These parents are refusing to tell anyone the sex of their child in a bid to raise them gender neutral.
Kyl and Brent Myer are part of the Gender Creative Parenting movement and have decided to raise their toddler, whose name is Zoomer, in an environment where the pressures of gender stereotypes don’t exist.
It looks like a really, really lovely childhood:
The Utah-based family have made a concious decision not to tell anyone if Zoomer, who they call Z for short, is biologically a girl or a boy.
To get around the sticky issue of limiting prepositions, Kyl and Brent have come up with a great solution, by calling Zoomer their cute little two-year-old ‘theyby’.
Other than the immediate family, the parents said they ‘don’t disclose their sex to people who don’t need to know’.
After all, in her blog Raising Zoomer, Kyl explains:
The sex does not tell us anything about the child’s personality, temperament, favourite colour, dietary preferences, sense of humour, attitudes toward climate change, or any of their other unique traits.
Just like the fact they have two arms doesn’t tell us anything else about them, except they have two arms.
She said she’s leaving the choice up to Zoomer themself:
Zoomer will most likely choose a gender by the time they are three or four. We simply don’t believe that is our decision to make on their behalf.
By not revealing their sex, and by treating them in a gender creative way, Z will have the freedom to explore and create their own identity, outside of the restrictions and expectations of traditional gender norms.
They made the choice in an attempt to unburden their baby from being ‘pigeon-holed’ as a specific gender.
Developmental psychologists and sociologists have long worried about the damaging effects of gender stereotyping on children, surrounded as they are by messages telling them girls should behave one way and boys another.
Marketers of children’s clothes and toys have finally wised up to the fact they have a big part to play in children’s perception of what makes them them.
It’s not something Kyl and Brent have to worry about with Zoomer, who gets to pick out all their own clothes every day.
Kyl argues her parenting method sparked gender equality in an inspiring TED Talk.
You can watch it, and some of Zoomer’s upbringing, below:
In a sweet Instagram post, Kyl honoured her child’s pioneering sprit saying:
You like to pick out your own outfits. Today you chose a black and blue The Secret Life of Pets shirt that our Instagram friends, Braden & Casper, gave you for Christmas, and some hand-me-down hot pink pants with stars on them.
You chose one purple-stripey sock and one pink-stripey sock and some glittery leopard print boots. You got style, kid.
The post continued:
You’re very silly and love making mommy and daddy laugh. You run and jump and spin and roll and slide. You keep us on our toes for sure!
You love being outside! You love running and climbing and playing in dirt.
After all, kids are awesome and should be given the chance to be so in their own way:
Hear, hear, Zoomer! You keep doing you!
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A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.