Apologies for the somewhat trivialised title for this post – I think it’s the heat…
A story in the Gaurdian today about two parents in Sweden who are raising their child without making reference to its gender – called Pop, they’re not telling anyone interested enough to ask whether Pop is a boy or a girl.
Avoiding gender stereotyping is of course an interesting idea, perhaps even an admirable one (in some ways). Without the assumptive clutter of pink, blue, cars or Barbies the child can (ideally at least) grow up free of what might be experienced as the constrictive limitations of being branded a ‘boy’ or a ‘girl’.
But of course we aren’t living in sociology labs, and children aren’t generally sonsidered appropriate material for experiments to which they haven’t offered their consent.
The issues with raising a child this way seem (to me) many and obvious. Perhaps they seem many and obvious to you, too.
At the very least it’s a response to the unhelpful pressures of gender labelling in our/Western society, but a response which borders on being equally traumatic or disturbing fort he child itself. Is it a lesser evil than the horror of pink frills or toy guns?
I think what disturbs me most is the child’s name: Pop. There is something massively socially helpful about a person’s name – we’re able make assumptions about them, and develop an idea of the person, based purely on a name. And my worry is that a name like Pop, in many ways quite inoffensive, will evoke a response from people which may not then afford that child a fair chance to demonstrate their true nature and character.
I wonder how long the parents intend to keep up this experiment – is Pop stuck with the name for life, or just until the parents feel comfortable allowing it to choose its own gender identity? At that point will it also be free to choose a name which reflects better its inherent qualities and characteristics? (Of course at a certain age Pop an do whatever it wants to do, without parental permission required, but still…)
For Pop’s sake, I really hope so.
www.wayforwardcounselling.co.uk
Filed under: Current events Tagged: | baby Pop, childhood, children, families, gender, gender identity, genderless, life, parenting, parents, Pop, society, Sweden, swedish parents
