no gender?!

So I just read this article about parents who are keeping the gender of their 4 month old a secret.

Yes. It's as weird as it sounds. The kid is named "Storm," and his/her parents wants to give the kid a chance to be who he/she wants to be.
(That sentence was a pain in the ass to type... how do you talk to someone else about your kid?!)

[Not related at all to the story, but notable nontheless...This non-disclosure of the poor kid's gender is not even the most crunchy granola thing about his family. His/her brothers are "unschooled," a version of homeschooling, which promotes putting a child's curiosity at the center of his or her education. Wow... just wow. How do they plan on working in the real world someday?]

I don't know about all this. I'm all for people making all sorts of decisions about their lives, but I can't help but to think that this will have disastrous consequences on the poor kid's life. When did it become such a terrible thing to celebrate being one gender or another? I like being a girl. I like dressing up, wearing high heels and makeup, curling my hair, and smelling like flowers. I don't feel like my parents forced me to be "girly" by buying me some dresses and dolls, nor did they make a big deal out of telling me I could do anything I wanted. I was just a kid who happened to be a girl.

In the end, I don't think that not disclosing "Storm's" gender will have the intended consequences-- I think by drawing attention to not wanting to characterize him/her as one gender or another, these parents are implying that one of the genders is potentially shameful. (For the record, I feel the same about people talking non-stop about how all races are the same. If race truly doesn't matter, it shouldn't have to be addressed all the time. But why are we trying to squash any type of distinctive characteristics?!)

It's time to stop being so PC, and start celebrating the very things that make us who we are. Most of all, parents need to stop projecting all their insecurities about the world on their poor children.