Vanity Babies
May 24, 2011
THE BABY in modern society is a canvas on which the parent is free to paint his mischievous, wholly self-absorbed dreams. Modern liberals are prone, perhaps more than any other group in human history, to thinking babies remain babies forever.
The wildly sensational news story about a Toronto couple who have decided to conceal the sex of their baby so that he or she is not affected by conventional expectations is one example of this trend. Here are parents whose imaginations regarding their offspring are dwarfed by the present moment and radical egocentricity. They have named the baby Storm and maybe that’s exactly what he’ll be. A storm instead of a boy or a girl.
Another example is this account of two lesbians who became mothers together at the same time, having artificially conceived their children with the same male donor. The story is a mind-blowing glimpse into the lesbian bourgeoisie and its staggering pretensions.
In both these cases, the babies won’t be babies forever. Someday they too will speak.
— Comments —
Cynthia Tarnasky writes:
One might point out that were we living in a state of nature (ie, nude), the sex of a child would be obvious from birth. Perhaps differentiated clothing is precisely to keep that naturally important information available. It really bothers me when people who claim to be so gender neutral latch on to anything “feminine” that a young boy does as evidence that he is “gender-questioning”. The author of Princess Boy (which I have not read, but am utterly disgusted by) is a case in point. The child is FIVE YEARS OLD. Nothing about a five-year-old’s interest in sparkly things indicates a feminine nature. While children generally have sex differences that are obvious at a young age, by virtue of being prepubescent, they have more similarities in interests than they will later in life. If “Princess Boy” is still acting this way at fourteen, there is probably an issue. Of course, it’s silly to think that after all of the publicity, his mother will not respond negatively if he later decides he’s more interested in power tools or rebuilding cars or something.
I’ll bet that if “Storm” decided to be definitively his own sex, his parents will be less happy than if he chooses the opposite sex to identify with.
While reading the second story, I kept feeling the presence of the men who should have been there. It would have been a sweet story if it had been about two sisters or close friends or something. And how can you look at the one woman’s “non-biological child” and not see a train wreck of a family? The woman obviously doesn’t believe in till death do us part. How long will the current “family” last.
(I’m sorry about all the quotation marks. I can’t seem to do all of this Orwellian speech without them.)
Laura writes:
It will take unusually resilient children to emerge from both these scenarios without serious psychological difficulties. Let’s call this what it is: child abuse.
In the case of Storm, even when the parents do reveal his sex, something they will be forced to do not longer after he learns to speak, they are likely to spend a great deal of time and effort trying to obliterate any trace of masculinity or femininity in their three children. The energy they give to this will not only take away from a thousand other necessary tasks but will set their children up for failure. Given their philosophy, these parents seem to want to create lonely beings who are unable to connect with others and to form deep bonds. That’s what masculinity and femininity are: the means by which we form the deepest bonds and community.
I would be very surprised if the two lesbian mothers, Kristin Hendersen and Sarah Ellis, stay together. The relationship seems destined to dissolve in tears and mutual accusations. But there will be no glowing magazine article in Real Simple about that. Notice how the two women have been encouraged by their own mothers, who seem to have their own selfish desires for these babies. Grandparents can be lustful for babies too. These children are dolls, toys, playthings for adult desires.
Michael S. writes:
I was shocked to read that “Storm’s” sibling is a brother. Look at the hair! Ponytail? Braids? I feel like Fricka in Act II of Die Walkure: “When did it ever happen?”
To which Wotan replies: “Today you have seen it happen.”
And we all know how that turned out.
