Gender Fender Bender

I am pretty worked up about an article I read via Facebook, via Tiny Prints, via Parenting.com

First of all, as many of the fans of Tiny Prints pointed out, stick with making great prints and cards, skip the other agendas.  Their job is to make paper look great. 

So, here's the article. 

And here is where I open my can of whoop ass:

Where to even begin?!  So, these "liberated", free-thinking, "gender-neutral" parents decide to raise their "infant" as a non-gender until the age of 5 when they "reveal" his gender due to a kindergarten application process.  They wanted him, Sasha, to grow up unbiased in gender until he was old enough to choose, therefore they did not allow certain toys such as Barbies or fire trucks.  Last time I looked, you know, flipped a truck upside down, I just never seemed to come across genitalia.  Who knew fire trucks had penis' but apparently that is what these parents thought. 

First, let me get genitals off my chest for a moment:  just because people have certain body parts does not mean they should procreate.  And, if they did indeed procreate, it doesn't mean they were cut out for parenting.  Here is where I encourage people to lovingly give their children up for adoption to people who aren't able to procreate but were designed to be parents. 

The presence of genitals does not equal loving parenting.

And why do people want to be parents, anyway?  This is something people should actually think and pray about before having unprotected sex, within our outside of marriage.  *No, I am not advocating sex outside of marriage.  God didn't set this rule in place to be a big jerk who likes to take the fun out of a spicy evening.  Have a spicy evening with your spouse, that's what He was saying.  And, Yes, I am advocating safe sex.  Entirely other post I have brewing in my head about this topic...wait for it...
But truly, just because a person has gotten married doesn't mean the automatic next thing to do is to become a parent.  Especially if they are totally inclined to self-absorption.  The lifestyle and calling just won't work for you...

My disgust for their (people in the article) parenting lies deep.  And yes, I'll probably get feedback from some out there reading that I'm judgmental and "to each his own"  or "their own" in this case.  But this is my blog and here is my spiel.

For the liberated, free-thinking people who believe they are allowing their child the ability to choose their gender by avoiding their gender altogether for 5 years or however long some may choose, they are denying them their basic human right.  And that's just on a political spectrum of being a human born in the United States of America.

What about the bigger, much more important picture of a human being born on God's beautiful green earth?  God designed each of us with gender.  It was the beginning of our identities.  "And God created them, male and female, He created them...AND IT WAS GOOD"  (Bold, mine!)

The stereotypes, both positive and negative, that surround gender are man-made. 

"Fire trucks are for boys."

"Barbie dolls are for girls."

"Pink is a girl color."

"Boys should like blue."

Penis' are for men.  That's the part they are made with.  Vagina's are for girls.  It's the part designed for them.  Penis' and vaginas are not stereotypes.  They are genitalia.

Have we really not come that far in the last several hundred years, at least here in America?  Em and I just completed one of my old books from when I was in Junior High called, "They Led the Way" about early American women who stepped over popular stereotypes like women's suffrage, education solely for males, and women running for public office.  And what about equal rights?  What is that all about if the basic truth of an infant is taken away from them for their most formative years?  Who's going to pay Sasha's counseling bills?

My friend would call this a "First World Problem."  I'm FOR SURE posting on that another day.  But seriously!  In the Third World, sometimes parents don't name their children for several years because of the high infant mortality rate.  Is this fair?  No!  It's child neglect and abuse just as much as denying a child to know their basic gender.  How EDUCATED, UNBIASED, and FREE-THINKING, are we that these are the issues we face in the First World and not if we should or shouldn't even name our dying child who is starving to death or has fallen sick with a horrendous disease that could be prevented through medication or clean sanitation and a balanced diet?!

THESE ARE REAL SOULS, PEOPLE!

I went to High Tea the other day to celebrate my mom's remission from breast cancer.  We were served at this "girly function" by men....  And let me clarify, it's not a "girly" disease.  Men have breast cancer, too.  They don't have cervical cancer, and women don't have prostate cancer, but if a "non-gender" raised boy gets prostate cancer one day, don't you think he'll know he's a boy?

Our society is becoming more and more perverted, meaning sick and corrupt, as it becomes more and more "free" in its thinking.  This is not to say people should not be free to think for themselves or make choices of their own.  By all means.  God created us with FREE CHOICE.  It was His first gift to us, but it came with a heavy price.  We're trying so hard to drop lines that divide, creating GRAY, but not in the areas that matter, and so what will the next generation do?  Dear God, please come back before we have to see...

What these parents could have done to love their child unconditionally rather than try to control his environment in the strictest of ways, was to love the child they were given, who incidentally was a son, to be a healthy, happy, and confident person. 

Our jobs as parents are not to freakishly try to control our children by boxing them in from the fears we ourselves have, and I'm talking to over-controlling Christian parents here, too.  But its to teach them, direct and guide them, watch for their God-given gifts and strengths to shine through and then nurture those gifts through direction and unconditional love, even establishing healthy boundaries, so they can be the best they can be, not be who we want them to be.  This is good parenting. 

Not hands-off ignorance.

Deep breath.  Okay.  I'm off to get my son from his crib. 

He is a boy and he can be whatever God has called him to be, for God's glory, not my own scientific experiment or political agenda.