How to Raise Your Gender Variant Preschooler

[D.Sanchez]

Your 2-year old boy says he wants to be treated like a girl.

Do you:

A) Gently explain the differences between boys and girls?

B) Take him to visit a steel mill?

C) Give him a Barbie, paint his finger and toenails, grow his hair long, allow him to wear girls clothes...and at age 5 when you're shocked to hear that he hates his penis, take him for counseling from "Heather Wright, a jovial and frank male-to-female transsexual with a hearty handshake"?

This lady chose C:

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/Issues/2006-05-18/news/feature_2.html

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

Or what do you do if your 2-year-old son says: "I want the fairy princess to come and make my penis into a vagina."

 

[spaceman]

oy vey.

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

I'm just glad that Spaceman's post wasn't : "I'd hit it."

 

[Ace]

When my boys were almost 3, they were still unable to even sit on a damn toilet.

I know people feel this way, but it's hard for me to believe they can enunciate it at 2.

When you are talking 5 and under, it would guess it's more the parent acting out than the kid.

 

[flaming_mo]

Wow. Disturbing and strange.

 

[Idaho]

Mom said:

There's no reason to say no to a phase. I never once said 'no.' A phase is a phase.

My little boy sometimes hits his sisters. He spits. It's a phase. I say NO pretty often.

And this is a parenting dilemma I hope no one ever has to go through.

 

[Ace]

Mom said:

There's no reason to say no to a phase. I never once said 'no.' A phase is a phase.

My little boy sometimes hits his sisters. He spits. It's a phase. I say NO pretty often.

And this is a parenting dilemma I hope no one ever has to go through.

In your case, though, you could save money with hand-me-downs.

Oh, and unlike this mom's "common" experience, my boys have never asked me or Mrs. Ace to paint their fingernails or toenails or anything else.

 

[grrlhack]

I find it fascinating that this little boy seems to have such a clear sense at this age. I mean, kids often know if they're gay at that age, but not necessarily transgendered. And man, those parents are going to have a ***** of a time with it.

 

[Idaho]

Mom said:

There's no reason to say no to a phase. I never once said 'no.' A phase is a phase.

My little boy sometimes hits his sisters. He spits. It's a phase. I say NO pretty often.

And this is a parenting dilemma I hope no one ever has to go through.

In your case, though, you could save money with hand-me-downs.

Oh, and unlike this mom's "common" experience, my boys have never asked me or Mrs. Ace to paint their fingernails or toenails or anything else.

My little boy is just barely two. We think he's pretty sharp and with it. Still, he barely knows that he has a 'winky' at this point.

 

[Ace]

I find it fascinating that this little boy seems to have such a clear sense at this age. I mean, kids often know if they're gay at that age, but not necessarily transgendered. And man, those parents are going to have a ***** of a time with it.

May be fascinating or it may be mom projecting.

 

[qtlaw]

You know its easy to make pithy remarks but harder to deal with the situation.

This mother (and father) appears to love her child very much and are trying to deal with it as best as they can. Nicole/Nicholas should not be a political football.

Toddlers/preschoolers go through a great deal and from my experience are very perceptive. Things can be phases or they can be the true desires coming out.

My boy (now 7) was in day care with 5 girls from 6 mos. through 3 and I thought it was nice for him to have girls as friends early on. Then at around 3 he started dressing up with his friends at play dates and at 3.5 wanted to wear dresses. As a father, that was very difficult to stomach. But my wife and I did some internet researched and found that this might just be a "phase" and that we should just go with the flow rather than make a big deal about it. So we allowed him to wear it only in the house. Well that lasted about 5 months then he never asked for that again.

His younger brother, (now 5) never had that experience and has always followed the expected gender thoughts and clothing.

That's not my way of saying that transgender or homosexuality is a "learned" trait. In fact I believe just the opposite, that its genetic.

My heart goes out to Nicole and her parents and hope they find their own version of happiness. Thanks for posting the article.

 

[kingcreole]

Mom said:

There's no reason to say no to a phase. I never once said 'no.' A phase is a phase.

My little boy sometimes hits his sisters. He spits. It's a phase. I say NO pretty often.

And this is a parenting dilemma I hope no one ever has to go through.

That right there, my friends, is ****-poor parenting. I say "no" to my kids at least a dozen times a day, to say nothing of the kids in my wife's daycare.

 

[Beef03]

So if the kid wants to start drinking at age 10 will the parents say no then? after all it could just be a phase.

 

[slappy4428]

Mom said:

There's no reason to say no to a phase. I never once said 'no.' A phase is a phase.

My little boy sometimes dresses like his sisters. He throws fits. It's a phase. I don't say NO pretty often.

And this is a parenting dilemma I hope no one ever has to go through. Unless you really like taffeta. Then its OK

 

[Just_An_SID]

When I was a kid, I told everybody that my favorite fruit are blueberries.  Looking back, I have no idea why I said that because I can't standing ****ing blueberries.

Thank God my mom didn't make major life decisions for me based on a whimsical decision about favorite fruit.  

I would think that you have to at least wait until the kid reaches his/her teens before allowing a decision like that.

Utterly amazing.

"You know, Miss Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish. They'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.:

It applies for mothers as well.

 

[slappy4428]

"At first, I thought it was cute," she explains. "I don't have a problem putting nail polish on a little boy. I don't have a problem if my son plays with dolls. His older brothers went through a similar period of doll playing and asking for nail polish on their toes. There's no reason to say no to a phase. I never once said 'no.' A phase is a phase."

So baby Nicholas was allowed to wear high heels. To play with Little Mermaid and Barbie dolls. To grow his hair a little longer. But instead of being satisfied with these concessions, Nicholas always asked for more. One day, he asked for something his parents weren't expecting.

Lauren was sitting at her computer working when 2-year-old Nicholas, who, like all the Anderson children, had a frank understanding of anatomy, came to her with a request: "I want the fairy princess to come and make my penis into a vagina," he said.




Lauren mentioned Nicholas' strange demand to his pediatrician at the child's three-year birthday checkup, expecting to be told that the behavior was part of the phase. "She got a concerned look on her face," she says. "This was not the reaction I was looking for."
YA THINK???

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[21]

What a sad story...can;t imagine what happens when this boy hits puberty. I hope these people get all the counseling they're going to need.

So what happens when the school decides boys cannot wear dresses...is this a violation of his rights? See Graduation, Girls Can't Wear Pants To thread.

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

I apologize in advance but this was the first thing I thought of when I read this thread:

Reggie Dunlop: You know, your son looks like a fag to me.
Anita McCambridge: I beg your pardon?
Reggie Dunlop: You better get re-married soon, or he is going to have a **** in his mouth faster than you can say Jack Robinson.
Anita McCambridge: How dare you.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Sort of related, but kind of unrelated... I am convinced that a good segment of gays are pretty much wired that way from an early age. One of the TV news shows--60 Minutes, maybe, can't remember--did a segment about this a few months ago, and I happened to stop and watch. Two things stuck out. One was one researcher who had all these identical twins in which one was gay and one wasn't, and even in the case of some very young kids, you could already tell that the die had been cast. In one family they showed, one boy was all into little boy things--playing with trucks, sports, roughhousing, etc. His identical twin had the girliest bedroom I had ever seen, and was into playing with dolls, unicorns, painting his fingernails, dressing up and playing with glitter. The parents seemed as normal as any two parents you'd ever want to meet and they had done nothing to raise one of the twins any differently than the other. The kids had just gravitated in different directions and the parents realized they couldn't fight it, so they let the kids be themselves. The same segment also showed this interesting study in which they showed college kids home movies of straight and gay people from when they had been kids. It was remarkable how often you could look at a 6 or 7 year old girl and her demeanor and body language and correctly guess that she was going to grow up to be a lesbian. Same thing with gay males. Just by lookinag the home films, the study participants were able to say which kids turned out straight and which turned out gay with pretty good accuracy. Same study just had the participants look at pictures of people and guess if they were straight or gay, and the body language gave away people as adults, too. It was really fascinating.