News Gender identification - when to start the conversation

[Suzetig]

In fairness, I'm talking socially - professionally I know very small children who struggle badly but their parents aren't sending them to private school.

 

[EveHarrington]

Interesting conversation.

I always hated being female but I was never anything but female. A tomboy. Never girly. Hated pink. Despised dresses. Where would they stick a kid like me? It would’ve been wrong to be “encouraged” to be anything but female.

 

[Sideways]

@EveHarrington - I hear you. My mum’s generation did a lot of work getting rid of social agenda rubbish that dictated that women should wear dresses and heels. We won the ability to wear skirts or pants, heels or flats, particularly to work, without being judged for it.

Yet here we are. Once again dealing this myth that wearing a dress says something incredibly important about my gender:facepalm:

Would really like it if encouraging gender tolerance didn’t include teaching kids that what they choose to wear somehow bears upon their gender, or their sexuality, or their sex. It doesn’t. We already fought battle (ironically, in attempt to achieve equality for all!).

 

[Beans]

I support anything that makes anyone feel better. I have no issue with anyone transitioning. I'm wholly behind teaching acceptance of all pple from an early age.

That said, gender is a social construct. If it wasn't so binary and enforced by society I doubt anyone would "need" to transition. If you're biologically female who liked "boy things," you'd just do what you want without thinking you had to choose or become male to feel like yourself. If you're biologically a male who liked "girl things," you'd just do what you want and be who you are without having to become female to feel like yourself. I wish we could just teach children that all behavior was ok as long as you weren't hurting yourself or others and to accept everyone instead of framing it as gender identification. Just let pple be.

What I always wonder is if pple could behave however they felt no matter their biological sex (meaning there was no strong push towards gendered behavior,) would pple still have gender reassignment surgery. Like would there be pple who specifically felt they wanted/needed/identified with other genitalia. Shrug. Guess we'll never know. Society needs to let people be without forcing them into boxes. But that's in an idealistic world, shrug. So transitioning makes sense given our present circumstances.

 

[Neverthesame]

Once again dealing this myth that wearing a dress says something incredibly important about my gender

Wait. This is actually the criteria for the teacher to identify a 5 year old child's inner gender?
Seriously? This is actually how this is supposed to work?
Gender roles? 1950's gender roles?

If I had a kid, they'd be changing schools the instant someone told them being a bit effeminate means they are actually a girl, or vice versa.
I wouldn't let that education system fill my kid's head with that sexist bullshit.

I really hope that's not what this provincial education board is actually pushing to do.

 

[scout86]

@Suzetig , you sound like you're very nearly the ideal parent and, if all parents were like you, schools would have a much easier job. You may not know a kindergarten age child who doesn't have a meaningful relationship with their parents, but there are lots of them out there. I was one. My dad liked me, but was busy making a living. My mother......let's just say she never much liked me. As it happened, there weren't any elementary teachers who didn't have better things to do either.

I'm just saying, don't assume you're typical or the majority. Maybe you are, I don't have the data. But there are a significant number of kids who aren't raised in homes like yours. Around here, just bringing in enough money to feed a family takes more than 2 full time jobs, as most jobs exist. Even parents who care about their kids have trouble making time for them. If teachers have time and energy to give them some attention, support, validation, what ever, I think that's great. I don't think it's possible for a kid to have too many caring adults in their life.

Private schools are accountable to parents. They pay the bills. Government schools are a whole different ballgame.

I don't know about Canada or the UK. Here, public schools are run by a district school board that is elected from the public, by the public. People can have as much input as they are willing to offer. (Sometimes that's actually a problem. That's how we end up with schools that don't teach evolution, for example.)

 

[Friday]

I'm just saying, don't assume you're typical or the majority. Maybe you are, I don't have the data.

I do! I do!

FastStats

The approximate number of abused & neglected children = less than 1% of the total (child) population

There are thousands of ways to parent correctly, but only 2 ways to f*ck it up : Abuse & Neglect.

Most parents? Are pretty decent people. Who want the best for their kids, and fight hard to achieve that. We'd have to multiply that number by over 5,000% (100% = 2%, 1,000% = 10% right? Check my math, folks. TBI) in order to get to even roughly half of the parents out their suck. Regardless of how many more parents would have to suck? 99%... The overwhelming majority of parents, rich/poor, working/stay-at-home, single/divorced/married... Are actually? Good parents.

Which IS part of what gets parents pissed off when governments -and people without kids- start assuming that they're terrible people, and can't be "trusted" not to suck at their job... So we have to have an outside agency responsible to "really" raise the kids. >.< :banghead:

ETA... Is that number low? Absolutely. Reported numbers are almost always low. And in a classroom of 30 the average teacher can expect to have at least 1 abused/neglected child per year. Which would jump things up to about 3%, instead of 1%. But even if it were 10% of children were abused and neglected? That would mean that 90% of parents are being assumed to be abusive assholes, and the responsibility of parenting not entrusted to them because... ? 90% of people are going to be criminalized without any kind of trial, evidence, or even likelihood... Doesn't track, right? That a very small minority of parents are abusers, doesn't equal treating ALL parents like abusers.

 

[scout86]

I do! I do!

:roflmao:

Well, fortunately for me, I made it through school and everything else. I'll quit hoping other people get a better deal, since it's only a small part of the population that's affected anyway. :bag:

 

[Friday]

@scout86... That's reverse logic, hon.

That's like saying because some kids are abused at home schools should now be required to abuse ALL children.

That some parents are abusive = we should treat all parents as if they're abusive ... Doesn't equal a better deal.. For anyone.

 

[Suzetig]

Thanks @Friday - that's exactly what I was trying to say.

You'll see @scout86 thst I referred to my knowledge of kids socially, the kids I know socially are wanted, loved and cared for. I'm very aware of kids who have it hard - I was abused and neglected from a young age and have worked in child protection for 20 years so I'm very aware of what life is like for that 1% and have worked all my life to improve life for abused and neglected kids.

But it is 1% - rather than putting policies in place for 100% of kids to try and support the 1%, lets invest in services that do support parents and identify when things are going wrong. There's a huge spectrum of acceptable parenting between ideal and abusive but "society" doesn't get to tell me how to parent so that I can tick an equalities box for them.

No one will have my kids best interests at heart the way I do and that is true for the vast majority of kids. My kids school is fantastic - I see the nurture and care my kids get from their teacher and it makes me so pleased that they have safe, nurturing adults in their lives. Their teacher isn't their parent though and cannot possibly meet the social and developmental needs of every child in whatever class size they have. Nor does their teacher need to deal with the outcome or fall out of whatever they've been taught at school. I do, I'm their parent 24/7 for life, not 6 hours a day for a year or two.

It's easy to teach acceptance of difference without it becoming a sexuality, gender, race issue specifically. My expectation is for schools to do that, not to "start a conversation" about transgender issues with my 4 year old just in case I'm not doing it "properly".

 

[Deleted member 41765]

Some of you are very sure of yourselves. Which gives me pause , both as an educator and as a member of this community

In this country the percentage is not 1%

 

[Suzetig]

Do you have a source for alternative statistics? @Friday did recognise under reporting would have an impact and in my own part of the world figures relating to kids who have any kind of agency involvement for child protection is about 1.5%, even allowing for under reporting 10% still represents 90% of the child population whose parents are able to care for them to a good enough standard.

Not enough, in my view, to decide that all parents are so poorly equipped to support their child's developmental needs that the state will intervene and do it for them.