Friday, May 27, 2011

Weekend Reading: Mixed Media Edition

So, Petunia's infectious disease expert doesn't think we should take her tonsils out. We officially asked one too many doctors- now we don't know what we're going to do. Personally, I'm curious to see if she gets a fever this Sunday. I'll probably write a post with more details soon, but in the meantime, she's fine and happy right now. Except that she's got a snotty nose, but really, what toddler doesn't?

I'm going to keep this one short, because I have today off and I want to go play with my kids. But I couldn't not send anyone who hasn't heard about the family in Canada who is not revealing their baby's sex (after the baby was born) over to read about it. I don't have a strong opinion on this one. You can check out what blue milk and Julie at A Little Pregnant think- they said smart things. I find myself torn between two gut feelings: on one hand, I think that gender identity is a fairly important thing and that we don't really understand how it develops, so I wonder if this family is playing a bit with fire on this. But on the other hand, I think kids are generally pretty resilient, and that the kids in this family are clearly loved and cared for, so everything will probably turn out fine. Maybe one of them will write a memoir as an adult and let us know what they think.

The story did make me think about the book Middlesex, by Jeffery Eugenides, which was an interesting fictional look at what happens when a child's gender is undetermined.

And finally, apropos to nothing, I give you this funny YouTube clip, thanks to my husband. Having once experienced something similar to the event described in the video, but with Abba's "Dancing Queen", I can confirm that it will indeed make you a bit crazy. (The video has a little bit of bad language, so you might not want to do what I did and watch it in front of your kids- Pumpkin mostly picked up on the cats, though.)

3 comments:

  1. Oh, the Storm controversy. We just can't get enough of reality parenting and making fun of the hippies can we? ;) I'm intrigued by the whole thing - it reminds me of the lyrics to that old tune by Rush - "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

    Here's what I said over at A Little Pregnant:

    My issue with the Witterickses' talking with the media about their social experiment is that they chose to make all 3 of their young kids the unwitting, international poster children for their "cause" ... whatever it is exactly. Now the whole world knows these children's full names, ages, and their stories. All of it will be internet-searchable, probably forever. So much for letting these kids actually consent to the formation of their own identities.

    Also, their choice to hide the sex of Storm seems extremely Reactive to Jazz's gender concerns, instead of Proactive. They just assume Storm will share the same problems Jazz has experienced, instead of treating each child as having unique, differing needs. Seems like they're having a hard time separating their parenting choices from their own needs to construct these publicly-managed, mainstream-critical identities.

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  2. I'm sorry about Petunia's struggle with constant colds still! I wouldn't like taking the surgery option on a maybe either. For the first time ever, I'm suffering from allergy symptoms. Poor Tate has such dark rings under his eyes he looks like a raccoon. It's not a good year in respiratory health.

    Gender issues - Tate is determined to grow up and be a mommy. I'm pretty sure that comes from having very little idea of what it would be like to grow up and be a daddy. Perhaps I should have raised him to just call me "Parent"....

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  3. Anonymous3:08 PM

    We did that once with Whitney Houston's, "I will always love you" at a Pizza Hut in high school... but we didn't stick around for the aftermath.

    Sometimes I wonder if some of my more male linguistic (etc) characteristics are because I spent a portion of my childhood with a pixie cut and folks assuming I was a boy. But, my other female relatives are pretty similar linguistically. Of course, I've seen pictures of my mom and aunts with pixie cuts in their youth...

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