Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Perfectly Put: Barbara Kay On Canada's "I've Got A Secret" Kid

Skyline of Toronto                       Image via Wikipedia
The Ball Bounces initiates a new post category: Perfectly Put. Perfectly Put entries will be characterized by their soundness of thought (content) and excellence in expression (style).  They fall into the "I wish I had said that" category.

The first entry is Barbara Kay's response to the Toronto couple who are seeking to raise humanity's bar by raising an unsexed, sexually neutral, sexless, gender-stereotype-free kid -- "free as a bird" to put it in Lennonesque terms. As for the idea itself,  it's "for the birds" (maintaining the ornithological analogy). Here's Barbara Kay:
Free will has its limitations. One such limitation is human biology. The denial of biological reality by highly educated, but humanly naive “progressives” — and their choice to privilege the “world” over the needs and rights of their own children — speaks more to their narcissism than to their idealism.
The book about X, the child with no gender, is a product of second-wave feminism’s fevered mania for erasing biological essentialism. Its author was apparently convinced that if you merely willed human nature’s demise, a post-gender society was no dream. But to anyone with common sense, the story is a ludicrous fantasy, inspiration fit only for comic exploitation, like the Here’s Pat series on Saturday Night Live in the 1990s.
Up to now, according to a media report, some of Witterick’s and Stocker’s friends and family have chosen to be supportive of the couple’s experiment. They would do those children a greater service if they deferred to their judgmental gut instincts. This misguided couple needs intervention before their adult folie à deux becomes a children’s tragedy à trois.
Read all about it.
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6 comments:

Sixth Estate said...

My jaw dropped when I read this. What exactly do these parents think is going to happen in 5 years? Or 10? 15? I'm assuming they haven't thought that far ahead.

Poor kid's going to have enough trouble with the name "Storm"...

BallBounces said...

They think this is all about their kids. Usually in cases like this, it's really all about them. They should call their next kid "Ouiji".

Frances said...

What's wrong with celebrating a child's gender? Like it or not, it's an essential part of the genetic makeup of the child. Any grandbabies or greats coming into our family will be celebrated for who and what they are, without this artificial pushing of neutrality.

BallBounces said...

"it's an essential part of the genetic makeup of the child."

Frances, you said it.

Why stop at gender neutrality. Why not give your children the option of choosing whether they consider themselves a human being or not?

Anonymous said...

As an old dad (male) married to a woman (female).
I am kinda thinkin' that this is the next step after all them - names, you know Smedely-Pinkworth and such.
That came after the "Ms" stuff.
How do you explain the "facts of life" to a "Zed"?
There will come the realization that the "Parents" are biological opposites. i.e. not "neutral"
This is really, really silly.
I feel for that poor little kid, paging Dr Phil......
Cheers Bubba

BallBounces said...

"Paging Dr. Phil" -- oh, man, that's good!

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"