“This is why I think it’s only a matter of time until the world sees vast numbers of people bursting down the doors of the Catholic Church, begging to convert as soon as possible.”

Well, I like your optimism!

My assessment is that 97% of people in our culture would denounce these people as complete flakes and/or nutjobs.  As concerned as I am with secularism and the rise of a disordered view of sexuality, humans’ relationship to God, etc, honestly I think that conflating the genders is not foremost among the problems.  In my view, the less-educated still take gender differentiation for granted; the more-educated may start out thinking that it’s proper and right to raise their kids without the “oppression” of gender expectations, but quickly realize by having actual children that gender differences are inherent.  A burst of internet notoriety for a couple of Canadian goofballs isn’t going to change what the vast majority of us already know, or legitimize a very fringe mentality.

“As a result, Jazz and now Kio are almost exclusively assumed to be girls”
- That’s because the mother is obviously totally dominant in the house and the father is a pathetic eunuch who in older times would have lived as a catamite. The children have no male role model in their home, merely a ‘woman’ and a castrato that I assume, sometimes at least, probably wears pants.

It’s no wonder they both act like girls. Their father is for all intents and purposes a non-entity.

When these children leave their home, the World will tear them apart. They will also leave hating their parents.

The parents’ narcissism is also borderline masturbatory.

While I find such people as this disgusting, as every sane person does, I don’t worry about it becoming a big deal. People of this type can only flourish in times of ease and prosperity. When times get very hard, and they soon will, people like this vanish. They can only survive by being coddled.

It’s interesting that the “mother” has no problem considering herself a “parent” to “her baby”.  Shouldn’t she consider “motherhood” a social construct, just as “parents” and “children” are, and that these “children” should be allowed to decide who their “parents” are.

So maybe the best thing for “children”, according to these “parents”, is to abandon the baby somewhere and let him/her/it find and choose him/her/its parents.

hmmm…
So rejecting fundamental truths of biology in one respect makes you an enlightened progressive, but rejecting fundamental truths of biology in another respect makes you a backwards Christian moron

Biology is hard!

Lets assume for the moment that issues like gender are in fact a social construct; isn’t it remarkable that it is a social construct that every society has embraced?  Sure some societies might have more than the standard two, but male and female gender are universally recognized (Or if they are not, I am not aware of the culture that does not recognize them).  Now, to me, that suggests that there is something necessary in that “reductionism”.  It also suggests that the “male” and “female” genders might in fact be more than mere social constructs and the “other” socially constructed “genders”.
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But lets also consider that language is also a social construct, and is by its very nature reductionist.  Language shapes the way we think and view the world.  By the logic defined above, we shouldn’t teach our children language because that limits their view of the world.
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Ultimately it is the job of parents to provide those “reductions” for children.  Fathers need to teach their sons to be men and mothers need to teach their daughters to be women. 
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I am also very upset about the negative comments about Christian Homeschooling, the Amish and Orthodox Judaism.  All of those groups, while not perfect, do a better job of raising decent children than the parents referenced in this article.  I know I am judging, and I hope God forgives me for it.

“I know I am judging, and I hope God forgives me for it.”
- Pointing out the obvious is not ‘judging’.

I’ve always felt overly male and hetero - like maybe there is something wrong with me - because I’ve never ever been mistaken for, or felt even slightly like a woman.

Your blog gives me hope:  I’ve got a beard and I snap.  Sometimes, when I’m not eating what others consider junk I even keep my mouth shut to keep my big foot out of my mouth.

SoooOOOooo…. Maybe I really am a mollusk.  Gonna give it a try.  Letcha know how it goes.

So wearing pink and purple and braids makes you a girl?

On the one hand, these people appear to be pushing the outer limits of social and religious constructs, yet on the other hand, they are completely confined by them.

I recall when the word “gender” started to be used in favor of “sex.” I remember thinking: Gender is a fluid word, subject to change, and in this example, a result of one’s own individual choice. “Sex” is not. “Sex” describes an undeniable physical, created reality from which all other social, psychological, emotional, etc. realities derive. I still shy away from using the word “gender” in conversation.

We still have a lot to learn from St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught that truth is found by studying the world around us, not our subjective experience of that world (which was Descartes and most other rationalist/modernist thinkers). Or in simpler terms: the world does not revolve around us, nor are we its creators.

I am reminded of the historical practice of clothing boys in dresses and allowing them to have long hair.  I have a photo of my grandfather when he was 4-5 yrs. old.  His hair reaches his shoulders, in lovely ringlets and he is wearing a dress.  I can remember asking my Mom about it and she said is was a long ago practice.  I didn’t pursue it further but believe none of it would have been his decision but it was just ‘how things were done’.  Just, as I am also not sure how much of what these young boys and new baby are enduring is their decision.  It is just how things are done in their family.

In that these kids don’t drive or have money of their own - the stores and the purchases ride completely on Mom - no matter what she says.  As parents, we all know the power of a raised eyebrow, a shrug or a full smile.  We can lead our children to decisions that we support without saying a word.  My ‘laser-eyes’ are infamous in my family and my kids (and dh) all know how I feel about almost anything by just looking at my body language.

And, as one of those homeschooling parents, I am just a little freaked out that our lifestyle is seen as oppressive and ‘forced’ while hers is not - goodness gracious sakes alive!

“it’s “reductive” to label people as male or female”

.

Oh my stars, of COURSE it’s reductive.  Life is like that.  My mother used to have a bumper sticker that said, “Discrimination makes thought possible.”  People have become so accustomed to the idea that freedom is desirable that they’ve forgotten that we want freedom so that we can DO things.  Such as, be a man, which - yes, means that you cannot be a woman, and vice versa.  It’s not enough to wallow around in a nonspecific bath of possibility!  That’s called “not being alive.”  Sheesh.

Sell crazy someplace else.  This is disgusting.  Romans 1:22-25
While claiming to be wise, they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. 
Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
And finally, Matthew 18:6 - Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

“It’s far more common for parents to restrict their children’s opportunities than it is for mothers and fathers to open up to their kids every possibility imaginable. Think Christian home schoolers, the Amish, and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.”

Every… possibility… imaginable. 

Except perhaps biology. 

And I love how Christian home schoolers are “rigid” and “restricting their children’s opportunities,” because at least the ones who insist on things like an appreciation for the Great Books, a classical education, etc. also insist on an appreciation for logic—primarily because Christ is the Logos—the reason.

This story really is an example of “if you’re too open-minded, eventually all of your brains will fall out.”

These parent claim ‘genderless’, but the FACT is, they know their child’s gender. Therefore, maybe imperceptibly, they still are caring for and reacting with that knowledge…and the siblings know too. So their ‘experiment’ isn’t true anyways. It is very sad.

Being both a semi-unschooler and a Catholic convert, I think while the hardwiring of each sex is set in certain respects, wearing dresses, playing with fashion dolls and not wanting to get dirty are just gender associated culture. When I was a child I dressed in boys clothes, played soliders, and many other traditionally male activities. I am now a mom of 5 daughters, whose interests include cooking, home improvement, car repair, gardening and reading. I was allowed to engage in tradtitionally masculine interests and clothes and was not forced to be ultra feminine. It didn’t make me confused, lesbian or transgendered. My husband appreciates that I am not limited from working by his side on cars and building projects and can take part in many of his interests. One of my 5 daughters is much like I was. When at 3, it took 2 of us to hold her down and force her into a dress for church I decided I wasn’t going to force her to be someone she wasn’t. At 6, she is sometimes shunned by both boys and girls, for not fitting into their tidy cultural box, like I was, but we are teaching her that she doesn’t have to reject her femaleness to enjoy things that are traditionally done by boys. It IS a social construct, that unless you take the whole tradition package of gender specific interests and activities, you must be either gay or need a sex change. I like to think if us as inheritors of the pioneer spirit, both able to do whatever work(regardless of who traditionally it was assigned to) it took to conquer the wilderness but also able to be loving wives and nurturing mothers.

Those kids are just as “indoctrinated” as any kid from a religious family.  If those kids were truly being raised without gender, they both wouldn’t be doing only traditionally female stuff.  They would truly be more gender neutral.  Rachel makes a lot of good points about how parents subtly pass on their values with nonverbal cues and what they are willing to buy for their kids.  And then kids also absorb values just by listening to their parents discuss things between themselves or others or what the parents show preferences for in the course of living their lives.

In order for such a social experiment to work, a child would have to be raised by a robot with no personality and have almost no contact with the world outside.

I hope they do a follow-up when these kids start school.  The parents’ neat little plan is going to backfire when their children have to enter the world.  It’s a bit different choosing to be gender neutral when you’re in college, but I doubt a group of first graders are going to understand what that means (and I doubt these children understand themselves what they themselves are being taught).  If you live in society, a certain level of conformity to social constructs is necessary to just get through the day.

I bet two married gay dads could do a better job raising these two children. Clearly, heterosexuals just aren’t capable.

The oldest is homeschooled. Hence no one expects him to conform. Many people, including Catholics, homeschool at least in part because we don’t want our kids to conform to the secular culture. I know several kids who have grown up this way to some degree, and they do enter 4 yr colleges, get jobs and have plenty of friends, without ever entering public school. Yes, these people are kind of extreme, but do you want your child to look for their own God given characteristics and goals or be what the secular world thinks they should be?

I SMELL A REALITY TV SHOW!
I’m just glad Storm, Jazz or Kio didn’t hide in the attic, and the father assumed that they fell out of his weather balloon.

Oh my!  Some of these comments are absolutely excellent!  I love your enthusiasm about everyone running to the church, as this gives me hope.  When I read the article I thought ohmygosh, I worry about the liberals pushing homosexuality on my children and somehow dosing them with the poison of that, but now this?  My brain is having a hard time accepting even the concept.  So yes, the church with its simplicty is a nice place to come to.  Now let’s see, in the animal world place a baby kangaroo, baby panda, baby bear, baby alligator, baby snake in a pen and let’s see what happens. Sure, throw in their parents. Or, should we use our God-given brains to help direct all these critters in the right direction so chaos doesn’t happen?  You decide.  These people forget we humans can reason.  They act like we’ve lost our minds.  Shoot, maybe we should just run around naked again like Adam and Eve did, who needs clothes?

Tell all this to my male dog and cat friends. What an emasculating family this is. I think of the tragic story of Christopher Robin Milne. AA Milne and wife raised him as a girl. The poor guy was so conflicted that in latr adulthood committed suicide!  Why do we have to tinker with God’s beautiful gifts?

I wonder if the parents would let their children wear clothing with Christian designs, or a necklace with a cross on it, if that was the children’s choice.

Oh well.  I just felt the urge to hunt, kill, compete over a woman then relax.  So… I’ve giving up on the whole mollusk thing. 

Maybe I will try to pink dress and long hair.  (Something tells me, I STILL going to be a MAN!)

WHAT? “Maybe I will try to pink dress”?  What the heck does THAT mean?  Holy IBM Selectrics!  I can’t type!  Sorry.  (But you get the picture - all you smartie pantses.  Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this great stuff.)  HA!

Mike in KC, MaryL, Barbara C. and Susan together make the point ... these parents, probably primarily the mother, know exactly what result they want from those children and are making it happen.  I wonder if the mother really only wanted to have girls and is getting them in a different way?  The children are too young and inexperienced to rebel just yet ... but look out in a few years ...

Jennifer I agree with everything you posted, except that the Catholic Church is the only sane place in the universe. What is wrong with being male or female?

Rod, do you have a source for that? Wikipedia says no such thing.

There are countries represented in the UN that recognize 19 different genders.  If a man is celibate he is considered a freak, unnatural.  But if a man becomes a woman, marries a man who also became a woman, then proceeds to get pregnant, TWICE, he’s considered normal.  Marriage is obsolete unless of course your same sexed (then it’s the mark of a truly free country) children are considered punishments, Down Syndrome is a death sentence, Christian is a four letter word, Osama Bin Laden was just misunderstood, and male/female has nothing to do with biology…yeah, the world’s just fine.  Makes a person wish that Pastor Camping had been right.  Curse you Kant for making people believe that they create reality!  It’s like the world has a collective psychosis.  Malta looks better and better…at least for now.

The comment made by Pynchon about homeschooling, the Amish and Jewish communities was uncalled for and false.  It’s ok to raise your kids not knowing if they are a boy or girl, but raising them with values and standards is bad for them.  I don’t understand that.

I find it interesting that this couple had no problem using their gender roles to conceive these children, at least that’s what I gathered from teh article. However, they want to deny them for their own children. Also, why did they allow the gender of their first two children to be known, but not their last? If that child is a girl, could the couple be misogynists or believe that girls can’t possibly succeed living their lives in a feminine role?

Catholic parishes are contributing to this genderlessness. For example, in my own parish they bow to the feminist culture by avoiding “he” or “brothers” to refer to mankind; no more “forefathers”; and they always put women first in prayers. They think they are somehow righting a “wrong” done by previous generations.
The most destructive, however, is what they are doing to God Himself. They use hymns that obviously, and very awkwardly, strip out all references to God the Father, to “Him”, “He”, “His”, including changing the lyrics of traditional songs.
This is heresy. Christ Himself refers to God as Father. We have the Creed “I believe in God, the Father Almighty ...” and “Our Father, Who art in heaven ...” Our scripture readings are also clear. But now parish liturgy and music leaders take it upon themselves to change Church doctrine, while the priests and bishops say nothing.
This has consequences. Think about the confusion we are giving the young and the visitors. The Church must hold to truth and be different from the culture, or it cannot be the light that beckons. Worse. It will contribute to the loss of souls.

Reading this thread has been a delight.  In our modern culture where everything unnatural is elevated above all things natural, it is good to know that so many people still believe that that which is natural is good.

A friend of mine was a hardcore feminist in college and believed in the social construction of gender. Then one day she had a son. Guess what: her view changed when she realised that little boys and girls are different in the way they behave. It was a big eye opener for her and she admitted it. I think many progressive intellectuals come to the same conclusion. Nothing to worry about. Nutcases have always been around, we just hear about them more now because of the internet.

Letting a child choose their species? Furries already do that.

I felt it was news filler.  Someone in news agencies must have the job of finding one sensational oddity per three day period to act as filler if real news is lean.  Remember how seeing the dead Bin Laden photos became a filler issue even with low key sensationalist Wolf Blitzer ( I think he’d use that same voice tone if he were giving the recipe for lasagna)...until Al Qaeda ackowledged Bin Laden’s death without photos….and the issue vanished totally in one day.  Filler.

I was a child of the 80s (teen years) and was drawn to study child development and sociology.  (though I do not work in those fields)  During that time, it was popular to remove gender identifiers, using s/he in writings and so forth.  From that study, I found it quite revealing that some gender expectations ARE limiting…  examples being that boys get more attention in class because they are loud and disruptive…  teachers are prone to let boys do creative/building work on their own and ending up ‘helping’ girls complete their projects… help gluing, nailing, so forth.  That baby boys are rough-housed, told they’re strong and big… baby girls are cuddled, told they’re pretty and tiny.

As a result, in my youth I decided that should I have children… I would certainly let girls play with trucks and dirt and let boys play with dolls and kitchen sets.  and vice versa…  No need to limit their interests in that way.

Interestingly, I was raised on a working farm and ranch… and spent nearly as much time with my dad as with my mom on any given day in my childhood.  I rode horses, saddled and groomed them, herded pigs and cattle, drove a tractor when needed and loaded hay bales, used a pitch fork, a saw, shot a gun….  but I was also in gymnastics, love watching figure skating, wear dresses and have no interest in sports.
Today my friends and associates see me as 100% feminine and are shocked when they learn that I can handle large animals and big tools without fear… as they view me as rather delicate.
I am proud that my upbringing has made me a very self-sufficient woman, and I’m still looking for a good man who appreciates that I’m not afraid of spiders and snakes, or backed-up sewers!! (scorpions are a whole different story Jen!!)

If I had children, I would still let them play with what they are interested in, despite gender expectations.  Because I believe it’s just well-rounded to have many interests and skills.  But I would certainly raise them as boys and girls as their gender/sex indicates!!!    My one caveat is… because I HATE the color pink…  that if I had a baby girl she will only wear pink when she asks for it, and not a moment sooner.

What I find very interesting from the article about these Gender-aschewing parents… is that their children identify mostly female.
Interesting because in my experience, most men think women, if given the choice would choose to be men (little do they know, we really love being women!)  but here, these boys, given the choice, choose to be female.  Hmmmm?

raising child without giving any gender concept is definitely a good idea. but, i am not sure whether these ideas will work in real world.

Stating that gender is a social construct and then allowing children to choose wether they are boys or girls isnt enough! We have to start admiting the fact that the two socially accepted geneders are heavily carried with sombolic asociations that many times permit a stucture of injustice. That is the political importance of it. We not only have to recognize that gender is a social construct but realize the consecuences of the way it has been created. Its not enough to choose wether we are women or men, we have reconstrucut what woman is and what man is and create a society in which our gender doesnt continue to take away our right and duty to develop firt and fore most as beings.