News and Events => Opinions & Editorials => Topic started by: Shana A on May 30, 2011, 08:12:21 AM Return to Full Version
Title: Indulgent idea that puts parents before child
Post by: Shana A on May 30, 2011, 08:12:21 AM
Post by: Shana A on May 30, 2011, 08:12:21 AM
Indulgent idea that puts parents before child
Jane McCredie
May 30, 2011
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/indulgent-idea-that-puts-parents-before-child-20110529-1fal6.html?comments=30 (http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/indulgent-idea-that-puts-parents-before-child-20110529-1fal6.html?comments=30)
Not that there is anything wrong with wanting to free us from the prison of stereotypes. Many people don't neatly fit the gender binary - whether psychologically, anatomically, or both - and I personally would love to live in a world where children could become whoever they were going to be without having a whole lot of gender-based expectations imposed on them.
I just don't think Pop and Storm's parents are helping to create that utopia. Keeping their child's sex secret actually makes it more, not less, important - sending a message that this is something so powerful, so potentially explosive, that it cannot be spoken. To me it seems a self-indulgent project that puts the ideological interests of the parents ahead of the welfare of the child.
Jane McCredie
May 30, 2011
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/indulgent-idea-that-puts-parents-before-child-20110529-1fal6.html?comments=30 (http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/indulgent-idea-that-puts-parents-before-child-20110529-1fal6.html?comments=30)
Not that there is anything wrong with wanting to free us from the prison of stereotypes. Many people don't neatly fit the gender binary - whether psychologically, anatomically, or both - and I personally would love to live in a world where children could become whoever they were going to be without having a whole lot of gender-based expectations imposed on them.
I just don't think Pop and Storm's parents are helping to create that utopia. Keeping their child's sex secret actually makes it more, not less, important - sending a message that this is something so powerful, so potentially explosive, that it cannot be spoken. To me it seems a self-indulgent project that puts the ideological interests of the parents ahead of the welfare of the child.