Postmodern Parenting Lunacy

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Two weeks ago I began a series of posts laying out a masculine model of spirituality. In that first post I observed:

Ten thousand Womens’ Studies masters theses were built around the doctrinaire assertion that there were no inherent differences between men and women other than some plumbing and a little difference in upper body strength.

In the same post I mentioned that these stubborn feminist orthodoxies were finally beginning to crumble under the weight of scientific evidence. But obviously not in Canada.

This article about two parents in Toronto who allow their children to decide what gender they are has to be read to be believed:

Parents keep child’s gender secret

“When the baby comes out, even the people who love you the most and know you so intimately, the first question they ask is, ‘Is it a girl or a boy?’” says Witterick, bouncing Storm, dressed in a red-fleece jumper, on her lap at the kitchen table.

“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker.

When Storm was born, the couple sent an email to friends and family: “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? …).”

These parents display a degree of faith in discredited “progressive” presuppositions that is simultaneously breathtaking and heartbreaking. If you doubted me that some people believe that the only difference between men and women is some plumbing, meet the parents of Jazz, Kio and Storm Stocker:

“What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious,” says Stocker.

Jazz and Kio have picked out their own clothes in the boys and girls sections of stores since they were 18 months old. Just this week, Jazz unearthed a pink dress at Value Village, which he loves because it “really poofs out at the bottom. It feels so nice.” The boys decide whether to cut their hair or let it grow.

Like all mothers and fathers, Witterick and Stocker struggle with parenting decisions. The boys are encouraged to challenge how they’re expected to look and act based on their sex.

The idea that small children can decide their “gender” is a major exercise in denial and self-delusion. Gender is not cultural. It’s chromosomal. It’s not just a function of, to use the parent’s phrase, what’s between the legs. Hormonal influences in the womb have profound effects on the brain’s circuitry.

Even so, the holder of a “progressive” worldview desperately needs it to be true that there is no such thing as “sex roles.” Thus, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Progressive simply chooses to pretend it’s so. (And they accuse Christians of ignoring science.) I suspect you’ve already figured out that these parents hold political views that are, shall we say, left-of-center. How far left? Well . . .

Stocker teaches at City View Alternative, a tiny school west of Dufferin Grove Park, with four teachers and about 60 Grade 7 and 8 students whose lessons are framed by social-justice issues around class, race and gender.

When Kio was a baby, the family travelled through the mountains of Mexico, speaking with the Zapatistas, a revolutionary group who shun mainstream politics as corrupt and demand greater indigenous rights. In 1994, about 150 people died in violent clashes with the Mexican military, but the leftist movement has been largely peaceful since.

Last year, they spent two weeks in Cuba, living with local families and learning about the revolution.

Alrighty then.

By the way, this hatred for the concept of sex roles is at the root of the feminist movement’s near-maniacal commitment to abortion–even to the detriment of other “women’s issues.”

Pregnancy and childbirth are Nature screaming that men and women are designed for differing, complementary roles. To deny that this is so requires something very closely approximating religious faith.