I was trying to figure out how far into the organization the notion of "cast member" extended.
67: Gender, Race and IQ--The eternal golden braid of Shearer's world.
67
.last Storm is like 4 months old. That not announcing Storm's gender at a stage of life when it really can't possibly matter should be "extreme" suggests gender holds a rather extremely central role in your world.
If the genderless experiment was terminated at age four months it would be unlikely to have major effects. That doesn't sound like the plan. And it is extreme in the sense of unusual.
There are plenty of Free-to-Be kids in the world, even unto tec second and third generation. Also, children of parents who are gender-noncomformist themselves but not earnest enough to be hippies. This is an experiment on society, not on the kids.
I'm pleased for the sprats because rigid sorting of approvable tastes has been such a bane of my life, usually for gender but not much less for nerd-type and class markers. I'm not very old & haven't travelled very much and I've still seen markers switch sides in decades and nations. If gender behavior were so damned innate society wouldn't need to start enforcing it at birth.
If gender behavior were so damned innate society
wouldn't need to start enforcing it at birth.
this.
suggests gender holds a rather extremely central role in your the world.
(While hearing "It's up to you not to heed the call-up")
Gender matters in our world.
The way to change that, if you want it changed, is to choose to oppose the world. But once you choose to oppose the world a) don't expect the world to accept and like you in return for your contempt for it, and b) recognize that you are not a nice or good person, but an asshole and a sociopath. Being right does not make you "good" or "beautiful" or usually even honest.
I like the parents but I like "A Boy Named Sue." I kinda hope the kid grows up gender-ambiguous all the way to death, being scarred tormented ostracized, a rebel outlaw sociopath with a chip on the shoulder and a defensive glare in the eye. I really like such fucking people. A sympathetic community will be found, always can be, and more appreciated for the difficulty.
The world may change, but the really good ones never seem to keep in step with it anyway.
Samurai Assassin 1965, Mifune Toshiro, deprived of his birthright to two swords and the love of his life by his anonymous father's dutiful needs, ends the movie dancing in the falling snow, holding up his father's head on the end of a katana. Deluded, used and abused, anachronistic completely innocent really in his nihilism...utterly fucking beautiful.
Maybe for a change of pace you should rent Airplane! or something lighter.
Princess Nine, for thread topicality. Also, the Rival is great.
Surely you don't think it's that simple.
74: or something lighter.
The Hindenburg?
Dirigibles are light, that's for sure.
And thanks for the link to the Disney Stories thing, Stormcrow. I have given it my traditional treatment of opening a new tab with it, which tab I might in fact one day read.
79: Dirigibles are light
Sometimes you can use them to read very, very short books at night.
There are plenty of Free-to-Be kids in the world
And there should be more. At the very least, all children should hear the Mel Brooks bit. It is hilarious and subversive.
1: #2. I hope it's the last time since it is a deluded conceit. See language log, numerous places over the years, as for instance this:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2168
"...asserts that none "is always singular" for purposes of verb agreement. This just isn't true for Standard English. When none is a subject, the agreement is often plural (are, for instance). None of us are perfect, says the Reverend Dr. Chasuble in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde was not intending to portray Dr. Chasuble as incapable of speaking correct English. The myth that none takes only singular agreement on the verb lives on despite many refutations. Serious handbooks of grammar and style don't represent it as ungrammatical. (Of course, the idiots Strunk and White do in their clueless book The Elements of Style; but they get almost everything wrong.) "
Your other point is probably misguided too.
Regardless, I think we can all agree that nuns are single.
Buck's aunt left the convent to get married, got divorced and remarried, got widowed, and re-entered the convent. (Joined the Air Force and raised horses in there as well.) She's a nun, but I don't think I'd exactly call her single.
If we're picking on White, I'll add that Charlotte's Web always makes me want to go to the meat section of the Giant Eagle and taunt the hams for not finding a good spider to protect them.
85: Serious handbooks of grammar and style don't represent it as ungrammatical.
This made me laugh. Everybody should totes fight about which handbooks are serious.
87: Jeez. Talk about not being able to kick the habit.
87: singular, certainly.
and re-entered the convent. (Joined the Air Force and raised horses in there as well.)
I am amazed that she found the space.
Regardless, I think we can all agree that nuns are single.
Nuns are married to the lord.
parsimon et al., what is "uptalking"?
Nuns are married to the lord.
People say it's big of me.
95: Uptalking is ending declarative sentences with a question mark. I'm sure there are more eloquent ways to put it. I associate it with a Valley Girl style of talking: We went to the mall? And then, like, Joey showed up and was acting like a dork? We totally dissed him but then he's, like, trying to be all cool? So then my mom calls and I'm like Duh, Mom, we're coming home in about an hour?
My great grandmother wanted to be a nun, was forbidden by her parents, married a Scottish protestant out of spite, made him convert anyway, ended up joining the convent after husband died in a mine collapse (somewhere near Glasgow, where he's buried and my grandmother lived til she was about 3).
You know what jumped out at me in the article? Among other things, which I might come back to when not commenting from a phone, there's the dog that didn't bark: the lack of any mention of harassment. Being judged, sure, but I'd be amazed if they didn't get personal harassment and, hell, death threats from random lunatics.
So why didn't the article mention that? The word "vitriol" is as close as it comes. So either I'm being overly cynical and they got no such feedback (well, I guess it's possible, but...), or they are trying to downplay their own problems and make it, in fact, NOT all about them.
Nuns are married to the lord.
Somehow I had the idea that they were married to Jesus, which I always thought was a bit creepy, since I think of Jesus as a bit of a ladies' man, and hordes of women all marrying Jesus seems like scooping up the most eligible bachelor, polygamously. Of course I'm not entirely clear on the distinction between Jesus and the lord (God), who was, or is, his father after all, so they are not the same person, and yet they are! Something something.
Come sit on my lap and I'll explain it all to you, parsimon.
Somehow I had the idea that they were married to Jesus, which I always thought was a bit creepy, since I think of Jesus as a bit of a ladies' man, and hordes of women all marrying Jesus seems like scooping up the most eligible bachelor, polygamously.
To say nothing of the fact that the consent of Jesus to all these hitchings is, at best, assumed, much less documented with the specificity that a reasonable person would think appropriate.
Of course I'm not entirely clear on the distinction between Jesus and the lord (God), who was, or is, his father after all, so they are not the same person, and yet they are! Something something.
Yeah, pretty much.
Jesus is always already available, and consenting.
Interesting religion, there.
I have been worried about Jesus's right to say no for some time now! The lord has been jerking him around for freaking ever!
Jesus is always
Sure.
already
Hotly debated: e.g., w/r/t the harrowing of Hell.
available,
Easy, there.
and consenting.
I think Karl Barth actually calls Jesus "God's No," or something like that, to the world of Man.
106: I saw a guy at the gym today with a tattoo on his arm of, and I am not making this up, a muscular, ripped, superheroic body with a cross for a head and a smaller cross on its chest.
Seriously.
Did Buck's aunt need to be widowed of the first husband or the second to be readmitted?
110 poses a worrying scenario.
"I'm afraid you can't re-enter the convent until your ex-husband is actually deceased."
"Oh, OK. Be right back."
"Coming this Fall to a theater near you... Putting the "con" back into convent... It's... The Priory Engagement."
109, 114: I was thinking more of this guy.
Who decided that pink dresses are for girls anyway?
Bonus evidence from America's most liberal president.
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