Gender Creativity and Parenting
Parents in today’s world face many issues regarding their children and often search for skills to achieve best parenting strategies. Such a trending issue is gender creativity, which journalist Sabrina Erderly presents in her article named “About a Girl: Coy Mathis’ Fight to Change Gender” which was published in Rolling Stones magazine. Coy Mathis is a gender creative child who struggles to part from her biological identity to establish herself as a girl in an embracing community. This real story portrays the issue of gender creativity, the role of society around a gender creative child, and most importantly, the role of parents. Writer Ryan Harty points out a similar concept and parenting strategy in his science fiction story, “Why the Sky Turns Red When the Sun Goes Down” which is about a mechanical child named Cole and his human parents Mike and Dana. In his story, Harty illustrates this fictional character with a very common situation often experienced by many real world children. In the story, Cole is describes as a D-3 child- a notion of mechanical human common in Cole’s life. Cole’s parents, Mike and Dana, adopt him in place of a real child and face many problems. Like other machines, Cole sometimes malfunctions and breaks down. He twitches his hands, rotates his head in abnormal ways, and unintentionally hits himself damaging his own body. While tackling this problem, Cole’s parents disagree about his future and argue whether to upgrade him to D-4. Cole’s father, Mike, does not want to change him since it would mean a child with a completely different personality. On the other hand, Dana, Cole’s mother, does not want to deal with his malfunctioning anymore and wants to repair him. Cole’s mo...
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...e D4. Same might happen with Dana. Consequently, they could reach out to communities of D4 children and investigate further about Cole’s condition based upon his will.
Mike and Dana had a nice relationship which came to a brink as they started to disagree about the future of their only robot son. They did not take their time to logically think and investigate Cole’s issue and were influenced by outside people to come to a split decision. Even though Mike did his part best supporting Cole mentally, he failed to consider Cole’s future and did not foresee that he might lose him forever. Dana lacked the sympathy toward Cole’s present condition which did nothing more than worsening Cole’s condition by making him depress and feel guilty. Thus, the parents’ indecisive and rushing manner toward their son covered both their relationship and their son’s future with darkness.
Clearly you saw the reason for Cole’s actions, being beat by his father and being ignored by both his parents. I still think Cole is responsible for his own actions because he could chose to be good and get attention, but he chose bad to get attention. But his parents definitely had at least a small part in the way Cole acts now, if they were more loving to him and actually knew how to discipline him the right way, like you're grounded for three weeks with no television or something instead of being him, maybe that would teach him a lesson. I mean I get that people are busy and they have work and everything, but you should always make time for your kids and your family. “‘Yes, Mr. Matthews, this is about responsibility. By the way, when is your son’s birthday?’ Cole’s father gulped a quick breath, and his face grew flushed. ‘Uh, well… birthdays have never been a very big thing around our house,’ he stammered. “I think it’s the beginning of July sometime.’” (pg. 52, Touching Spirit Bear) This just proves how badly Cole is treated at home. Obviously his dad drinks so much that he can’t remember the small, but important things. I’m pretty sure that every parent should at least know their kids birthday, even if they don’t love them 100%, which I find absolutely heart shattering. I also feel like destiny or fate had
In the short story, The Fall of a City, by Alden Nowlan, Teddy’s dreams are crushed by his uncle when his dreams should remain true till the day he achieves his dreams and his uncle’s stereotypical behaviour influenced teddy is a negative way. It is important for children to pursue the personality and dreams they want to take with them into their future. Firstly, adult’s stereotypical behaviour can influence a children's future choices, but children should have their own dreams and goals to pursue so they get the life they deserve. “Paper dolls and doll houses. An eleven-year-old boy!” (Alden Nowlan, 133). We see how gender stereotypes come in the way of children achieving their goals and dreams since society tend to follow stereotypes every
Young children are typically raised around specific sex-types objects and activities. This includes the toys that that are given, activities that they are encouraged to participate in, and the gender-based roles that they are subjected to from a young age. Parents are more likely to introduce their daughters into the world of femininity through an abundance of pink colored clothes and objects, Barbie dolls, and domestic chores such as cooking and doing laundry (Witt par. 9). Contrarily, boys are typically exposed to the male world through action figures, sports, the color blue, and maintenance-based chores such as mowing the lawn and repairing various things around the house (Witt par. 9). As a result, young children begin to link different occupations with a certain gender thus narrowing their decisions relating to their career goals in the future. This separation of options also creates a suppresses the child from doing something that is viewed as ‘different’ from what they were exposed to. Gender socialization stemming from early childhood shapes the child and progressively shoves them into a small box of opportunities and choices relating to how they should live their
Children develop their first sense of self at around age four, when they develop metacognition. (Berk, 2006) In pursuit of their self, they start to develop personal identities, informing their likes and dislikes as well as their disposition. Although children are born into a certain sex, they do not immediately develop a sense of gender. Their gender forms at the same time as their sense of self, by observing their outside environment. But even before the child understands their sense of self, they are already placed into gender specific play from around age 2 (Zosuls, 2007).
Kane displays five different ways of parenting based on gender. She first introduces us to the Naturalizers. Naturalizers practice traditional values when raising their child. They believe in the concept of “it was how they were born” (Kane, 2012. p. 53). The mere definition explains to us that the biological outlooks outweigh the social outlooks. Naturalizers believe that differences are vital to gender. Next, the reader learns of a group named Cultivators. Cultivators believe that gender is socially constructed in the parents influence. Although this is deemed true by them, Kane shows the reader how Cultivators still adhere to the traditional value of young men but are okay with young women being nontraditional (taking out trash, doing
I watched the foreign film Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink), a Belgian film by filmmaker Alain Berliner. It is a warm, startling, funny, and realistic study of what happens when a seven-year-old boy is convinced, beyond all reason and outward evidence to the contrary, that he is really a girl. His certitude is astonishing in one so little, and his gender conviction is so strong that his belief can't be laughed away as the result of a “phase” or an “active imagination.” Yet the crux of Ma Vie en Rose is not a study of trans-gendered children per se, despite the fact that such sensational subject matter would seem to be surefire material for attention-grabbing moviemaking. You're never even quite certain about the long-term psychological ramifications of young Ludovic's obsession: Is he trans-gendered, a transvestite, gay, or straight? Such determinations are not the movie's concern. What Ma Vie en Rose is interested in is what it means to be a “difficult” child, a child who whose difference always sets him apart, and what it means to be the parents of such a child. Here we see some cultural differences with the characters.
A child born in hopelessness is bound to hopelessness until guidance from a good, healthy, influential adult. After Yummy shot Dean his face hit the news and everyone had an opinion. One reporter had this to say, “This young kid fell through the cracks. If this child was protected 5 years ago, you save 2 people. You
In Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel entitled Fun Home, the author expresses her life in a comical manner where she explains the relationship between her and her family, pointedly her father who acts as a father figure to the family as she undergoes her exhaustive search for sexuality. Furthermore, the story describes the relationship between a daughter and a father with inversed gender roles as sexuality is questioned. Throughout the novel, the author suggests that one’s identity is impacted by their environment because one’s true self is created through the ability of a person to distinguish reality from fictional despotism.
Michael soon decides that if he can trust Joe enough to keep in silence, he may be able to out wit the police. When Michael makes his decision, he never considers the ramifications that will come of it. For example, Michael never even considers the long agonizing nights he will stay awake or the ling pain filled days he will go through thinking of Jenna Ward and her mother suffering day after day. On the contrary, Michael thinks he will be able to just move on and forget about it.
Kane, E. (2012) The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls. NYU Press: USA
How do children learn to be men or women? Penelope Eckert is a professor of linguistics and anthropology at Stanford University and Sally McConnell-Ginet is a professor of linguistics at Cornell University. They wrote an article “Learning to Be Gendered,” published in 2013 in the book “Language and Gender.” The authors argue that society has many ways to shape children's gender by children behaviors since their birth. Eckert and Ginet show to the readers that the parent teaches their children behavior. The author is using ethos, logos, and pathos to support the thesis statement.
Cole Matthews was fifteen years old. He lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota until his banishment to Drake Island, Alaska. Cole was a bully, and beat up Peter Driscal when he ratted Cole out about a break-in Cole committed. Cole was an independent kid that thought the world revolved around him until he completely changed on Drake Island. Now Cole has gained forgiveness from Peter due to Cole’s devotion to heal Peter.
Parenting may be said as an experiment, because every parent has different views and ways of raising their own children. Parents raise their child in such ways in which they believe is beneficial and healthy for the child. A story that came across media news about a baby, Storm, being raised as “genderless” fueled a controversy in defiance of gender stereotyping. The Witterick family in Canada believed that by acknowledging this practice it would, “tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a standup to what the world could become in Storm’s lifetime” (Davis and James). However, in terms of raising a genderless child, this can cause the child to be unprepared to face the conventional norms or society. This practice may be causing the child a disservice.
This article showed some of the common opinions regarding gender-neutral parenting. Many parents have started to see some of the issues with “traditional” parenting styles that limit the possibilities of their children exploring different gender norms. With a shift on the views of gender and sexuality in our nation, many parents have begun to recognize the need for their children to figure out their gender through experiences and preferences. This idea is allowing children to be more fluid when it comes to gender, being able to experience their world in ways many people have been limited in generations prior. This will also allow parents to break down gender stereotypes from an early age, which could eliminate a lot of gender-based prejudice.
Gender roles are extremely important to the functioning of families. The family is one of the most important institutions. It can be nurturing, empowering, and strong. Some families are still very traditional. The woman or mother of the family stays at home to take care of the children and household duties. The man or father figure goes to work so that he can provide for his family. Many people believe that this is the way that things should be. Gender determines the expectations for the family. This review will explain those expectations and how it affects the family.