Idiots Use Child as Ideological Mannequin

A Swedish couple believe so strongly that gender is a social construction that they do not reveal whether their 2.5-year-old is a boy or a girl.

Idiot mother explains her stupid, selfish and cruel plan, “We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mold from the outset. It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”

Then media does the standard balancing act, first interviewing a normal person who points out the bleedin’ obvious:

“Child-rearing should not be about providing an opportunity to prove an ideological point, but about responding to each child’s needs as an individual,” Susan Pinker, a psychologist who is the author of a book about sex differences in the workplace, told the Local. “I don’t think that trying to keep a child’s sex a secret will fool anyone, nor do I think it’s wise or ethical. As with any family secret, when we try to keep an elemental truth from children, it usually blows up in the parents’ face, via psychosomatic illness or rebellious behavior.”

Then, for “balance”, they get the worthless views of ideological fool:

Kristina Henkel, Swedish gender equality consultant, says Pop’s parents’ experiment could help the child develop as an individual without being boxed in by gender-role stereotyping from birth. “If the child is dressed up as a girl or boy, it affects them because people see and treat them in a more gender-typical way,” Henkel explains. “Girls are told they are cute in their dresses, and boys are told they are cool with their car toys. But if you give them no gender they will be seen more as a human or not a stereotype as a boy or girl.”

After that, like Doonesbury’s Roland Hedley Burton, they wrap it all up with the meaningless “light quip/remains to be seen” ending:

Pop’s parents say that they will reveal the child’s gender when Pop thinks it is time to do so. In any case, he or she will soon have more company. The family is expecting another child, and with the next bundle of joy, the parents plan to continue playing the “what’s it to you?” gender card.

The “remains to be seen” ending is a favorite fallback of the journalist who doesn’t want to appear judgmental when confronted with severe moral retardation that *might* be sort of appealing to trendy types. So rather than saying “These people are insane child abusers who are unfit to be parents (you can only say that about homeschoolers and Catholics who have more than 2.3 children) you get some variation on “Whether this controversial (journalese for “evil”) method of child-rearing will result in the fulfillment of Pinker’s or Henkel’s prophecy’s remains to be seen. Meanwhile, life goes on.” Another lifestyle article on life’s colorful pageant is filed. Another child is abandoned to his fate at that hands of ideological experimenters. And another journalist does her job of covering up for the right sort of evil with a light laugh.