I am against gender-neutral parenting. Here's why
Updated | By Charis Apelgren-Coleman
I’ve noticed a dangerous trend. That of free-spirited parenting, where it seems children are raised in a genderless environment, thus allowing the child to dictate his or her own gender.
Is this the best way to parent? In my opinion, no. I am actually going to put this new trend as the reason why so many young boys are growing up with no idea of how to treat women and why we are seeing an increase in child-on-child sex and hate crimes. Where are we failing our boys that they become these kinds of men? We can’t blame the schooling system and we can’t blame peer pressure. We need to look at what is happening at home first.
I have two kids – an eight-year-old boy and two-year-old girl. It is dangerous and wrong to tell kids they are gender ‘fluid’ or neutral. What is that? Either you are male or you are female, but don’t let a child walk around saying “oh, I am going to be a boy today, wear pants, eat bugs, and climbs trees. Tomorrow I will be a girl, wear a dress and heels, play tea party with my dolls, and brush my hair into pretty ponytails”.
That has to be the most confusing stuff I have ever heard? We will find more kids needing therapy than ever before.
When your young boy asks to wear a dress, he's not exploring his sexuality. He doesn't even know what sex is. He's not asking because he wants to identify as a woman, ignore societal gender roles or even make a statement. He's asking because he doesn’t know. Nobody's taught him about gender norms as yet.
Gender-neutral parents love to tell you how they aren’t hostile to masculinity. They just broadly support whatever their kids want to be.
If you let your son go out in a dress, he's not the one making a statement.
Stop lying to yourself and don’t make me feel guilty for trying hard to protect my son’s masculinity from becoming extinct. Don’t make my son feel bad for choosing to be a boy.
Gender activists are killing off our men with their neutral talk. We need boys to aspire to manhood, not to see it as a matter of indifference. By telling our sons they do not have to worry about being a man we are confusing them.
How do we hold men accountable for #AllMenAreTrash slogans if we are saying to them that it is okay not to be a real man? You can be a confused person walking around with no idea of how to treat a woman because you have never had to be a man. Gender-neutral parents aren’t really neutral. They are dangerous.
Just look at this story of a lesbian couple who forces their son to wear girl’s clothes and not be so ‘masculine’. They are denying him his right to be a man.
“It’s really funny, because he’s like super into sports,” Michelle said. “Maybe he was like an Olympic athlete in his past life. He like, came with all of these sporting talents that are like visible at 17 months. That’s what Dashiell liked growing up. She easily relates to him on that level.
“I’m constantly like trying to queer my relationship with him and get him to wear tutus. He hates it. He’s just like, ‘no,’” Michelle said.
Gender-neutral parents still do force their own ideas onto a child.
I think by letting your son go without any idea of how to be a man he actually faces being bullied or not being able to deal with rejection and failure.
Equality groups set up by pupils in some schools in the US and UK are pushing for teachers to use non-gendered pronouns such as ‘they’, for all sports to be open to everyone, and for a ban on words and phrases such as ‘ladylike’ and ‘man up’. Really? What happens to chauvinism? I still want my son to address a woman with respect and open a door for her or carry the heavy bags. If we continue to push the gender neutral card then women can forget about any of that. And what is so offensive about ‘he or she’? I don’t want to be a ‘they’. I definitely do not want my son to come home one day and tell me he likes a ‘they’. I want him to discover things for himself. I want him to look for a role model and aspire to be someone. I don’t want him to feel ashamed if he chooses to be a tough guy like Vin Diesel or a wise crack like Chris Rock or an eccentric like Johnny Depp.
Why are sentiments such as "be a man" or "man up" wrong?
The Highgate School in the UK plans to bring in uniform rules allowing boys to wear skirts. The school is set to make the change as pupils are 'questioning their gender identity'. Children are already allowed to request that staff address them by a name of the opposite gender.
Gender neutral parenting has nothing to do with fairness or equality. Instead it highlights that any evidence of difference is a form of prejudice and gender neutral activists cannot handle 'different'.
It is all these gender fluid/neutral activists who have made it a frontline issue. And we as a society face losing our sons to this dangerous ideal. I am the mothering type and I do notice the effect it has on my son compared to when he is with his father or a group of boys.
If people want to identify with either gender, no one should stop them. And why be embarrassed or scared to allow your son to be a man?
Wouldn't the proper "gender-less" thing be to outlaw dresses for both son and daughter? What about a ban on action figures and dolls? And tea sets and toy guns?
A couple in the UK raised their child for five years not letting anyone know the gender. According to the couple they wanted the child to decide.
They referred to their child as "The Infant" and only allowed him to play with "gender-neutral toys" in their television-free home.
For the first five years of his life Sasha alternated between girls' and boys' outfits. Finally the secret got too hard to keep and Beck and Kieran were forced to reveal Sasha's sex when he started school.
Sasha wears a "ruched-sleeved" girl's shirt as part of his school uniform, and has been banned from sporting combat trousers. Why ban him from wanting to wear something that could be perceived as masculine?
The youngster is also encouraged to wear flowery tops at weekends.
This to me sounds like the parents are influencing which direction this little boy goes. They obviously want a girl.
If your child is old enough to understand gender norms and he/she makes an informed decision to resist these, because of what you taught your child, well done to all involved.
But if your child is clueless of what society deems as gender normal behavior, makes a decision out of ignorance and has a hard time being accepted by his/her peers or dealing with the internal battle of where he/she fits in, you as the parent must be ready to accept responsibility. You failed to protect, and educate, your child properly.
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