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Jewish World Review May 30, 2011 / 26 Iyar, 5771 We Have Good News! It's a Brand New Baby … Something? By Mitch Albom
"Boy or girl?" And in the case of a
"If you really want to get to know someone, you don't ask what's between their legs," Stocker told the Added the mother in an email to that paper: "Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what s(he) wants to be?!" Never mind that the question can be answered with one peek down the diaper. What I don't get is the motivation. The parents, in their late 30s, seem to feel a terrible injustice is done by identifying something that goes back to Adam and Eve, namely, well, whether you're an Adam or an Eve. "What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children," Stocker told the Star. "It's obnoxious." Hmm.
LACK OF SCHOOLING IS NO WAY TO LEARN
I wonder what other choices these folks will leave to the baby. For example, why not let it decide to change its own diaper? Why impose your view? Maybe the kid likes sitting in poo-poo -- who are we to judge? Why decide when to do a feeding? Put the bottle on the counter and let the kid go after it. Schooling? The child can decide. Go. Don't go. Whatever. What's important, after all, is that parents aren't "obnoxious" about it. What you have here is a classic case of people saying one thing and causing the opposite. By trying to ignore gender, they have made gender the most important thing. There are now online polls as to whether Storm is a boy or a girl (most say boy) and TV shows and talk shows nationwide have been buzzing with it. Meanwhile, Storm's two older brothers -- Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2 -- are being raised without formal schooling and taught to choose whatever behavior they like. Jazz, according to the Star, dresses in pink, paints his nails and wears a stud in his ear. This, we are to believe, is his "choice." Of course, Mom or Dad made the choice to buy the nail polish, the clothes and the stud. What happens if the child points to a chainsaw? They get him that, too?
MOTHER NATURE MAKES HER DECISION
I try to imagine telling my parents, when I was in the crib, that they were too judgmental. My father would still be laughing. The Personally, I am all in favor of a little imposition. It's time to eat. Time to sleep. Time to stop crying. Time to go to school. Don't treat others that way. Don't say rude things. It's called parenting. If the child, later in life, prefers football to lipstick, or boxer shorts to dresses, or one day asks a doctor to mangle its private parts in an effort to be something else, it still will be unable to deny that it was born one way. It's not a judgment. It's a fact. So is this. When your child asks, "Am I a boy or a girl?" and you answer, "Whatever you want," you're not being wise, hip, progressive or nonjudgmental, you're just being a fool. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
