My heart sank when I read in the newspaper about the couple who had decided to raise their baby as 'genderless'. I guessed, long before it was revealed in the text, that they would turn out to be home educators and so it proved. The giveaway was the photograph of their oldest son. He has long plaits, androgynous clothing and of course cannot attend school because of bullying. And he wears dresses. Below is a news item with the best photograph of this child (readers are not to read any significance into the fact that this is the Daily Mail; it just happened to have the best pictures of this truly strange family):
How did I guess that the family home educated? Easy, really. Their son looks really weird and would obviously be regarded as a complete freak wherever he went. Apparently, boys bully him and when he went to a playground wearing a pink dress, the girls did not want anything to do with him either. I have noticed in the past that pictures of boys who are being home educated often show a child with very long hair and/or a generally strange appearance such as would immediately set him apart from any other boy of a similar age. None of this is brilliant advertisement for home education and the case of baby Storm has certainly provoked people to look at the idea unfavourably. It does not help that the Stockers are, inevitably, radical unschoolers. I can assure readers that the average parent is not impressed to hear about a child who only learns what he wants, when he wants. In cases like this, most mutter to themselves that the kid needs a haircut and ought to be sent to school where he will be educated properly.
I suppose that the newspapers are bound to focus upon peculiar families; freak shows like this sell papers. I rather suspect that home educating parents have a tendency to be a little more odd than the average parent anyway, although mercifully, few are as downright odd as the Stockers! Items like this in the papers and on the television do not really help advance the cause of home education. They serve merely to underline the popular feeling about home education, which is that it is the province of cranks and nutcases. This is a pity and it would be good to see some more positive coverage of the topic, with success stories of a conventional sort. When our masters are considering changes in legislation, I cannot think that stories about home educating families like the Stockers help matters much!
I too noticed this article and did emit a small groan at the fact they also turned out to be home educators. However, if they were normal and boring they wouldn't would be in the papers, would they?
ReplyDeleteIn the UK there are obviously home educators who live unusual life styles by many standards too, but there are lots of "boring" ones who live in suburban semis with 2.4 children and a dog, who other than home educating look no different from their neighbours. In our local group we have currently 2 families who live in unusual circumstances - one on a boat and one in an RV- but in fact they are otherwise entirely traditional -and both have children who are wading through a good selection of IGCSE etc - you would approve, Simon!
My son has long hair in a plait, but there is no question about his identity. Once in a playground when another boy refused to believe he was a boy, my son offered to drop his trousers and pee on him as proof! Funnily enough, he was then believed and the two boys became friends.
ReplyDelete"I rather suspect that home educating parents have a tendency to be a little more odd than the average parent anyway, although mercifully, few are as downright odd as the Stockers! "
Long hair on a boy for our family is not odd. As a Canadian with Inuit and First Nations people in my extended family, my son is actually conforming to a social stereotype, not going against it. His long hair gives him a sense of pride and belonging with his cousins.
Munchausen by Proxy driven by parental narcissistic needs.
ReplyDeleteForty years ago, no one would have batted an eyelid. Personally, I don't concur with the parents' view that gender is something that is primarily socially determined, but nor can I see any reason why boys shouldn't have long hair and wear dresses.
ReplyDeleteI suspect more misery has been caused throughout world history by people who bandy about terms like 'freaks', 'cranks' and 'nutcases' than by families like the Stockers.
The Stockers believe that gender is socially determined, and they found a book that informed them about the issue.
ReplyDeleteTo base their decision to raise their child as gender neutral on a book, is being socially informed and therefore socially determined.
Forty years ago no one may have batted an eyelid at long hair but they would certainly have made a commotion about dressing a boy in dresses.
ReplyDeleteForty years ago mainstream society couldn't really accept homosexuality or cross dressing, and homosexuality is just about accepted in Western culture.
In many other cultures homosexuality isn't tolerated at all and there is a developing trend that homophobia is increasing worldwide through religious intolerance.
It's not a path I would have taken because it seems to me to (rather ironically) make the child's sex all the more important. I do find it bizarre and dismaying that people impose gender so enthusiastically on their babies and then claim it is all biologically determined. My favourite recently was someone who told me that four year old girls' preference for pink was 'genetic'. But that's another debate.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to 'weird' I think the best approach is not to point the finger. I dare say that any of us could be labelled weird, crank or nutcase in the right environment. I know a boy child round here who was teased at school for having hair that was too short - as this is a slightly hippy middle class area with many boys who have shoulder length hair.
In my experience, it is always a mistake to seek acceptance by trying to stress how 'normal' and 'like everyone else' you are. Difference is not something to be scared of and raising children with a fear of difference is the root of an awful lot of the horrors of the world.
'Difference is not something to be scared of and raising children with a fear of difference is the root of an awful lot of the horrors of the world.'
ReplyDeleteWhich is true. The fact remains though, that our children will have to live in society. As it happens, my own child did not conform to gender stereotypes. Society will tolerate this in a girl in a way that it will not in a boy. that my daughter could climb trees better than any boy and knew how to handle a shotgun excited interest and no condemnation at all. A boy in a pink dress will not be accepted in the same way. This may be unfortunate, but it is how things are. For the vast majority of people, calling a girl a 'tomboy' has entirely different connotations from calling a boy a 'sissy'. That being the cae, I think that these parents are setting their children up for future unhappiness.
Simon.
"I think that these parents are setting their children up for future unhappiness."
ReplyDeleteWell, that's a charge that gets laid at the door of many home educators, isn't it? I think most parents are very well aware of the cruelty of the world and pick their path carefully. This isn't something that I've never thought about (!) and I'm sure that these parents have too.
"For the vast majority of people, calling a girl a 'tomboy' has entirely different connotations from calling a boy a 'sissy'."
Of course that is true. I would argue that is because we have a deep thread of misogyny in our culture that thinks there is nothing to be despised more than a man who is 'womanly'. That's why some gay men attract such a violent response at times. Then there's the whole terror of anyone who blurs the edges of gender, which can be seen in the brutality directed at many trans people.
My point is that we should not seek safety in a cloak of 'normality'. For some people that's not an option and, anyway, it is in *all* our interests to promote greater respect for difference. This stretches far beyond issues of gender and sexuality and touches everyone in some way or another.
There seems to be an awful lot of confusion here between gender and sexuality, many gay men are the complete opposite to the effeminate stereotype.
ReplyDeleteThere is greater and growing acceptance of homosexuality in society in general, but intolerance more evident in smaller towns.
Much of the intolerance being spread by religious bigotry, home schooling groups seem to have a discernible affiliation with some of those beliefs.
A great deal of the violence directed at homosexual men isn't from the heterosexual male but comes from the male who cannot accept his homosexuality.
ReplyDeleteNo surprise that the link was to The Daily Mail. The paper doesn't have a good track record of tolerance.
ReplyDeleteHi anonymous,
ReplyDeletePlease read what I said more carefully. I said 'some gay men'. I am perfectly well aware that not all gay men are 'effeminate.'
I wasn't confusing gender and sexuality! I have that sorted, thanks... I was trying to introduce (tentatively and without frightening the horses by mentioning feminism) the idea that the politics of gender (can I mention patriarchy, I wonder?) affects cultural ideas about both gender itself and sexuality. Many of our ideas about sexuality are deeply rooted in concepts of gender.
OK, anonymous, I'll come out now, since I think it's relevant. When you say,
"Much of the intolerance being spread by religious bigotry, home schooling groups seem to have a discernible affiliation with some of those beliefs."
I think you need to be a bit careful. I agree totally that *some* home scooling groups are linked to bigoted religious groups. But let me assure you that I am involved a anumber of home education groups where I (and other gay parents) feel totally at ease. It does, as you pointed out, depend very much on where you live...
" My favourite recently was someone who told me that four year old girls' preference for pink was 'genetic'. But that's another debate."
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be so sure! The Radio 4 programme The Power of Pink found "that while women are more drawn than men to reddish shades of blue, boys and girls don't seem to develop different preferences until they are over the age of two. But long before then, they have very different preferences for toys. So maybe we all just like different colours because we like the things that come in those colours. Or maybe women really do prefer pink because in the distant past they needed to be able to see red berries against green leaves, while men needed to see brown bison against a blue sky?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010y39d
While they may not yet have found which gene codes for love of pink in girls, there is certainly a genetic component in eye sight making colours in the red range more attractive to females, as well as different preference for toys that happens at a very early age.
'Of course that is true. I would argue that is because we have a deep thread of misogyny in our culture that thinks there is nothing to be despised more than a man who is 'womanly'. That's why some gay men attract such a violent response at times. Then there's the whole terror of anyone who blurs the edges of gender, which can be seen in the brutality directed at many trans people.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that we should not seek safety in a cloak of 'normality''
Misogyny is certainly at the root of this. Nor have I ever been a great fan of 'seeking safety in a cloak of normality'! However, until my children wre old enough to make definite and informed decisions about things which might bring them into ridicule and contempt, I did my best to get them to conform, at least outwardly, to the mores of modern society. Nowadys, they make their own choices and I can tell you now that my daughter disagrees violently with my views about this. She cannot see any reason why a boy should not wear a dress. Mind you, this is the girl who, at the age of two, tried to copy me in pissing up a tree and was renowned as being a beter tree climber than any boy. I am not really cisnormative, Allie, just pragamatic about the way that society treats outsiders.
Simon.
Gosh, Simon, you're well up with the lingo :-)
ReplyDeleteOK, Anonymous, if you want to go with biological determinism then that's fine. On the whole I think the rather more probable influence is the massive 'pinking' of girls from the moment of birth.
In the early 20th century, British boys were dressed in pink/red while blue was considered a feminine colour. Many of our soldiers in the trenches were dressed in pink as babies. I really don't think 'biological determinism' has much to do with it.
ReplyDelete