Do We Harm Our Children By Naming Them "Pop"?
Sometimes parents can over-think things. Then sometimes parents are just crazy. Then sometimes parents name their child "Pop".
According to the University of Oxford Practical Ethics Blog, a Swedish couple has decided to keep the sex of their toddler a secret as to avoid the pressures placed upon children from having to grow up as one gender or another.
As reported in the Guardian, "We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset. It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead." Oddly, I didn't know that we were doing that to babies these days. Maybe only in Sweden.
Personally, I think it is cruel to bring a child into the world and to force a parent's wild-eyed expectations that the world could somehow be gender-neutral upon him/her. What happens when little "Pop" (who quite frankly is going to get popped in the nose regularly in grade school for having such a ridiculous name) has a penchant for playing with dolls or Transformers over more gender-neutral blocks or sock puppets?
What happens when "Pop" wants to wear pink for 7 days in a row (as children often do)--won't "Pop's" ambiguous sex cover be blown? Or will his/her parents force "Pop" to wear only khaki for the next 18 years?
Frankly, this sounds like more of a publicity stunt to me than anything else. But it raises important questions about how we think about raising our children as well. Could we ever be truly neutral in what we expose our children to--and would we really want to be? Would we really want our children to be without gender? The position of "Pop's" parents deny something wonderful about being a little girl or a little boy.
I say let "Pop" be whoever he/she is going to be--if that is a blue clothes wearing, Hannah Montana singing boy, then so be it. Shrouding a boy or girl in gender-neutrality will only result in a child who grows up wondering--"Why were my parents hiding my gender and my male/female-ness all this time? What were they ashamed of?" Quite frankly, I'd like to ask them that myself.
Free "Pop" from her bondage and let him/her be a toddler who can be anything he/she wants to be.
Summer Johnson, PhD
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I think it's quite possible little Pop is intersexual to some extent. In those cases I think the parents are right, if overly idealistic, to let Pop grow up ambiguously gendered, the way they were born, and decide on what they like to be on their own when they have matured. Of course there are pragmatic difficulties with this.
That said, I don't believe these parents are trying to deny Pop a gender identity. I think they just want him/her to find it on his/her own, without social expectations. For example, if Pop were actually a boy, but no one knew it, society wouldn't be able to shame him for playing with Barbies and dollhouses and he can happily enjoy all these things. I myself darted from toy guns and trucks to stuffed kittens and back again as a youngster, and indeed all my female friends strongly preferred blue over pink, but I know that tomboyishness is more accepted in girls than girlishness in boys.
I do feel that if the parents emphasize that gender stereotypes are needless, there's no need to 'free' Pop from his/her gender by hiding it. Pop will free popself. Plenty of kids, teens, and adults will play with gender expression at some time throughout their lives, and we all have to come to terms with our identities eventually, whether from the beginning or just at the end.
- by Shii on Aug 13, 2010 at 2:59 AM | link
I'm surprised by the narrow perspective express in this post. The author uncritically conflates sex and gender, whereas it is almost universally agreed that the former is a biological fact and the latter a social construct. To suggest that a child possesses "male/female-ness" prior to puberty is a blatant case of mistaking the cultural for the biological. Any "male/female-ness" a prepubescent child "has" is externally imposed; not some quality inherent in the child. Moreover, the author confuses the parents' stated aim that their child "grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset," with a claim that s/he be raised without a gender. While it is neither my place to question their motives nor methods--barring some claim of child cruelty, which is self-evidently not present here--I would suggest that the parents in question ought to be lauded for their effort to reduce the impact of principally-discriminatory social gender norms on their child's development. The author's stance of outright violence (Pop "is going to get popped in the nose regularly") toward this suggestion is a sad--and surprising, given the forum--expression of those discriminatory gender norms these parents are trying escape.
- by Andrew D. Thibedeau on Aug 13, 2010 at 3:38 PM | link
I agree with the above commenters (somehow my earlier submitted comment got eaten by the blog?) that there is a misinterpretation of what the parents' intentions are here. They are striving to shield their child from externally imposed gender restrictions until the child chooses for her/himself what is best for her/him.
Multiple studies have shown that adults respond differently to babies based on perceived gender; these different responses impose and reinforce gender stereotypes. (example: http://www.newsweek.com/2009/09/02/pink-brain-blue-brain.html)
I always find it interesting that the first question traditionally asked of a parent with a baby is, "Is it a boy or a girl?" This is a very telling flag for how deeply rooted gender differences are in society, that the first judgment about a new life is what its biological sex is, and this determines all future interactions and assumptions.
I applaud these parents for doing their best to mitigate these restrictions and hope more parents see this as a good example to consider. It is unfortunate that many commenters on the Guardian site were so narrow-minded as to equate this to child abuse when there are so many cases of real abuse and neglect out there.
Finally, while "Pop" may not be the most elegant name, gender-neutral names are not new (Robin, Terry, Sydney, Alex, etc), and it sure beats the names given by parents seeking to make a joke of their child's name (ie: Frank Wiener).
- by SabrinaW on Aug 15, 2010 at 6:56 PM | link
There was a pretty classic story written way back in the 70's about baby X and how the parents didn't tell anyone else what the child was and how this caused so much disruption.. of course once its sibling baby Y was born every figured it out.
- by Georgia England on Aug 16, 2010 at 7:06 PM | link