Free to be…You and Me! Free to be Gender Free! I’m sure by now, everybody in the world has heard the story of 4 month old baby Storm. This is the child born in Toronto to Kathy Witterick and her husband, David Stocker. The couple has kept their baby Storm’s gender a secret. The only people who know are one family friend and Storm’s older brothers, Jazz, 5, Kio, 2 and the two midwives who delivered Storm on New Year’s Day.
An article last week in the Toronto Star profiled the family and their quest to raise their baby unfettered by gender imposed expectations. The couple began this plight by sending out an email after Storm’s birth:
“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? …).”
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23 comments
I’m so glad you posted this. When I saw the article, all I could think is how screwed up those kids are going to be.
Raise the child to be who they are, and know what sex they are. but let them know they can do ANYTHING reguardless of their sex.
i just read this today and was thinking about suggesting it to Carri for her Throat Punch! I think it’s so dumb. Even at the young age of 5 their son has experienced hatred in kids saying they don’t want to play with him. Sure, these things are going to happen anyway, but I think they are setting their children up for bullying. There are other ways to encourage your children to be well adjusted.
I would like to see a follow up story in about 18 – 25 years, see how these kids have turned out. The baby-raising fads that have been coming at us since the ’80s are only turning out kids who grow up to be very ill-prepared for adulthood and this is no exception. These parents are not going to change the world by doing this and they are robbing their children of the socialization that will prepare them for the society that they live in, like it or not.
Maybe I’m too practical, but all I could think, when I read this, is that these people just guaranteed that no one else will EVER change a poopy diaper for them. I dunno about you, but I’m willing to let just about anyone change a shitty diaper for me – short of the creepy homeless guy at the park.
I have a boy and two girls. My boy instinctively has been drawn towards balls, trucks, etc … and when I forbade “gun toys” – he picked up a stick and pretended to shoot me with it. My DH is trying everything in his power to make our 21 month old a tom boy, but when given a choice, will pick the doll over the truck and the dress over the jeans.
That said, my son is an awesome dancer and wants to take hiphop classes, and we’ve signed him up this summer and my 21 month old daughter can throw a ball almost as hard and as well as her 6 year old brother, the t-ball champ.
Let your kids be who they are! Don’t make them be weirdos – trust me, they’ll be weird enough without your help.
I’m happy you wrote about his today. I just heard about the family yesterday morning on my way to work and was mortified. I feel sorry for the kids. Their parents are just setting them up for some major bullying at school. Just let the kids be!
Ugh. I so agree. I don’t care if Klaw plays football or wants me to paint his toenails pink OR wants to play football wearing a tiara after painting his toenails.
I foresee more confusion NOT less in poor Storm’s life.
I thought maybe when I heard about the story that it was some sort of hoax or something…but then once I realized it was real I just couldn’t believe it. Thank you for shedding some light on this & giving this most lovely award to these idiots of the year.
These parents are crazy. I had no heard of this story. I feel sorry for Storm. Storm is being made a spectacle so early in life because of his/her crazy parents.
BOOM. Eat that, motherfuckers! What kind of nimrod do you have to be to not let your child KNOW their gender and using it as a building block to becoming what they want to and should be? Idiots.
Kick to the taco!!!
What a great Throat Punch this is. I hope you don’t mind, I added a few swings to this selfish, stupid couple. They are on some high and mighty horse, saying they’re giving their children a right to choose their gender, when all they’re doing is raising 3 kids who are going to be woefully unprepared for the big bad world, full of men and women, raised as boys and girls, who are going to give them so much shit. They have no right to use their children as science experiments.
It really gets me goat, reading about idiots like that!
The whole thing is a fool’s errand anyway. Kids somehow know what their gender is. Our 18 month old daughter wants to carry a purse and put on makeup because she sees her mother do it. We never TOLD her what her gender is, yet from as early as she began to immitate things, she identified with her gender role as she sees it from her parents. In addition, how many times do strangers innacurately identify a kid’s sex before the age of two–you can’t tell the difference between baby boys and girls, and no one really cares anyway! They’re babies!
When you’re done, I’d like to throw a throat punch or two of my own, if it’s okay with you. Not trying to steal your gig, but man, these jackholes not only deserve it, they NEED it.
Anyone else in for a coupla swings?
really? so when storm asks why she looks different to her brothers, or why he looks different to his mother/friend/thefamily friend/they are going to say what….oh it’s not important because we don’t want you to be owned by a gender?!
seriously, what planet are these people on!?!
I’m wondering how they got away with not putting this on the birth certificate – and how it’s going to be when the adrogenous child gets to school – lets hope they don’t plan on sending ‘the child’ to a single-sex one!!!
Gender is an inherent difference we are all forced to accept and live with FROM THE BEGINNING. Its healthy to have to be tolerant of things that are different. To know that they ARE different and nothing is wrong with that. Are we going to start telling our kids that all mammals are “mammals” instead of cat or dog? That’s just stupid. I think they are drawing more attention to gender by doing this and making their kids think its way more important than it is. Sigh.
I just love your Throat Punch Thursday Posts! You are not afraid to say what everyone else is thinking! Great Job! I completely agree!
Aww,thank you! I have been called “In your face” a time or two:) I’m glad you enjoy the weekly Throat Punches:)
First thing that crossed through my mind when I saw this article, “God, I hope Deb posts a Throat Punch about this.”
Is that wrong? LMAO
LOL! It’s not wrong. It is hilarious that you know me so well:)
what the fuck kind of retarded name is “storm”? and chuck norris jokes? christ, is it still 2003?
Oh, that’s not nice to pick on the babies name. But if you are making a comment as to the parent’s state of mind, I would agree that they are mental midgets for the fact that they are playing with their children’s futures. Chuck Norris wasn’t a joke.He is the bad ass that inflicts the throat punches on Thursday on The Truth about Motherhood.It’s respect..not a joke:)
Good God I’m embarrassed that these ppl are Canadian.
I feel terribly sorry for their children.
I’m really baffled as to how they think this is going to help their kid. I understand the social experiment side of it but damn it, that’s their babies that they are gambling with. It’s ridiculous.
excellent post. let’s have a kid and make it a social experiment. didn’t prince do that whole gender-free thing a while back? how’s that working out for you, symbol?
I think you are right, and we all see how that turned out! I;m still not sure what the deal is with “Prince”:)