Keeping mum: is it a boy or a girl?

LEAVING THE house without the relevant baby paraphernalia (nappies, wipes, bottles, etc) is something I do on occasion. It’s not because I’m a man despite what my wife says.

I believe I am biologically preset to record a whole host of failings in this department, having already littered the planet with lost keys and misplaced belongings.

As a child I regularly earned the epithet, “You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on”, and despite the best will in the world, the adult remains firmly shackled to the child.

Just recently I found myself in the car some way from home without any of the aforementioned items for my two-year-old son, who was cranking up for his mid-morning nap with a low-level whinge.

From past experience, I knew his petty plaint would soon morph into a raucous wail unless prompt action was taken. He still takes a bottle with his sleeps, and is not for turning on the issue.

So I stopped at a nearby chemist to buy a bottle (I have quite a collection of emergency purchases at home).

My son was more than happy with what appeared to be the only available choice – a fluorescent pink juice bottle.

As I was paying for the bottle, the shop assistant – taking pity on my predicament – prevailed on me to wait a moment while she retrieved something from the storeroom.

Rather naively, I presumed she intended to rescue me from another preventable purchase by giving me a free bottle from some discontinued line of stock.

Instead, she returned with the same product in two alternative hues, green and blue – more suitable colours for a boy being the implicit suggestion.

Not wanting to seem ungrateful I took one, and much to my son’s annoyance and noisy protestations, ushered him out of the shop.

A benign capitulation to the colour-coded rules of gender, you might say.

Not so benign, however, for Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, the Canadian couple who recently announced that they would not be disclosing the sex of their new baby, Storm, to ensure he or she could be brought up in a gender-neutral environment.

“We’ve decided not to share Storm’s sex for now – a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm’s lifetime (a more progressive place? . . .),” the couple said in an e-mail to their family and friends.

The story hit the front page of the Toronto Starlast month, going viral within hours, and sparking an angry exchange between supporters of the couple and their critics, with many accusing the pair of taking their quest for gender neutrality too far and using their kids as a "social experiment".

“How absolutely selfish to play games with their own child’s mind,” one reader posted on the newspaper’s website.

Witterick responded to the controversy by insisting her child, who is now four months old, should be able to develop his or her own sexual identity without having “to conform to social stereotypes or bow to predetermined expectations associated with gender”.

But is it okay to conceal your child’s sex in pursuit of such a goal?

Child psychologist and columnist with The Irish Times, John Sharry, acknowledges there are "huge gender expectations and stereotypes" placed on children from birth.

However, avoiding these often limiting and rigid stereotypes, he says, must be balanced with helping your child discover a happy identity as a boy or a girl.

A child’s happiness is linked to having a “secure gender identity”, Sharry says.

“When you make strong decisions about bringing up children in a certain way, as a parent you can put your children at odds with the surrounding culture, which can cause them stress and problems.”

It’s long been observed that if boys behave outside their gender in school they often encounter bullying. This is less of a problem for girls where the traditional tomboy role is more acceptable, he says.

“The best thing really is to soften the stereotypes . . . ultimately you don’t want your son to have a completely repressed feminine side, nor do you want your daughter to be pushed down a line of not exploring interests that are perceived to be male if that’s where her passions lie.”

Experts believe a child’s gender identity as a male or female is, like other aspects of personality, shaped by a combination of nature and nurture.

One thing Storm’s parents are correct in assuming, however, is that people will and do treat children differently on the basis of gender.

Research shows gender ideology and gender identity is shaped in infants right from birth.

Countless studies show adults hold and play with babies differently depending on the gender of the child, even altering the tone of their voice.

Director of the Centre for Gender and Women’s studies (2010-11) at Trinity College Dublin, Dr Kathleen McTiernan, is sympathetic to parents wanting to escape the stereotypes, but critical of the “extreme stance” taken in this case.

“I understand trying to seek a gender neutral situation but our world is not gender neutral. It seems like an experiment that they’re conducting on the child, and there are ethical implications to adopting such a stance without the child’s consent.”

Gender stereotyping is changing over time, she says, citing the end of the marriage bar – a practice which restricted married women from certain types of employment – and the way science subjects are more widely taught to girls, as significant milestones.

While some Irish parents may complain that they cannot buy clothes for children under 12 months in colours other than pink or blue, “colour doesn’t make any type of gender struggle”, McTiernan says.

One area she does highlight, however, as a concern is the advertising of certain products to young girls, where everything from clothes to free lipsticks with magazines appear to be shaping a “questionable narrative” of womanhood.

“The ideal is not for gender neutrality because that’s just not nature but to allow for more choice and expression of self,” McTiernan says.

How long Storm’s parents can conceal their child’s sex remains to be seen, but judging by their comments, they are unbowed by the criticism.

"Everyone keeps asking us, 'When will this end?'" Witterick told the Starnewspaper in an e-mail. "And we always turn the question back. 'Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?'"

* Sex is a biological concept referring to the physiological characteristics of men and women while gender derives from socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities associated with society. Put another way, male and female are sex categories, while masculine and feminine are gender categories