gender

Podcast: Knowledge Gaps in Intersex Health Care (undark.org)

I always thought that if I had kids I'd want to raise them fairly gender neutral. I would allow them to decide what they want to wear, play with, participate in. tho I admit, I will cringe my little girl will only wear pink and play with dolls, or if my little boy only wants to play with guns and wear camo. 

this extends to if i had an intersex child. unless it was medically necessary, I wouldn't want to have my child undergo gender "assignment" surgery. like, what if I make the wrong decision? what if I choose for my child to be a boy and they grow up feeling like a girl? or what if they never want to choose? ugh. no thanks. kid, you can decide and I'll support you no matter what.

I understand that childhood will be much harder for an intersex kid. for some reason people are obsessed with sex and gender. people apologize to me and roux when they mislabel him as a girl. like, what difference does it make? least of all to him! but I think being honest with my child, and allowing them to make their own decisions is the most respectful thing I can do. this is their life and I don't think I should be able to, basically unilaterally, decide this for them.

parenting goals

I had a recent thought, that if I were to have kids (and I still have no intention to), I would want to spend some time distilling into words some of the most important values I would want that kid to have. I would want my partner caretaker to do the same.

not wanting to spend too much time on it now, I would probably end up choosing among: kind / empathetic / fair, thoughtful, practical / realistic, confident, independent, curious / well-rounded intellectually, resilient, hard working, team player... normal things, really.

but some of these will shape HOW we bring up the child. and identifying what is most important to me should help to raise it according to those values. for instance, I believe it's better to be intellectually well-rounded than academically "successful." therefore, I would take my kid to museums, monuments, shows, and wouldn't hesitate to pull them out of school if something big was going on. like, maybe a political rally. I value people who are team players, so I would enroll my kid in some sort of cooperative thing: team sports, orchestra, drama, debate team, etc. so they can see how important it is to do their part and to be able to be counted on. I would be less inclined to enroll them into singles tennis or surfing. 

best for baby

I was at a baby shower over the weekend and boy did i feel out of place. it's been hitting me more often lately how my consumerist ways and therefore whole mindset has changed, and in the last year especially.

it's not just that I had to take out my reusable spork (to avoid plastic cutlery), use my water bottle (solo cups), not eat candy (plastic wrapping), or take a party favor (the absolute cutest fox cookies, but, alas, in a plastic bag with a metallic plastic twisty tie). one of the games (guessing prices of baby things) was especially hard. not just because i've never really looked at baby stuff before, but because I have, but the stuff I look at is all nearly plastic free and therefore at a different price point. also, these less waste people I now spend the majority of my time with make due with what they have using handmade all purpose salves instead of special nipple cream, wooden clothes pins you also use for chip bags and laundry instead of special plastic clips for binkies.

my major social circle is my work people. therefore, we're all pretty like minded. the people at the party are on a completely separate path. parents and soon-to-be-parents at the party were talking about a $1300 sound activated vibrating crib that is only good for about 6 months since your baby gets too heavy for it. they were talking about breast pumps where you pump into single use plastic bags and about subscribing to meal kits because you're so so so tired the first few months.

besides the financial impediments, i would likely never even consider these things because of the environmental effect. single use plastic bags for breast milk?! meal kits that use a ridiculous amount of packaging!! but everyone kept saying "you don't understand how tired you'll be..." but, I dunno man. i'm not saying it's ever easy, but maybe these people are tired because they think they HAVE to do this and that. so many women around the world give birth and go back to pretty much their regular lives the next day. so many kids live perfectly happy childhoods without millions of toys and clothes and binkies and absolutely adorable but pretty much unnecessary stuff.

when my boss gave birth she said something about how women innately know what's good and bad for babies. we've been having them for thousands of years, after all. and you know what? i pretty much agree. of course times are different now and there is different "bad" stuff that we just don't know about yet. but basically, I think a lot of knowledge is innate.

someone said how we're of the first generations where we have access to so much more info that what just our small community knows. we've got experts and their books and studies, mommy blogs, parenting chat rooms, the internet at large... there's no shortage of people telling you the what's best for baby.

the whole thing just makes me tired. it's like society is constantly telling you that you're just not good enough, that you can't do it right, and that, therefore, you will raise unhealthy, stupid, and unhappy children. ...unless you buy that $1300 vibrating crib thing.